River's End

by Nora Roberts

  wonderful gardens. One was tucked away under big, shady trees and had a little pool with goldfish and water lilies. It had a bridge over it. A white bridge, that my mother said was for the fairies.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging her biceps and hunching over as if to fight off sudden cold. “There was another with just roses. Dozens and dozens of rosebushes. He bought a white one when I was born and planted it himself. I remember him telling me that. He’d planted it himself because it was special, and when he had to go out of town, or whenever he came back, he’d leave a white rose on my pillow. I wonder if they kept the gardens the way they were.”

  Noah said nothing, simply rubbed a hand over her back and listened.

  “The house was so big. It seemed like a palace to me. Soaring ceilings and huge windows. Room after room after room, every one of them special somehow. I slept in a canopy bed.” She shuddered once, violently. “I can’t stand to have anything overhead while I sleep now. I hadn’t realized why. Someone would tell me a story every night. My mother or him, or if they were going out, Rosa. But Rosa didn’t tell the really good stories. Sometimes they’d have parties, and I could lie in bed and hear the music and people laughing. My mother loved having people around. They’d come all the time. Aunt Jamie, Uncle David. Her agent. Uncle Lou. He’d always bring me a peppermint stick. One of those thick, old-fashioned ones. I can’t imagine where he got them.

  “Lucas Manning came over a lot. It must’ve been around the time my—he left.” She couldn’t say “my father.” Simply couldn’t bring herself to form the words. “I just remember Lucas being there, in the house, out by the pool. He made my mother laugh. He was nice to me in an absent sort of way. Kids know that it’s just show. I wanted to like him, because he made Mama laugh, but I just kept wishing Lucas would stop coming over, because if he did maybe my . . . maybe he’d come home.”

  She rested her head against the bars of the gate. “Then, of course, he came home. He came home and he killed her. And I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t.”

  “It’s all right.” Noah gathered her to him, holding her tight even though she stood stiffly with her fisted hands pressed to his chest to separate them. “You don’t have to. You don’t need to be here now, Olivia.”

  She made herself open her eyes again, stare over his shoulder at those flashes of white. “I’ve been running away from and running toward this all my life. It’s time I decided on a direction and stuck with it.”

  Part of him wanted to scoop her up, cuddle her as he carried her back to the car and took her away. But someone had taken her away for most of her life. “When you run away it comes after you, Liv. And it always catches up.”

  Afraid he was right, feeling the monster nipping at her heels, she turned and walked back to the car.

  twenty-two

  She had her color back by the time Noah swung up the drive toward the Melbourne mansion. It seemed to him she’d all but willed it back, just as she’d willed away that lost and grieving look from her eyes.

  “Wow.” Her smile seemed natural, effortless as the house came into view. “We have pictures of it, even videos, but they don’t come up to the in-your-face.”

  “One of those nice fixer-uppers priced for the young marrieds.”

  She laughed, then swiveled in her seat as the dogs raced over the yard. “There they are! Oh, I wish I could’ve brought Shirley.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I thought you might object to dog hair and slobber all over your pretty-boy car. And my grandfather would be lost without her.” She pushed out as soon as he’d stopped and all but dived into the dogs.

  The vulnerable woman with haunted eyes who’d stood outside the gate of her childhood home might not have existed. It certainly wasn’t the face she showed to her uncle as David Melbourne came out of the house.

  She let out a whoop of delight and bounded toward him, half leaping into his arms for a fierce hug.

  He’d aged well, Noah thought, comparing the man who held Olivia with the photos that dated back to the murder. He’d kept the weight off, and had either discovered the fountain of youth or had an excellent cosmetic surgeon.

  The lines on his face were dashing rather than aging, as were the streaks of silver in his hair. He was dressed casually in buff-colored trousers and a Henley shirt the color of kiwis.

  “Welcome, traveler.” He laughed, cupped her face. “Let’s look at you. Pretty as ever.”

  “Missed you.”

  “Goes double.” He kissed her, then hugging a protective arm around her shoulders, turned to Noah. The cooling of voice and eyes was subtle but unmistakable. “It was nice of you to deliver my girl.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Uncle David, this is Noah Brady.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I just need to get my things out of the trunk.”

  “I’ll get them.” Noah unlocked the trunk, took out the single suitcase.

  “That’s it?” David wanted to know.

  “I’m only going to be here a couple of days.”

  “How about giving Jamie some tips on packing light while you’re here?”

  “You pack as much as she does. Clotheshorse.”

  He winced, took the case from Noah. “Jamie got caught on the phone. She should be off by now. Why don’t you run in, Livvy? Rosa’s paced a rut in the foyer waiting for you to get here.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Be right there.”

  “All right. Thanks for the lift, Brady.”

  “No problem, MacBride,” he said in the same tone. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She said nothing to that, only jogged up the stairs and inside.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me for not asking you in,” David began. “This reunion’s a family affair.”

  “Understood. You can say what you have to say to me out here.”

  David inclined his head. “You’re perceptive, Noah. I imagine that’s why you’re good at your work.” He set Olivia’s suitcase down, glanced toward the house. “You seem to have established some kind of rapport with Livvy.”

  “We’re beginning to understand each other.” Again, he thought. Or maybe it was at last. “Is that a problem for you?”

  “I have no idea.” In what might have been a gesture of peace, David spread his hands. “I don’t know you.”

  “Mr. Melbourne, I was under the impression you were supportive of the book I’m writing.”

  “I was.” David sighed out a breath. “I thought enough time had passed, enough healing had been done. And I believed that a writer of your caliber could do justice to the tragedy.”

  “I appreciate that. What changed your mind?”

  “I didn’t realize how much this would upset Val.” Concern clouded his eyes, and he slipped his hands into his pockets. “My mother-in-law. I feel partially responsible as I did support it, and that support certainly influenced Jamie into giving you her cooperation and then encouraged Livvy to do so. I lost my own mother when I was very young. Val’s one of the most important people in my life. I don’t want her hurt.”

  Protection, Noah mused. The family was a puzzle made up of pieces of protection and defense. “I’ve already given Liv my word that I won’t contact her grandmother or ask her to talk to me. I’ll keep her out of it as far as I’m able to.”

  “The book itself pulls her into it.” He held up a hand before Noah could speak. “I can’t expect you to turn your back on your work because the ripple effect of that work will hurt people I love. But I want you to be aware of it. And I want you to consider that a man who murders would hardly flinch at lying. Sam Tanner isn’t to be trusted, and my biggest regret is that he’ll have time to die outside of prison rather than in it.”

  “If you’re worried he’ll lie to me, if your feelings are that strong, you’d be smart to put them on record.”

  David laughed, shook his head. “Noah, personally, I’d love to sit down with
you and tell you exactly what I feel, what I remember. I’m going to do my best to ease my mother-in-law’s feelings over it, then, if I can, I’ll talk to you. You’ll have to excuse me now.” He picked up the suitcase. “It’s the first time Livvy’s come to visit. I don’t want to miss any time with her.”

  Olivia loved the house and everything they’d done with it. She loved it for them—it was so obviously perfect for them with its elegance and pastels and soaring ceilings. But she preferred the rambling style and rooms soaked in colors of her grandparents’ home.

  She was glad she’d finally made herself come.

  By the time she crawled into bed, she was worn to the bone by the drive, the emotion, the elaborate dinner her aunt had arranged and the nonstop conversation as they’d caught up with one another.

  Still, her last thought before sleep sucked her under. It was of Noah standing on the deck of his pretty house, with his back to the sea.

  Olivia came to the conclusion very quickly that while southern California suited Jamie down to her pedicure, it wasn’t the town for Liv MacBride. She was sure of it halfway between the shopping expedition her aunt insisted on and the lunch at some trendy restaurant with a name she immediately forgot.

  The lunch portions were stingy, the wait staff glossy enough to glow in the dark and the prices so remarkably outrageous she could do nothing but gasp.

  “I had my stylist pencil in appointments later this afternoon,” Jamie began as she toyed with her field-green-and-wild-pepper salad. “Marco is a genius and an event in himself. We can squeeze in a manicure, maybe a paraffin treatment.”

  “Aunt Jamie.” Olivia sampled what had been billed as the nouveau-club and was in reality two pieces of bark bread cut into tiny triangles and filled with mysterious vegetables. She wondered if anyone ate real food in L.A. “You’re trying to make a girl out of me.”

  “No, I’m not.” Jamie pouted. “I’m just trying to give you a . . . well, just one girl day. You should have let me buy you that little black dress.”

  “That little black dress was four thousand dollars and wouldn’t hold up through one hike.”

  “Every self-respecting female needs at least one killer black dress. I say we go back for it, and the lizard sandals, the Pradas. You put those together on that fabulous body of yours, men will start diving out of windows to fall at your feet.”

  Olivia shook her head, laughed. “I don’t want to be responsible for that. And I don’t need the dress, or the shoes, or the warehouse full of other things you tried to talk me into.”

  “How can we be related?”

  “Genetics are a tricky business.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re not angry with me anymore.” Tears flooded her eyes, and she reached over and gripped Olivia’s hand.

  “I wasn’t angry with you. Not you, not really. I’m sorry we argued.” She turned her hand over, gripped Jamie’s tight. “I was angry at Noah, which was just as useless. All those years ago, when you came up to visit and we went out into the forest that evening . . . you were honest with me. You let me be honest with you. Ever since, whenever I needed to talk about Mama, you listened. Whenever I had questions, you answered them.”

  “Until you stopped asking,” Jamie murmured.

  “I thought I should put it away. I thought I could. Someone who’s smarter than I gave him credit for told me that whenever you run away from something it chases after you and it always catches up. I think I’m ready to change directions.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “God, no. But I’ll be honest with you again. I want to hear what he says about that night. I want to hear Sam Tanner’s story.”

  “So do I. We loved her,” Jamie said squeezing Olivia’s hand. “How could we not want to hear it for ourselves?”

  “Grandma—”

  “Has dealt with this in her own way, always. It doesn’t make your way wrong or your needs wrong.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I guess I’m going to get in touch with Noah before I go back.”

  “He’s a nice man.” Jamie’s smile changed texture, crept toward feline. “And a very attractive one.”

  “I noticed. I’ve just about decided to sleep with him.”

  The little sound that popped out of Jamie’s mouth was something between a grunt and a squeak. “Well. Well then. Ah . . . Listen, why don’t we blow this joint, go get a pizza and you can elaborate on that very interesting statement.”

  “Great.” With relief, Olivia pushed her plate aside. “I’m starved.”

  Frank was sitting in his kitchen, enjoying the single predinner light beer his wife allowed him. On a notepad, he drew circles, squiggles, exes as he toyed with a new play for the basketball team he coached.

  He’d have enjoyed some potato chips or Fritos with his beer, but Celia had come across his secret stash a few days before. He still couldn’t figure out what the hell she’d been doing looking on the top shelf of the den closet, but he couldn’t ask as he’d denied knowing the sour cream and onion chips were there.

  He claimed Noah had probably left them. That was his story, Frank thought as he made do with a handful of salt-free pretzels. And he was sticking to it.

  When the doorbell rang, he left his beer and his doodling on the table, thinking it might be one of his players. He didn’t think it set the right tone for Coach to come to the door with a cold one in his hand.

  It was a young woman, with the tall, rangy build he could have used on the court. A little too old to fit into his twelve-to-sixteen-year-old league, he thought; then images overlapped in his mind and had him grabbing for her hands.

  “Liv. Livvy! My God, you’re all grown up.”

  “I didn’t think you’d recognize me.” And the fact that he had, with such obvious delight, warmed her. “I’d have known you anywhere. You look just the same.”

  “Never lie to a cop, even a retired one. Come in, come in.” He pulled her inside. “I wish Celia were here. She had a late-afternoon meeting. Sit down.” He fussed around the living room, picking up the newspaper, scooping a magazine off a chair. “Let me get you something to drink.”

  “I’m all right. I’m fine.” There was a pressure in her chest, heavy, tight. “I told myself to call first. Then I didn’t. I just came.”

  He saw the battle for composure on her face. “I’m glad you did. I knew you were grown-up, but every time I pictured you, even when I’d read your letters, I’d see a little girl.”

  “I always see a hero.” She let herself go into his arms, let herself be held. And the jitters in her stomach quieted and eased. “I knew I’d feel better. I knew it would be all right, if I could see you.”

  “What’s wrong, Livvy?”

  “A lot of things. I’m figuring them out but—”

  “Is this about Noah’s book?”

  “Part of it. About that, about him. He’s your son.” She said it with a sigh and stepped back to stand on her own. “And as much as I didn’t want to, as much as I told myself I wouldn’t, I trust him to do it right. It’s going to be painful for me to talk to him, but I can do it. I will do it, in my own time. In my own way.”

  “You can trust him. I don’t understand his work, but I understand Noah.”

  Puzzled, she shook her head. “You don’t understand his work? How can you not understand his work? It’s brilliant.”

  It was Frank’s turn for confusion. He sat on the arm of the sofa, staring at her. “I have to say, I’m surprised to hear you say that. How could you feel that, as a survivor of a murder victim?”

  “And the daughter of a murderer,” she finished. “That’s exactly why. I read his first book as soon as it came out. How could I resist it with his name on the cover?” And she’d hidden it in her room like a sin. “I didn’t expect to like it.” Hadn’t wanted to, she thought. Had wanted to read it and condemn him. “I still don’t know if I can say I liked it, but I understood what he was doing. He takes the most wicked of crimes, the most
horrid, the most unforgivable. And he keeps them that way.”

  She waved a hand in annoyance at her own fumbling attempt to explain. “When you hear about a murder on the news, or read about it in the paper, you say, oh, how awful, then you move on. He humanizes it, makes it real—so vividly real that you can’t say, ‘Oh, how awful,’ then slide down the pillows and go to sleep. Everyone who was involved—he strips them down to their most desperate and agonized emotions.”

  That, she realized, was what she feared about him the most. That he would strip her to the soul.