Luanne Rice (29 page)

The flight
had been long, and the drive from the airport had taken forever, but to Lily’s
amazement, Rose was wide awake and feeling strong. The windows of Liam’s truck
were down, and cool, fresh Cape Hawk salt air blew through the cab. Lily had
her arm around Rose’s shoulders, and she breathed in the spruce and pine.

“Smells
like my pillows,” Rose said.

“It does,”
Lily said.

“Jess’s card
said they’re selling them at the inn,” Rose said.
“Next to a
picture of you and me.”

“Wow,” Lily
said. “That’s so nice.”

“It’s
true,” Liam said. “It’s a big display, right in the lobby.”

“Can we see
it?” Rose asked.
“On our way home?”

“Oh,
sweetheart—it’s so late. We have to get you to bed.”

“But I’m
excited,” Rose said. “I want to see. And besides, don’t you want to see Anne?
And maybe some of the other Nanouks?
And show them I’m
okay?”

Lily’s lips
tightened. She had been longing so deeply to see her own most beloved
relative—missing her so much during this last difficult time with Rose. Having
Liam with her had been wonderful, but she had a primal need to connect with her
grandmother, the closest person she had to a mother.
Or in
her place, the Nanouk Girls of the Frozen North.

Even if
only one of them was at the inn—and she was sure that at least Anne would be
there—she would so deeply love a hug, and the chance to celebrate with the
friends who had been so supportive of her and Rose. She glanced over at Liam,
concentrating on the road. It was as if her grandmother had tapped her
shoulder, telling her to pull over.

“Would you
mind if we stopped there?” she asked. “You must want to get home.”

“Lily,” he
said, “if you and Rose want to go there, I’m going with you.”

“So we
can?” Rose asked, as the truck crossed the bridge over the
fjord,
and the lights of Cape Hawk—nestled in the valley between two formidable rock
cliffs—came into view.

“We can,”
Lily said.

Anne was a
nervous wreck.
A total, complete basket case.
Duplicity had never been her strong suit—she could barely even handle telling a
white lie to Camille, telling her she looked pretty when in fact she looked
very cranky and mean. But she had started lying almost from the minute Detective
Murphy had arrived—and she hadn’t stopped yet.

Getting
poor Marlena to pretend she was running a bed-and-breakfast—and then
practically mortifying her by getting her to serve a cheese sandwich with all
the fanfare of a cordon bleu chef! God, the Nanouks would be teasing her about
that forever.

Having the
presence of mind to whisk Marisa aside, tell her to hide Jessica—and keep her
hidden, until the coast was clear, and they were sure Murphy had departed—where
had that come from? Anne was on top of her game, that was for sure—thinking
fast, making sure
all
her friends
were protected.

She had
called in the Nanouks for reinforcements, and of course everyone who could get
away had come—Cindy, Doreen, Alison, Suzanne, Kathy, Paula, Claire, and even
Marlena, just behind Patrick Murphy. They all gathered around him, passing the
very familiar photo—God, she had been so young, smiling and innocent—around the
circle. Everyone had been coached to say the same thing: “She looks familiar.”

A comment about her hair, her smile, her beautiful shining eyes.
She had
been so sweet, pregnant with the girl that they all loved so much. Just knowing
that—and what she had run from—brought tears to Anne’s eyes. She wiped them
away, but they just kept coming.

“Mother in
heaven,” said Cindy, under her breath.

Anne looked
up, and here came Camille, limping down the hall that led to the family’s
private quarters. Anne lurched, to try to stop her, but she knew she would look
too obvious and forced herself to hold back.

“Good
evening,” Camille said, giving Anne a strange look. “Aren’t you working
tonight?”

“Genny is
covering in the dining room,” Anne said.

“I noticed
this gentleman arriving earlier,” Camille said, approaching Patrick.
“Talking to you in the garden.
Where ever is Jude? Still out
on the boat?”

“Yes,” Anne
said.

“Hi,
Camille,” Marlena said from across the circle. She was trying to be helpful,
but in that instant, Anne knew they were sunk.

“Camille
Neill?” Patrick asked.

“Yes. And
who might you be?”

“I am
Patrick Murphy. Are you the same Camille Neill as mentioned in this article?”

Camille put
on her reading glasses and looked at the yellowed newspaper clipping. She
gasped, looking up at Patrick. “This is from the Ard na Mara paper—about
Frederic’s memorial. What are you doing with it? Did you know Frederic?”

“No,
ma’am,” he said. “I’m investigating the disappearance, nine years ago, of Mara
Jameson.” He took the photo back from Cindy, handed it to Camille. “Do you
recognize her?”

Anne felt
her pulse beating in her throat. It was just a matter of time now—before
Camille blurted out the truth, and Patrick knew where to look. She glanced over
at the office door—and froze. There were Marisa and Jessica, letting
themselves
out of the office, walking this way.

Camille cleared
her throat, slid a glance at Anne. She shook her head. “No,” she said firmly.
“I don’t recognize her.”

But it was
too late. Anne couldn’t believe her eyes. She stared at Marisa, seeing steel in
her posture she’d never seen before. Jessica skipped ahead, flinging herself
into the circle, right in front of Patrick Murphy. And he turned—his long,
lanky body just wheeling around, as if he had noticed the nine-year-old girl
and wanted to see her mother—just as the front door of the inn opened.

Liam, Lily,
and Rose stood there.

Everyone
started shouting, shrieking, laughing, and crying. Every last Nanouk rushed
across the lobby, arms open wide, to greet Lily and Rose. Marisa and Jessica
were first in line, and the four of them hugged and kissed, and wept, jumbled
in a pack by the other Nanouk Girls, all wanting to get close.

Anne held
Camille’s hand, walking a little behind the others, alongside Patrick Murphy.
Camille squeezed Anne’s hand, and Anne squeezed back.

“I’ve
always felt bad, you know, Anne, dear,” Camille whispered. “I’ve tried to help
Rose in my own way, financially.” She lifted her chin.
“Even
if I’m not a Nanouk.”

Anne
whirled to look at her mother-in-law with amazement, and to whisper back,
“After what you just did, you’re in, Camille.”

The women
were all clustered together, Liam off to the side, and as Anne got closer, she
saw that everyone was hovering around Rose. They didn’t want to get too close,
to crush her—but they wanted to touch her, caress her,
let
her know how grateful they were that their girl had come home safely. The
reunion was for everyone and Rose, and for Lily too. Anne watched as Marisa
gave Lily a huge hug,
then
whispered something in her
ear.

The room
was buzzing so loudly—with everyone’s laughter, tears, and talk, and with the
Celtic music from down the hall, and from Anne’s heartbeat thudding in her
ears—she wondered whether anyone would hear him.

“Mara,”
Patrick Murphy called sharply.

And both
Marisa and Lily looked up.

Chapter 25

Y
es?” Lily said. The whole lobby went silent.
Rose clung to her hand, looking up at the strange man approaching.

“I’m
Marisa,” Marisa said.

“I said
Mara
,” the man said. Walking through the
crowd, he stared at Lily as if he knew her. Not only that, but his eyes were
filled with a mixture of victory and disbelief, as if he had come here to get
her, but couldn’t quite believe that his quest was over.

“Lily—
don’t
say anything,” Anne said, stepping forward. “Don’t say
one word. Liam, will you get Jude?”

But Liam
just pressed closer to Lily; she felt his arm come around her shoulder. She had
the vaguest of impressions of her friends not knowing whether to smile about
Lily and Liam, or be afraid of what was happening.

“I have
this picture,” the man said, handing it to Lily.
“And this
news clipping.”

She stared
at them. They were artifacts from such a different time and place, but they
made her eyes swim with tears. Not so much for the photo, or the content of the
news story, but for seeing the date written in that fine handwriting on the
upper right-hand corner.

“I’m
Patrick Murphy,” he said. “I’d say ‘Detective Patrick Murphy,’ but I’m actually
retired. Your case was my swan song to a long career. Too bad I didn’t manage
to solve it.”

Lily sensed
Liam relax, just slightly. Until the man spoke, she realized that Liam might
have taken him for the shark, her husband. Still staring at the handwriting,
Lily wasn’t quite ready to speak yet.

“Touché to
your friends here,” Patrick Murphy said dryly. “They all recognized you in the
picture—how could they not? You haven’t changed one bit. But they stayed cool,
acted as if they’d never seen you. Of course, I only got here this afternoon.
I’d have worn them down with my relentless questioning.”

Someone,
probably Marlena, snorted.

“I know about
the Nanouks,” he said.

“Is there a
crime in belonging to a club?” Anne asked.

“No crime,”
he said. “No crime in that at all. The only crime that’s been committed was
long ago. And it was by someone who never answered for it.”

Lily
cringed. Was there some statute against running away? She knew there had been a
huge investigation—many hours of police work, costing lots of money. Lily
wondered what sort of penalties there were for disappearing.

“She didn’t
do anything wrong,” Cindy growled. “I’ll kick your ass for saying so, even if
you are a retired policeman. You don’t know what she went through—”

“Cindy,”
Anne said evenly.

“The only
crime was committed by the man who beat you up,” Patrick said. He took a step
closer. “Beat up his pregnant wife. That’s right—after you disappeared, we
treated your house as a crime scene, and we went over every inch with luminol.
You should have seen the blood light up like a lightning storm.
Everywhere in the kitchen.
He must have hurt you, Mara. He
must have.”

“He did,”
Lily said. “But he never hit me.”

“But the
blood—”

“He
sometimes knocked me down when he passed by,” she said. “And he’d tell me it
was because I was pregnant and clumsy, and he didn’t have enough room. I hit my
head, split it open. He said it was an accident.” She paused, an old life
coming back. “And I believed him for the longest time …”

“But not that night?”

“No,” she
said. “There was something different that night. His rage—” She stopped
herself, looking down at Rose. “Excuse me, but I can’t talk to you right now. I
have to get my daughter to bed.”

“She’s
beautiful,” the red-haired cop said. For some reason, his eyes were
glittering
.

“Of course
she is,” Marlena said. “She looks just like Lily.”

“I was
going to say,” Patrick Murphy said, “that she looks just like Maeve.”

“Granny!”
Lily gasped.

“She misses
you, Mara. Whatever reasons you had for leaving, she must believe in them
mighty hard. Because I never saw such love, and I know that willingly letting
you go had to be the hugest sacrifice any grandmother could ever make.”

“She had
nothing to do with it,” Lily said, trembling, not wanting her grandmother to be
in trouble.

“Be that as
it may,” the cop said. “She uses that Nanouk eyeglass case you made for her
every day. And she finally got around to putting me onto the aquarium
membership. You gave it to her—what was that, so she could visit with the
beluga whales and imagine seeing you?”

“She told
you?”

The cop
nodded. “And she gave me that clipping—” He pointed to the one Lily held in her
hand, the one about the ferry accident in Ard
na
Mara.
“You know what I think?”

“What?”
Lily asked, wrapping her arms around Rose, holding Liam’s hand, knowing that
she had to get out of there—out of the inn, away from the cop, away from all
this talk about her grandmother. It was all too much—first Rose’s surgery, then
being with Liam, now this …

“That she
needed me to find you. She sent me here, Mara.”

“She
wouldn’t do that,” Lily said. “She didn’t even know where I went.”

“Maybe
not,” he said. “But she knew I’d find you. I think she’s done without you long
enough. Something’s changed, and she needs you to come home. Think about it,
Mara.”

“Mommy?”
Rose asked, sounding distressed and tired.
Jessica stood beside her, as if standing guard. Allie, Cindy’s daughter, was
just a few feet away, looking equally fierce.

“My name is
Lily,” she said. “Mara fell off the face of the earth. Do you understand? I
want it to stay that way. Right now, I have to get my daughter home.”

“As long as
you know I have some more questions for you.”

Lily
nodded, but didn’t say another word. She just let Liam bundle both her and Rose
out of the inn, into his truck, and they left the lights of Cape Hawk behind as
they drove into the dark, secret cliffs and pines that Lily had for so long—and
still—called home.

But just to
be in the presence of a man who had recently seen her grandmother—that sent
such a fierce tremble through Lily’s body, she had to hold tight to Rose, just
to keep herself together.

Marisa
leaned on the desk, watching Jessica follow Rose out to the porch, to wave
goodbye. As she did, all the Nanouks began buzzing.

“Did you
know?”

“I knew
that she had run away from something.”

“Did you
know what she was running from?”

“I guessed.
She had such a hunted look, the minute she arrived in Cape Hawk.”

“She
stumbled the first time she said her name,” Cindy said. “Alison and I talked
about it right away. We figured ‘Lily’ was an alias. But it was so obvious she
wanted to keep her identity secret, it was just an unspoken thing.”

“We
wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning her about that,” Doreen agreed.

“But you
didn’t even talk about it among yourselves?” Marisa asked.

Anne shook
her head. “Not really. I didn’t figure it out for a long time. She had her hair
cut very short when she first got here—almost like a boy. She wore a pair of
tortoiseshell glasses at first. She tried to hide her pregnancy with big
shirts. But after a time, her hair grew in, and the glasses went. I guess she
started feeling safer.”

“She eventually
began to talk about her abusive marriage,” Cindy said to Marisa. “That’s how
she began to heal.
Opening up to us.
We didn’t care
about the details of where she was from. Where she came from didn’t matter. We
just cared about helping her realize she didn’t deserve the way he’d treated
her.”

“I knew who
she was,” Marlena said quietly. “I have a satellite dish, so I got local news
from the States. Her story had such power over me—even before she got here. A
husband everyone liked, handsome and popular, a beautiful young wife, five feet
tall and pregnant out to there, with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.”

“Why?”
Marisa asked.

“Because I
had to know—
were
they the perfect couple? Or was he
her murderer? Had he pulled off the perfect crime?”

“Those are
good questions,” Detective Murphy said, overhearing the conversation and
walking over.
“Very good questions.”

“Were you
the officer in charge?” Marisa asked.

“I was,” he
said. He had bright red hair with a little white around the temples, a freckled
face, and a great grin—it surprised Marisa to see him using it. He didn’t seem
mad at all, and she had expected he would—having been fooled for so long.

“What did
you think? Did you think the husband killed her?”

“I was sure
of it,” he said.

“Why?” Marisa
asked. He was looking past everyone in the crowd, directly at her—as if they
were all alone in the lobby.

“Because he’s a bad guy.”

“But how do
you know that? Since you just found out that Mara—Lily—is alive, he obviously
didn’t kill her; so, how do you know he’s a bad guy?”

Patrick
Murphy just stared at her, as if trying to read her story in her eyes. If only
he could, she thought—he’d think her husband was a bad guy too.

“Because I saw the blood in their kitchen.”

“But she
said he never hit her.”

Patrick
shrugged. “I saw the blood,” he said. “It got there somehow. There was a lot of
it, as if she had lain there
bleeding
for some time.
He knocked her down, and if he made it seem accidental—so she would think she
was crazy—then he’s even worse. I interviewed a lot of people that first year
… .
Mara Jameson tried to protect her husband, weave a story
about a happy marriage. But it wasn’t happy. And he wasn’t a good person.”

“Is
he—still out there?”

Patrick
nodded. “Yes,” he said.

Just then
Anne began lugging things out from inside her office: the basket of pine
pillows for Rose, and the easel holding the placard with Lily and Rose’s
pictures on it. She and Marlena set everything up by the desk again. Anne had
taken everything down when Patrick had started asking questions, because she
knew he’d recognize Lily’s picture.

Marisa saw
Patrick glance at the front desk, piled high with CDs, posters, and photographs
of the Celtic bands competing in Cape Hawk’s upcoming Ceili Festival. A small
smile touched his lips.

“What?”
Marisa asked.

“Just
that,” Patrick said, gesturing at the pile of CDs. “A world with music like
that can’t be all bad.”

“I played
the fiddle when I was young,” Marisa said, staring at the picture of one band,
but remembering another: four young women wearing white dresses, holding
guitars and fiddles, under the banner
Fallen
Angels
. “I put myself through nursing school playing at Irish bars on
Friday nights.”

“Maybe
you’ll find the music again,” he said.

“Mommy,”
Jessica said, coming over. “Allie asked if I can sleep over.”

“It’s fine
with me,” Cindy said.

Shaken by
the conversation, Marisa thanked Patrick Murphy,
then
walked over to Cindy and Allie to discuss details. Jessica would be welcome to
borrow a nightgown—and Cindy would have her home tomorrow by noon. Marisa said
yes; she was glad Allie had asked Jessica to spend the night—she wanted to be
alone.
To think, and to investigate something just a little
further.

She kissed
her daughter good night, said goodbye to her friends, and shook Patrick
Murphy’s hand. He held on for a fraction of a second too long; Marisa looked up
into his eyes, blue eyes shadowed with worry, and she saw a question. He was
asking her something she couldn’t begin to answer: she could almost hear the words
coming out of his mouth,
Is
everything okay?