Eric took a deep sip of beer. “Why moonstone?”
“One year Gretchen and I got interested in gemstones and their meanings. Moonstone means ‘beloved by the moon.’ Hindu mythology teaches that moonstone formed moonlight. It’s a sign of feminine wisdom and in Hindu represents the female aspect of the crown. It’s also supposed to give us insight and emotional balance. And I learned that on my own. Catherine didn’t tell me.”
Eric looked at her intently. “Insight, emotional balance, and wisdom. Maybe I should wear moonstone.”
“It represents
feminine
wisdom, Eric,” Marissa said patiently. “Heaven knows what might happen if
you
wore it!”
He grinned. “The way my luck has been running, I certainly shouldn’t tempt the fates, or Gods, or whatever. Now, however, I know why you and Gretchen were so much smarter than I was.” He took another gulp of beer, then reached for a piece of pizza. “Did you and Gretchen show these rings to other people?”
“Well, they could see the rings on our fingers—they’re large rings. But we never took them off and showed the infinity symbol. It was to be a secret just for us.” She smiled. “Teenagers.”
“Not just teenagers. You’re wearing yours. You must still love Gretchen just like I do.”
“Of course I do, Eric! Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her and sometimes I still cry over her. I carry her picture in my wallet. During the years I was in Chicago, I couldn’t force myself to go to a piano concert because I knew I’d fall apart not seeing Gretchen up on that stage…. And—”
Eric held up his hand. “Okay. I get it and I’m sorry I said what I did. It was really stupid.” He took another bite of pizza, gazing straight ahead as if he could find something to say to change the mood by staring at the cabinets. Finally, he came out with, “Can you remember the last time you saw Gretchen wearing the ring?”
Marissa thought for a moment. “No. I’m sorry, but when you get so used to seeing something on a person—like glasses, for instance—you don’t notice anymore.” She paused. “I helped her off the boat the last night, though. She was right-handed, so she would have given me that hand, and I would have noticed if the ring was gone. At least I think I would have.” She sighed, rubbed her temples for a moment, then burst out, “Photographs! Do you have any photographs of her taken shortly before…the boat trip?”
“You mean her murder,” Eric said flatly. “I didn’t have many and I left all my pictures of Gretchen and—well, you—at my parents’ house. My mother would have dozens of pictures of Gretchen, though. She took photos all the time.”
“I remember. Then all you have to do is look through them—”
Eric shook his head. “I told you—our relationship has never been the same since Gretchen’s death. Mom and Dad haven’t disowned me, but things are different. Tense. Strained. The three of us seem to be weighing what we say before we say it.” His gaze dropped. “I only see them about once a month. There’s a distance, a chill toward me, especially from Mom. I can’t ask her to let me see her collection of pictures, especially those of Gretchen. She blames me even more than Dad does for not sticking by Gretchen’s side that night and for letting her get drunk.”
“And you’ve always blamed me.”
Eric suddenly looked up into her eyes. Marissa saw a maelstrom of emotion behind his gaze for a few moments, then resolution. “I did blame you at first and I did a damned good job of blaming you for months—longer.”
“Until tonight?”
“No. I began to come to my senses about a year ago.”
“So why were you so angry with me at Gretchen’s grave? Why did you say I was at fault for not being adamant enough with the police and that I’d kept you with me when you should have been with your sister?”
Eric hesitated. “I believe I’d stopped blaming the Marissa in my memory a while ago. When you came back to care for your mother, though, I was faced with the real you again and the blame seeped back. I was shocked and I decided to stay away from you. I’d still be keeping my distance if it weren’t for your wreck. But you did have a car wreck and I realized how I would have felt if you’d died. Not guilty, but as if I’d died, too. Then at the grave, all the blame and anger and resentment I’d felt after Gretchen died spewed out of me. Just listening to myself made me realize how wrong I’d been to push the responsibility for Gretchen’s death on you as well as myself.” He gave her a slight smile. “By the time I got home, I realized that for the first time in over four years I felt clean and light. You were right—Gretchen was a woman. I didn’t do anything wrong by treating her like one. I have a right to be happy. I’m not just a monument to my little sister.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Marissa felt like he was looking into her soul, the way she used to feel. But it had been such a long time since she’d been comfortable with that invasion, at ease with her vulnerability. Her muscles tightened slightly.
“Wow…You realized how you felt about me
and
yourself while you were yelling at me in a cemetery?” she asked hesitantly.
Eric looked at her unflinchingly, his mouth slightly open, before he let out a whoop of laughter that surprised Lindsay into a barking fit. He laughed until a tear ran down his left cheek, and after Lindsay quieted he said chokingly, “Yes. I’ve never been a master of the moment. I suppose I could have picked a better spot than a graveyard to announce my feelings at the top of my voice.” He spent a moment wiping at his cheek with a napkin and then said, “You were always the only person who could make me laugh that way.”
“I’m glad, but the bad news is that I don’t think the couple standing at the grave beside us will be voting for you for sheriff in the fall.”
“I don’t care about them. I don’t even care if I lose the election. At least I don’t right at this moment.”
Lindsay cocked her head toward the covered windows and barked, startling both of them before they laughed.
“All three of us are of the same opinion.” Marissa glanced down. “I’d really like to get off this subject, but there’s something about Gretchen that night I’ve always wanted to tell you but never got the chance.” She looked up and saw wariness creep into Eric’s gaze. “Your parents treated her like a child and I think she accepted it from them because most parents always think of their children as too young to know what they’re doing. But Gretchen couldn’t accept it from you. She knew how you thought of her and she hated it. I’ve wondered if she wasn’t trying to prove something to you that night with the beer and Dillon. She was showing you she’d do as she pleased no matter what you thought.”
“You’re probably right,” Eric said softly. “She didn’t even like beer, but the lab tests came back showing she’d had far over the legal limit.”
“That’s something else I’ve thought about, Eric. We brought a twelve-pack of beer on that trip. I had one. That left eleven beers for four people. Do you think everyone else had just one beer, leaving the other seven for Gretchen? I don’t believe so, especially considering how much Dillon and Tonya liked beer. I’m certain someone brought more liquor, maybe because they
wanted
to get Gretchen drunk.”
Eric looked down. “That’s crossed my mind, too, Marissa, but even if someone encouraged her to drink liquor and she didn’t want it, she wouldn’t have drunk it. Gretchen could be extremely stubborn. I also don’t think someone tricked her by pouring liquor into her beer—she would have tasted it and she would have stopped drinking. She
meant
to get drunk that night, but I can’t believe Gretchen would voluntarily drink herself into half oblivion just to prove to me that she’d do what she pleased. She had a reason, Marissa.”
“I know. She may have had a secret demon she was trying to drown. She was troubled that summer. She said she was nervous about her concert schedule and I accepted her explanation that it was worry over her performances. Maybe she’d learned something about Dillon, something he’d realized shortly before we went to the island. Usually, if that were the case, she would have told me immediately. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t make myself very available to her that summer, though. I was lost in myself and you and our wedding plans.”
Eric flinched slightly. “Two more months and we would have been husband and wife. But I wouldn’t let that happen. I
couldn’t
let it happen, Marissa. I regret the way I broke off our engagement, but I don’t regret breaking it. I would have destroyed our marriage with my misplaced anger, my guilt and depression that were too big a burden for me to carry. I would have tried to push some of that off on you and picked fights over anything and everything.” Lindsay barked again and Eric smiled. “Another agreement from the four-legged contingent.”
“I think I was partially to blame, Eric. I knew Gretchen better than anyone except you and I knew something was not right with her that summer, but I didn’t try to help her.”
Eric looked at her. “The bottom line is that if either of us had responsibility for Gretchen, it was me, not you. But even I shouldn’t have had responsibility for her. She was twenty-one years old. She was a woman.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Marissa,
please
forgive me for my past behavior. I don’t blame you for one thing that happened that awful night and I was a complete fool to have
ever
blamed you.”
Marissa didn’t break eye contact with Eric, but she swallowed hard to hold back tears. Thank you almost made it past her lips before she reminded herself she didn’t need to thank Eric. What had happened to Gretchen
hadn’t
been her fault. Nor had she downplayed to the police what she’d seen Dillon do—push Gretchen’s leg so that she lost her balance. Eric had finally granted the truth he’d tried to dodge for so long, and for that he needed acknowledgment.
“I’m glad, Eric,” Marissa said softly. “I’m glad you don’t blame me, that you aren’t angry with me, that you’ll
talk
to me.” She smiled. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I’ve missed you.” His voice sounded warm. “
So
much.”
Their gazes met and held. Under the strong kitchen light, the gold flecks in Eric’s eyes seemed brighter, the gold-tipped brown lashes longer. His eyes narrowed slightly and his breath quickened. Their hands, each gripping the granite top of the island, slid closer and touched softly, tenderly. Their lips could only have been an inch apart when Lindsay burst into frenzied barking and raced to the windows, teeth bared.
Eric jumped up and followed her, jerking aside the blinds. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “The rose garden is on fire!”
2
Shock rocketed through Marissa, rendering her motionless, her mouth slightly open. Through the semi-opaque blinds, she could see the soft glow of fire; through the space where Eric had pushed the blinds aside, she saw yellow and red flames leaping in the cold darkness of night.
Lindsay jumped up and down, spraying saliva on the window with her frantic barking. Eric jerked a cell phone from his pocket and dialed, giving Marissa’s address, telling someone to bring one of the smaller trucks. Finally, he turned and started out of the kitchen with a quick, “You stay here,” to her. That snapped her from her trance. In seconds, she’d vacated her stool and nearly trampled on his heels as they ran for the front door.
The three of them, Lindsay making as much noise as possible, exploded onto the porch, down the steps, and around to the rose garden. A thin layer of snow lay on the ground and nothing else burned—just the sixteen rosebushes Annemarie had planted and nurtured for years. Tears rose in Marissa’s eyes.
Sam Patterson dashed out of the house next door and joined them several feet away from the fire. “What happened?”
“We don’t know,” Eric said. “I suddenly saw flames. Someone used an accelerant and confined the fire to the rose garden. You didn’t happen to see anyone, did you?”
“No,” Sam said dolefully. “The wife and I were at the other end of the house. Then our dog started raising hell.”
“So did Lindsay.” Marissa shivered and folded her arms. “That’s what she was barking at earlier, Eric, but we didn’t pay any attention. If we’d just looked out the window, we would have seen who did this.”
“But we
didn’t
look out the window.” A fire truck pulled up almost directly behind them. “Thank God that was quick, although I don’t think either house was in danger,” Eric said to Mr. Patterson.
The man nodded and looked back at his home. “Well, I have to report what I know so far or the wife will be out here lickety-split. She’ll kill me if I don’t get back and tell her
something.
I see her hovering on the porch now. Talk to you later, Marissa,” he called as he dashed back to his house where the dreaded curious wife awaited answers.
A firefighter loomed beside Eric, who said, “The fire isn’t large, but the hose, buckets, everything we could have used to put it out ourselves are stored for winter. Plus, I’d like for you to be around in case any other embers spring to life.” The firefighter nodded and returned to the truck while Marissa saw more neighbors coming out onto their porches.
“You’d better go back inside,” Eric said to her. “You don’t even have a jacket and your lips look like they’re going to turn blue. You also need to get Lindsay out of the way. I know you don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Marissa looked at him, nodded, and then motioned to Lindsay, who obediently followed her into the house despite the exciting commotion outside. She walked into the family room and dropped onto her father’s recliner, hardly aware of her movements, blind to her surroundings. All she could see was the fire devouring her mother’s rosebushes—a fire set by someone who hated Annemarie or who hated Marissa?
“Mom is dead,” Marissa said aloud. “The Christmas postcard, the fire outside of my home, and, most horrible, the deliberate attempt to send me into the river. Someone hates
me.
” Lindsay sat at her feet, tilting her head as Marissa talked. Marissa looked at her and smiled. “We’ll show whoever is watching that we’re not too scared to watch, either.”
She shrugged into her down jacket, traded her damp bunny slippers for a pair of boots, and hooked Lindsay’s leash to her collar. At the last minute, Lindsay picked up her stuffed cow and together they faced the fire in the night once more.