When they were alone again, David said, “Don’t you worry about winding up behind bars yourself?”
Perusing the menu, she said, “Not possible. I’m a ghost in the machine. The blackened halibut is perfection. So are the scallops with fettuccini.”
He should have been annoyed that she still maintained this assassin charade, but he wasn’t. She intended it as a metaphor. His task was to figure out what she really meant.
After lunch, they followed the bluff path through the long seaside park north of Laguna’s main beach, pausing at each viewpoint to watch the waves spill across the tortoiseshell rocks below.
Pelicans glided on air currents without an exertion of wings, dolphins arced in and out of the water, sandpipers strutted along the shore, plein air painters strove to make canvas as luminous as the reality before them, and with Maddison at his side, David felt more a part of the vibrant life of the world than at any time in years.
As they shared the day, he kept thinking about the dozen calla lilies tied with blue ribbon and left in the vase sleeve in the gravestone that as yet was not carved with names.
He didn’t want to challenge her, to risk any breach in whatever bond was forming between them. There might be an explanation for the deceptions with which Isaac Eisenstein had charged her, a credible reason that would in the end exonerate her of any ill intent. Good people sometimes told lies out of desperate necessity. Whatever the truth of her, he felt that he owed her the benefit of the doubt. She was too like Emily to harbor true darkness in her heart. Emily had been woven through with light. Maddison might be in a jam, deep in debt to someone—or afraid of someone—who had power over her, but nonetheless as innocent as Emily.
Even as he made excuses for her, David understood his own bent psychology. Ten years earlier, in part by his own fault, he had lost one life as it was meant to be, the one life he most wanted; and now by virtue of this woman’s remarkable resemblance to Emily, it seemed as if that ruined life could be restored, the past undone, the lost future regained. He was not enchanted by her looks alone. Her voice, too, was akin to Emily Carlino’s, her mannerisms, her sharp wit, her intelligence. Her kiss. She had kissed him only once, outside the restaurant as they waited for the valet to bring her car. She’d put a hand to the back of his head and drawn his face down to hers, as Emily had done from time to time; her kiss was eerily familiar, deep yet discreet, as if she were taking a taste of some delicacy far too fine for this world.
By the time they reached the north end of the park and were returning along the bluff, holding hands, he broached the subject without mentioning the cemetery. Referring to the grave would be tantamount to asking her if she were researching and stalking him. Therefore, he said simply, “Someone, I don’t know who, left flowers for me yesterday.”
Neither by the pressure with which her hand gripped his nor by any other tell did she reveal a recognition that his statement was a subtle interrogation. “Didn’t they come with a card?”
“No.”
“You have a secret admirer.”
“I guess I do, strange as it sounds.”
“It’s supposed to be the girl who gets the flowers.”
“I’d have sent you a huge bouquet if I knew where you’re staying.”
“Well, of course, I’m at the Island Hotel,” she said, almost as though she must be aware that he had followed her there on the night they met. “But don’t send flowers, David. I might not be staying there much longer, and I’d hate to leave them behind while they’re fresh and lovely.”
Golden sunlight spangled the sea, as though Midas had gone for a swim and transformed the water into a treasure, and the palm trees cast shadows as royal purple as they were black, and flecks of some mineral sparkled like tiny diamonds in the pathway pavement, as if the park were a king’s garden in which a bespelled princess waited to be awakened.
She said, “Maybe the flowers aren’t for you. Maybe they were for the girl next door.”
“The ‘girl’ who lives next door is eighty years old.”
“If someone loves her, she’s still a girl to him.”
It occurred to David that by ‘girl next door,’ she might have meant Emily, for whom half the double-wide gravestone was reserved.
They had parked in the same public lot.
At her car, he said, “When will I see you again?”
“Soon. Very soon. I’ll be free for a while after I attend to this evening’s unpleasant task.”