"Tristan?"
He looked around, surprised.
"Tristan?"
He wanted so much to hear Ivy's voice that he thought he did.
"Are you in there?" she called. "Let me in."
Tristan hurried to the door, focusing quickly in order to materialize his fingers. They kept slipping on the latch as he struggled to undo it. He wondered if it looked strange to Ivy when the door of the darkened house swung slowly in on its hinges.
She stepped inside and stopped just within the moonlit rectangle made by the gaping door. In the silver light her hair shimmered, and her skin looked as pale as an apparition's. For a moment Tristan believed something terrible and wonderful had happened, and she had come to him as a spirit like himself. But then he saw how she turned toward him, her eyes full of love but unfocused, the way eyes see a glow, but not the features of a face.
"I love you." They shared that thought, and he moved easily inside her mind.
"I'm sorry, Tristan," she said softly. "I'm sorry I pushed you out like that."
He was so glad to be with her, so glad she had come to him, he couldn't speak for a moment. "I know I hurt you when I told you about Will," he said at last.
She gave a little shrug and closed the door behind them. "You had to tell me the truth."
Tristan knew from the small shrug that the news still upset her. I should make her talk about it, he thought. I should remind her that she'll fall in love again, there will be someone else she'll love one day-"I love you, Tristan," Ivy said. "Please, no matter what happens, promise you won't forget that."
Another time. They could talk about the future another time.
"Are you listening?" Ivy asked. "I know you're there. You're cloaking, Tristan. Are you angry?"
"I'm wondering," he said. "How did you know to come here?"
He felt the smile on her lips. "I'm not sure," she said. "I guess I just needed to see you so badly, and after this afternoon, I didn't think you'd come when I called. I figured it was up to me to find you. I got in the car and drove, and here's where I ended up."
He laughed. "Here's where you ended up. After all this is over, you and Beth are going to have to open a shop-Palms, Tea Leaves, and Telepathy."
"You could join us for seances," Ivy suggested. Her smile warmed him through.
"Lyons, Van Dyke, and Spirit. Sounds good," he said, but he knew that when his mission was over he wouldn't come back. None of the angels Lacey had known ever returned.
Ivy was still smiling as she walked around Caroline's kitchen. He saw through her eyes as they slowly adjusted to the dark. "It looks as if you've been searching the house," she said, observing the open bkitchen drawers and cabinet doors that hung ajar.
"Lacey and I searched here back in August, long before you got the key, but we didn't leave the place like this," he replied. "Someone else has been here since."
He heard the thought, though she tried hard to repress it. Will.
"It could have been a lot of people," Tristan said quickly. "Gregory or Eric. Or Will," he added as softly as possible. "Or even that guy who visits Caroline's grave and leaves her red roses."
"I saw a long-stemmed rose there."
"Did you see him?" Tristan asked as Ivy peeked inside the open cupboards.
Most of them were empty, but she found a flashlight in a shallow drawer.
"No. What's he look like?"
"Tall, slim, dark-haired," Tristan replied. "His name is Tom Stetson, and he works at Andrew's college.
Lacey followed him around at your Labor Day party. Ever hear anyone talk about him?"
Ivy shook her head, then said suddenly, "If I shake my head, or make a face, I guess you don't know it when you're inside me."
"I know it. I feel it. I love it when you smile."
The smile grew so that it seemed to wrap itself around him.
"So what do you think?" Ivy asked. "Was Tom Stetson Caroline's new love? Was he involved somehow?"
"I don't know," Tristan said, "but both he and Gregory must have a key to this house. I think Tom's the one who's been boxing things up."
"And searching through cupboards and drawers at the same time," Ivy said.
"Maybe."
She reached for the string around her neck and pulled out the key that was dangling beneath her shirt.
Under the beam of the flashlight, its silver shaft and two jagged teeth gleamed.
"Well, I'm the one who's got the key," she said. "Now if we can just find the lock…"
They began to search together. In the living room they discovered a desk with a locked drawer which had been forced open. Close by, on the mantel, was a box with a brass lock whose hinges had been broken. It now lay empty. Ivy tested the key in both locks and found that it had not been made for either.
In the bedroom Tristan called Ivy's attention to a rectangular design pressed into a bureau cloth, as if a heavy box had sat there for a long time but was gone now. Caroline's closet was still full of shoes and purses, which looked as if they had been searched. Ivy pulled them out and felt behind them. They moved on to other rooms. An hour and a half later, their search had turned up nothing.
"There's a lot of junk here, but we're not getting anywhere," Tristan said, frustrated.
Ivy sank down in the corner of the hallway. He noticed that she avoided sitting in any of Caroline's chairs.
"The problem is, we don't know what's been carried out of here already or where it's been carried to," Ivy observed. "If only we had some clue about what we were looking for."
"How about Beth?" Tristan asked suddenly. "What if we got her to help?
She has a sixth sense. Maybe if you show her the key, let her hold it and meditate on it, she'll be able to tell us where to look-at least give us a hint."
"Good idea." Ivy glanced at her watch. "Can you come with me?"
Tristan knew that he shouldn't. He was tired and needed to pace himself if he wanted to keep from falling into the darkness. But he couldn't give her up. Something told him there was not much time left for him to spend with Ivy.
"I'll come, but I'd better just observe," he said. He was quiet most of the way to Beth's house.
Mr. Van Dyke must have been getting used to Ivy's calling at unexpected times. Standing in the doorway, he glanced at her over his half glasses and law brief, hollered "Beth!" and left Ivy to find her way upstairs.
Tristan was startled by the sight of Beth and her room, but Ivy told him silently, "She's been writing."
Beth blinked at Ivy as if she were worlds away. A binder clip held her hair in a lopsided ponytail. An old pair of glasses sat partway down her nose; they also were lopsided, since they were missing an arm. She wore baggy gym shorts and scuzzy-looking slippers with animal heads on them and popcorn embedded in their fur.
Ivy reached toward Beth and pulled a yellow Post-it off her T-shirt.
"'Lovely, lingering, delicate, devious, delicious,'" she read, then said, "I'm really sorry about barging in like this."
"That's okay," Beth replied cheerfully, and reached for the Post-it. "I was looking for this-thanks."
"It's just that we need your help."
"We? Oh." Beth closed the bedroom door quickly and cleared a spot on the bed, dumping folders and notebooks on the floor. She studied Ivy's face, then smiled. "Hello, Mr. Glow," she said to Tristan.
"Beth, do you remember the envelope Eric's sister gave me?" Ivy asked.
Tristan saw the sudden brightness in Beth's eyes. She had watched Ivy open the envelope at the cemetery and must have been dying with curiosity.
"This is what was in it." Ivy pulled out the key and placed it in Beth's hand.
"It looks as if it goes to a box," Beth said, "or a drawer. It could be an old door key, but I don't think so-it doesn't look long enough."