Firefly Cove Page 16

  What he had not expected was the aftermath.

  The rain passed and the wind calmed and the sunset sparkled through the restaurant’s rain-dappled windows. The interior wood paneling glowed a honeyed welcome. Castaways filled up with people determined to have a good time. Lucius held to his customary solitude, and reveled in his sense of peace.

  The emotional storm he had known ever since his return was gone now. He had no idea when it might resume, or if the black dog would assault him once more. Nor did he much care. There was no longer any need to fight the tumult or tear apart the mysteries. His presence now held a purpose.

  Jessica needed him.

  Lucius recognized another lonely soul when he saw one.

  The bartender was a striking Latina with flashing dark eyes and a face that seemed to look for a reason to smile. “How was your meal?”

  “One of the finest I’ve ever eaten.”

  “That’s what we like to hear. Another sparkling water?”

  “Not right now, thank you.”

  “How about dessert?”

  “Just coffee, please.”

  “No problem.” She left and swiftly returned. “Cream or sugar?”

  “Black is fine.”

  She was joined by the lovely owner, who asked, “Everything good here?”

  “Everything,” Lucius replied, “is just fine.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to be the young man who charmed Jessica Wright today.”

  Lucius felt as though his perch on the bar stool had suddenly turned precarious. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  She clearly enjoyed his shock. “You must be new to Miramar Bay.”

  “I’ve been here before. But not in years.”

  The bartender said, “So you’re seeing it for the first time as an adult.”

  The manager cut off his response by extending her hand across the bar. “I’m Sylvie Cassick.”

  “Lucius . . . Luke Benoit. How did you hear?”

  She showed him a lovely smile. “When my fiancé first arrived, somebody told him that gossip was a small town’s version of reality TV.”

  “There are no secrets in Miramar Bay,” the bartender said. “I’m Marcela Reyes.”

  “Marcela usually waits tables, but my bartender is dealing with a sick mother,” Sylvie said.

  “I’m thinking we should make this permanent,” Marcela said. “The tips are better and I get more chances to flirt.”

  “I’ll tell your husband you said that,” Sylvie said, then asked Lucius, “So how did you tame the fire-breathing dragon?”

  Lucius shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Marcela asked, “Did Jessica Wright really invite you to tea?”

  Lucius nodded. “I can’t get over how the whole town knows my business.”

  “Not, like, every single person,” Marcela said. “There’s bound to be some poor housebound grandpa who hides behind his drapes with a loaded shotgun, waiting for the kids to trample his awful flowers.”

  “Marcela.”

  “I’m just saying.”

  Lucius asked, “So what is Jessica’s story?”

  The two women looked at each other. Marcela asked, “Did I just hear him call the dragon lady Jessica?”

  Sylvie said, “I have actually had a waiter offer an entire night’s tips just to have her seated somewhere else.”

  Marcela said, “I hear she wasn’t always like this. Such a . . .”

  “The words you are looking for are ‘difficult client,’ ” Sylvie offered.

  “Whatever. But then her husband ran away with that model . . .”

  “Who is five years younger than their daughter,” Sylvie said.

  “Actually, it’s her ex’s daughter by some LA weathergirl.”

  Sylvie waved that aside. “Ms. Wright adopted her. Now her only child lives in Hawaii and has made a profession of spending her mother’s millions. Ms. Wright has been alone for, how long?”

  “Years,” Marcela said. “And now she’s sick.”

  “Really,” Lucius said. “Jessica is ill?”

  “Very, from what I’ve heard.” Sylvie pointed down the bar. “Marcela, your patrons are waving at you.”

  “Oh. Right.” She flashed him a smile. “Nice to meet you, dragon tamer.”

  Sylvie said, “If you’ll come in tomorrow and tell us what her house is like, I’ll let you eat for free.”

  CHAPTER 40

  It wasn’t raining when the taxi pulled up to the massive stone gates, but it would be soon. The sky was dark and the air was close and utterly still, as though the world held its breath. Aghast at what Lucius was about to do.

  The driver asked again, “You’re sure you have an invitation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ms. Wright don’t see nobody these days.”

  “You’ve told me. Three times.” He counted out the fare and added a tip. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll hang around,” the driver offered. “Just in case. Long walk back to town, and there ain’t but three cabs in Miramar Bay.”

  “Suit yourself.” Lucius rose from the cab and walked over to the left-hand pillar and pushed the button set beneath the camera and speaker.

  “Yes?”

  “Luke Benoit. I . . . Ms. Wright invited me.”

  “Step to your right. Are you alone?”

  “I am, yes.”

  “I was told to turn you away if you came with anybody else. I see a face there in the car behind you.”

  “I had to come by taxi. My car won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

  The speaker clicked off. Lucius waited through four long minutes, and then the gates groaned and creaked and opened.

  “Well, now I’ve seen everything,” the driver said, and drove off.

  * * *

  The house was simply gargantuan. His footsteps scrunched along the graveled drive, making unsteady imprints in the perfectly groomed stones. With every step he took, more of the white monstrosity came into view. It seemed to go on forever. The curved front steps were a full sixty feet wide, and the portico was rimmed by a dozen pillars big as redwoods. The portal was so vast it turned the woman waiting for Lucius into a solemn miniature.

  As he climbed the stairs, she greeted him with, “You might have made the trip for nothing.”

  Lucius recognized her as the same lady who had driven his car the previous day. He knew she was mistaken, but saw no need to correct her.

  The woman led him inside, shut and locked the door, and punched numbers into a box by the door frame. “Don’t try leaving unless I’m here to let you out. Security would just go crazy.”

  “I understand.”

  “This way.” She led him through the cavernous front hall, beneath a crystal chandelier as big as a car. They walked down a long corridor and into a vast sitting room of white furniture and walls, white silk carpets over a white marble floor. “You can wait here.”

  “Do I have to?”

  The woman huffed softly. Lucius could not tell if it was a laugh. “I suppose you can go sit in the garden room if you’d rather.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Come on, then.” She led him down yet another endless corridor. Her voice echoed off the distant ceiling. “You came out here from Miramar by taxi?”

  “It was either that or walk.”

  “Shame you spent all that money for nothing. The night nurse says Ms. Wright had herself a bad spell. She most likely won’t come down.” She pushed open the double glass doors. “I’ll bring you a tea. Then I’ll have one of the gardeners drive you back to town.”

  “I’d rather wait.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said? Ms. Wright don’t see nobody these days.”

  “Just the same. I don’t have anywhere else I need to be.”

  The woman seemed ready to argue, but in the end merely shrugged. “Let me know when you’re ready to head out.”

  * * *

  The conservatory was large enough to house so many fruit trees Luc
ius could not count them. Some grew from stone-lined wells set in the terra-cotta floor. Others stood in great wooden vats. There were flowers everywhere. Gilded cages held a variety of colorful birds. Their song competed with the three fountains. It was a lovely place, for a prison. Lucius thought the stormy afternoon suited it perfectly.

  The woman returned with a silver tea service that she sat by the central fountain. She glanced at him, offering a silent invitation for him to give up and depart. When Lucius merely thanked her for the tea, she departed without speaking a word.

  An hour passed. Lucius did not mind the wait. His life had a purpose now. The last time he had felt so certain, and so saddened, was the day he had left Jessica weeping in her mother’s arms.

  Rain started drumming on the glass roof high overhead. Lucius looked up, but what he really saw, in truth, was the day he had sat in his attorney’s office, signing the new will, the one that had left Jessica all his dealerships. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a deep punctuation to his sense that all this was his fault.

  * * *

  Another forty-five minutes passed, then the glass doors opened and Jessica said, “You’re still here, are you?”

  Lucius rose to his feet. “I am. Yes.”

  The aide pushed in a wheelchair holding Jessica. She cast Lucius a doubtful glance, as though she was uncertain whether this was a good idea, or perhaps wondering if it was happening at all. “Where shall—”

  “Leave me here and go fetch the young man a fresh pot of tea. He can wheel me about, can’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  She gave a three-finger gesture. “There’s a table over in the far corner.”

  The woman continued to hover as Lucius pushed the chair, which meant she heard Jessica ask, “What do you think of my house?”

  “It’s absolutely horrid.” Lucius heard the aide’s soft gasp, but he didn’t care. “How can you bear to live here?”

  Jessica did not respond until he had positioned her so that she overlooked the rain-speckled glass wall and the emerald lawn beyond. She pointed with the same three fingers at a chair that was positioned some distance away. As he carried it over, she said, “My ex-husband convinced me we needed this place. Or wanted it. I forget which. It took three years to build. All the while, he was fooling around with that model. I realized he had always intended to make this their home. She probably would have loved it. Which is why I insisted on taking it in the settlement.”

  “Spite is not enough of a reason for you to stay here.”

  “It was at first. But now . . .”

  “Move. Today.”

  She watched rain streak the glass. “Everything has become such an effort.”

  “Let me help.”

  When Jessica turned to look at him, she realized the aide still stood by the exit. “Why aren’t you bringing this young man’s tea?”

  “Right away, ma’am.” But she lingered a moment longer, her confusion clouding the look she gave Lucius.

  Jessica waited until the doors closed to say, “Luke, that’s your name?”

  “Luke Benoit.”

  “Tell me about yourself.”

  “It is all rather repugnant,” he warned. “What’s more, it seems as though it all happened to another person.”

  “Nonetheless I want to hear everything.”

  “I actually don’t recall much. I have managed to uncover some things, and more elements have been supplied by other people.”

  “Look here. I made a perfectly reasonable request. It’s uncouth to refuse. Are you an uncouth young man?”

  “I was. Apparently. Very uncouth.”

  “Well, now is as good a time as any to stop.” She planted her elbows on the chair’s leather armrests. Her hands formed an arthritic bundle by her chin. “You say it seems to have happened to another individual. So tell it as though it did.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Lucius found it easier to talk while on his feet. He stood with his back to the table and spoke to his reflection. Rain fell and painted translucent designs in the glass. He began his story with the present. Any mention of the past would have to come later, or not at all. He described waking up under the shroud, then waking again inside the hospital room and meeting the doctors. He left out the shock at his own reflection, for the same reasons he did not relate anything about his past. He told her about calling the attorney on the orderly’s phone. He described Asha Meisel’s response, the drive to the apartment, the ghastly place he found there, the guesthouse . . .

  Lucius stopped talking when he heard the doors open. He remained silent and stared out over the rear lawn as the tea tray was set down and the aide retreated. He wondered if perhaps the room was bugged. He supposed there had to be some sort of listening devices, in order to keep track of Jessica’s needs. Especially in a house this massive. Lucius decided he didn’t care whether the aide heard him or not.

  When the door clicked shut, Jessica said, “Go on.”

  Lucius described learning about the previous suicide attempts. He related the meeting with the dean and the professor and the woman in the university corridor. He described the Kia and finding the Jaguar. He knew his story was disjointed. He also knew it sounded as though he spoke about events that occurred to someone else. When he was done, he remained standing there by the glass until she said, “Come sit down.” When he did so, she said, “You remind me of a man I once knew.”

  Lucius found his breath had become trapped inside his throat.

  “He was very special to me . . .” She turned her face to the rain-streaked glass. “Well. It was all very long ago.”

  Lucius fought down the desperate urge to confess. He dared not risk her labeling him insane. And that is exactly how it would no doubt sound. A rich woman confronted by a stranger who claimed to have loved her fifty years ago, then died in her arms. She would have every reason to eject him and, worse, bar him from ever seeing her again. What was more, it might hurt her terribly. Even so, the desire to tell her threatened to choke off his air.

  Jessica interrupted his struggle. “Young man, you may pour me a cup.”

  Actually, he had the only cup. Before Jessica stood a mug with an oversized handle. When he had filled it halfway, she said, “That’s enough. Now one spoonful of sugar and a smidgen of milk. How do you take yours?”

  “Black.” He watched her fit the arthritic fingers through the handle. “Do they hurt, your hands?”

  “These days pain is relative. I am usually forced to choose between the dim-witted effects of drugs or discomfort.” She slurped noisily. “What was it like, waking up under the sheet?”

  “Horrible.” He set down his cup, the tea untasted. “What I remember most is the cold. The room was frigid. And the arms holding me down. And the doctor’s needle . . . It was a terrible moment.”

  They sat in silence after that. Rain drummed softly against the glass roof and walls. The birds chirped, defiant of the day and their caged existence.

  Finally, then, Jessica pressed a button on the arm of her chair. Within seconds the doors opened and the stocky woman entered. “Sarah, this is Mr. Benoit.”

  “How do you do, sir.” Her voice held the same confused wonder as her gaze.

  Jessica said, “I understand your car won’t be ready today. Where did you intend to stay the night?”

  “Where I was last night. The guesthouse on Front Street.”

  “Nonsense. This mausoleum possesses sixteen bedrooms. You will stay here.”

  He watched the aide’s eyes go completely round. “Thank you very much.”

  “Sarah, have the housekeeper make up the pool house.” She gestured for the woman to take up position. As the chair was pulled away from the table, she said, “I fear I must retire. Make yourself comfortable, young man. We’ll speak again tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 42

  On Thursday morning Asha woke to the realization that she was in love.

  She was, after all, a highly skilled clinician. She was trained t
o detect the unseen emotions people thought they could hide from the world. And there was no other way to explain the giddy feeling she felt upon awakening. Not to mention the way she leapt from her bed and rushed around the apartment, all before coffee. Nor the smile she saw in the mirror. Like she was a teenager again, and she had a date to the prom with the high-school star. Instead of going for an afternoon hike with her thesis supervisor.

  Only Dino was not just her boss anymore. And in many ways she now knew he never had been. Theirs had been a relationship that had perched for a year and a half on the precipice of love.

  That was how it felt as she prepared her coffee and did her makeup and packed her gear for later. She would change before leaving the office. She found an old backpack from her undergrad days, stuffed behind the shoe boxes holding five pairs of overpriced pumps from Ferragamo and Tod’s. These were stacked under matching outfits, all purchased by Jeffrey, and all crammed into the closet’s right-hand corner. She had learned to navigate in stiletto heels because Jeffrey had claimed to love the way they reshaped her figure. She pushed aside the memories as she hunted for her hiking boots.

  One reason why Asha had decided to take this apartment was because it came with a walk-in closet. Every time her grandmother visited, all the items that did not have a proper place were dumped here. Added to this was the fact that Asha hated to throw anything away. There was one clean furrow of carpet down the middle where she could maneuver, lined on either side by a jumble that had grown over time. Asha found one boot at the back of her sweater shelf and the other hiding under a dozen or so neatly folded Rodeo Drive shopping bags. Jeffrey again, naturally. As she stuffed her change of clothes in the backpack, she decided what she really needed was to ask her grandmother’s help in clearing the closet. Sonya was almost savage in her rejection of elements that did not suit her concept of a life well-lived. They would spend the weekend arguing, open a bottle of wine and make peace, and depart as friends.

  Thoughts of her grandmother brought Asha back to Lucius. When she was in her car and headed for work, she phoned Sonya and greeted her with, “I need to talk about Lucius driving down to LA this weekend.”

  “Good morning, dearest one.”