Everafter Read online

“Sure. Anytime.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Ivy,” he called after her.

  “Yes?”

  “Bryan never stays with one girl too long. You’ll have your chance.”

  My chance to put him behind bars, she thought. “Thanks. I hope so!”

  Four

  JAGGED LIGHTNING SCISSORED THE MIDNIGHT SKY and thunder cracked. Tristan pressed Ivy against him, although he knew his instinct was pointless—his body couldn’t shield hers from a lightning strike.

  “One more house,” Ivy shouted as the needles of rain became a downpour.

  They ran the last forty yards to the Steadmans’ front door, Tristan sprinting ahead, pulling Ivy with him. Another streak of lightning struck closer and was followed instantly by an earsplitting clap. Tristan held the flashlight while Ivy slipped the key into the lock. They rushed inside, then he slammed the door behind them, shutting out the storm.

  Ivy touched his arm. “Tristan, you’re shaking.”

  He dropped his heavy backpack with a thud. He wanted to yell at her for paddling to him on the open water when storms were predicted. “Gregory struck once, Ivy. He’ll strike again!”

  “We’re safe now,” she said, putting her arms around him.

  She was soaked to the bone, and while he knew how strong her spirit was, her body felt fragile to him. He shut his eyes. If only he could be the lightning rod, he thought, and draw Gregory’s vengeance away from her.

  “Everything’s okay, Tristan.”

  But it wasn’t. It had been almost a week since Gregory had left Beth. He was planning something—another deadly strike, another possession of someone’s mind.

  “I’ve got some good news,” Ivy said, linking her hands around his neck and leaning back a little, sounding pleased with herself. “I found the photo!”

  She recounted her evening at the ice rink. “I can call the photographer and order a copy.”

  “And then?” Tristan asked.

  “Take it to the police. They should be able to subpoena the electronic file and enlarge it enough to get a good image.”

  He shook his head. She wasn’t thinking things through. “Even if they do, Ivy, it doesn’t prove Bryan had a motive to kill Corinne. We still need evidence that she was blackmailing him about this incident. And if the police don’t make an immediate arrest—”

  “One step at a time,” she interrupted. “I’ll find that evidence too.”

  He pulled her close again, burying his face in her wet hair.

  “Come on,” she said softly. “Let’s explore.”

  The ground floor had a foyer and a large family room to the right with glass doors at the back, which Tristan assumed faced Nauset Harbor. To the left and six steps up from the foyer was a living-dining area and kitchen. Flashes from the storm illuminated long windows, as well as skylights in the cathedral ceiling. A large contemporary fireplace occupied the far wall. Tristan followed Ivy in a circle of the first floor and up another half flight of steps to the bedrooms. The huge master bedroom also had skylights. The two smaller rooms appeared to be children’s rooms.

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep here,” Tristan said, trying to make a joke. “I kind of like places with strong fishy smells and bird droppings.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Ivy replied, her smile lit by a pale halo from the penlight she carried, then suddenly bleached by a flash of lightning.

  “Stay with me tonight,” Tristan pleaded. “At least until the storms are over.”

  She brushed his cheek with the backs of her fingers. “For a few hours. I have to be back at the cottage before the others are up.”

  As tired as they both were, it seemed strange to move into someone’s house uninvited and sleep in their beds, so they carried blankets and pillows to the living room and spread them on the floor. Ivy set the alarm on her iPhone and fell asleep immediately. Tristan held her in his arms, listening to her soft breathing. The rain stopped, the thunder became a distant rumble, and Tristan drifted off.

  He was awakened by a keening sound. Sitting up quickly, Tristan turned toward the foyer. A flicker of blue light played across the surface of the front door. Ivy stirred, opening her eyes, and Tristan placed one finger over her lips.

  What? she mouthed.

  “Stay here,” he whispered, knowing she probably wouldn’t.

  He tiptoed to the top of the short flight of steps and saw a shifting blue light on the foyer’s ceramic tiles. The TV was on, its sound muted. Tristan crept down the steps. He felt Ivy next to him as he peered into the family room. On the large screen a grotesque mouth opened wider and wider, the camera moving in for a close-up of what must have been a bloodcurdling scream.

  Swiftly scanning the room, Tristan saw a distinct purple mist curled like a cat in one corner of a sofa. “Lacey?”

  “Oh,” said the purple mist. “Did I wake you guys?”

  Tristan heard Ivy laughing in relief.

  “What are you doing here?” Tristan asked.

  “Watching a video. Since you’re awake, I may as well turn it up.” She slowly materialized on the sofa and picked up the remote.

  Tristan glanced toward the double doors, then the windows. “Lacey, it’s the middle of the night, and we don’t want to call attention to ourselves.”

  “I checked the shades. They’re tight.” She propped her booted feet on the coffee table in front of her. “Do you know this movie? Sit down. You’ll love it!”

  “That’s you, isn’t it?” Ivy asked, pointing toward the screen.

  “This was my first film,” Lacey boasted. “When I auditioned, the producer said to the director, ‘We’re not going to find a mouth that big on any other nine-year-old.’ ”

  For a moment Tristan watched a young Lacey run for her life from what appeared to be a scaly roach on steroids. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ivy check the time on her phone, then sit down on the other end of the sofa to watch.

  “I didn’t think horror flicks would be your thing,” Lacey said to Ivy, sounding pleased.

  “Not usually, but you’re in it.”

  Lacey was running through a primeval forest, looks of panic and fear just about exploding off her face. Apparently, subtlety wasn’t her style.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “Very . . . dramatic,” Ivy replied.

  Tristan sat on a chair near the sofa. “Would you turn that off a minute so we can talk?”

  “I can talk over it,” Lacey assured him.

  “I can’t.”

  The angel watched a moment longer, then hit Pause. A large image of her terror-struck face hung frozen on the screen.

  “Lacey, we haven’t seen any sign of Gregory. Do you know what’s going on?”

  “No, but I can guess.”

  “So guess,” Tristan told her.

  “His lightning stunt knocked him out for a bit. But you know the old saying—if it doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger. He’s probably out there cruising now, looking for a new mind to take over.”

  “Even though he was more potent as a bolt of lightning?” Tristan asked.

  “That’s only if you equate power with frying people,” Lacey replied. “Gregory has always loved having power in social situations, manipulating people and watching them do what he wants. That’s how he was alive; that’s how he is dead.” She sighed. “It’s a common problem for us dead folks—we’re too used to having a body.

  “I don’t need hands to move things”—the TV remote spun on the coffee table, then Lacey reached out with a materialized hand and stopped it—“but I like to have them. Thinking and acting like a human, it’s a real hard habit to kick. Gregory will take over another mind, a more agreeable one than Beth’s, and get himself a good set of hands. I guarantee it.”

  “I have to stop him,” Tristan said.

  “No,” Lacey replied, “Ivy does. Bryan is your enemy. It’s Bryan who’s most likely to cut short your time to redeem yourself. Gre
gory doesn’t even know you’re around. He becomes your enemy only if you allow him to.”

  “He became my enemy the first time he tried to kill Ivy.”

  “And look where that landed you—in a cemetery!”

  Tristan saw Ivy flinch.

  “I’m sorry to have to remind you,” Lacey went on, “but you are no longer Ivy’s angel. You’ve got your own battle now.”

  Tristan ignored her. “Gregory tried to kill Ivy through Beth. Before that, he tried on Morris Island, and—”

  “To be perfectly accurate,” Lacey interrupted, “a car ran Ivy off the island road.”

  “Gregory was behind the accident, he must have been!”

  “Not all the evil in this world can be traced back to Gregory. Your love for Ivy is blinding you.”

  “Please, Tristan, listen to her,” Ivy begged.

  “I’ll listen when she tells me something useful, like Gregory’s M.O.—what he has done, what he’s doing now, what he plans to do.”

  As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be everafter. Ours.

  Tristan turned his head at the sound of the murmured words, then glanced at the horrified face that hung frozen on the TV screen. Had the voices found him here?

  Ivy put her arms around him. “Let me search for those answers, okay? Give me some time, Tristan, and I’ll find out everything we need to know.”

  Her phone alarm sounded. “I have to go.”

  Tristan started toward the door with her.

  “Stay inside,” Ivy told him. “Stay safe. Please.”

  “Just for a second.”

  He closed the door behind them and walked her as far as the gravel path. “Ivy,” he said, resting his hands on her shoulders. “We can spin a million theories about my redemption, but this much we know: Love is good. There’s no way that my loving you can damn me.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “Maybe it’s not as simple as one person loving another.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe it’s how we love,” she said, “the choices we make.”

  He was growing irritated. “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe it’s the actions we take, what we do when we love.”

  “Here’s what I do,” he replied, then kissed her good-bye with the same mix of desire and wonder he had felt the night of the accident on Morris Island.

  IVY WAS GLAD IT WAS BETH, KELSEY, AND WILL’S DAY to work breakfast: She would have been too tempted to sit down with one of the guests for a cup of coffee. Not that it wasn’t tempting to climb into one of the beds she was changing.

  When her job was done, she went to the beach, planning to catch up on her sleep. She set her towel down several hundred feet from the handful of sunbathers. With the dunes far behind her, and the rooflines of the inn and private homes a receding horizon above the shrub-covered bluffs, she happily wriggled her toes in the warm grains of sand, then rolled over onto her stomach.

  Beth was back at the cottage, typing up a storm, making up for lost time after Gregory had blocked her ability to write. Ivy hoped that she and Will would get together to work on their graphic novel—for their sake, not Philip’s. That was her last thought before falling asleep.

  Sometime later, Dhanya’s voice woke her up: “Why are you way over here?”

  Ivy opened one eye. “Just wanted to be away from our guests.”

  Dhanya kicked off her flip-flops and spread out her towel. “I almost didn’t see you.”

  I almost pulled it off, Ivy thought, then shut her eyes.

  Listening to the whispery flick of pages as Dhanya read her paperback, Ivy drifted back into the lovely whiteness of a beach doze. The grind of sandy footsteps headed in their direction brought her back to consciousness.

  “Kelsey told me to look for you.” The sound of Bryan’s voice sent light prickles up Ivy’s arms. “If you had walked any farther, we’d be in Chatham.”

  “Ivy wanted to be away from people,” Dhanya explained.

  “But not from me,” Bryan said as he laid his towel next to Ivy’s.

  Ivy took her time turning over. “Certainly not from friends. Where’s Kels?”

  “Looking for her sunglasses. Did you have fun at the rink last night?” Bryan’s tone was casual, but his eyes were so attentive, Ivy felt as if he was somehow taking her temperature.

  “Yeah, it’s fun doing a winter sport in the middle of summer.”

  “Then we should do it again soon,” Bryan said. “Did you guys hear about Max’s party tomorrow night?”

  “I talked Chase into going,” Dhanya replied.

  “And Beth, Will, and me,” Ivy said, though it wasn’t Dhanya’s persuasion that had made up her mind. Ivy had realized that it was the perfect opportunity to revisit the scene of the crime, to understand what happened the night Bryan left the party and murdered Luke. Figuring out Bryan’s track, she’d know where else to look for evidence against him.

  Bryan shot her a mocking smile. “Well, what d’ya know. Max will be happy that you’re finally accepting one of his invitations.”

  “Guess it’s time to see what I’m missing. Hey, here comes Kels.” Ivy waved her down.

  “What is this, a camping trip?” Kelsey complained as she dropped her pile of stuff on the other side of Bryan. She was sporting a sleek pair of sunglasses.

  Bryan glanced over his shoulder. “Those look like my driving glasses.”

  “They are,” Kelsey replied. “I must have left mine at Max’s. Look what else I found in your car,” she added in a coy voice.

  After another backward glance, Bryan wrenched around on his towel. Kelsey moved her arm up and away from Bryan, teasing him. “Found it in your backseat.”

  The small object flashed with sunlight, then Ivy got a clear view of the hair fastener, a distinctive triangle with purple wampum beads. She went cold all over. It was Alicia’s—she was wearing it the first time Ivy met her. And she must have been wearing it the night Bryan killed her.

  “I’ll take that,” Bryan said calmly, having recovered from the initial shock.

  “Whose is it?’ Kelsey asked, holding it behind her back.

  “Come on, Kelsey, give it over,” he said, stretching out his hand, palm up. “It’s not yours.”

  “No kidding!” she replied, pulling it out to look at it again, then slipping it into her hair. “It belongs to some girl you were fooling around with in the backseat.”

  Ivy cringed at the truth behind Kelsey’s words.

  “Who is she?” Kelsey demanded. As Bryan reached for her, she rose to her knees. Bryan grabbed a fistful of her hair, but she was quick, removing the clasp before he could.

  “Stop making a scene,” he said. “At school I drive a zillion people around.”

  Ivy’s mind raced. Another piece of evidence. Alicia’s family would identify it. A strand of hair might be caught in it. And Dhanya and Ivy both had heard Kelsey say where it was found—

  “Keep away!” Kelsey cried. “Heads up, Ivy!” She tossed it to her.

  Bryan spun around. His eyes met Ivy’s, the determination in them burning like a dark fire. He’d break her fingers if he had to. But she curled her hand all the tighter around the clasp. She suspected it was Alicia’s favorite, maybe given to her by someone she loved—maybe Luke. Ivy couldn’t let go.

  Bryan moved slowly toward her, his eyes pinned to Ivy, never blinking. She took a step back, then another.

  “Throw it to me,” Kelsey called, thinking it all a game. “Throw it to me again!”

  But Ivy held it behind her back. As Bryan advanced, she knew she didn’t have a chance—she’d lose a race to the inn—but she was beyond logical thinking. She gripped it as if she could protect this one thing precious to Alicia, and took off.

  Bryan must not have expected it. For a moment he stood flat-footed. Then he moved with the speed of an animal predator, catching her easily, holding her tightly against him.

  Kelsey was on them ten seconds later, her laughter replac
ed with anger. “You can’t control yourself, can you, Ivy? You just can’t keep from flirting.”

  “I know who this belongs to. I’m going to return it to her.”

  “Who?” Kelsey asked. “Who’s he been seeing?”

  “A girl who trusted too much.”

  “It’s yours, isn’t it?” Kelsey accused Ivy. “That’s why you’ve been sneaking out at night.”

  “What?!”

  Bryan relaxed his bruising grip, a sardonic smile lighting his face. “Sneaking around, Ivy? Visiting anyone I know?”

  “Kelsey, have you ever seen me wear this?” Ivy demanded. “Have you ever seen anything like this on my bureau or in my jewelry box?”

  Kelsey went through everyone’s bureaus, as readily as she went through Bryan’s car, to see if there was something she wanted to borrow. She thought for a moment. “I—I guess not.” She turned to him with a conspiratorial smile. “On the count of three: I’ll tickle, you grab.”

  Bryan threw Ivy to the ground so fast it knocked her breath away. Kelsey tickled, but it was the strength of his fingers that pried free the clasp. Ivy bit his hand. For a second he let go, and Kelsey snatched it up.

  She ran off, holding it in the air like a trophy, glancing behind her to make sure Bryan was following. He chased her and swept her off her feet. Ivy watched Kelsey laughing and screaming as he flung her over his back and carried her toward the water. She shouted and kicked her feet, but he was strong enough to carry her straight through the breakers. Turning for a moment to gaze at Ivy, he laughed.

  Ivy felt like she was going to throw up, watching him make a joke of dragging someone else into deep water. When she saw Bryan’s arm hurl an object into even deeper ocean, she knew it was the clasp.

  He and Kelsey swam back to a depth where they could stand. He pulled her to him in a passionate kiss.

  Hands shaking, Ivy gathered together her things.

  Dhanya, who had been watching the show in the surf, turned to her with a look of surprise. “Leaving already? Ivy, you’re not really interested in Bryan, are you?”

  “No.” Her anger and frustration made her voice sound clipped. Ivy forced herself to speak more slowly. “Bryan’s definitely not my type.”