Deadly Ever After

by Eva Gates

  * * *

  The sun was dipping rapidly in the west, and people were saying their good-byes before heading for their cars. Connor came to stand beside me, and we exchanged more hugs and accepted more congratulations. Soon only my family were left on the beach as Josie’s staff began clearing up the few leftovers.

  “Now that,” Dad said, “was a good party.”

  “It was nice. Have you thought about a beach wedding, dear?” Mom asked.

  I glanced at Connor. “Thought about, yes. We’ve thought about a lot of things. We don’t want to be too weather dependent.”

  “You don’t want to go overboard,” ever-frugal Dad said.

  “But you want something suitable,” never-frugal Mom said.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. You’ll be involved in the preparations.”

  “You can count on that,” Aunt Ellen said.

  Mom sniffed but said nothing. The relationship between the sisters had always been fraught, but they tried to get on for the sake of their children.

  Truth be told, Connor and I had done nothing about wedding plans. We’d tentatively decided on next August, a year from now, and that was as far as planning had gone. I’d been told, more than once, that the best facilities booked up years ahead. This party had been so perfect that right now I was thinking of a beach wedding. Although August was the beginning of hurricane season. Always something to bear in mind along the coast. Maybe a spring or early-summer date the year after next would be better?

  As though he was thinking the same thing I was, Connor put his arm loosely around my shoulders. “Whatever Lucy wants is good enough for me.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Mom said. “The groom has one job and one job only at a wedding. And that’s to show up. On time, suitably dressed, and reasonably sober.”

  “I was sober at our wedding,” Dad said. “Wasn’t I?”

  I was about to give Mom a wink, but the teasing expression died when I saw her face. The blood drained out of it, her eyes widened, and her mouth formed a shocked O. She was facing inland, and I was looking past her toward the beach and the open ocean. I whirled around to see what had caught her attention.

  I suspect all the blood drained from my own face. I was certainly shocked.

  “What’s the matter?” Connor turned quickly. “Do you know those people?”

  A young man and an older woman were picking their way carefully down the path through the dunes, a little white dog straining at the leash the woman held. The man was dressed as though he were about to set out for a day’s sailing on his private yacht, in white trousers and polo shirt under a navy-blue blazer. The woman’s high heels and snug yellow skirt threatened to topple her over. The dog was a bichon frise, all tight white fur, bushy arching tail, round black eyes and nose, pink tongue, rhinestone-studded pink collar, and pink leash.

  “I know them,” Mom said. “But I can assure you they were not invited. Not by me, at any rate. Millar, are you responsible for this?”

  “I might have mentioned something about it to Rich,” my father said, referring to his law partner. “But I didn’t invite anyone.”

  The new arrivals saw us watching. The woman yelled, “Yoo-hoo! Hope we’re not too late.” The young man lifted a hand in a lazy greeting. The dog broke into a chorus of barking and lunged at us.

  “Who are those people?” Connor repeated.

  “Richard Eric Lewiston the Third,” I said, “and his mother, the formidable Evangeline. The dog, I don’t know.”

  “Not—”

  “Yup. Ricky himself. The last time I saw Ricky, he was on bended knee proposing marriage to me.”

  Chapter Two

  That was embarrassing.

  Ricky and Evangeline exchanged air kisses with Mom, Dad, and me. Ricky grunted at Connor and stared out to sea, while Evangeline oozed false charm at meeting my fiancé and her dog sniffed at everyone’s ankles. Uncle Amos, Aunt Ellen, Josie, and Jake simply looked confused.

  “Sooo sorry we’re late,” Evangeline cooed. “It looks like we’ve missed all the fun. Pooh. Our plane was delayed leaving Boston. I told you, Ricky, we should have chartered a jet. I never like to fly commercial,” she said to Aunt Ellen. “So dreadfully unreliable.”

  “I totally agree,” Aunt Ellen said. “Don’t I always say that, Amos?”

  “What?” Uncle Amos said.

  “It wouldn’t have helped, Mother,” Ricky said. “A private jet can’t fly in a thunderstorm either. Everything was grounded.”

  She waved that trifle away. “And then we had to rent a car in Norfolk and drive all this way rather than conveniently land in a local airport. Such a bother. The check-in at the hotel took so long, and I had to bathe and change, of course.” She glanced up the beach to where Josie’s helpers were packing up the last of the picnic. “Is that a wine bottle I see? Do get me something, will you, Ricky? Lucy, you help him.”

  I gave Connor an apologetic shrug and followed Ricky.

  “Did you have to bring Fluffy?” my mother said. I assumed she was referring to the dog.

  “Of course I brought Fluffy, Suzanne. She can’t be left alone at home, and you know how busy Rich is these days. Now, I hope you’re not totally full. We’ll want to go out to dinner, of course. If you’d care to join us, Eileen, you’d be welcome.”

  “Okay. And it’s Ellen.”

  “Perhaps not tonight,” my mom said. “We’ve just finished a huge—and marvelous—picnic, so we are, as you put it, full.”

  “Congratulations, Lucy,” Ricky said to me in a low voice as we walked across the sand. “Mom told me you’re engaged. I’m happy for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Connor’s a fabulous man.”

  “He has to be. To land you. I mean it, Lucy.”

  I stopped walking and turned to face him. “Why are you here, Ricky?”

  “Why? For the same reason Mom sent me to get her a glass of wine she doesn’t want. She doesn’t want to congratulate you on your upcoming nuptials either. She wants you and me to get back together.”

  “Is that what you want, Ricky?”

  He studied my face. He was a handsome man, in that New England preppy way, the look accented by the outfit he was wearing. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, but he looked the same as I remembered, although perhaps he had a bit less hair and had put on some weight, all of it around the middle. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with a stomach like a basketball by the time he turned forty. He was losing his hair quickly, and I knew he was self-conscious about it, but he didn’t go to great lengths to try to cover up the bald spots. Ricky and I had dated for a long time. A very long time. When he finally proposed to me, I realized that the only reason we were still together was because our parents expected it of us. The Lewiston and Richardson families go back a long way; Ricky’s grandfather founded a law firm with my grandfather. Both our fathers were partners there, and Ricky had joined the firm straight out of law school.

  “I’ve thought about a lot of things over the past year, Lucy. You most of all.” He rubbed at his chin. “I was about to call several times, but …”

  “But you didn’t really care, Ricky. That’s okay. I understand. That’s why I left. Because I understood that neither you nor I much cared if we got married.”

  “Things change.”

  “Some things change. Some things don’t.”

  “If you want to get that glass of wine”—Connor slipped his arm around my shoulders but he kept his eyes on Ricky—“you’d better hurry. They’re packing up the bar.”

  I glanced over to see Blair, who worked for Josie, standing by the nearly empty table, watching me with a question on his face. One bottle of white wine and several acrylic glasses were all that remained of our feast.

  “Nah,” Ricky said. “We’ll go for drinks before dinner.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Connor said. He didn’t add Not, but it was implied.

  Ricky looked at me one more time and then headed back toward the group.

&
nbsp; “Everything okay?” Connor asked.

  “Yeah.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Worry? I wasn’t worried.”

  * * *

  Curse good manners, whether southern or Boston Brahmin. Evangeline and Ricky had come all this way to toast my engagement, and Mom wouldn’t let me back out of having dinner with them at least once. We’d been able to get out of it on Sunday on the grounds that we’d all had so much to eat and drink at the party, but somehow I got talked into joining them on Monday evening.

  As I should have expected, Evangeline couldn’t let an entire day pass without reminding me of all I would be missing if I didn’t marry her son, and Monday morning she sailed into the library on a scented cloud of Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds, tottering on sandals with killer heels and draped in the latest summer wear from Dolce & Gabbana, not long after we opened for the day.

  “Goodness,” she said to me, after passing her lips a few inches off my right cheek. “This library is … small. When I drove up, I thought I must be at the wrong place, but then I saw people walking out with books.”

  “It is small,” I said, “but perfect. Somehow the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library seems to be able to stretch at the seams when necessary. Would you like a tour?”

  “Another time, perhaps. That’s not why I’m here. Now, Lucille, we’ve known each other for a long time. I remember the day your mother brought you home from the hospital. She was so delighted to have a darling little girl at last. Of course, your father was delighted too. I—”

  “This is the main level, with our fiction collection and popular-interest nonfiction. The children’s library’s on the second floor; the rare-books room is accessed by the back staircase. Our academic librarian, Charlene Clayton, is available to assist—”

  She waved her hand in the air. “That’s all well and good, dear, but I would have thought a librarian as qualified, as professional, as experienced as you would get tired in this little … public space.” Evangeline glanced around, taking in the shelves groaning under the weight of popular fiction, books for cooking and gardening enthusiasts, general history; the line of computers for use by our patrons; the cardboard cutout of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson in the alcove next to the table on which rested a deerstalker hat and pipe and a selection of modern Holmes pastiche novels. The display had been arranged as supplemental material for this month’s classic novel book club reading of The Hound of the Baskervilles. “And Sherlock Holmes. Could this place get more … pedestrian?”

  At that moment, another one of the library employees awoke from his nap in the comfortable wingback chair next to the magazine rack. Charles yawned mightily and stretched.

  Evangeline noticed him for the first time and let out a frightened squeak. “And a … cat. You allow a cat in the library? Really, Lucy. What’s next? A horse?”

  “That’s an idea,” I said. “But I don’t think even this library can stretch that much. Where’s your dog?”

  “Fluffy’s waiting in the car. I don’t bring her with me everywhere, dear. Don’t worry; I left the engine running to keep the air conditioning on.” Charles leapt off the chair and wound himself around Evangeline’s legs. She took a step back. He took a step forward. Like most cats, Charles knows when people don’t like cats. And, like most cats, he makes the most of it.

  I bent over and scooped him up. I tapped his little black nose. “Enough of that, you. Off you go; preschool story time will be starting soon.” I put him down. I swear he winked one blue eye at me before slowly and lazily crossing the room in the direction of the spiral iron stairs leading to the children’s library on the second floor.

  “That was Charles,” I said. “Named after Mr. Dickens. He’s enormously popular with our patrons, particularly children and the lonely elderly. We welcome dogs also, provided they’re leashed and well behaved. Libraries today are much more than a place to take out books. A public library’s the center of the community, one of the last public spaces where people can gather without having to pay to get in.” I nodded to the cardboard cutout. “The American public likes Sherlock Holmes. I like Sherlock Holmes.”

  Evangeline lifted her arms and held them out as though encompassing the whole of the library. “I merely meant that, as delightfully charming as this is, it isn’t exactly Harvard, now, is it? You were doing such important work at Harvard. Helping some of the most prominent men in the world with their research.”

  “They have women professors at Harvard now, I’ve heard.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she bit back a retort. And I realized that I was no longer afraid of Evangeline Lewiston. She had no power over me: I genuinely didn’t care what she thought of me. She gave me a tight smile. “You know what I mean, dear. You must miss it terribly.”

  “Actually, Evangeline, I don’t miss it one bit. It’s nice of you to drop by, but I have work to do. If you’d like to look around, you’re welcome to.” I lifted my left hand to point toward the stairs.

  Evangeline grabbed my hand. She studied my engagement ring so closely, I was surprised she didn’t dig a jeweler’s loupe out of her purse and put it to her eye. “That’s a lovely diamond, dear. And quite … large. It looks real. I’m surprised your fiancé could afford such an excellent ring on what he makes as mayor of a small town.”

  I snatched my hand away. I wasn’t going to explain the gift to her. “You can bring your dog in, if you like. The view from the top is magnificent, and it’s only two hundred and seventeen steps. If you want to go up, I’ll unlock the gate for you.”

  She shifted on her heels. Not exactly practical daytime wear for the Outer Banks. I suspected she’d worn them in an attempt to intimidate me. In that, as in other things, she’d failed. “That won’t be necessary,” she said. “Another time perhaps.” She coughed lightly. “You do seem … fond of this tiny place, but a few of us in the know have heard that the head librarian at the J. D. Rockenheimer the Fourth collection is retiring and they will be looking for a fresh young face to take it over.”

  Now we were on to bribery. The Rockenheimer Library is one of the largest private libraries in the United States, and people say its collection of letters from and to our country’s founding fathers is unparalleled. Running it would once have been my dream job. But I have my dream job now: assistant director at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, “tiny” though it might be. I’d met my dream man here. I wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m not—”

  My protest was cut off as the front door opened and a cluster of people fell in. Daisy Dalrymple came first, followed by James Dalrymple and Theodore Kowalski, laughing over a shared joke. Charlene brought up the rear, her eyes fixed on James’s slim back.

  “Oh yes,” Theodore was saying. “The Lake Country. Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Always wanted to visit the Lake Country, old chap.”

  Evangeline let out a small gasp, and I turned quickly to check that she was okay. She blinked rapidly, visibly struggled to control her emotions, and turned to me with a smile so fake it would embarrass a crocodile. “You do what you have to do, dear, and I’ll show myself out. Mustn’t leave Fluffy alone much longer.” She laughed a sort of strangled laugh. “Goodness knows what she’s capable of getting up to if she gets bored, and it is a rental car.”

  I wondered what had caused her to so suddenly call off her charm offensive, but I had no doubt it would be back. Charm and bribery. Maybe guilt would fall into the mix next.

  If it did, and if she persisted, I’d have to simply tell Evangeline that arranged marriages had gone out with Jane Austen’s era. I didn’t want to marry her son, which was fine, because he didn’t particularly want to marry me.

  “Hey, Lucy,” Daisy said. “Thanks for suggesting the drive to Ocracoke. We went on Saturday and had the best day ever.”

  “I haven’t been down there for years,” Charlene said, “not since I finished college. It was great fun.
Teddy was nice enough to ask his mom to sit with my mother for a few hours so I could go with James. James and Daisy, that is,” she added quickly.

  Theodore grinned. “Mom enjoyed it. She said she needs to catch up with her school friends more often. Did you know my mom and Mrs. Clayton went to school together, Lucy?”

  “I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. Outer Banks links are long and deep and complex.”

  “As we’re finding out, to our advantage,” Daisy said.

  “Can I help you with something, ma’am?” James asked Evangeline.

  Her entire body almost shook, and she blinked rapidly. “No. Nothing. I’m … noticing your English accents. All of your accents, I mean. Are you on vacation in America?”

  “Daisy and I are here to do research,” James said.

  “I’m a proud resident of Nags Head,” Theodore said, his accent a reflection of James’s. “And a proud patron of this library.”

  “Time to get at it,” James said. “Coming, Charlene?”

  “Be right with you. I’ll check to see if Blacklock College has gotten around to sending us the map book I requested. They’re not being entirely helpful.”

  “Imagine that,” I said. We’d had contact with the professors of North Carolina history at Blacklock College before. It had never gone well.

  Charlene laughed. “Miserable lot, they are.” She gave James a warm smile, all dancing eyes, fluttering lashes, and dimples.

  He grinned back at her. It was as though the rest of us had suddenly vanished into thin air. Oh dear, I thought.

  Daisy hadn’t seemed to notice the interaction between James and Charlene. She spoke to Evangeline. “Nice meeting you.”

  James and Daisy were both in their midthirties. He was tall and slim, with a large nose that didn’t do anything to spoil his good looks, skin indicating Greek or Italian forebears, and thick dark hair brushing his shoulders. She wasn’t much taller than me, softly rounded with sparkling blue eyes, chubby pink cheeks, and silky straight hair the color of the sand at Coquina Beach. Colored tattoos of intertwined branches, leaves, and flowers ran up her right arm to disappear into the sleeve of her T-shirt, and a silver ring pierced her right nostril. A thick gold wedding band carved with an intricate pattern of oak leaves surrounded the ring finger of her left hand.