Authors: Antoinette Stockenberg
Embers (15 page)
Allie emptied the dustpan into a waste basket.
"
He
'
s
not
still in love with his ex-wife, if that
'
s what you
'
re thinking,
"
she said quickly.
"
That I know. She
'
s remarried and lives in
California
and he seems okay about it. He said she always wanted to live in the suburbs anyway, and they don
'
t let you do that if you
'
re a city cop.
"
"
There are other possibilities, Allie. Maybe there
'
s a girlfriend. Maybe you
'
re too young. Maybe he doesn
'
t like flings. Maybe he
'
s gun-shy. Maybe you
'
re too pretty. Maybe he
'
s afraid to come near.
"
Of all the reasons that Meg rattled off, the last was the one that, wouldn
'
t you know it, managed to sink in.
"
Afraid? Of what? It
'
s not like we
'
re Mafia. Who would scare him off, anyway? Dad? Not in a million
—
you! Meg! How
could
you?
"
Allie cried, flinging the dustpan to the floor. It bounced with a jarring, metallic clang, a call to arms.
Meg sighed and bit her lip. All their lives they
'
d fought this battle of Meg-knows-best.
"
Allie, listen to me; I did
not
scare him away,
"
she said, taking her sister by her arm. But Allie yanked it free and turned away from her.
"
Okay,
"
said Meg.
"
Be that way. All I told him was
...
all I said was
...
oh, hell, I don
'
t remember exactly. But basically it was to go slow because you were dear to us. Is that so awful?
"
She held her arms up in a gesture of frustration, then let them flop to her sides.
Allie ran her hands through her long black hair, apparently toying with the thought of tearing it out. She turned to her sister in a blaze of violet-eyed fury.
"
You don
'
t get it, do you, Ms. Corleone! This is
serious.
Tom Wyler
matters.
No one else
does.
No one! And right now that includes
—
"
Allie bit off the finish, turned, and marched out of the shed, slamming the door on her sister.
Meg stood there, shocked. This was new, this fierceness. Meg and Allie had arm wrestled over many things in her life, from curfews to colleges. But Meg had never seen such hostility in her sister
'
s eyes before. It sickened her to think that they were being driven apart by someone who didn
'
t even exist for them two weeks ago.
This one
is di
fferent,
she remembered Allie
'
s saying on the night he arrived. God, how could she have known so fast? How could anyone know? Obviously Tom Wyler wasn
'
t rushing into anything. Whether it was because he wasn
't interested
—
ha!
—
or whether it was because Meg had scared him off, he was definitely taking his time.
And that was fanning Allie
'
s interest into a blaze the size of the Bar Harbor Fire.
****
When Meg finally got the call from Orel Tremblay
'
s nurse that he was alert enough to see her, it was late in the afternoon. In ten minutes she was standing on his front steps, a pot of red geraniums in her arms, knocking gently on his door. The nurse let her in; immediately Meg knew that something had changed. She could see it in the sad smile on the nurse
'
s face, hear it in her muted footfalls as she led Meg into the darkened room where the old man lay dying.
That he was dying, she had no doubt. He
'
d lost more weight: his cheeks were pale and sunken under the white straggle of beard that had been allowed, like his front lawn, to grow unchecked. His hospital gown hung loosely on his wasted body. It seemed hard to believe that his collarbone, so clearly outlined, would not pierce his skin. There was so little left to him. If she had wanted to, Meg could
'
ve counted every bone in his hand.
And his eyes: they seemed to see her, and yet they didn
'
t. He was focused on something else now, something that he alone could see hovering at the foot of his bed.
"
Mr. Tremblay,
"
she said with infinite tenderness,
"
I
'
ve come to thank you. For your gift. I
...
I know what it means to you. I understand.
"
He didn
'
t turn to look at her, but only moved his head in a whisper of a nod.
"
I believe your story, Mr. Tremblay. I won
'
t stop until I prove it
'
s true.
"
He closed his eyes; they stayed closed. She had a moment of sinking panic, until a tear slipped away from under his eyelid and trickled across his cheek, along his ear. And then he opened his eyes again, and turned his head to look at her, and tried to say something through another glaze of tears. But the words wouldn
'
t come. He turned back to stare at whatever it was that Meg was still too alive to see.
She lifted a chair as if it were made of spun glass and placed it gingerly next to his bed. Then she took his bony, silken hand in both of hers, and held it until the sun went down, and a little beyond. Only once during that time did she speak. After the nurse looked in and took his pulse and left, Meg whispered to him,
"
It
'
s safe with me. I promise.
"
She felt a pressure under her hand as if a tiny bird, a finch, perhaps, had fluttered its wings there. And when he died, she thought she heard the soft, quick flutter of that same bird pass close.
8
T
om Wyler didn
'
t have the faintest idea what to wear to a séance. Dark and formal? Light and casual? He settled on a tie and blazer, but then he took off the tie. And then the blazer.
If word got back to the precinct that he
'
d sat around a table holding hands with a bunch of flakes, he was dead meat for sure; the guys would never let him hear the end of it. Not that he had any great grudge against psychics. The Boston P.D. had used them in their hunt for the Strangler, and so had
L.A.
, when they
'
d run out of leads in the
Hillside
case.
He thought of Meg Hazard and her burning need to know the truth about her grandmother. Too bad she
'
d decided not to come tonight. Granted, the séance route was a little serendipitous, but it was one way for Meg to get her answer: summon the lady and ask her herself.
He came out of his room wearing chinos and a polo shirt and whistling a half tune, only to find that everyone was already gathered in the grandly furnished parlor of the Elm Tree Inn. The Sunset Room, as Julia Talmadge liked to call it, had a different look now that its three bay windows were walled in by drapes; tonight it seemed more claustrophobic than cozy. The side buffet, normally covered with an array of wines and cheeses before dinner each evening, was covered instead with lighted candles, some in brass holders, some in silver, some in crystal.
A dozen candles burning, and not a bite to eat.
Already he was disappointed.
He smelled a smoky something that at first he thought was pot, and wondered whether he was going to have to bust them all right then and there. But it turned out to be some pungent herbal incense.
Terrific,
he thought.
A bunch of
Native American
wannabes.
It was going to be a long night.
Still, there was Allie, beautiful and somehow appropriate in a simple blouse of diaphanous white that she wore over a long black skirt. Her hair was pulled back in a twist, leaving a halo of ebony around the pale perfection of her face. She wore surprisingly red lipstick.
"
Hey there,
"
he murmured when she came up to him with an amusing, vampy smile.
"
How did I ever let you talk me into this?
"
"
Oh, we
'
ll have fun,
"
she whispered.
"
You
'
ll see.
"
Wyler had no doubt that she was right. Everything Allegra Atwells chose to do had a fun quotient built into it. Her energy was as boundless as her imagination. It was incredibly flattering that she expected him to keep up with her on either front.
He was introduced to the company. Besides Allie and Julia, there were a dozen others scattered around the room. Their leader was named Zenobia and was the innkeeper Julia
'
s age, about sixty. The rest of the group, mostly women, ranged in age from twenty to seventy. Everyone was relaxed and comfortable with one another; obviously they were old hands at this.
The oldest guests were in the softest seats. The middle-aged ones were standing or sitting in rush-seated chairs, while several of the limber ones had plopped down on the red Persian rug th
at dominated the room. Zenobia
suggested that Allie pull out the bench from under the grand piano and sit there. Wyler was told to take up a position between her and a potted
palm. He noticed that the others formed a vaguely circular pattern, and that he and Allie were positioned outside it. Well, whatever worked.
"
I can
'
t believe your sister is skipping such a quick and easy way to find out if you-
know-who is guilty of you-know-
what,
"
he murmured in Allie
'
s ear.
Allie didn
'
t think much of his irreverence; a sharp elbow in h
is thigh made that clear to him. "Don'
t make fun; you remind me of Meg. Be more open to things, why don
'
t you,
"
she said in a scandalized mutter.
Okay, so he was acting like a high-school dufus. It was a defensive reaction, of course; he was embarrassed to be
t
here. Chastened, he settled down and decided to give Zenobi
a
—
first name, last name, he hadn
'
t a clue
—
his undivided attention.
Zenobia was not only Julia
'
s age but, he felt sure, of similar background. Her silk paisley tunic was a little more fey than Julia
'
s button-front skirt and linen blouse, and her hair, gray and permed into long frizzles, gave her a touch of the aging hippie. New Age or old, Zenobia had the ease and poise of a woman who
'
d never had to ride a bus in her life and who still paid the dues at her country club. Oh, yeah. He
'
d seen the type.
Zenobia and Julia finished up a conversation they were having about how much peanut butter to put in chili, which gave the moment a kind of hopelessly surreal quality, and then the innkeeper turned off the lights and the psychic got down to business.
Zenobia had a wonderful voice, that was the first thing Wyler noticed: warm and relaxed and completely reassuring. She had a way of making all of them, including him, feel as if they were puppies in an animal shelter and she was looking to adopt. You wanted her just to pack you up and take you home.
"
I want to thank our hostess Julia Talmadge,
"
Zenobia began,
"
for making our first day here so delightful. Really, it
'
s been
so
nice. Bar Harbor is a charming seaside town, and we look forward to exploring
Acadia
Park
tomorrow. But
...
for now, for tonight, I
'
d like us to just take a moment and think: why is it that we are all here?
