“I saw Judith this morning,” Levade said in an upbeat tone that I’d come to learn was cover for her not feeling very upbeat. “She and her mother were packing up. She wished us well, and I got her contact information. She said it’s a small world, and we might know some of the same people.”
That made me smile. Who are those people?
“And here.” Levade handed me a little piece of paper with her cell phone and cabin phone number on it, as if she knew I would soon need it, and for some reason it made me terribly sad. “You asked for it in the hospital. Do you remember?” I nodded that I did. “And in further news,” her tone brightened, “the leaves are starting to turn, and the temperature has dropped. Fall is here.”
I looked outside for the first time in a week, and the world had turned a rich gold, orange, and red. The leaves were glorious. The entire cove was awash in brilliant colors.
“I think that calls for lovemaking,” I said, and she laughed out loud. “You find that request funny?”
“I don’t think you’re capable of it,” she said sweetly.
“You’d be surprised what I’m capable of…but you have to cooperate.” I held out my hand, asking her to come to bed. She lay beside me, and the moment her lips touched mine, my endorphins kicked in. “This has to be carefully choreographed,” I warned her as she slid her hand between my legs.
“You mean like this?” she asked, and I immediately pulsed to her touch.
“Let me see if I understand,” I murmured, and slid my fingers inside her. “Like this?”
She swooned and rocked into me, and me into her, and we kissed one another until we were simply our own pool of desire and moved in the same rhythm, like dancers in the night, and we climaxed simultaneously. I tried to catch my breath. “That’s never happened to me before.” I must have looked amazed.
“I would hope not,” she said, and kissed me even more deeply, after which I fell asleep, not requiring a pain pill.
* * *
A few days later my curiosity had begun to return, a sure sign that I was getting better.
“You’re psychic,” I said. “You told me Frank would try to kill me.”
“I knew he wouldn’t succeed, but I had no idea he would hurt you like this. Particularly since I had proof he killed Dolores. She stopped by the drugstore and gave Casey a tape. Casey didn’t have anyone she could trust, so one night she brought it to me.”
I realized that must have been the night Casey came for a reading at Levade’s cabin and then took something small from her pocket and gave it to her.
Levade seemed to be reading my mind, because she reached into a desk drawer and took out a tiny tape like the kind used in old answering machines. She put the tape into a dusty old recorder and punched play. A woman’s voice said, “If I turn up dead, know that my husband, Frank Tinnerson, killed me. He told me he can shoot me any time he wants, and it’ll be a hunting accident, because the men around here admire him.”
It was surreal to hear the voice of a dead woman whose fears had come to pass.
“I went to Pine City to clear out my mother’s home and take care of what little business she had. Frank wanted some of her things related to his father,” Levade said. “I arranged for us to go at separate times, and I had a neighbor meet him.
“Frank insisted we meet at the coffee shop afterward. That’s where I told him I had the tape, and if he didn’t leave you and me alone, I’d turn it over to the authorities. He sent Tony to ransack my cabin looking for it, but I came home and caught him. Since Tony found nothing, Frank no longer believed the tape existed, so he felt free to come after you to punish me.”
“And when I went down to the lake and left you with Judith?”
“I heard you screaming. Or if I didn’t actually hear you, I heard you in my head. I knew you were in trouble, and we followed immediately. Judith called Sam, and fortunately he was on the lake in his speedboat. We got to you about the same time. He radioed ahead, and an ambulance met us on shore in about fifteen minutes. You’d fought so hard to stay alive, and I was terrified I’d lost you, because you were bleeding so badly.”
Levade wrapped herself around me as if talking about the nightmare made her relive it. I hugged her close, loving her even more…more than anyone I’d ever known.
“I’m sorry I scared you.” I kissed her, and then to avoid tearing up, I focused on the facts. “So you, me, and Judith all rode to shore in Sam’s speedboat.”
“Yes. Once you were in the ambulance, Sam went back out on the lake to get the duck boat to shore. Of course, I didn’t care about the boat. I only cared about you.”
I kissed her warm lips and cuddled her close to me.
“I begged Angelique to save you, and she must have kept your head above water to keep you from drowning, because you were unconscious when we pulled you out,” Levade whispered.
“Do you think Angelique killed Frank?”
“The storm, the town, Angelique, we all killed Frank.” She said nothing more, and I dropped the subject.
Levade’s cell phone buzzed. Ramona was on the line asking about my condition, and Levade put me on the phone.
“Are you well enough to come back to New York and do some book signings for your last release, and we can tease your upcoming one? The press has gotten wind of this whole attack by Frank, and they’re thrilled by the near-murder of the murder-mystery author. I swear people get off on the damndest things, but hey, I’ll take it.”
“I’m doing just fine, thanks, and happy to supply you with a promotional hook, albeit my near-death.” I rolled my eyes at Levade.
“Great. I can book a plane for you, if you could get here this week. A lot going on.”
“Okay. I’ll get back to you right away.” I hung up, not wanting to say more in front of Levade.
“She wants you back in New York.” Levade turned away. “What does all this mean for us?”
“I…we…can’t stay here in winter, anyway. Are you really intending to stay?”
“I live here…mostly.”
I fretted because I knew we were at the juncture other women had traveled with Levade—wanting her to be someone else, move somewhere else.
“The ice on the lake freezes eight feet thick. You can drive a truck across it. Maybe we should wait and come back next year. We could go to New York together, eat in nice restaurants, see a few shows, and you could come to the book signings. We’ll freeze here, and there’s nothing to do really.”
“Nothing but write, read, heal, and make love.” She smiled. When I didn’t respond, she pressed the issue. “Are we making love, or are we in love?” She spoke to me quietly, and I knew a land mine awaited this answer. She was calling me out for my non-response in bed when she’d told me she was in love with me.
“We’re…together.” I couldn’t express what I felt, how much I loved and adored her, what she meant to me, and yet, I couldn’t stay. Staying meant an end to…well, to however my life was. It felt like the death of something. Why had I spent all those years in school and struggling in New York, and honing my craft, and making contacts in the city, if I was going to throw it all away for someone, and then that someone might not like me after a while? I’d been told often enough by lovers that I didn’t “wear well.”
“Just ‘together’?”
“More than together.” I tried to course-correct.
“For a moment you almost said what you wanted.”
“I want you,” I said.
“I can’t live in New York.”
“Be here next spring, wait for me,” I pleaded.
“Next spring?” She spat the words and looked at me with anger and hurt and disappointment, as if “next spring” had just relegated her to a summer fling. Why did I think I could be without her until spring, and I searched for words to apologize, but she spoke first.
“I don’t wait, Taylor,” she said, and she walked out.
* * *
Levade didn’t come back. I slowly gathered up the clothes she’d brought me from my place, but I finally gave that up. Just the act of moving around the cabin, without her here, was so sad I couldn’t stay another minute. Her energy was so big and pure and loving that her physical absence seemed to suck all the joy out of the place, and I wanted to run. I made it back to my cabin in tears and packed. Then I sat on the porch with the moonlight flooding the lake and drank a glass of wine. I’d forgotten I’d taken a pain pill but decided if the combination killed me, this would be the perfect time.
I fell asleep in the chair and awoke at two in the morning and hobbled off to bed. I dreamed that Angelique appeared, or maybe she actually did—the pill and the alcohol made that hard to determine. She pulled up a chair beside my bed and said, “Rejecting a cosmic gift isn’t good.” I woke up sad and disturbed by the dream. What do you mean “isn’t good”? Not good as in I’ll be struck by lightning, never see her again, die forlorn? Jesus!
* * *
Marney came over at dawn and told me how wonderful it had been to have me here, and how she prayed for me to get well, and how she hated to see me go. “Come back next summer. I’ll be sure not to book the Robertsons during the weeks you’re here.”
“The Robertsons are fine. Nice people,” I said, and she looked confused.
“It’s the woman on the Point, isn’t it? It’s Levade. You two have gotten very close, I can tell. And I don’t think we gave her a fair chance. She’s not crazy, or you wouldn’t be so crazy about her. You could stay a little longer, you know. We’re a couple of months from serious weather.”
“Thanks, Marney,” I gave her a long, genuine hug. “But I have to go.”
“To what?” she said, wiping her eyes as she headed out that door. “Sometimes people don’t even know why they’re coming or going—they just keep moving.”
Marney was smarter than I gave her credit for. In fact, she was a lot smarter than me.
I loaded the car and locked the cabin. Levade was standing beside her Jeep when I went out to get in my SUV. I threw myself at her, hugging her despite all the body pain I still felt.
“I was going to drive over to your cabin to say good-bye. What can I do to get you to—”
She kissed me.
“We’ll see each other again, Taylor. You’re meant to be mine. Angelique saved you for me, and actually you’ve saved me.” Her expression was serious, as if she wanted to say more, but instead, she got in her Jeep and drove away, never looking back.
I thought my heart would break. I sat slumped over the wheel miserable and already lonely. Finally, I pulled myself together, backed out of the drive, and headed down the road, saying good-bye to the majestic pines and the sparkling lakes and loving Levade.
What the fuck was I doing getting involved with her? And what the fuck am I doing leaving her and the damned cat? I dehumanized Sass to avoid the pain of losing him too. And why am I leaving Muskie Lake, in danger of drowning in my own tears?