The tender friendships one gives up, on parting, leave their bite on the heart, but also a curious feeling of a treasure somewhere buried. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Nathan:

January 10th

The trip had been good for both of us. It was nice to remember what normal was. Audrey had taken to skiing with the fervor of the newly converted. She still snowplowed down the mountains with her face more than her skis, but she was improving in her winter sport of choice. She hadn't been as happy with skating claiming it was boring falling on your butt constantly. I hadn't heard the word "Duke" in 3 days. When we drove into town though, we had to pass by the harbor and we both saw Cape Rouge in the harbor. That started her off on the pirate again. I sourly wondered if she talked about me in his presence as much as she talked about him in mine. Still, up until today, the break from Haven and Duke had been enjoyable. We'd even taken a couple extra days beyond the week originally planned.

I drove her to the bed and breakfast she lived in. Paul Thatcher, who ran Over the Way, normally didn't entertain his guests as long as he'd had Audrey, but he didn't seem to care that Audrey never left after she booked her rooms. When we got to her door, she opened it and let herself in, then invited me in. I ran into her as she stooped to pick up a piece of paper off the floor.

After we disentangled ourselves, I sat in one of the chairs, happy to be off the road for a while. Audrey read the note and smiled. I quirked an eyebrow at her in a silent question.

"Duke formally invites me up to a private dinner party at my time and place of choosing as a sincere apology for leaving without saying goodbye." Audrey smiled, happy that Duke had stopped by. I can't say I was as impressed. It must have shown on my face, because some of her elation left her face. "Why do you two not like each other, Nathan? I mean, you two seem to care about each other, and the next moment you are at each other's throats. I don't understand it." She looked sad that we weren't all best friends, the Hardy Boys to her Nancy Drew.

"Duke and I have a long history, Audrey. It's not nice and it's not pretty. He's a bastard and so am I. There's a lot of water under our bridge and it's eroded the pylons to nothing." I got up and looked out the window. "It's not that I hate him, but damn, he can sure make it hard to like him."

Audrey nodded, then came up behind me and hugged me. "Pylons can be fixed and bridges rebuilt," she said quietly.

I shrugged. "I don't really want to talk about Duke, Audrey."

She let it go, but I could still see it bothered her. She began unpacking.

"So Portsmouth and Kittery have been fighting over that shipyard for years?" she asked.

"Yeah, seems like it's an issue every couple of years. It's funny though, when there's any rumor that the shipyard's going to be closed, it doesn't matter who owns it, it matters that it's kept open. Then both states move heaven and hell to keep the shipyard open. Once the funding's secured though, they go back to arguing about who owns it." I shook my head, ruefully over the epic battle of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. "Next thing they'll argue about is who owns that bridge that needs to be fixed that Route 1's on, but that's more about who has to pay to fix it."

There was a knock on the door and Audrey went to answer it. Julia Carr didn't wait to be invited in before making her way to sit in the chair I vacated. She was pale and wan, like she'd been sick for a few days. "You ok, Julia?" I asked, concerned.

She shook her head, and looked at Audrey and me, and then began crying. Audrey walked up to her, hugging her. "What's the matter, Julia? Is it your mom?" Dr. Eleanor Carr had died a few months ago and Julia had stayed in town to try to fill her mother's shoes. Julia was still trying to sort through the feelings her mother's death evoked, and I fear that Julia and Eleanor's last words hadn't been kind. Audrey had become one of Julia's close friends.

Julia shook her head, and visibly brought herself back under control, taking a couple of deep breaths. She looked up at us, and it was obvious she had something she needed to tell us, but that she couldn't find the words. I walked over and told her gently "It'll be OK, Julia, whatever's wrong, we can fix it."

"No, not that this time, Nathan." She looked down again, wringing her tissue into horrible origami slugs. "Duke died. He had a major allergic reaction to one of Rosemary's whoopee pies, we think. She used a recipe with some zucchini in it – it was supposed to keep the chocolate cake moist. He must not have known and eaten it. He, he called me and told me that he'd dosed himself with epinephrine, but that it wasn't working. I came over and couldn't revive him."

Audrey put a hand up to her face, her eyes wide with shock. She sat heavily on the bed with a quiet "no."

"I called the ambulance and worked on him all the way to the hospital and we tried everything. We were able to bring him back once, but we couldn't stabilize the heart rhythm and never could restart his breathing. Eventually his heart stopped again and we couldn't restart it again. That was three days ago."

I was numb. My friend, my enemy was dead. Killed by stupid vegetable he had been careful about avoiding. Hell, he and Jeff used to laugh about their respective food allergies, claiming that Bill would one day serve up fried zucchini in sesame oil to off both of them. They both found out they were allergic the same way on the same day, by eating something that violently disagreed with them. It had set off a food poisoning panic at the school bake sale. I know it had bothered Duke to know that Jeff had died as a result of an allergic reaction just off his boat, and I'd seen him at the pharmacy getting a new epi-pen and the lecture on how to use it. The McShaws and Duke had been close friends, and Duke's love of cooking had been from Jeff and Bill's adventures and misadventures with food (and perhaps a sense of self preservation after some of the wilder experiments).

Now he was gone and there was, surprisingly, a giant hole in my heart. I thought I would be glad that Duke was dead, but the reality was so much worse. "When is the funeral?" someone asked, and I honestly didn't know if it was Audrey or me myself.

"We held a small memorial service for him last night at the Gull. There were only a few of us; Vince, Dave, Edith, Pete, Margie, Tracy, and myself. We thought you'd be back yesterday." Julia was striving for a detached tone and succeeding in wooden. "The Rev wouldn't come out, said that Duke was hellspawn and he'd be damned before he blessed the bastard."

"Why would he do that?!" Audrey asked, trying not to cry. "Why?"

Julia sighed. "There was this rumor that started shortly after The Rev came to town that Duke was his son. The Rev didn't like it and didn't like Duke because of it."

"What about a funeral, Julia? He wanted to be buried at sea. At least, he did when he was a kid." I remembered the nights where we had macabre discussions about what to do with each other when we were dead. Duke wanted the sea and I wanted fire. The McShaws wanted a normal burial, but next to each other.

Julia pulled on all the down-easter reserve in her body to steel herself for what she said next. "We can't find him. I don't understand, I mean, I was in the ambulance with him when they took him to the hospital, but … they can't find his body now. They even called over to the other hospitals in the region, thinking maybe it, he was transferred in error. No one can find...We can't lay him to rest." She trailed off.

Audrey looked at Julia, a desperate hope in her face. "Could he have revived? I mean, I have heard stories where people sometimes spontaneously …"

Julia shook her head, holding up a clutched tissue, forcing herself to be calm for Audrey's sake. "I saw him in the morgue myself. The drawers, they can't be opened from the inside. We think, Noah and Stan and I, we think that maybe his body was stolen from the hospital. We can't find who took it. We can't find it. "

Audrey got up and hugged Julia, and the two clung together. I continued to stare out of the window, hating how my world had just crashed down around me.

A/N: And here's a fine place to leave this story as a hurricane and a cold front join forces on my doorstep just in time to go to work tomorrow. The longest I've lived without power was 6.5 days. Let's try not to top that, please Mother Nature? I learned to appreciate hot water the last time.