Everafter (Kissed by an Angel) (2 page)

“Catch anything?”

Tristan swung around, startled. Lacey sat on an upside-down work bucket, fully materialized.

“A lobster? A murderer?” she asked.

“An angel,” he replied, though her angelic purple shimmer was apparent only in the tint of her long dark hair. Dressed in a tank top and ripped leggings, she didn’t look like a local, but at least she wasn’t wearing one of her theatrical getups. Both as an angel and a B-movie teen star, Lacey had always enjoyed grabbing the attention of an audience.

“You weren’t fishing for me,” she said. “I haven’t heard a syllable from you, and you know that I can’t locate people unless they call to me.”

“You found me anyway,” he pointed out.

“I narrowed it down to two places, hell or here. You landed here, flying like a moth to Ivy’s flame.”

“Have you seen her?” he asked quickly, hoping Lacey had been sticking close to Ivy despite the scorn she usually heaped on their relationship. “How is she?”

“For you, as dangerous as ever.”

“No,” Tristan said firmly. This was why he hadn’t called out to Lacey.

“Tristan, I was there on the bridge with you and Bryan.
I heard the voices. They were as loud as the night Gregory fell to his death. Time may be running out. You need to redeem yourself.”

Tristan gazed at the stars, as if he could read the time off the bright face of heaven’s clock. “Could you tell what the voices were saying?” he asked. For him, they always began the same way, a low murmuring, overlapping waves of menacing voices, their emotions clearer than their words.

“Their words were meant for you.”

“Meaning you couldn’t decipher them,” he guessed.

“And you can?”

He nodded. The words were becoming increasingly clear to him.

“That’s not a good sign! First you’re stripped of your angelic powers; now you’re hearing the words of demons!” But Lacey’s curiosity got the better of her. “What did they say?”

“
Now. Ever. Ours.
And when I was up on the bridge,
Which way?
They kept asking me,
Which way?
”

“Their way,” Lacey said. “Gregory’s way.”

“I have to stop him. He’ll kill Ivy.”

Lacey grabbed Tristan by the shoulders. As solid as the angel looked and felt, her grip lacked strength, and he easily pulled away from her.

“Listen to me, Tristan. It’s you who needs protecting. Go to the police. Turn yourself in as Luke. Let them arrest
you and keep you locked up safe. If Bryan kills you before you’ve redeemed yourself, you’re damned. You’ll be in hell forever.”

“The way to redeem myself is to expel Gregory from this world. I can’t do that from prison.”

“How are you going to get rid of a demon,” she replied sarcastically, “ask him nicely to go home?”

“If Gregory possesses a person’s mind and that person dies, Gregory is banished forever. You told me that yourself.”

“So you’re going to knock somebody off?” She moved her face close to his. “Tristan, you
can’t
kill! You can’t take away life, and you can’t give it back—that’s how you got yourself into this mess. Life, its entrances and exits, is scripted by Number One Director, and he doesn’t take kindly to us lowly actors messing with his stage directions.”

“There’s a way to send Gregory back to hell and keep Ivy safe. There must be. That’s how I’m supposed to redeem myself.”

“No, that’s how you
want
to.”

“I need you to carry a message to Ivy,” he said.

“I won’t.”

Tristan hurried on. “Warn her about Bryan. He boasted of murdering both Alicia and Corinne, as well as leaving that woman to die in the hit-and-run.”

Lacey folded her arms. “The chick’s not dumb. I’m sure she’s figured that out.”

“Okay then, just tell her where I am.”

“No! Your love for Ivy is too great a temptation for you. You’ve proven you can’t handle it. If I’m going to help you—”

“Lacey, I don’t need or want you to save me.”

The angel turned away.

Tristan sighed and reached for her arm. “I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“You’ve been warned,” she said, then faded to a purple haze, blending with the sea mist, and disappeared.

Tristan was on his own. He had to figure out how to reach Ivy. Harder yet, he had to destroy Gregory. That was the only way to keep her safe.

His eyes moved along the shore. In another hour, it would be washed in morning light. “Which way, which way?” he murmured to himself.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, IVY SAT IN HER CAR IN THE
inn’s parking lot and prayed. “Lacey,” she said softly, “where are you? Why haven’t you answered my call?”

A thump against the passenger side of her VW made her turn hopefully.

“Too bad about your car,” Bryan said.

Ivy climbed out slowly and deliberately, determined not to show fear.

He strolled around to the driver’s side. “You’ve got some damage on the side and rear.”

Ignoring him, she shifted the car seat forward, attempting to retrieve her bag of music from the back. He blocked her, using his powerful physique to intimidate.

“Excuse me,” she said firmly.

Lounging against the car, Bryan ran his finger over one of the deep scratches he had made in its paint when chasing Ivy and Tristan to the train bridge. “Your rental company isn’t going to like this.”

“It’ll be fixed before they see it.”

He smiled. “Good girl! You operate the way I do.”

“Not often,” Ivy replied, slinging her bag over her shoulder and moving toward the path that led to the inn and cottage.

He caught up with her. “If you need someone who’d
die
before he’d tell a client’s secret”—Bryan paused, letting his choice of words sink in—“I can recommend a body shop in River Gardens.”

Tony’s
, Ivy thought, where Bryan said he had gotten his car repaired after the hit-and-run.

“It’s no big deal,” she said, pushing ahead on the path.

He caught her by the arm and pulled her back. “I knew I could count on you.”

“For
what
?”

“For seeing that some things aren’t worth getting excited about.”

She lowered her voice in an effort to keep it steady.
“I believe our lists of things that are
worth it
are very different.”

He laughed and let her go. “I bet your list includes people—like friends and roommates.”

Anyone watching them, anyone who didn’t know what she knew about Bryan, would see only the smiling green eyes and playful manners of a guy who liked nothing better than to have a good time.

“You know what I’m capable of, Ivy.” His genial face made his words all the more chilling. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

She wanted to run down the path to the cottage, but she forced herself to walk at an easy pace. “I haven’t said a word to anyone,” she assured him. “But I’m surprised by what you divulged to the police and Kelsey, telling them you were chasing Luke. I can’t believe you called into question Alicia’s death, which they were ready to dismiss as suicide. You’re inviting attention that we could all do without.”

“I had to offer them some excuse after they fished me out of the canal. Those damn helicopters. Too bad they didn’t reel in Luke. He jumped before I did.”

“Did he?” Ivy replied quickly. “Did he swim away?”

“Don’t play dumb, Ivy!”

So maybe Tristan was safe!

“Where is he?” Bryan demanded.

“Several days west of here, I hope.”

They stopped at the end of the path near the large garden that separated the inn from the girls’ cottage.

“No way,” Bryan replied. “Luke’s a stupid homing pigeon, always returning to his nest. He’ll come back to you.”

“But it’s too dangerous for him. Just like it is for you and me,” Ivy added, wanting to make a point. “The police are watching us both very carefully, Bryan.” Right now, it was the only argument she knew that might keep Bryan from killing “Luke” the moment he found him.

“For a while maybe,” he said. “But the police have a short attention span, and you and Luke have no evidence against me. The cufflink’s at the bottom of the canal, the deepest part of it.”

Ivy’s heart fell. Their one piece of evidence, gone.

Bryan leaned close to her, reaching for a lock of her hair, twining it around his finger. “If you want to survive this, if you want Luke to, don’t tell the cops anything. You may think they can protect you. They may tell you they can, but they’re slow and clumsy—and I’m not.”

The cottage door opened. Ivy was glad it was Kelsey who’d spotted them; her roommate’s jealousy would quickly put an end to this conversation.

Bryan let go of Ivy’s hair, then glanced down at her bare arm. “Goose bumps, on a hot day like this!”

Kelsey strode toward them, and Ivy headed for the inn.

Inside the large, square kitchen where the girls and Will began each workday, Beth and Kelsey’s aunt was brewing tea.

“Want some? Apple-cranberry,” she said, brushing back strands of thick red hair that had fallen out of her French braid. “Though I think I could use something stronger than tea.” Her usual crisp button-down shirt was wrinkled. Despite her smile, sun-pinked cheeks, and sprinkle of freckles, she looked exhausted. Food in plastic containers and a key with a large
S
attached to the ring lay on the kitchen table.

“How are the Steadmans?” Ivy asked, guessing it was their key.

“Struggling,” Aunt Cindy replied. “They closed up their beach house today and are returning to Boston.”

Ivy accepted a cup of tea. “I felt so bad for them. When I saw his little brother and sister at the funeral . . .”

Aunt Cindy nodded. “I appreciate the way you girls and Will have pitched in around here the last several days, especially without Beth.”

“No problem.”

“As soon as Beth gets back,” Aunt Cindy continued, “I want to give Will, Dhanya, and Kelsey some extra days off. How are you holding up?”

“Great,” Ivy replied, despite her own sleepless nights.
“I had my extra days off. And we’ve got the routine down now, which makes it much easier.”

Aunt Cindy nodded, then carried the Steadmans’ key over to the pegboard of room duplicates. “Almost forgot to tell you,” she said, glancing at the staff mailboxes, “I took a phone message for you.”

“My mother?” Only their parents were allowed to call on the inn’s landline.

Aunt Cindy smiled and returned to the table. “No, a gentleman caller.”

“Oh, sorry,” Ivy said quickly.

“That’s okay. He had such a nice voice, I wished he were calling me. Billy . . . Billy Bigelow.”

Ivy caught her breath. When she and Tristan were getting to know each other, he had told her that he, too, enjoyed “classical music”—only his idea of classical music wasn’t Mozart or Mahler, but Broadway shows from his parents’ collection of musicals.
Carousel
was a favorite, and Billy Bigelow was the romantic lead in the story. Tristan had given himself an alias he knew she’d recognize!

Ivy quickly crossed the kitchen to the wooden cubbyholes and picked up the message slip.

Time: 6:10 p.m.

To: Ivy

From: Billy Bigelow

(203) 555-0138

Vacationing here a few days, borrowing a boat on Nauset Harbor.

Come by when you’re free.

“I take it from the glow on your face that this is an invitation you’ve been hoping for,” Aunt Cindy said. “A sweetheart from home?”

Ivy tucked the note in her pocket, smiling. “You might say that!”

TRISTAN SAT ON THE FLOOR OF THE WHEELHOUSE,
watching the eastern sky darken, listening and waiting. With his leap into the canal, he had lost Ivy’s number, but the Orleans information booth had listed the Seabright Inn, and he’d talked a kid into lending his phone. The last four digits of the number he’d left for Ivy matched the last four of the boat’s registration, painted on the bow.

Lying back, hands behind his head, lulled by the water’s rhythmic lapping, Tristan fell asleep. He awoke to the whistled melody of a song from
Carousel.
Scrambling to his feet, he whistled back and heard a light bump against the side of the fishing boat. He climbed over a jumble of crusted wire traps. Ivy smiled up at him from the kayak,
her hair a gold tangle sparkling with sea mist.
Half mermaid, half angel
, he thought. For a moment they just gazed at each other.

“Billy Bigelow?” she asked.

He laughed, and felt the laughter in every part of his body, the way he always did with her. “I knew you’d find me.”

“Permission to board, sir?”

He tossed her a rope and she handed him an oar, then a backpack. When he reached for her, she sprang easily onto the deck. Pulling her close, he buried his face in her damp hair, then kissed the high line of her cheekbone. His mouth found hers in a sweet kiss. “I missed you,” he said, losing the last of those words in another, deeper kiss.

He felt her shiver and wrapped his arms around her tightly, as if he could keep all that was evil away from her, as if he could hold them together forever.

“I love you, Ivy.”

“I love you, Tristan.” They kissed again. “I was so afraid,” she said. “You could have drowned!”

“
Drowned
—with you as my swim coach?” he teased.

She laughed and rested her head against his chest.

“I was closer to shore than Bryan,” Tristan said, “and I had swum farther downstream from the bridge. Once the
police were busy with pulling him out, it was easy for me to slip ashore.”

“He said the cufflink is gone. He knew we had it.”

“I think he’d trailed us to Gran’s. On the bridge, he demanded it.” Tristan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When he caught up with me, I threw it over his head, so he’d chase it. . . . I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? No! It was smart,” Ivy insisted. “He would have killed you on the spot. We’ll find some other piece of evidence.”

Tristan shook his head; the truth was the truth. “We’ve already searched Corinne’s room at home from top to bottom. And her apartment was ransacked.”