FORTY-EIGHT

“That’s no way to spend a Saturday night,” Luc said exactly a week later, when he returned from his trip. “I can’t let you sit in front of a television set eating popcorn with this great wine.”

“It’s a whole lot better than the way I spent the last one. Besides, if you tell me you don’t want to watch my Yankees play a World Series game, we’ve got a real deal breaker here.”

We had flown up to the Vineyard that morning, after all the drama of the past week had played out in court.

Travis Forbes had been charged with the murders of Tina Barr and Karla Vastasi. His brother, Eddy, was indicted, too, for acting in concert with Travis on the Vastasi killing-proved by cell phone records and credit card receipts for gas and food.

Travis had rolled over on Alger Herrick and implicated him in the deadly plot to find the twelve panels of the priceless map, though Battaglia hadn’t needed to promise any leniency. The detectives had continued to build a rock-solid case against the Englishman, who was indeed the illegitimate son of Jasper Hunt III.

Luc and I had walked down the path from my Chilmark home to watch the sun set, sipping a glass of chilled Corton-Charlemagne that he had brought with him. We had made love in the afternoon, slowly and without any distractions this time, and I was dressed in one of his shirts as I lay back in the sand, wiggling my toes in the cool water of Menemsha Pond.

Luc had driven to the store while I napped fitfully, still not able to get images of this case out of my head.

“Everything at Larsen’s Fish Market looked merveilleuse, darling. I decided on those sweet little bay scallops,” he said.

“I adore them.”

“Lemon, garlic, fettucine.”

I looked at him and cocked an eye. “How do you eat food like that at a ball game?”

I heard Mike’s voice in the back of my head ordering a hot dog and a cold beer.

“Trust me. It will be better than anything you get at the stadium.”

“For starters?”

Luc stood up and dug his toes into the sand as the gentle waves receded. “Clams. Fresh ones.”

“Let me help.”

I sat up and we scratched below the surface until we filled a towel with a dozen quahaugs.

“That lady at the library, the one you really liked,” Luc said, sitting beside me as a bright red ball of sunlight started to slip down behind the hills of Aquinnah.

“Bea?”

“So she was right about the places that the eccentric Mr. Hunt hid the panels of the map.”

“She was dead on,” I said.

“You think they will ever find the entire thing?” Luc asked.

“So far we’re more than halfway there. Four that Hunt tried to take to the great hereafter with him, the one that Jane Eliot gave to Minerva, the other that Minerva had all along-in the Strassburg Ptolemy-and the one that Mike found inside the library, under the water tank.”

“You said Bea found others?”

“Yes, during the week, when the search continued, two of the curators discovered pieces tucked inside books from the Hunt Collection, just as Bea had predicted,” I said. “And Talbot Hunt is cooperating now.”

The Friday morning we first met Talbot at the library, he had hinted at the fact that he was in the race to find the entire map. He had unearthed one not long ago in an atlas he inherited from his grandfather, which he’d ignored until Tina Barr began to work with him.

“So that accounts for ten of the twelve,” Luc said. “What will become of the map, if it is ever put together?”

I sipped at the wine, then stretched out again in the sand, watching the crown of the sun disappear.

“The Hunts have finally agreed on something, after a lifetime of acrimony and unpleasantness. A substantial piece of damage control,” I said. “They’ve made a gift of the map to the New York Public Library, along with a sizable contribution for the restoration of the Hunt Collection. The money will also help the library try to find the last two pieces.”

“Are you getting cold, darling?”

“No, I’m fine. I don’t want to go in yet.”

The involuntary chill that swept over me had nothing to do with the weather. There would be hearings and trials to follow, a system trying to make sense of the senseless deaths of two young women.

“You can get this off your mind now, can’t you?”

Judge Moffett had approved my application for the familial DNA search of Wesley the Weasel Griggs. A homicide case that had languished for eight years might now be solved by science, and I would have a new challenge to fill the fall days.

“Tonight, yes,” I said, as Luc swept back my hair and put his lips against my forehead.

“And tomorrow?”

“Yes.” I laughed as he moved his lips to the tip of my nose.

Months earlier, after Joan and Jim’s wedding, Luc had embraced me for the first time in this secluded cove. All the best memories of my life were connected to this peaceful, glorious island.

“And Monday, after I’ve flown home to France?”

“Hard to predict,” I said. “Au revoir, mon amour.”

“Tuesday?” he asked, entwining his legs with mine in the shallow water that lapped at our feet.

“Maybe.”

“Only maybe? I’ve got some serious work to do before I leave,” Luc said.

I put my arms around his neck and we kissed each other, over and over again. Then I pulled him to his feet and led him up the hill to the outdoor shower. I wanted to wash off the sand from the beach-and some of the grit I carried with me, always, from my job.

“C’mon, Luc,” I said. “Time to play ball.”