Meet Me in Venice (32 page)

She took a sip of the wine and waited for him to go on.

“They found Leilani’s jacket,” he said, “washed up on the beach not too far from here. A padded red winter jacket. ‘It was summer and the night your wife disappeared was warm,’ the detective said to me. ‘Why do you think she would have been wearing such a jacket?’ I said I didn’t know, it was a puzzle. ‘Perhaps it was because, with the padding, it holds water better, makes it easier to drown someone,’ the cop said.”

Preshy drew in a sharp nervous breath.

“I said I supposed it did.” Sam took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “ ‘I’ll remember that for my next book,’ I said. And then they showed me what they had found, zippered in the pocket.” He held out his left hand to show her. His eyes met Preshy’s. “Leilani’s wedding ring. Exactly like mine.”

She covered his hand protectively with hers. He was a man being destroyed before her very eyes. “She must have taken it off before . . .” She stopped, not wanting to say it, watching as Sam got up.

“I’m going out for a walk.” He rummaged in the closet for a jacket. “I’ll be back later,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

Worried, Preshy called Daria. “I’m here with Sam,” she said.

“I know, Sylvie told me.” Daria sounded upset. “So what is it this time, Presh? Is it love?”

“I’m still nervous when I think about ‘love.’ But I’ve never felt like this before, so . . . sort of caring, concerned, so
involved
with a man. Can this be love, Daria?”

“Maybe. And now what?”

“I have to help him. Oh, Daria, you never saw a man more devastated, and now the cops are hounding him because they found his wife’s jacket on the beach with her wedding ring in the pocket. They think he killed her, and Sam knows it. And I don’t know what to do.”

“Why not just go home, sweetheart,” Daria said gently. “Work out your own emotions and let Sam work out his own fate.”

But Preshy knew better than that. She knew what she was feeling was real. “I’ll stick with him to the end,” she said. Because that was what he had done for her.

And she knew he would do it again. He was her savior, her hero. And she wished he was her lover. But that might never be.

S
AM
strode along the hard-packed sand at the very edge of the sea where the waves foamed over his boots and the sandpipers scattered in front of him. He was alone with the roar of the ocean and the plaintive cry of the birds wheeling overhead, with the boom of the surf on the sandbanks and the creaking of the leafless trees. And always the roar of the wind. It was wild, elemental, all noise and power. The power of the ocean.

Turning up the collar of his jacket, he strode on. Leilani was gone. He would never see her again and his heart would bear the scar forever. No matter what happened, he would have to leave this place he loved. It could never be the same without her.

The Shanghai temple fortune-teller’s face came into his mind, clear as a photograph. “I’m searching for two people,” Sam had
said to him. “I want to know if I’ll find them.” The fortuneteller’s words rang in his ears once again. “The first person you seek is a woman. And the answer lies in your own soul,” he had replied. Sam had been asking about Leilani. And he knew in his heart that what the man had said was true. Now he searched his own soul, asking where he had gone wrong, how he had let her down.

Thrusting his hands deeper into the jacket pockets, he emptied his head of all thoughts until he seemed at one with the elements, adrift on the wind and with only the roar of the ocean for company. His left hand closed around something deep down in the crease of the pocket. A piece of paper.

Some old receipt, he thought, taking it out and crumpling it, ready to be thrown away. But then he saw it was a piece of green paper, the kind Leilani always used. Green was Leilani’s favorite color, she said she found it soothing. He also saw she had written something on it. His name was at the top.

Sam folded her note carefully. He put it back in his pocket, where she must have left it, expecting him to find it right away
because he always wore that jacket when he took the dog for walks along the beach. And she would have wanted to make sure only he found it and read it. Her message was meant only for him.

Hands thrust in his pockets, he strode along the beach where the wind dried his tears. When he came to the place Leilani had mentioned, where the sandbank was uncovered as it was now, at low tide, he stopped to look.

The tide was turning and as he watched the first wave powered over the sandbank, then retreated again, leaving it clean and empty.

Tears stung his eyes. “I loved you, Leilani,” he shouted into the wind. “I will never forget you.”

P
RESHY
saw from Sam’s face when he walked in the door that something had happened. She watched anxiously, as he took off his jacket and threw it onto a chair. He took the folded piece of green paper from the pocket and stood with it in his hand looking at her.

“This was meant only for me,” he said quietly. “But I think you are owed some explanation.”

She took the letter, still looking at his weary face. All the life seem to have drained out of his eyes and suddenly she knew why. “It’s from Leilani, isn’t it?” she said.

He nodded. “She left it in my jacket pocket, thinking I would find it right away. It was crushed into a fold and somehow the
cops missed it.” He walked to the fireplace and threw on another log, kicking it until it sparked. “Please, read it,” he said.

Preshy walked to the window and began to read. When she had finished, she stood for a long moment, struggling with her emotions. “But why?
Why?”
she said fiercely at last. “She had everything to live for.”

Sam threw himself into a chair. “Manic depression is a serious illness. Leilani told me she was taking her medication, but . . .” He shrugged. “It seems she was not.”

Preshy went and knelt at his feet, looking anxiously at him. “You have your answer now, though. The police won’t ask any more questions once they read this.”

“But they never will read it.”

“What do you mean? Of course you’ll show them her letter.”

“No!” His response was fierce. “I won’t have them reading Leilani’s last words. They were meant only for me.”

She leaned her head tenderly against his knee. “It’s the only way out, Sam,” she said gently. “You have to do this.”

Shrugging her off he got up and began to prowl the room. “I didn’t expose Leilani’s illness, her vulnerability to the cops before, and I won’t do it now.”

“But you must,” she said stubbornly. “It’s serious, Sam. You saw
how
serious this afternoon when they questioned you. If you don’t show them the letter then they’ll arrest you for her murder. And that’s not what Leilani meant to happen. You
know
it isn’t.

Their eyes linked for a long moment, then he sighed and said of course she was right.

She walked to the kitchen and filled two wineglasses with the Carolina red, then went back to him.

“We’re going to drink a toast,” she said as he took the glass from her.

He knew what she was going to say and he said it for her. “To my beloved wife, Leilani,” he said. “A graceful presence in my life.”

And they raised their glasses to her, and drank.

S
AM
called the police. He showed them Leilani’s letter and they checked it against other samples of her handwriting. They gave him back the red jacket and the wedding ring, said they were sorry for his loss, and that the case was now closed. It was over so quickly, it was almost as though it never happened.

Preshy stayed on at the beach house with Sam. They were comfortable together, friends, bickering gently as they always did, but easy now, no longer sparring partners. They took long windy walks, cooked simple meals, drank wine by the fire and talked endlessly into the night. She told him stories of her life, and listened to stories of his. It was as though they had known each other forever, linked as they were by tragedy.

Time passed, a few days, then a week . . . More. But Preshy
knew she couldn’t stay here, in limbo, a friend but not a lover. She must go back to Paris.

Then late one afternoon, Sam grabbed her by the hand and said, “Let’s take a walk, catch the sunset.”

For once the wind had dropped and all was calm. Even the sea murmured now, instead of roaring the way it always had. Terns swooped over the waves and the air carried a hint of brine and of sea pines. Sam’s hand still clasped hers, and she felt its comforting warmth as they climbed the sand dunes until they came to a sheltered hollow. He let go of her then and flung himself down, lying, hands behind his head, looking up at her.

“Come join me,” he said, smiling.

And so she did, lying next to him, matching her length against his as they lay together, staring up into the golden evening sky, tinged with coral from the setting sun. Too soon it was over. The sun had gone, and so, Preshy knew, had her time with Sam. She would have to return home.

“Rafferty?”

She turned her face to his. “Yes?”

“You’re a good friend.”

She nodded. “I’m glad.”

“But . . .”

She waited, but he didn’t go on. “But—what?”

“I’m afraid to say this—in case I spoil our friendship.”

She sat up now, staring at him. “Say . . . what?”

“I think I’m in love with you, Rafferty.”

“Ohhhh . . .” Her face lit in a smile. “And I think I’m in love with you too.”

“Could it be the real thing, do you think?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.” Then she grinned. “But I don’t care.”

He grinned back at her. “Nor do I. I was just testing the water, leaving myself a way out in case you said no. Because you see I know I love you. You’re unique, one of a kind, a girl in a million. Don’t leave me, Rafferty, I’d never find another like you.”

“Ohhh,” she murmured again, but by now her lips were only inches away from his. And then his arms were around her and he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back. The cold sand trickled down the neck of her sweater, but his warm hands were underneath, as he pulled her even closer. She didn’t even mind the sand in her hair. Because this was what it was all about. The tentative beginnings of “love.”

They made love for the first time under the starry evening sky, with only the sound of the sea and the breeze brushing their naked bodies and only the first stars to watch over them. It was, Preshy thought, a fine beginning.

Later that night, they sat out on the enclosed porch, glasses of wine in their hands, watching the great gray waves rolling endlessly in, while the softer wind rustled through the tamarisks. “I have a confession to make,” she said worriedly.

“Oh? And what could that be?” He was smiling as he turned to look at her.

Shamefaced, she said, “I suspected you had something to do with Lily’s death. I thought you might even know Bennett, be involved. Of course I didn’t really know you then,” she added hurriedly, making him laugh.

“So just don’t do it again,” he said.

“I won’t,” she promised.

“Is that it?”

“My confession, you mean? Yes, that’s all.”

“Okay. I’ll forgive you. Under the circumstances,” he said, and then he laughed. “Come on, Rafferty. It’s okay. You had every right to wonder what I was up to. But now it’s over.”

“Yes,” she agreed, feeling relief sweep over her again. The past was truly the past now, and life must go on.

“What will you do now?” she asked.

He thought about it. “I’ll sell this place. I’ll move on, maybe get another boat, another dog . . . try my hand at writing again.”

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

He turned his head to look at her.

“What about you?”

“Oh.” She lifted a shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “I guess I’ll just go home. Back to Paris.”

“The most beautiful city in the world.” Their eyes linked. He reached out his hand, took hers. “Don’t leave me, Rafferty,” he said, quietly.