A shadow crosses his face.
He knows, she thinks. He knows I’m going to ask about Katherine.
Still, his tone is light when he says, “Is that so? Then you must be going back quite a few years, ma’am. I haven’t known anyone over in that area for a long, long time. Haven’t even been there in years.”
“It was a long time ago,” she agrees, wishing she had never come. Here’s a widower who hasn’t even shed his wedding ring long enough to erase its mark on his finger, and a total stranger comes poking around, dredging up his romantic past, asking him about an old flame he’d probably rather forget.
Unless he’s still in touch with her.
That hope—and the thought of Nan Biddle wasting away in that dim back bedroom—allows Pilar to push forward with her query. “I heard you used to date a girl named Katherine Biddle, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Yup.” He smiles, but there’s no mirth in it. “How did I know you were going to say that? Maybe I’m psychic, like Kathy’s old man said he was.”
Lincoln’s phrasing and his tone indicate to Pilar that he’s skeptical about Rupert’s mediumship. Okay, well, perhaps that’s how he alienated Rupert.
“How did you hear about me and Kathy, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“One of the Lily Dale old-timers mentioned it.”
“Then it sure as hell wasn’t Rupert or Nan. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve never mentioned my name again.”
“No, it wasn’t them.” Pilar hesitates. “I take it you didn’t get along with Katherine’s parents?”
Lincoln Reynolds doesn’t mince words. “They hated me. Especially her old man. They’re the reason I lost Kathy.”
“Why?”
“Because I was dirt poor. Always was, and pretty likely always would be. But Kathy didn’t care. There I was, getting shipped off to Vietnam, with her promising to wait for me so we could get married the second I get back. I even gave her an engagement ring. I was too broke to buy one, but my mom had an antique platinum and diamond ring she had inherited from her aunt. It was the one nice piece of jewelry she ever had. I never even saw her wear it—she was afraid she’d lose it, she said. But she offered it to me to give to Kathy. She said we could have it reset, and that’s what I told Kathy when I gave it to her. But she was thrilled with the ring just the way it was. Told me she’d never take it off. Next thing I know, I’m sitting in some stinking jungle reading a Dear John letter from her.”
Pilar doesn’t know what to say, other than to repeat her earlier murmured apology.
“I’m sorry, too,” Lincoln tells her, sending a small chunk of rock skittering across the dirt driveway with the toe of his work boot.
“Did she send the ring back to you?”
“No. She didn’t mention it at all, in the letter. When I got home, years later, I asked my mother if she wanted me to try and get the ring back from Kathy. It was worth a lot of money—and we never had any. But she said to forget about it. She knew I would never give it to anyone else, and that it would only bring back bad memories.”
“I’m surprised Katherine didn’t return the ring to your family.”
“So am I. I loved her. She said she loved me. I believed her when she said she’d wait for me. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I still think she really did love me. A girl can’t fake that. When we were together, she acted the same way Corinne did, later, when I met her—Corinne is my wife. Was,” he amends, looking down at his boots.
Pilar’s heart aches for this man. But she can’t lose sight of why she’s here. She needs to get to the point and get out of here, leaving him to his laundry and his losses:
“Mr. Reynolds, do you know where I can find Katherine Biddle?”
He looks up, clearly surprised. “Do I know where you can find her? Hell, no. You think she ever got in touch with me again?”
“She never did?”
He shakes his head. “I wrote to her a bunch of times. The letters always came back, stamped Refused. One of my buddies who stayed around here told me he heard Kathy’s parents sent her off to some big fancy boarding school in New York City. When I got back from ’Nam, I went over there to Lily Dale, to talk to them. Figured maybe I could get them to at least tell me where she was, so I could talk to her. I guess by that time I knew it was a lost cause, me and her. But I needed—what do they call it? Closure.” He snorts. “Closure. Her old man gave me closure, all right. He closed the door in my face.”
“And the only reason he didn’t like you was that you were poor?” Pilar finds that hard to believe. Rupert isn’t the warmest man in the world, but his standoffishness never struck her as snobbery.
“Yup. He thought I wasn’t good enough for her. My family was dirt poor. He thought his daughter deserved better than a local yokel farmer. Told me that to my face more than once. Kathy told me not to let it bother me. Said she’d do what she pleased. But once I was gone, they got to her.”
“So she’s never tried to see you, when she comes back from New York to visit Nan and Rupert? Not even after all these years?”
“Nah.” He shakes his head. “Would you? Look around you. This is all I ever had to offer her. It wasn’t enough. Not for her.”
Again, Pilar finds herself at a loss for words in the face of his stark pain.
“It was different with Corinne. Her parents were farmers, too, over in Cherry Creek. She never expected anything more than I could give her. Lost her in an accident last July. We were driving on a back road late at night. We never went out at night. I told her I was too tired, but she wanted to go visit her sister. I fell asleep at the wheel and rammed the car into a tree. I walked away without a scratch.”
“My God,” Pilar murmurs, suddenly struck by an image. Looking at Lincoln Reynolds, she sees the figure of a woman standing beside him. She has tired eyes, and blond hair with dark roots, pulled back in a ponytail. She’s holding something toward him. It’s a white box with writing on it. Pilar strains to see what it is.
“What’s the matter?” Lincoln asks, watching Pilar. He turns to look where she’s looking. There’s nothing there but the empty laundry basket.
“I’m just wondering . . . do you like those chocolate Hostess cupcakes, Mr. Reynolds? The kind with the squiggly white lines in the frosting?”
“How’d you know that?” He frowns. “I was just thinking about those last night. My wife used to buy them for me.”
“I thought so.” Pilar closes her eyes, tuned in to the energy of Corinne Reynolds.
“What are you doing? Are you okay?”
Puzzled, Pilar looks at him again. “I’m a medium, Mr. Reynolds.” Catching the expression on his face, she quickly says, “Before you interrupt, can I just pass something along to you? It doesn’t make sense to me, but . . . anyway, your wife says you shouldn’t have thrown away the cinnamon. The other stuff was okay to toss, but not the cinnamon. Do you understand that?”
His jaw drops.
“She’s saying that you could probably manage to make yourself cinnamon toast, at least.” Pilar smiles. “My guess is that she’s joking around with you, Mr. Reynolds. I get the impression you’re not much of a cook?”
He shakes his head, speechless.
Pilar watches the image of his wife fade away as her energy evaporates simultaneously.
“She’s still with you, Mr. Reynolds,” she says softly.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say.” He pauses. “I never believed in that stuff.”
“Do you believe it now?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
There’s a long silence. It’s peaceful here, Pilar thinks, looking around. Nothing around but the farmhouse and the barn and a couple of old sheds, and acres of farmland. Not another house in sight.
“Do you want to come in?” the man asks suddenly, as though he should have thought of it before. “I don’t have any . . . lemonade, or anything . . . but if you want . . .”
S
he shakes her head at his awkward invitation, thinking about what Christina and Tom would say about that. They’re always saying she has to be careful now that she’s alone. They wouldn’t approve of her going into an isolated house with a stranger, especially when she didn’t bother to tell a soul where she’s gone this afternoon.
Not that there’s anything the least bit sinister about Lincoln Reynolds, but you never know. She still isn’t clear on exactly what happened between him and Katherine in the past. For all she knows, he was abusive to the girl and that’s the reason Rupert went to such extremes to keep them apart.
Lincoln looks disappointed. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?”
“I should go. I have some appointments scheduled this afternoon.” She jangles her keys, turning back toward the car door.
“Can I ask you something before you leave?”
“Sure.” Pilar pauses with her hand on the door handle.
“Why are you trying to get in touch with Kathy?”
“Because her mother is seriously ill. Terminally ill. I thought Katherine might want to know.”
He doesn’t seem particularly disturbed by that news. There is clearly no love lost between him and Nan, whether or not she was as instrumental to the breakup as her husband was.
“Don’t Rupert and Nan know where she is, then?” Lincoln asks.
“It’s complicated,” Pilar says, not wanting to go into it. “I thought maybe I could find her through you. Nobody else in Lily Dale seems to know exactly where she is.”
“Do me a favor, Ms. Velazquez. If you find Kathy, tell her where I am. Tell her I wouldn’t mind hearing from her.”
Pilar gets into her car and gives him a little wave. “I’ll do that.”
She can see Lincoln Reynolds in her rearview mirror, standing absolutely still as he watches her drive away.
JULIA RUNS THE brush through Dulcie’s long hair, crimped from the braids she just removed. “Do you want me to put it up in a bun, sweetie?”
“Whatever you want,” Dulcie tells her, sitting absolutely still beside Julia on the bed.
It was her idea to have Julia do her hair again, while Paine works on the shower head in the bathroom. They can hear him clanking away on the pipes down the hall. Julia wonders why he’s so determined to install it if he’s only going to sell the house anyway, but she hasn’t asked him that.
He was pretty quiet on the ride home from Chautauqua just now. Dulcie did most of the talking, asking Julia to come back to their house with them so that she could read her the storybooks they bought yesterday at the Book Nook. Only now that they’re home, she claims she doesn’t feel like reading.
“Can you stay for dinner, Julia?” Dulcie asks as Julia gently untangles a snarled strand of silky blond hair.
“I don’t think so, sweetie.”
“Do you have another date with that guy, Andy?”
Andy. He hasn’t entered Julia’s mind all afternoon. Now the thought of him fills her with apprehension. Their date last night went smoothly despite her misgivings. But she could feel her grandmother’s presence all night; could sense her displeasure that Julia went ahead with dating Andy after all. Why? What is it about him that Grandma doesn’t like?
It isn’t that Julia’s head over heels for him—but maybe she can be, if she lets herself.
If Grandma lets me.
It’s hard enough for a young, single medium to have a love life around here without input from a nagging grandmother on the Other Side.
“No, Dulcie, I don’t have a date with Andy tonight,” Julia says. He’s giving a workshop all day. She planned to go to it until Paine and Dulcie invited her to Chautauqua. She knows Andy doesn’t mind that she’s not there. He says he’s more comfortable in front of an audience full of strangers, that seeing familiar faces is a distraction.
“Good,” Dulcie says. “Then you can stay for dinner.”
“Actually, I can’t. I have to be at a message service in a little while, and I have an appointment scheduled after that.” It’s for a group reading—a trio of neighbors from Erie, all of them widows. They do this several times each season, and Julia has managed to connect with all of their husbands at one time or another.
“But you’re coming tomorrow, right?” Dulcie asks. “When Daddy goes back to Chautauqua?”
“I’ll be here,” Julia says. She was a bit taken aback when Paine asked her to baby-sit. She really should be working. But she only has appointments scheduled in the morning, and he isn’t leaving until after lunch. Besides, there really isn’t anybody else he can ask.
“Maybe I’ll have your bracelet finished by then,” Dulcie says. “I worked on it for a little while this morning.”
Julia smiles.
For a few seconds, the room is silent.
Then Julia hears the scream.
The burst of music.
They aren’t alone.
Julia stiffens, the brush poised at the bottom of a strand of Dulcie’s hair.
She can feel the familiar presence seeping into the room, this time more powerful than ever before.
Who are you? Julia demands silently, willing herself to receive the energy. Why are you here?
It comes to her in a rush.
But, as often happens, she doesn’t get the whole thing. Only a fragment. The beginning and the ending.
Just enough to realize that the name starts with a K sound and ends with an N.
“KATHERINE. . . .”
Seated beside the bed, Rupert looks up sharply from the Sunday Times. Nan’s head is turned toward the open window. He suddenly notices a strong fragrance in the room—flowers wafting in on the breeze. Something must be in bloom right outside the window, Rupert thinks vaguely as he rises and touches Nan’s hand gently.
“It’s okay, Nan,” he says, unable to see from this angle whether his wife’s eyes are open, but certain she’s not awake. “Shhh.”
“Katherine . . .” Nan’s head thrashes right and left.
He was right. She’s asleep.
“Shhh,” he says again. “It’s only a nightmare. It isn’t real. Wake up, darling. Everything is all right.”
Nan’s eyes open, drift closed again, open. This time they stay focused widely on Rupert’s face.
“It’s all right,” he repeats in a soothing voice. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
“Katherine.” This time, it’s a sigh.
“What about her, Nan?”
“Need to . . . see her . . .”
“She’s not here, darling.”
Nan’s eyes are already fluttering closed again.
Rupert strokes the turban above her forehead, where her blond hair once was. She had the most beautiful hair. It was like sunlight. Even after it mixed with gray and she took to having it dyed at the beauty parlor. Somehow, the stylist managed to recapture her natural color.
Nan was so proud of her hair. Of her looks. The first time Rupert saw her, out on the stoop in front of the building on Stratford Avenue, he was captivated by her air of sophistication. Everything about her was classy. Only later did he find out that she made her own clothes—some of them from scraps—hand-stitching the seams in the bedroom she shared with three younger sisters and a colicky infant brother.
Rupert wonders whatever became of the rest of them—Nan’s siblings, and her mother. Nothing much, he’d be willing to bet. Nan never regretted the choice her mother had forced her to make. She and Rupert have had a good life together.
And it’s not over yet.
He’s got to call his broker first thing on Monday morning and see about cashing out some of his investments. Maybe Paine Landry will budge if he offers a cash bonus. . . .
Nan’s hands make a restless motion on top of the extra blanket Rupert threw over her a while ago.
Rupert stares at the repetitive movement. It looks as if she were holding a shovel. Digging.
“Are you in your garden, darling?” he whispers softly, stroking her head. “Is that where y
ou are?”
The reply is a single word, faintly whispered.
“Katherine.”
MIRANDA IS ONE of the last to leave the auditorium.
The workshop on past-life regression was utterly fascinating. Given her background in parapsychology, she has seen such presentations before. But never has she seen a speaker so captivating as Andrew Doyle.
Kent would have loved this, she thinks, as she finally rises from her seat and heads toward the exit, where a few people still linger, speaking with Mr. Doyle. But something Kent ate for breakfast didn’t agree with him, and he decided to go back to the hotel and sleep for a while.
Hopefully he’s feeling better. But just in case he isn’t Miranda decides to stop and buy a can of ginger ale to take back to him.
She’s a few steps from the cluster of people by the door when suddenly the crowd breaks up and several people depart at once, leaving Andrew Doyle standing alone.
Miranda smiles at him. “That was incredible,” she says, on her way out.
“I’m glad it moved you,” he replies easily.
She notices—not for the first time since she first glimpsed him on stage—that he’s handsome. Not traditionally so, with his russet hair and almost elfin, upturned nose, but there’s a definite appeal. And judging by the way his Irish green eyes are twinkling at Miranda, the appreciation is mutual.
If Kent were here, he’d tell me to run away from this guy as fast as I can, she notes. But Kent worries too much. And his protective big-brother act is getting awfully tiresome. He never approves of anyone Miranda finds attractive.
“I’ve seen other presenters explore the topic,” Miranda tells Andrew Doyle, who seems to want to hear more from her, judging by the way he’s not hurrying away. “But not the way you have. Obviously, you’re passionate about your work.”
“I’m passionate about a lot of things,” is his provocative response. He holds out his hand. “You already know who I am. How about making things even?”
“I’m Miranda Cleary.”
“What brings you to Lily Dale?”
She finds herself telling him the whole story—about Kent and the New England Ghost Society and the book they’re planning to write. She goes into detail about their successful investigation the night before, and about the lilac tree and the house on Summer Street whose owner won’t give them permission to access the grounds.
In the Blink of an Eye Page 18
