Stay Close (20 page)

None of that happened with Ray. They were instead torn asunder as if by a natural disaster, and when that happened, her feelings for him—yes, it was love—had been as intense as ever. He, she was sure, had felt the same. There was no gentle distancing, no harsh words, no hardening of the heart. One moment they were together, connected, in love. The next it was all gone in a pool of blood.

Without warning, Ray broke into a sprint. She did the same as though suddenly released from some unseen gate. They ran into each other hard, the impact sending them reeling. They held on tight, neither speaking, her cheek against his chest. She could feel the muscles under his shirt. Supposedly, once a moment passes, it is gone forever, but the truth was, it startled her how fast the years could fall away, how quickly we can go back and find the old us, the true us, the us that never really leaves.

A friend once told Megan that we are always seventeen years old, waiting for our lives to begin. More than ever, clutching to this man, Megan understood that.

They didn’t let go. For nearly a minute they just stayed there, holding each other under Lucy’s watchful eye. Finally Ray said, “I have so much I want to ask you.”

“I know.”

“Where have you been all these years?”

“Does it matter?” she said.

“I guess not.”

The grip loosened a bit. She pulled back and looked up into the face. He had two, maybe three days of stubble. His hair was still tousled albeit with a bit of gray now at the temples. When she looked into those dark blue eyes of his, the jolt sent her into a free fall. She felt her knees buckle.

“I don’t understand,” Ray said. “Why are you back?”

She cleared her throat. “Another man is missing.”

She wanted to gauge his reaction, but all she saw was pain and confusion.

“It happened on February eighteenth,” she said. “The same day as Stewart Green disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Ray opened his mouth, closed it again. Behind him Ventura’s Greenhouse, a popular restaurant and what they called “beer garden,” was in full swing. People were watching them. Megan took his hand and walked to the far side of Lucy, near the old gift shop, where they’d be out of sight.

“So,” Ray said, something odd in his voice, “after seventeen years, you come back and now another man is, I don’t know, gone.”

Megan turned to him. “No, I came down after.”

“Why?”

“To help.”

“Help with what?”

“To help figure out what happened. I tried to run away from it, but now he’s back.”

Ray shook his head, looking even more confused. “Who’s back?”

“Stewart Green.”

His voice had a snap in it now. “How can you say that?”

“Someone saw him.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ray looked dazed. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Yes, Ray, you do.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw the photograph you sent the cops.”

Again he opened his mouth. Again nothing came out. Megan turned toward the fence that surrounded Lucy. She put one foot on the wall of the gift shop and hoisted herself up and over it. She took out the old key and showed it to him. “Come on.”

“You think that still works?”

“Doubt it.”

Ray didn’t hesitate. He hopped the fence too. They moved under Lucy’s belly, the one that housed the structure’s largest room, toward her rear leg. As she put the key in the lock, Ray came up close to her. She could feel the heat from him.

He tried to keep the pain from his voice, but he couldn’t do it. “Why did you run away that night?”

“You know why, Ray.”

“Did you kill him?”

That made her stop. “What?”

“Did you kill Stewart Green?”

“No,” she said. She moved closer to him, looked into his eyes again. “I never told you how abusive he was. How he hurt me.”

He frowned. “You think I didn’t know?”

“I guess you did.”

The key didn’t work.

“Just tell me why you ran,” Ray said. “Tell me what happened that night.”

“I took that path up to the ruins. I heard a noise and ran over to that big rock on the right. You know the one.”

He didn’t need to nod.

“I saw Stewart lying there in a pool of blood.” She stopped.

“So you ran?”

“Yes.”

“Because you thought the police would blame you?”

A tear ran down her cheek. “In part.”

Megan waited, hoping that she wouldn’t have to say the other
part, that he would see it. It took a second or two, but his eyes began to widen.

“Oh my God,” Ray said. “You thought it was me.”

She said nothing.

“You ran,” he said slowly, “because you thought I killed Stewart Green.”

“Yes.”

“Were you scared of me? Or were you trying to protect me?”

She thought about it. “I could never be afraid of you, Ray. You always made me feel safe.”

Ray shook his head. “It explains so much. Why you never came back. Why you never reached out.”

“They’d either think I did it. Or you. There was no other way.”

Ray took the key from her hand and tried the lock again. It didn’t open. He looked lost, devastated.

“I must have arrived right after you ran,” he said.

“Was Stewart still lying there?”

Ray nodded. “He was bleeding. I figured that he was dead.” He closed his eyes and turned away. “I ran down the hill. I went to your place, afraid, I don’t know. I just didn’t know. But you were gone. I came here, to Lucy. I thought maybe you’d be hiding inside or something. I waited. But you never showed, of course. I searched for you. For years. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. I saw your face on every street, in every bar.” He stopped then, blinked it away, found her eyes again. “Eventually I moved across the country. To Los Angeles, as far away from this place as I could get.”

“But you returned.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Ray shrugged. “You know I hate all that mystical crap, right?”

Megan nodded.

“But something drew me back here. I don’t know what. I couldn’t help it.”

She swallowed. The realization was reaching her, sinking in even as she spoke. “And when you returned to Atlantic City, you went back to that spot in the park.”

He nodded. “Every February eighteenth.”

“You took pictures,” she went on. “Because that’s what you do, Ray. You see the world through that lens. You process things that way. And you took that picture—the one of Carlton Flynn the night he vanished.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Come on, Ray. I still know your work.”

“So what did you think when you saw it?” Ray asked, a slight edge in his tone. “That I did it, right? I killed Stewart and seventeen years later, on the anniversary of that horrible night, I, what, killed this Flynn guy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you sent that picture to the police,” she said. “You didn’t have to take that risk. You’re doing the same thing I am. You’re trying to help them. You’re trying to figure out what really happened that night.”

When Ray looked away now, her heart broke anew. Tears came to her eyes. “I was wrong,” she said. “All this time I thought… I’m so sorry, Ray.”

He couldn’t look at her.

“Ray, please?”

“Please what?”

“Talk to me.”

He took a few deep breaths, putting himself together a piece at a time. “I still go to the ruins on the anniversary. I sit there, and I think about you. I think about all we lost that night.”

She moved closer to him. “And you take pictures?”

“Yes. It helps. It doesn’t help. You know what I mean.”

She did. “So that picture you sent to the police…”

“It was stolen. Or at least, someone tried to steal it.”

“What?”

“I worked this stupid job for Fester—paparazzi at some over-the-top bar mitzvah. Someone jumped me on the street and stole my camera. At first I figured that it was a routine robbery. But then I saw Carlton Flynn on television and I remembered the photograph I took. I had a copy on my computer too.”

She said, “So you think whoever jumped you—”

“Killed Stewart Green and Carlton Flynn. Yes.”

“You say ‘killed.’ But we don’t know that. They’re missing.”

“We both saw Stewart Green that night. You think he survived?”

“I think it’s possible. You don’t?”

Ray said nothing. He looked down and shook his head. She moved closer to him. She reached up and pushed the hair off his forehead. He was still so damn handsome. She moved her hand to his cheek. Her touch made his eyes close.

“All these years,” Ray said, his eyes finding hers, “I still look for your face. Every day. I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times.”

“Was it like this?” she asked softly.

He pointed to the hand resting on his cheek. “You weren’t wearing a wedding ring.”

She took her hand away slowly. “Why are you still in this town, Ray, working for Fester? Why aren’t you doing what you love?”

“It’s not your problem, Cassie.”

“I can still care.”

“Do you have kids now?” he asked.

“Two.”

“Boys, girls?”

“One girl, one boy.”

“Nice.” Ray chuckled to himself and shook his head. “You thought I killed Stewart?”

“Yes.”

“That helped, I bet.”

“What do you mean?”

“To move on. Thinking your boyfriend was a murderer.”

She wondered whether that was true.

Ray studied her wedding ring. “Do you love him?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But you still feel something for me.”

“Of course.”

Ray nodded. “This isn’t a line you want to cross.”

“Not now, no.”

“So the fact that you still feel for me,” he said. “That will have to be enough.”

“It’s a lot.”

“It is.” Ray took her face in his hands. He had big hands, wonderful
hands, and again she felt her knees start to give way. He tried a rakish grin. “If you ever do want to cross that line—”

“I’ll call you.”

His hand slipped away then. Ray took a step back. She did too. She turned, hopped the fence, and walked back to her car.

She started to drive. For a little while she could still see Lucy in her rearview mirror, but that didn’t last. She took the expressway to the Garden State Parkway and drove all the way home—all the way back to her family—without stopping.

D
EL
F
LYNN
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S MANSION DIDN
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T HAVE
a sign reading “Tacky” on it because, really, it would have been redundant. The theme was white. Blindingly white. Interior and exterior. There were faux marble columns of white, nude statues in white, white brick, a white swimming pool, white couches against white carpets and white walls. The only splash of color was the orange in Del’s shirt.

“Del, honey, you coming to bed?”

His wife, Darya—Mrs. Del Flynn Number Three—was twenty years his junior. She wore tourniquet-tight white and had the biggest chest, ass, and lips money could buy. Yes, she didn’t look real, but that was how Del liked his women now—like curvy cartoons with exaggerated features and figures. To some it was freakish. To Del it was sexy as all get-out.

“Not yet.”

“You sure?”

Darya was wearing a white silk robe, and nothing else. His favorite. Del wished that the old stirring—his constant life companion, his curse, if you will, that had cost him his beloved Maria, Carlton’s mother, the only woman he ever loved—would return without the
aid of a certain blue pill. But for the first time in his life, there was no need or desire.

“Go to bed, Darya.”

She disappeared—probably, he figured, relieved that she could just watch TV and pass out from whatever combo of wine and pills got her through the night. In the end all women were the same. Except for his Maria. Del sat back in the white leather chair. The white décor was Darya’s doing. She said it signified purity or harmony or a young aura—some New Age bullshit like that. When they first met, Darya had been wearing a white bikini and all he wanted to do was defile that, but he was really growing tired of the white. He missed color. He missed leaving his shoes on when he walked in the house. He missed the old dark green couch in the corner. An all-white house is impossible to maintain. An all-white house sets you up for failure.