Free Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain Page A

say something more, and Olivia held her breath, aware of the still, colorful air surrounding the three of them. Then he gave a slight wave of his hand. “I’ll see you in a couple of days, Tom,” he said, and he turned and left the studio.
    “You were there the night Annie died?” Tom asked, once the door had closed behind Alec.
    “Yes.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
    “It wasn’t a night I particularly want to remember.”
    “But, Christ, I mean that’s weird, don’t you think? We stood right over there,” he pointed to the photographs, “and talked about her, and you never said a word.”
    She looked over at him. His heavy blond eyebrows were knitted together in a frown, and his eyes had reddened.
    “Aren’t there things you just can’t talk about?” she asked.
    He drew back from her, and she knew that, unwittingly, she had struck a nerve in him.
    “Yeah. Right.” He shook his head to whisk away what ever emotions had been stirred loose in him over the past few minutes. “Didn’t mean to jump on you. Let’s get back to work here.”
    She returned to her work, but as she cut, as she measured, she was aware of Tom’s troubled silence, and she knew that this was yet another man who had loved Annie Chase O’Neill.

C HAPTER N INE
    “You’re coming to graduation tonight, aren’t you?” Clay looked across the table at his father, while Lacey drowned her frozen waffle in maple syrup.
    “Of course,” Alec said. “I wouldn’t miss it.” He wondered how Clay could have thought anything else, but he guessed his actions hadn’t been too predictable lately.
    “How’s the speech coming?” he asked. Clay had seemed uncharacteristically nervous the past few days, and right now he was tapping his foot on the floor beneath the table. He’d been carrying his notecards around with him, wedged into his shirt pocket or clutched in his hand. Even now the cards were perched, dog-eared and smudged, in front of his orange juice glass. Alec felt a little sorry for his son. He wished there was some way he could make it easier for him.
    “It’s fine,” Clay said. “By the way, is it okay if I have a few people over after?”
    “Sure,” Alec said, pleased. “It’s been a while since you’ve done that. I’ll disappear.”
    “Well, no, you don’t have to disappear,” Clay said quickly.
    Alec reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He set it on the table next to Clay’s cereal bowl. “Take what you need for food and whatever.”
    Clay stared at the wallet for a moment. He glanced at Lacey before he opened it and pulled out a twenty.
    “Can’t get much with that,” Alec said. He took his wallet back and handed Clay a couple more twenties. “You only graduate once.”
    Clay held the bills on the table. “You act like money’s nothing these days,” he said, carefully. Alec had the feeling both his kids thought he was losing his mind. He was not working; he was spending freely. But he wasn’t quite ready to tell them about the insurance policy. He needed to keep it to himself a while longer—a sweet, tender secret he shared with Annie.
    “You don’t need to concern yourself with finances other than your own,” Alec said.
    Clay looked around the room. “I’d better get home early today to get this place cleaned up.”
    “I’ll do it,” Lacey volunteered, surprising them both. “It’ll be your graduation present.”
    Alec spent the day with his camera on the beach at Kiss River. He was taking slides for a change, pictures he would use when he spoke to the Rotary Club in Elizabeth City next week.
    He and Clay arrived home at the same time and they barely recognized the house they walked into. It smelled of lemon oil, and whatever it was Annie used to put in the bag of the vacuum cleaner. The living room was spotless, the kitchen scrubbed and sparkling and full of color from the stained glass at the windows.
    “God,” Clay said, looking around him. “Seems a shame