Keeper of the Light

he said.

“Bobby,” the boy said, solemnly shaking Alec’s hand.

“Where are you kids off to?” Alec asked.

“The rides, Dad.” Lacey walked past her father, and Jessica and Bobby quickly followed.

“Well, have fun,” Alec called after them. He glanced at Olivia, and they started walking toward the Bronco again, this time a few feet apart. It felt like miles.

Alec was quiet as they got into the car. He turned to look behind him as he backed out of the lot into the street, and in the garish, blinking lights from the amusement park, his knuckles glowed white on the steering wheel. He turned toward Kill Devil Hills. He wished he were rid of her now, she thought. He wished he did not have to drive her back to the ER before heading home.

They had driven four blocks in silence when she finally spoke. “Is it any woman you don’t want Lacey to see you with, or just the one who couldn’t save her mother’s life?”

Alec looked at her sharply, then back to the road. He sighed. “Sorry. My kids have never seen me with a woman other than Annie and that just felt weird. I don’t want her to read anything into seeing me with you. I think she’d feel like I’m betraying Annie.”

“We’re friends, Alec. Aren’t you allowed to have friends?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “That boy she was with looks far too old for her.”

Olivia twisted her wedding ring around on her finger. “Maybe she needs to be restricted a little more than she is.”

He shook his head. “No way. Annie would never have tied her down.”

She weighed her words carefully before she spoke. “Annie’s not here,” she said quietly. “The situation’s different from any the two of you had to handle when she was alive. You don’t really know what she would have done.”

Alec pulled the Bronco into the emergency room parking lot. “Well, soon enough you’ll have your own kid and then you can raise him or her any way your heart desires, but Lacey’s done just fine all these years and I’m not going to change things now.” He turned off the ignition and got out of the car, walking around it to open her door for her. By the time she had stepped out, her eyes had filled. She looked up at him.

“I understand that you’re embarrassed Lacey saw us together,” she said, “but please don’t take it out on me.”

He looked crestfallen. “I’m sorry,” he said, nearly whispering, and she was glad they were under the bright lights of the parking lot, glad they couldn’t touch. She got into her own car and pulled out of the lot, glancing back to see him standing in the pool of white light, watching her drive away.

There were four messages on her answering machine when she arrived home, all left by the same reporter—an eager-sounding young woman—from the Gazette. Each message was more urgent than the one preceding it, and the last was marked by an almost threatening quality, as the reporter finally stated the nature of her call: “It’s critical that I speak with you tonight, Dr. Simon,” the woman said. “It’s regarding Annie O’Neill.”

Olivia bristled. She pressed the erase button. What could possibly be so urgent about a woman who was already dead, a woman Olivia had no interest whatsoever in discussing tonight? She knew reporters, though. This young woman would not give up until she had Olivia on the line.

She followed the phone cord to the wall and unplugged it. In the kitchen, she lifted the phone from the wall and set it on the counter. She pulled the cord from the jack in her bedroom as well, knowing as she did so that she was cutting herself off from the possibility of hearing anything more from Alec that night. That was just as well. If he didn’t try to call her tonight, she didn’t want to know.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“She’s the doctor who killed Mom,” Lacey said as she poured milk on her puffed rice.

Alec frowned at his daughter across the table. “No,” he said carefully. “She’s the doctor who tried to save your mother’s life.”

Lacey looked up at him. “Mom had this one tiny little speck of blood on her shirt. That was it, but by the time that doctor got through with her, she’d bled to death.” Lacey’s lower lip trembled, and he watched her fighting to still it. She looked down at her bowl, bobbing the puffed rice in the milk with her spoon. A tiny stripe of red was growing in the part of her black hair.

“Lace,” he said. “Look at me.”

She tried. She lifted her eyes to his for the briefest of moments, then turned her head toward the window.

“Sweetheart.” He rested his hand on her wrist. “We’ve never really talked about this. About what actually happened that night.”

Lacey pulled her hand away from him. “She’s dead,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, I think maybe it does. I had a lot of questions, Lacey, and I bet you do, too. That’s how I know Dr. Simon. I bumped into her a few weeks ago at the studio. She’s taking stained glass lessons from Tom, and I had a long talk with her about what happened to Mom.”

Lacey looked at him, her nose red. “Are you, like, dating her?”

“No.”

“Then why were you with her last night?”

“She’s become a friend.”

“You had your arm around her.”

He did not know what to say. He couldn’t even explain last night to himself. “She’s married, Lace,” he said. “She and her husband are separated right now, but they’re probably going to get back together. Her husband is the guy who wrote that article about Mom in Seascape Magazine, remember?”