His voice was husky. “I love your eye.”
It was a tight shot of my right eye, probably taken during our time in Venice: the almond shape, the long fine lashes, the iris lit up by the sun and ever so slightly tilting outward toward a landscape no one else could see.
Why had I waited so long? I leaned my cheek against his back, so broad and strong. I felt him strip off the thick rubber gloves and rinse his hands. He turned around and I was in his arms again, where I had always wanted to be without ever knowing it.
I leaned my forehead against his chest and took a deep breath. I had to say it. “My flight is tomorrow. I just finished packing.”
He stiffened and gripped me by the shoulders so hard it hurt. “What? No. Sylvie, what about us?”
I shook my head, my hair brushing against his hands. “Lukas, you do not know everything about me.”
He growled, low and urgent, “I know enough. When you came back and I saw you again at the airport, I felt like I had been struck. Every piece of my life fell into place in that moment.”
My voice was so small, it almost squeaked. “Why did you not come to me that last night in Venice?”
He sighed and pulled me close to him again. His large hand stroked my hair. “I was afraid you were not ready. You were newly separated from your husband. You were seeing him everywhere. And then we returned and Grandma—it did not seem the right time. I suppose I still was not sure you wanted me instead of Filip.”
My legs were weak and I felt the tears behind my eyelids. “You have to understand. I ruin everything.”
“Not true.” He rested his cheek against the top of my head.
I put my heart on my tongue, wise or not. I laid my trembling hand against the side of his neck. I had to give him the chance to say no to the real me. “I always try so hard and yet, it all goes wrong. No one really likes me. Not after they know me, anyway. One colleague took me out to lunch just so she could let slip that everyone thought I was sleeping my way to the top. When you are a woman, people always assume success comes from your bedroom and not your boardroom skills.” Despite myself, my voice cracked. “Before then, I had thought I was getting along well with people at work. I believed I had friends.” How I wanted that to be true. “After that, I learned to keep my distance.”
Lukas drew back to look at me. His eyes were tender.
“Then my marriage went down the drain.”
He caressed the side of my face with his callused palm. “Did you really think any of this would matter to me?”
Despite myself, I sniffed and sagged against him as I struggled to find the right words. “My own parents did not want me, Lukas. I never fit in anywhere. The only people who ever truly cared about me were Grandma and Amy. Now Grandma is gone and Amy is grown. She no longer needs me. Amy got the love and I got the success, but I do not have anything anymore.”
He bent down, his lips a breath away from my own, and said in a hoarse whisper, “You have me.”
Chapter 28
Amy
Monday, May 16
Ma and Pa are scheduled to arrive this afternoon. I pretend to have a migraine from all the stress to avoid picking them up from the airport. It’s not far from the truth. In the bathroom mirror, I see that my eyes are sunken into their sockets, the skin around them red and abraded from my constant rubbing. My lips look as if a layer of white wax has melted over them, now flaking off. Lukas will accompany Helena and Willem. This is my chance to look through his apartment without anyone around.
As soon as the car leaves the driveway, I race over to his apartment with the spare key in my hand. I decide to start my search upstairs. I am surprised by how neat it is for such a shaggy, unshaven person. I head for the desk, which supports a massive monitor attached to a laptop. I hesitate before opening the first drawer. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ve broken into my cousin’s apartment and suspect him of having something to do with Sylvie’s death, maybe even of murdering her. I am ridiculous.
Frantic with energy, I search his desk anyway—cables, an old cell phone, flash drives. Papers that look like invoices he’s sent to people, with his name in big black letters in the letterhead. Everything’s in Dutch. One drawer’s filled with receipts filed in different folders. If I were a real detective, I would figure out something clever from this. He still has a thick paper agenda. I flip through it but can’t read a word. Then I open the laptop and try a couple of passwords: Sylvie’s name and birthday. But they don’t work.
Why did I ever think I could accomplish anything by coming here? Ma and Pa will arrive soon and then we’ll leave for New York and we’ll never know how Sylvie wound up at the bottom of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. I choke back a sob and press my hand against my chest. How can this be real? Pull it together, Amy. They’ll be back soon. I tackle the agenda again, this time going through it page by page, checking the days when Sylvie was here.
There, wedged deep into the inner crack of the book, is an irregular slip of yellow notebook paper. It looks like it’s been torn from a larger piece. I pull it out gently with my fingernails and gasp.
It’s Sylvie’s angular, clear handwriting. It’s just her signature, as if this is the end of a note she wrote, but instead of Lee she’s signed her name as Sylvie Tan. Lukas’s last name.
So it’s true. It had been Lukas and Sylvie all along. She must have really been in love with him to pretend his last name was hers. She hadn’t even taken Jim’s surname after they wed. Perhaps this was a tiny bit of proof. No wonder he’d looked so distraught. I tuck the slip of paper into my jacket pocket and go through the other papers more carefully. I don’t find anything, so I return to the computer.
I’m startled by a soft scuffle and then a meow from downstairs. Could it be? I type in Couscous. The laptop unlocks. I immediately go into his email, but again, everything seems to be written in Dutch. I don’t know what I’m expecting. That he wrote a confession in English and sent it to someone? In the Sent folder, I see what must be dozens of emails to Sylvie. None of them have a reply. I pick a few and send them to myself. I can try a translation program on them later. I’m afraid he’ll be back at any moment so I quickly go through the rest of his laptop. The Dutch documents are equally mysterious and, with a sigh, I click the computer closed.
I scan the room. A cello is propped up against the corner, next to its black-and-blue case. A sharp pain shoots into my heart—had that been Sylvie’s? I spot an enormous messenger-style bag next to the broken coffee table. The edge of what looks like a portfolio peeks from underneath its gaping flap.
I yank the bag toward me. I open it and pull out the portfolio. Tears spring to my eyes as I press my knuckles to my lips. Inside is photo after photo of Sylvie. Sylvie in what must be Venice, with a gondola in the background, smiling, radiant with happiness. Sylvie’s wandering eye—her throat and lips. Strands of her hair, black in the wind against an Italian cathedral. Sylvie lying on the sofa bed behind me, stroking Couscous, stretched out across her stomach. If I hadn’t suspected it before, these photos would have revealed Lukas’s love or obsession to me. But I am taken in by the open warmth and vulnerability in Sylvie’s eyes as she gazes at the photographer.