Read Online Shamus In The Green Room by Susan Kandel - Free Book Online Page A

on.
    “It didn’t matter to me then,” he said finally, “and it doesn’t
    matter to me now.”
    He came over and took the urn out of my hands. He held it
    for a moment, then passed it to Will. Will removed the lid and
    walked close to the water’s edge, so close the waves lapped at
    his brown dress shoes. He shook the ashes out over the surf. A
    gust of wind picked them up. They seemed to hover in the
    same spot for a few seconds. I held my breath. And then, just
    like that, they were gone.
    People started to go back up the path, but I stood there for
    I don’t know how long. I watched the waves roll in and out.
    In and out.
    In and out.
    My father and I are at the Jersey shore. He’s talking about
    the moon. The moon controls the tide, like the puppeteer con-
    trols the puppet. Gravitational attraction. Sir Isaac Newton.
    My eyes glaze over. My father gives up. I’m just a girl. I should
    do what girls do. I write my name in the wet sand. I hunt for
    seashells. I build a castle.
    I gave a start as the car alarm went off again. It took me a
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    moment to remember where I was. It was time to go. I was the
    only one left. But then I noticed a woman standing on the
    slope of the hillside, silhouetted against a lacy pepper tree. I
    smiled at her without really looking at her.
    Then I looked at her.
    Her blond hair was short and cut close to her head. No ear-
    rings. The years had taken their toll on her skin, but she was
    striking. She had on a narrow, sleeveless dress, black, with a
    cowl neckline. She took off her dark glasses and, squinting
    against the sun, walked toward me.
    It couldn’t be.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
    I backed away and felt the water slosh around my ankles.
    Her voice was soft, liquid. “You think you’re seeing a
    ghost.”
    My voice felt like brambles in my throat. “Ghosts are dead.
    You’re alive.”
    “I’m not who you think I am.”
    “Maren?” I could barely say it.
    “We used to look so much alike,” she said. “Everybody got
    us mixed up.”
    I was confused until I remembered Rafe’s comments of the
    other day.
    Nobody could touch us. It was always the four of us.
    I struggled for her name. “Lisa?”
    “That’s right, I’m Lisa. Lisa Lapelt. And you are?”
    “Cece Caruso.” I extended my hand. She had a strong
    handshake. “You’re the Lisa? Will’s girlfriend?”
    She smiled. “A lifetime ago. I haven’t seen Will or Rafe, or
    Maren for that matter, in years. We all went our separate ways
    after high school.” She started to fiddle with a diamond ring on
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    her left hand. “We were so close then. We shouldn’t have
    drifted so far apart.”
    “People change.”
    “They do,” she said, nodding. “Were you close to Maren?”
    “Not really,” I said. “But I was with Rafe when he identified
    her body, so—”
    “I see,” she said, closing her eyes. “It’s so horrible.” She gave
    a small shiver.
    “Suicide is a terrible thing.”
    “Suicide?” Her eyes popped open. They were dark brown,
    so dark you couldn’t see where the pupils began or ended.
    “What are you saying? Maren didn’t kill herself.”
    “According to the coroner’s office, she did.”
    “Maren was the last person on earth who’d ever kill herself!
    Not in a million years. People don’t change that much.”
    “The coroner’s office released her body to Will after ruling
    her death a suicide,” I said, feeling defensive for god knows
    what reason.
    She shook her head violently. “I’d know. I’d know if she’d
    been that desperate.”
    “But you said you hadn’t spoken to her in years.”
    “We were connected,” Lisa said, impatient with me now.
    “We looked alike, but that was just the start of it. We were
    alike.” She pulled back the neckline of her dress, revealing a
    delicate tattoo of a green-and-red hourglass. The yellow grains
    of sand had almost run out.
    “When we were seventeen years old, we got the same tattoo
    in the exact