Everlasting Read online

  Three

  “HOSE ME DOWN, IVY,” KELSEY SAID. “I’M FRYING.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t use baby oil, you wouldn’t,” Dhanya suggested, gracefully stretching her legs and pointing her toes, then flipping the page of a thick novel. She sat in an Adirondack chair she had dragged around the side of the inn to a stretch of grass next to the Seabright’s Unloading Zone, where Ivy was washing her car. Kelsey, whose beach towel lay next to Dhanya’s chair, stood up and surveyed her arms and legs, then twisted around to look at her shoulder. Her black bikini displayed her shapely body to perfection—muscles as well as round breasts and hips.

  If Kelsey had been sunning when Michelangelo was sculpting, he’d have immortalized her, Ivy thought. Then she raised the hose and splashed water over Kelsey.

  “Not the hair!” Kelsey cried.

  Ivy laughed, and touched her own cloud of dark gold hair, which got even frizzier than Kelsey’s auburn mane. “Give it up, Kelsey. It’s hopeless with a whole ocean nearby.”

  The Seabright Inn, owned by Kelsey and Beth’s aunt, sat on a bluff above and behind the dunes in Orleans. Aunt Cindy’s level yard ended with bushes and scrub trees, which protected the sands of the bluff and prevented a view of the ocean, but everywhere the sea’s presence was felt in its damp and salty breath. The Atlantic’s deep blue could be seen from the inn’s porch, where the girls and Will served breakfast every morning, and from the second floor rooms, which they cleaned and straightened for the guests.

  They worked five days each week, six during busy weeks, taking turns on getting weekdays off. Their workday began at six thirty a.m. in the inn’s kitchen. Today they had finished at two, but with the Fourth of July crowds on the Cape, they had been working hard and decided to hang out at the inn. Will had returned to sketch in his room in Aunt Cindy’s converted barn. Beth had stayed behind in the girls’ cottage, which was nestled among the trees on the side of the inn facing the road.

  Beth’s increasingly frequent desire to be alone made Ivy uneasy. She read it as a sign that Gregory’s power over Beth was growing. Last year, when Tristan had first slipped into Beth’s mind, she had fought him. But eventually, realizing the presence was Tristan and therefore angelic, she had allowed him to work through her. Beth must have sensed that this new presence was evil; she, herself, had said that Gregory was here. Had he grown too powerful for her to resist? Ivy had tried to stay close, but Beth had rebuffed every attempt Ivy made to talk to her.

  In the past week Dhanya and Kelsey had stayed close to Ivy, trying to be supportive after the police came for Luke. Ivy suspected she had risen several notches in Kelsey’s eyes, now that she believed Ivy had been seduced by a “gorgeous fugitive from the law.”

  Sparkling with hose water, Kelsey returned to her beach towel, adjusting it slightly, perfecting the angle at which the sunlight touched her skin.

  “You’re getting burned,” Dhanya warned.

  “Dhanya, chill! I don’t want to hear it, not from someone born with a tan. You can’t possibly understand what it is like to have skin like Snow White.”

  “Well, she got her prince, didn’t she?” Dhanya asked.

  Kelsey lay back on her towel, then grinned. “Yeah, I guess so. Ivy, we need to find you a prince.”

  Ivy, surprised, shot water at the car door she had just finished drying.

  “You’ve put in a whole week of mourning,” Kelsey continued. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”

  Ivy almost laughed.

  “Come with us tonight. Some of Bryan’s teammates have come out to the Cape and will be at Max’s party. College guys, hockey players!”

  “Can’t wait,” muttered Dhanya. “I wonder if they have front teeth.”

  “You are such a snob, Dhanya!”

  Ivy smiled. “Don’t want to shock you, but I also prefer guys with front teeth.”

  Kelsey snorted. “You need to let go, Ivy. No regrets, over and done—move on! And you, Dhanya, need to close your novels and get real.” Talking with her eyes closed, Kelsey looked like some mythological prophetess spouting advice. “As for missing teeth, you’re way off. College hockey is a sport of skill and discipline, requiring smarts as well as toughness. I’m sure that Bryan’s friends are just like Bryan.”

  “So how can you resist?” a deep voice asked.

  Dhanya turned around and instantly blushed. Kelsey sat up.

  Bryan’s laugh was loud and friendly. “But maybe Max is more your type,” he suggested to Dhanya.

  “I don’t think so,” said Max, having followed Bryan around the side of the inn.

  Max and Bryan, who had become friends at college, were polar opposites. Bryan, with dark hair and green eyes, was medium height, powerfully built, and good-looking; brimming with confidence, his game face was a roguish smile. Max had a leaner build and countered his monochrome looks—light brown hair, light brown eyes, and year-round matching tan—with expensive and tropically colored clothes. Recently, however, after learning that Dhanya found him “tacky,” he’d started sporting more traditional preppy attire.

  “How’d you find us?” Kelsey asked.

  “Beth,” Bryan replied, “though she didn’t exactly volunteer the information. We could hear her in the kitchen. When she didn’t respond to our calling, we invited ourselves in.”

  “She gets like that when she’s writing,” Kelsey said. “Totally spacey.”

  Max and Bryan exchanged glances, then shrugged. Ivy guessed that they saw a strangeness in Beth that Will stubbornly denied and Kelsey conveniently ignored.

  “Is everyone coming to Max’s tonight?” Bryan asked.

  Kelsey started smoothing on more oil, although her body was already glistening with it. “Wouldn’t miss it!”

  “Dhanya?”

  “Yes.”

  Bryan turned to Ivy and she shook her head. “Sorry.”

  His green eyes glinted with mischief. “Does that mean we can call you if Kelsey gets stinking drunk again?”

  That was how it had all started. Three nights after Gregory re-entered the living world through a séance meant to be just a game, Kelsey and Dhanya had gotten drunk at one of Max’s wild parties. On the way to pick up their roommates, Ivy and Beth had been struck by a hit-and-run driver. The paramedics and doctors couldn’t explain how Ivy had survived, but she knew the source of the miracle: Tristan’s kiss.

  Ivy dried the door of her rental car, then straightened up and turned toward Bryan. He talked a big game about drinking, but she had come to realize he drank a lot more caffeine than alcohol. “No, it means you’ll have to help keep that from happening.”

  He smiled. “You mean babysit her?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Ivy replied. “Aunt Cindy has reached the end of her rope with us.”

  Bryan nodded. “My uncle would have booted you all out by now. Partying, totaling your car, then dating a killer who claims he has amnesia.”

  “He did have amnesia,” Ivy replied.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.” Ivy slopped suds on the trunk of the white VW. She winced every time she thought of Aunt Cindy’s description of her: a “good girl” who showed “absolutely no judgment” when it came to people. Ivy wanted to argue that it was perceptiveness and positive instincts rather than lack of judgment that had made her trust a stranger before she knew his story. But Tristan’s safety required her to remain silent; it was impossible to defend herself.

  “Have you heard from Luke?” Max inquired.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to hear from him?” Bryan asked, picking up an extra sponge, washing a patch she had missed.

  Ivy met Bryan’s eyes. She thought she saw a flicker of sympathy, then he threw his wet sponge at Kelsey, who had been watching them with a jealous pout.

  “Why would I want to hear from a murderer?” Ivy asked, dropping her sponge in the bucket, picking up the hose.

  “Because to you,” Bryan replied, “he wasn’t a murderer.”


  “I was totally taken in. I acted like a fool.”

  Bryan studied her until she looked away. “We all make mistakes, Ivy. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling her,” Kelsey interjected. “So how many hot hockey players am I going to meet tonight?”

  Bryan turned to Kelsey. “You already know one,” he replied, smiling. “But if I’m not too busy with some of the girls coming from Boston, how about I introduce you to my teammates?”

  “I’m counting on it. I have a few questions to ask them about you.”

  They teased on. Max attempted without success to get Dhanya to talk about the novel she was reading; if he had looked a little harder at its cover, he might have realized it was a steamy romance. Ivy finished up the car as soon as she could and drove it back to the inn’s lot.

  It was tempting to continue on to Nickerson State Park, where she thought Tristan might be hiding, but she couldn’t chance it. Four times in the last seven days, the police officers who had tried to arrest Tristan had phoned Ivy. Twice, the woman officer, in plainclothes and an unmarked car, had stopped by the inn, saying she was just “touching base.” Ivy couldn’t go anywhere without feeling as if someone was watching her. A week ago the police had guessed correctly that “Luke” would return to her; it made sense that they would keep an eye on her for a while longer.

  When you love someone and want to be with him, Ivy thought, patience was a lot harder than courage. Taking a risk was easy compared to waiting and not knowing. If she were risking only her safety, she’d be searching for him now. Tristan, be safe, she prayed as she walked toward the cottage.

  It was quiet when she entered the small, shingled building. “Beth? Are you home?”

  Receiving no reply, Ivy headed to the kitchen, directly behind the living room, and fixed a glass of iced tea, which she carried toward the steps. The old cottage had a central hearth with steep steps built against the chimney, rising from the kitchen to the second floor. As Ivy started up the stairway, Beth rushed down, moving so quickly that Ivy had to flatten herself against the wall to avoid being bowled over.

  “Beth!”

  The cold drink sloshed over Ivy’s hand and onto Beth’s shoulder as she passed, but Beth kept going, hurrying across the kitchen and out the back door. Ivy stared after her. If she hadn’t glimpsed Beth’s face, she would have guessed it was fear driving away her friend. But Ivy had seen the intense anger, and it was Ivy who felt afraid—worried that Gregory was slowly driving Beth insane.

  After wiping up the tea, Ivy continued to the cottage’s second floor, one large bedroom with a small bathroom across from the central chimney. A bed occupied each corner, Dhanya’s and Kelsey’s beds under the sloping roof to the right, Ivy’s and Beth’s to the left. Ivy sniffed for burnt candles, then glanced toward Dhanya’s bed, under which the Ouija board was kept, but there was no indication that Beth had consulted it again.

  Retrieving a clean T-shirt, Ivy was surprised to find the contents of her bureau drawer in disarray. Shrugging off the suspicion that someone else had been sorting through her things, she changed clothes and carried her music bag to her bed. She kicked off her flip-flops, then slipped on the shoes she wore for piano.

  Needles of pain pierced the sole of Ivy’s foot. Her right knee gave way. Dropping down on her bed, she yanked off her shoe. For a moment she just stared at the underside of her foot, the skin glistening with dark blood and splinters of glass. It shocked her, seeing this again. Last summer, before killing her cat Ella, Gregory had cut the tender pads on her paws. As a warning to Ivy, he had spread broken glass on her bathmat. It was like a recurring nightmare: Worse than the physical pain was the horror of feeling trapped in a sequence she knew would get much worse.

  Grimacing, Ivy freed a shard of glass with her fingers, then hopped to the bathroom, where she used tweezers to remove tinier pieces. Her foot burned from the lacerations and her breath quickened, but she was almost too stunned to cry. She bathed her foot with cool water. When she patted it dry, she winced, the glass still in her skin, then went back to work with the tweezers.

  After applying antibiotic and bandages, Ivy limped back to her bed and sank down on it. Her heart was filled with dread—as Gregory had known it would be. She imagined he had taken great pleasure in planning this.

  “Tristan!” Ivy called out, but he no longer had the power to hear her.

  Ivy tried to block the image of Beth breaking the glass and placing it in the front of the shoe, where it wouldn’t be discovered until Ivy slipped it on. She shook it lightly, then picked out a glittering thorn.

  She couldn’t wait till Will got over his anger with her. She would show him now. She had to get Will to listen and to help her fight back, before Gregory went too far, before it was too late for both Beth and her.

  Four

  TRISTAN’S CLOTHES HAD DRIED FROM THE PREVIOUS night’s dip in Ruth Pond. Now the heat of late afternoon made him wish he could swim again, but he remained in a thickly wooded area, as far as possible from the hiking trails. Although hungry, he’d restrained himself when he stole food from campsites—a roll here, a piece of meat there—never taking enough for campers to notice and report, never enough for the police to see a suspicious trend in the park.

  He couldn’t see Ivy; the police would be watching, waiting for him to show up. He knew he should leave Cape Cod, but he couldn’t bear to put distance between them. Maybe it was better to see her one last time and let the police find him. But then there was Gregory: If captured by the police, Tristan would be leaving Ivy alone with Gregory. He had to stay here and stay hidden.

  In the last week, Tristan had begun to remember more of his life and the time immediately after it. He’d recalled the help of an angel named Lacey. Was she still around? When he’d met her, she had put off finding her mission for two years, allowing herself to be continually sidetracked by adventures and pranks. It would be three years now, and yet, having known her, he wouldn’t be surprised if she was still in this world.

  “Lacey,” he called out softly, tentatively. “Are you there? Can you hear me? Lacey, I need your help.”

  Leaves rustled. An insect hummed close to his ear. The dark green canopy of oak and pine nearly blocked out the sky. Tristan felt earthbound and isolated.

  “Well, look at you,” a familiar voice greeted him. “Goldilocks with a beard!”

  “Lacey!” Tristan grinned and tried to locate her voice. A tree branch about six feet above his head bore purple leaves. Tristan took a step back to gaze at the branch. The violet haze spun and dropped to the ground.

  “I wish I could touch you. I wish I could hug you,” Tristan said. “I’ve lost my angel powers. All I see is a purple mist.”

  To his amazement, a girl with long hair—tinged purple—wearing leggings and a tank top materialized, becoming as solid as the tree trunks around him. Tristan reached out, his hand touching and folding around a smaller hand with long purple nails. He pulled Lacey close and felt a warm body. “It’s great to see you.”

  She suddenly pulled away from him.

  “I missed you, Lacey.”

  She took another step back. “I guess I would have missed you, too, if I hadn’t been so busy.”

  “Yeah? Posting strange photos on the electronic billboard in Times Square? Terrorizing girls playing in a cemetery? Remember the Baines’s big party, when you gave Ella a voice, ordering a bowl of milk from the bartender?”

  She smiled. “Those were good times.”

  “So I guess you haven’t gotten around to finding your mission,” he observed.

  “Don’t be too quick to judge,” Lacey told him. “Maybe I didn’t move on to the Light like you, but at least I didn’t regress to a body—someone else’s body.”

  Tristan nodded.

  “How’s life as a murderer and fugitive?”

  “Not much fun,” he replied. “How’d you know about that?”

  “Newspaper, Int
ernet. I’m never far from somebody’s iPad. Took you long enough to contact me, Tristan.”

  He felt a little defensive. “I didn’t know who I was.”

  “If you hadn’t just said how much you missed me, I’d have thought you wanted a favor.”

  “Actually,” Tristan began—

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Lacey, I really need your help.”

  She grimaced. “What do you think this is, a sequel? During my Hollywood years, I never let myself get trapped in a role.”

  Remembering Lacey’s acting career differently than she did, Tristan raised an eyebrow but decided not to correct her. “Ivy believes that Gregory is back.”

  “Which means—let me guess—Ivy’s in danger.”

  He ignored the sarcastic tone. “It’s hard for me to help her.” He turned to look behind him, hearing hikers laughing and talking in the distance. “If the police catch me—”

  “The police are the least of your problems!”

  “Keep your voice down,” he warned.

  Lacey leaped and caught hold of the branch above his head, as easily as if she had the bones and sinews of a cat.

  “Lacey, if anyone saw that—”

  “Keep your voice down,” she said, and hung there for a moment, watching. “They’re gone.” She dropped softly onto the carpet of pine needles. Reaching toward him, she twisted a lock of his hair around her finger. “Tristan, did it ever occur to you that someone beat up that sexy body you’re hauling around, left it to die, and will be real unhappy to find it still moving? If I were you, I’d cut off these pretty gold waves and try some brunette Just for Men. The beard helps. They make dye for beards, too.”

  Tristan smiled at her, looking into her dark eyes, marveling at how solid she was. Again, she backed away.

  “I’m planning to disguise myself,” he said, “but I need to stay here and stay completely hidden for as long as it takes the police to decide I’ve left the Cape.”

  She snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “Now there’s an idea. Get off the Cape. Get as far away as you can. I’ll reschedule appointments with my clients to give you a hand with that.”