Gregory continued to gaze at her.
"You tried to help him, Gregory. You did all you could for him," Ivy said. "We both know that."
Gregory bowed his head, moving his face close to hers. Ivy's skin tingled. To someone who didn't know better, to Andrew and Maggie watching them from a distance, it would look like a moment of shared sorrow. But to Ivy it felt like the movement of an animal she didn't trust, a dog that didn't bite but intimidated by moving its teeth very close to her bare skin.
"Gregory!"
He was so focused on Ivy that he jumped when Suzanne rested her hand on the back of his neck. Ivy stepped back quickly, and Gregory let go of her.
He's as edgy as I am, Ivy thought as she watched Suzanne and Gregory make their way to the cars parked along the cemetery road. Beth and Will started off, and Ivy followed slowly behind them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eric's sister walking toward her with long strides.
Ivy had told the police that she and Will were on an after-school hike when they came upon Eric in the car. After Dr. and Mrs. Ghent learned of Eric's death, they had telephoned her to discuss the story she'd given to the police and probe for more details. Now she steeled herself for another round of questioning.
"You're Ivy Lyons, aren't you?" the girl asked. Her cheeks were smooth and pink, her thick hair shining in the rain. It was startling to be confronted by such a healthy version of Eric.
"Yes," Ivy replied. "I'm sorry, Christine. I'm really sorry for you and your family."
The girl acknowledged Ivy's sympathy with a nod. "You-you must have been close to Eric," she said.
"Excuse me?"
"I figured you were special to him."
Ivy looked at her, mystified.
"Because of what he left. When-when Eric and I were younger," Christine began, her voice shaking a little, "we used to leave messages for each other in a secret place in the attic. We put them in an old cardboard box. On the box we wrote 'Beware! Frogs! Do Not Open!'" Christine laughed, then tears sprang into the corners of her eyes. Ivy waited patiently, wondering where this conversation was leading.
"When I came home for this-for his funeral, I looked in our box, just on a whim," Christine continued, "not expecting to find anything-we hadn't used it for years. But I found a note to me. And this."
She pulled a gray envelope from her purse. "The note said, 'If anything happens to me, give this to Ivy Lyons.'" Ivy's eyes widened.
"You weren't expecting it," Christine observed. "You don't know what's in it."
"No," Ivy said, then took the sealed envelope in her hand. She could feel a small, stiff wad inside, as if a hard object had been wrapped in padding. The outside of the envelope intrigued Ivy even more. Eric's name and address had been typed neatly onto it and her own name scribbled in big letters across it. The return-address sticker bore the name and address of Caroline Baines.
"Oh, that," Christine said when Ivy fingered it. "It's probably just an old envelope Eric had lying around."
But it wasn't just an old envelope. Ivy checked the postmark: May 28, Philip's birthday. The day Caroline died.
"Maybe you didn't know," Christine continued. "Eric was very close to Caroline. She was a second mother to him."
Ivy looked up, surprised. "She was?"
"From the time he was a kid, Eric and my mother never got along," Christine explained. "I'm six years older, and I took care of him sometimes when my mother worked long days in New York. But usually he was at the Baines house, and Caroline became closer to him than any of us.
Even after she divorced and Gregory didn't live with her, Eric would often go see her."
"I didn't know that," Ivy said.
"Are you going to open it?" Christine asked, looking at the envelope curiously.
Ivy tore off one corner and slit the envelope with her finger. "If it's a personal note," she warned Christine, "I might not show it to you."
Christine nodded.
But there was no note, just dry tissue wrapped around the hard object.
Ivy tore at it and pulled out a key. It was about two inches long. One end was oval, with a lacy design cut into the metal. The other end, which would fit into a lock, was a simple hollow cylinder with two small teeth at the tip.
"Do you know what it's for?" Christine asked.
"No," Ivy replied. "And there isn't a note."
Christine bit her lip, then said, "Well, maybe it was an accident after all." Ivy could hear the hope in her voice. "I mean, if Eric planned to kill himself, he would have left a note explaining this-wouldn't he?"
Unless he was murdered before he got a chance, Ivy thought, but she nodded in agreement with Christine.
"Eric didn't commit suicide," Ivy said in a firm voice. Then she saw the gratitude in Christine's eyes and blushed. If Christine only knew, Ivy thought, that I might have been the cause of her brother's death.
Ivy dropped the key into the envelope, tucked the flap in, and folded the envelope in half. Slipping it in her raincoat pocket, she told Christine she'd let her know if she figured out what the key was for.
Christine thanked Ivy for being a good friend to Eric, which sent more color rushing into Ivy's cheeks.
Her face was still warm when she joined Will and Beth, who had been watching her from twenty feet away, huddled together under an umbrella.
"What did she say to you?" Will asked, pulling Ivy under the umbrella with them.
"She-uh-thanked me for being Eric's good friend."
"Oh, boy," Beth said softly.
"Is that all?" Will asked.
It was a question Ivy had come to expect from Gregory when he was pumping her for information.
"You talked pretty long," Will observed. "Is that all she said?"
"Yes," Ivy lied.
Will's eyes dropped down to the pocket where she had shoved the envelope.
He must have seen the exchange, and certainly he could see the edge of the envelope now, but he didn't question her further.
They had been excused from school that day, and the three of them drove quietly to Celentano's for a late lunch. As they pored over their menus Ivy wondered what Will was thinking and if he was suspicious of Gregory.
At the police station on Monday, Will had let her do the talking, then echoed her story, neither of them mentioning Eric's request for a secret meeting. Now Ivy wanted to tell Will everything. If she looked too long into his eyes, she would.