Finger Prints (42 page)

“Then I won’t need another identity?”

“Hell, no.” He grinned. “And if you did, I’d take it right along with you.” His arms closed around her and brought her close. “We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.” His tone sobered. “I nearly lost you last night. I’m not planning on doing that ever again.”

Slow tears formed in Carly’s eyes. “Running into you on the walk that night was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Me too, babe. Me too.”

It was days before Carly could sleep through the night without waking in the throes of a nightmare. But, as he had promised, Ryan was always there to hold her tightly and gently talk her out of her terror.

To her relief, there was no mention of the events in Vermont in the Boston papers. When she felt sufficiently strong, Carly phoned her father and, censoring the most gory details, told him what had happened. He took it well, though he insisted on speaking with Ryan, who assured him that Carly was fine. Sensing that with Ryan his daughter was in good hands, John Lyons relaxed.

Carly took the rest of the week off from school, knowing that she would be unable to concentrate. Ryan worked for the most part in the apartment, spending hours on the phone, taking Carly with him when he needed to go into the office for an hour or two. They talked with Tom every day, convinced him to spend the weekend with them in a beachfront cottage on Cape Cod. It was a quiet, restorative time for them all, a time for healing, for counting blessings, for looking toward the future.

Returning to Cambridge on Sunday night, Carly was busy making dinner when she suddenly realized that Ryan had been out of sight for too long. Curious, she wandered through the living room and into the bedroom. At the bathroom door she came to an abrupt halt.

He stood before the sink, the remnants of white lather on his jaw.

Stepping slowly forward, she reached to touch his newly shaved face. Only a mustache remained. At first glance it looked lonesome.

“Well,” he said, eyeing himself critically in the mirror, “what do you think?”

Astounded, Carly took the ends of the towel and gently dabbed at the last of the lather. “I think…you look…as handsome as you did before.”

“Then you like it?” he asked more tentatively, stroking the mustache, then his jaw before he closed his hand over hers.

“I love it.” With every second she looked at him, he seemed to grow more dashing. “But why?”

He turned to her then, taking both of her hands in his and holding them to his chest. His deep brown eyes melted warmly into hers. “Because I have nothing to hide anymore. I want to see my scar.” Only then did her eyes go to the pale ridge that underscored his jaw from ear to chin. “I want
you
to see my scar. It should be a reminder to us that life is never without its risks. Nothing is a given, Carly. We’ve both lived through ordeals, separately and together, and there may be others in the future. But we can’t dwell on them. We’ll learn to live with them, just as I’m going to learn to live with this scar.”

“You look…so different,” she murmured.

“You will too,” he said confidently.

“What do you mean?”

Releasing her hands, he went to the bedroom closet, dug into the pocket of a jacket and returned carrying a small box. “For you.”

Carly stared at the box.

“Go on. Open it.”

Trembling, she carefully lifted the lid, then caught her breath. On a bed of black velvet lay the most exquisite marquis diamond she had ever seen. “Ryan,” she breathed at last and looked up at him again.

“I’ve been carrying it around for days. Had Tom not been with us this weekend, I might have given it to you sooner. Will you wear it, babe? Will you marry me?” Removing the ring from its box, he held it out.

Very slowly, Carly moved her left hand forward until the ring found a perfect niche on her third finger. Then, she threw her arms around Ryan’s neck and in that instant knew that nothing in the world could keep her from this man she loved. Nothing at all.

w
ITHIN A WEEK AFTER, AND INDEPENDENT OF
, the attempt on Carly’s life, motions for a new trial were denied Gary Culbert and Nick Barber. Gary Culbert was subsequently tried and convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder and given a lengthy sentence to be served from and after the original. He served out neither. After three years’ incarceration, he suffered a stroke and was transferred to a state hospital, where he died four months later. It was on that day that the United States Supreme Court denied his last appeal.

Sam Loomis continued to thrive as chief deputy to the U.S. marshal in Boston. Eventually when the United States’ presidency changed hands and political parties, he retired from public service and took a prestigious position as head of security for a large electronics firm in the area. With Carly Quinn’s file going inactive, he and his wife, Ellen, became close friends of the Cornells.

It took some time for Greg Reilly to recover from what he considered a major error in judgment on his part. Only with Sam’s steady encouragement did he continue at his job, and then it was in a sober and dedicated manner. His hard work paid off. After two years and with Sam’s glowing recommendation, he landed a Secret Service post in Washington.

Tom Cornell, badly shaken by Sheila’s death, floundered for several months, keeping the latest of hours with the fastest of women in the hopes of burying his hurt. Realizing at last that he was getting nowhere, he rented out his Winchester home and took a traveling job with an international computer concern. In London some time later, he met a woman who, while not as unconventional as Sheila, was caring enough to restore his faith in the happily ever after.

Three weeks after Ryan proposed, he and Carly were married. It was a simple ceremony witnessed by both the bride’s and groom’s families, as well as by the numerous friends they had quickly come to share. They honeymooned in the Caribbean and returned, gloriously happy, to see to the installation of a large, open spiral staircase connecting upstairs and downstairs.

Though Carly continued to teach, she also began to write. Her earliest works were therapeutic pieces on fear and self-identity, pieces that went no further than Ryan’s eyes and ears. As she regained confidence, though, she broadened her outlook to focus on articles of local interest, which found enthusiastic reception in regional publications. In time she was solicited to do an in-depth biographical study of a prominent member of the Boston community.

It was the start of a new career, and the timing couldn’t have been better. For, after three years of marriage, and with the horrors of the past finally fading, Carly and Ryan had a son. He was a healthy boy, with his father’s thick dark hair and his mother’s bright blue eyes. And he was a joy to them both. Ryan was as attentive a father as he was a husband, loving his law practice but loving coming home more. As for Carly, she was in seventh heaven. What used to be the kitchen of Ryan’s old apartment was converted into a large study for her. She quite happily arranged her writing hours to fit the baby’s schedule, then those of the two other children who came in subsequent years. By that time, the Cornell family was firmly ensconced in a spacious home in Lincoln, with acres of fields, a profusion of maples, oaks and willows, the most beautiful pine grove, and a large golden retriever named Red. The house was modern and sprawling, with a master suite, twin sky-lit studies for Carly and Ryan, and for all the children separate bedrooms, each boasting a large needlepoint hanging with a tiny robin in the corner.

Over the years, many framed photographs joined that of Bonnie and Clyde. There were pictures of Ryan’s family and of Carly’s, many, many of their children, and the largest a portrait of Carly and Ryan on their wedding day. She would pick it up often and study it, mindful of the miracle that had made it possible.

But of the many, many fingerprints that Carly Quinn Cornell was to leave over the years, none were more gentle, more loving, more indelible than those on her husband.

“We have to stop meeting this way,” Ryan would tease in his deep, sexy baritone when, on a spring afternoon, they savored a moment’s privacy in an overgrown corner of their woods.

“Who chased who?” she countered, slipping her arms around his neck as his hands pressed her hips to his.

“
Whom
. And I only wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost.”

She cleared her throat, even then feeling the quickening of her pulse that his body never failed to inspire. “I am getting lost,” she murmured more breathlessly, as she raised her lips to meet his kiss.

It had been that way from the first; it would always be that way. Some things, like fingerprints, never changed.

BARBARA DELINSKY, a lifelong New Englander, was a sociologist and photographer before she began writing. Readers can contact her c/o P.O. Box 812894, Wellesley, MA 02482-0026, or via the Web at
www.barbaradelinsky.com
.

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