Iced Under

by Barbara Ross

  We sat like that for a few minutes while he wept. There was a movement in the hallway, “Jakie?” Tallulah came into the living room, still in her coat, a knuckle held to her mouth.

  “I’m sorry, Lulah. I told Julia everything.”

  “Told her what?” Tallulah begged. Rose appeared in the hallway behind her.

  Jake lifted his head from my shoulder to look at them. “At the end, Hugh asked me to—”

  “Stop!” Rose held out her hand, palm forward. “Do not say another word. We’re calling Mr. Dickison this minute. He’ll send a lawyer from his firm to help us.”

  Jake nodded, shoulders sagging. “Okay.” He looked at Tallulah. “Hugh left a letter for Julia’s mother. It’s on the desk in our room under a bunch of papers. Please get it. It’s time to give it to her.”

  Rose looked at me. “You’ve got to get going to the airport. If you and your boyfriend don’t make it out before this next snow, it could be days.”

  I caught up with her in the hallway. “How did you know what he was going to say?” I asked.

  She shook her wavy hair. “Are you kidding? I could tell by the look on his face. And on yours. But how did you know? How did you figure it out?”

  “Detective Salinsky kept asking who benefited from the timing of Hugh’s death. I realized only one person did. Hugh. His pain finally ended.”

  Hugh had done everything he needed to do, including reaching out to my mother. Paolo just didn’t know it.

  Chapter 34

  The sky was gray by the time I pulled the pickup in front of the terminal at Logan airport. Chris was at the curb, shivering in a lightweight jacket. Despite my irritation about the “no reason to be in Maine,” remark, my heart beat faster when I saw his long legs, tousled brown hair, and green eyes. It had been one helluva week. I needed his strong arms around me.

  He slid his carry-on bag behind the passenger seat and climbed in. We kissed while the airport cop glared and waved, indicating we’d taken too much time at the curb.

  “How was your trip?” I asked.

  “Middle seat from Charlotte, but I was lucky to get out. Rough roads ahead. Sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “Positive. For now.”

  “Good.” He lay his head against the window. Before we were out of the city, he was asleep. The days and nights in Key West must have been even wilder than I’d imagined.

  The snow started up again by the time we hit Route 95. There weren’t many cars on the road. The envelope Tallulah had given me before I left sat in my tote bag. The outside said simply, “Jacqueline,” in the shaky handwriting of the infirm. The bold lettering on the substituted note, “For Windsholme,” had been written by Jake. The envelope was sealed, and though I burned to know what was in it, Hugh’s trust had been violated once already when Jake waylaid the letter. I wasn’t going to do it again.

  Just south of the New Hampshire border, the snow was really coming down. My phone rang. Chris startled from sleep. “What, what?”

  “It’s Mom.” I handed him the phone. “Put her on speaker so I can drive with two hands.”

  “Julia?” The slight tremor in Mom’s voice sent a shiver up my spine.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This is really it. Sonny was in Wiscasset at the supermarket shopping for his dad. He turned around right away when I reached him, but I’m afraid it’ll be slow going because of the storm. As soon as he gets here, he’ll take your sister to the hospital. Page and I will stay here. We can’t all fit in the truck and there’s no sense in having two vehicles out in this weather.”

  “How close is Livvie? Should you call an ambulance?”

  “With this snow, I’d rather she was in Sonny’s truck than the ambulance.”

  “But the ambulance comes with trained—” The elegant efficiency of the EMTs who’d come to the house on Marlborough Street the night before was engraved in my memory.

  “Livvie says she can wait.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted.”

  “You too. Check in again from the road, please.”

  “Will do.”

  We said our good-byes and Chris clicked off my phone. He stared forward at the windshield, where white flakes careened out of a white sky, to be whisked away by the wipers. “You okay to keep driving? I’m feeling pretty good after that nap.”

  “I don’t want to stop yet. I’ll let you know.”

  He shifted in his seat. “When it gets dark, the road will freeze.”

  I nodded to show I understood and leaned farther forward toward the steering wheel, like those few inches would help me navigate. We’d crossed into New Hampshire while I’d talked to Mom and now were nearly to Portsmouth.

  “Can I ask you something?” Chris said.

  Despite the road conditions, I stole a glance at his strong profile. His eyes were on the road. “Sure.”

  “Are you upset with me?”

  So there it was. The thing there’d been no time to discuss or dissect. The thing I wasn’t sure I even wanted to examine. My first instinct was to dodge. “It’s been an exhausting three days. I met a whole family I didn’t know I had, found out my mother’s cousin Hugh was alive, but then dead, saw an elderly cousin carried out of her house to an ambulance, and maybe even survived an attack on my life.”

  “What!” Chris stomped his foot on the floor of the truck, as if to slam the brakes on the conversation.

  “I told you about my panic attack on Tuesday night, right?” I couldn’t remember what I had and hadn’t told him.

  “No.” A look of pained concern. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had one.”

  “Months. And this one didn’t feel ‘normal.’” Like panic attacks are ever normal. “The theory is that Marguerite was given an overdose of her own beta-blocker. I think maybe someone slipped me some as well, either on purpose, or more likely accidentally, trying to poison Marguerite. I took the wrong glass.”

  “Julia, what are you talking about?”

  It took a while to fill him in. On the white road, tracks of bare pavement created by earlier vehicles disappeared under our wheels as we rode along. After I’d finished talking, when Chris didn’t say anything, I looked over. He was frozen in place, turned toward me. Only his eyes were alive with love and concern. “Julia.”

  “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “It’s not okay. I love you. I can’t imagine my life without you.”

  “I’m right here.”

  We’d crossed the Piscataqua River Bridge into Maine, buffeted by gusts of wind. Along the highway, warning signs flashed, reducing the speed limit to thirty. My shoulders hurt from the tension and the concentration required to drive in the storm.

  “At least it’s nothing I did,” Chris said. “I thought you were upset with me.” He was relaxed enough to smile.

  “I was upset with you. Kind of. A little.” I tried to keep my voice light. He’d just told me he loved me, for goodness’ sake.

  “Out with it. What did I do?”

  “When you called from Key West, you said you were thinking of living outside Busman’s Harbor for the first time ever.”

  “So?”

  “So? I turned my life inside out and upside down to stay in Busman’s Harbor to be with you, and now you’re thinking of moving somewhere else?”

  Chris’s deep chuckle was easy, untroubled. “Staying is a fantasy nearly everyone has in the Keys. Emphasis on the word ‘fantasy.’” He reached across the cab and put his hand on my thigh. “If you don’t know by now that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I don’t know when you’re going to get it.”

  “Well,” I said, “you’ve never said that before.”

  “I didn’t think I needed to.”

  Chapter 35

  When we stopped at the Kennebunk rest area for coffee and to switch drivers, I called my mother.

  “Sonny’s here,” she said. “He put the truck in a ditch and had to walk the last two miles. We’re waiting for the ambulance
.” In the background, I heard my sister moan. “I don’t think you and Chris should come. Driving is too dangerous. Stay where you are.”

  “We’re coming.”

  She sighed. “All right. Call me when you get closer and I’ll tell you whether to come here or go to the hospital.”

  “Will do.”

  On our way out the door of the rest stop, a state trooper told us the highway was closed north of Bangor.

  “Not going that far,” Chris told him. “But thanks.”

  The trooper nodded, knocking off the snow that had accumulated on the brim of his hat during his short walk across the nearly empty parking lot. “Good luck. Go slow.”

  We crept out onto the deserted highway, the snow showering down in the high streetlights. Chris drove steadily and cautiously. The plows and the sanders were keeping up, but as we passed the first Brunswick exit, a car fifty feet ahead caught a tire in the deeper snow between the lanes and fishtailed wildly. Chris braked the truck carefully as the car went into a full spin and ended up by the side of the road, facing the way it had been traveling.

  Chris stopped beside the car and I opened my window. “You okay?”

  “Ayuh,” the man answered, though his lips were the same color as his pale, pale skin. “Just shaken up. I’ll sit here a spell.”

  I saw the lights of a Maine state cruiser in our rearview mirror. “Good luck getting home, man,” Chris shouted, and accelerated away.

  When we pulled off our exit, the truck strained for traction in the deeper snow, struggling to get us up the ramp. I called Mom again to tell her we were off the highway. No answer. Fear grabbed my stomach and rolled it into a ball. If she was at the house with Page, and Livvie and Sonny were safely at the hospital, Mom would have pounced on her phone.

  Chris cautioned me against jumping to conclusions. “Cell tower could be down.”

  I wasn’t sure what conclusion to jump to. Was Mom too busy to answer the phone because she was delivering Livvie’s baby?

  “I can’t go any faster,” he added.

  “I know.” We were on Route 1, which was not nearly as well plowed as the highway, and the closer we got to the ocean, the more the wind screamed. There were times when I couldn’t see three feet in front of us. Blurry lights shown from houses off the side of the road. I wondered if we should stop. If a car, or worse, a truck, was stopped, stuck in the road ahead, I doubted Chris would see it in time to brake. I closed my eyes, taking big breaths to slow my racing pulse.

  The trip over the top of the high Sagadahoc Bridge from Bath to Woolwich was terrifying. The wind bounced the heavy truck around like a tin can, and we slid a little going down the other side. Chris cursed and slowed even more.

  When we turned off Route 1 to go down our peninsula, there were no lights anywhere. Not in the houses, or the road, not in the filling stations, which were locked up tight. Halfway down the peninsula, Chris stopped at an empty intersection. It was completely dark. There was about six inches of snow in the main road, but almost a foot on the side road. “You have to decide now. Hospital or Livvie’s house?”

  I’d thought about little else since we’d turned off Route 1. If any road in town had been kept clear, it would be the access road to the hospital. But, if Livvie was there, she didn’t need our help. “To their house.”

  Chris took a left. The truck screamed in protest as he pushed it onward. We were almost past Sonny’s truck when I spotted it, angled into a snowbank. And then, half a mile beyond that, an empty ambulance and cop car stopped in the road, lights still flashing. “Oh, my God.”

  “We have to get out.” Chris’s voice was steady and firm. “We can make it from here.”

  I slid out of the passenger side door, making a soft landing on the snow-covered road. I was dressed in jeans, warm socks, and Bean boots. I had my down coat, with my hat and gloves in the pockets, but I wasn’t really prepared for this kind of weather, Chris even less so. He fished his winter coat out from behind the seat and put it on. I was grateful to see he had gloves and a ski hat in his pockets.

  Livvie and Sonny lived in a cul-de-sac, a neighborhood of split level houses owned in equal parts by young families and retirees, almost all of them year-round. “Follow that.” Chris pointed to a rapidly filling trench in the snow, no doubt where the police officer from the cruiser and the EMTs had run, carrying their equipment.

  It was hard walking, progress slow, but when I finally spotted the dark silhouette of the house, I broke into a run, imagining the worst. The front door was unlocked.

  “Julia!”

  “Page!” She flung herself into my arms. I couldn’t tell if she was shivering because she was scared or because my wet coat was making her cold, but I let her cling for a moment. “Where’s your mom?”

  And then I heard it from upstairs, the high-pitched wail of a newborn. I took the stairs two at a time. Livvie was in her bed, hair slicked to her head with sweat, bathed in the emergency lights the EMTs must have carried from the ambulance. My mother was on the other side of the bed wiping her eyes. Sonny was behind her, a goofy grin on this face. Two EMTs, a man and a woman, packed up equipment. Our friend Jamie stood in his uniform, looking shell-shocked, like someone had sucker-punched him between the eyes.

  Livvie gestured with her chin to the bundle in her arms. “Julia. Come meet your nephew, John. John Morrow Ramsey. John for Dad. Morrow for Mom’s family.”

  And so we went on.

  Chapter 36

  Mom squinted at the vanilla-colored stationery in the faint light coming in through Livvie’s front picture window. Livvie, the baby, John, and Sonny had gone to the hospital at last in an ambulance escorted by a convoy of plows. Chris and Page were asleep upstairs. The power was still off.

  As she read, Mom pinched the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears, until she gave up and let them flow freely. I retrieved a box of tissues from the powder room. She took it and wordlessly handed me the letter.

  My Dearest Jacqueline—

  I can imagine your surprise and your anger when you receive this letter. Know this—I never meant to hurt you. Or perhaps I did, the first day of my disappearance, or the second, but no more than that. It is true I did not wish to see you, at least the first few years, but that was for my own protection.

  When we fought that night of your birthday, when I told you your determination to marry John Snowden would bring you nothing but misery, I meant every word I said. I am so sorry the last words I ever spoke to you were in anger and bitterness. And I am so glad, now, you ignored me.

  I said some terrible things about John that night, about his lack of prospects, lack of education, his utter inability to give you the life of comfort I thought you deserved, the life of the mind I knew you needed. I’d convinced myself I believed what I said about John, those horrible, snobbish sentiments. But they were a cover, designed to advance my own agenda.

  I was in love with you. You are the only woman I ever loved.

  Perhaps you knew?

  Perhaps you didn’t. You saw me then as you always did, as the brother you’d never had, the best pal, the faithful friend. I was all those things to you. I will be forever grateful for everything you and Uncle Gerald gave me, because it was so much. Most of all, more than anything, you gave me a home, a safe and welcoming place so unlike my parents’ house. Others may have found Uncle Gerald remote, but as his daughter, you know better. You know he taught me to fish, to sail, to bird watch, everything that later became important in my life. He gave me the time and attention my father never did.

  And you. You were the adoring sister, and the partner in crime, the person who held all my secrets. Except the one. Except the knowledge that I adored you and thought every moment about spending my life with you. We are third cousins after all, barely related.

  I told myself for the longest time John was a passing fancy. He was so different from you in every way. I understood the attraction, but was sure it would fade. It wasn’t until the night of your twenty
-first birthday that I understood you were serious and meant to make a life with him. I was so angry. I lashed out and said terrible things. Things that cause me pain and embarrassment even today. Even as I lie dying.

  That is why I snuck away on the boat that night. That is why I never let you know I was alive. At first I was angry, and then I was embarrassed, and then it was too late.

  I have watched you over the years, as an unseen but caring presence. I rejoiced when your daughters were born and your granddaughter. I have marveled at your success, and John’s, in building a business that kept Morrow Island in your family and provided a life for you all. I mourned when your father died, for your loss and my own, and again when John was taken much too young.

  You will wonder about the contents of this package. I haven’t seen you in more than three decades, but I believe I still know you well enough to predict your reaction. You will question whether you deserve the Black Widow, if you should accept it. I’m not sure what will persuade you, so let me try this: the necklace was my parents’, and before that my grandparents’. But before that, it belonged to our mutual great-great-great-grandparent, so it is as much yours as mine. I have no earthly need of it, and soon no heavenly need of it, either.

  When you get this, you will not only be furious at my deception, you will be angry I kept the family from you, not just later, but even during our years together. Why did I never mention Rose and her mother, or Marguerite and Vivian, whom I was just coming to know back then? The answer is, I don’t know. Sometimes I think I was preparing even then for a life of compartmentalization and separation, a thousand little rehearsals for the life I ultimately led. I am sorry for it now. Of all the many things, it is the one for which I am the sorriest.

  It is my hope that you will sell the Black Widow. She has been hidden from anyone’s enjoyment for generations. I have otherwise provided for our cousin Marguerite Morales, who will provide for her daughter, Vivian, and granddaughter, Tallulah. My brother Arthur’s daughter, Rose, also understands my intentions. I want you to rebuild Windsholme. I have read of the tragic fire there and seen the photos. You and your children are the guardians of it now, and it should stand, strong and straight, against the North Atlantic.