by Nora Roberts
“Do you have any suggestions on what to do about a duly authorized warrant?”
“Having to accept it isn’t the same as accepting it’s just the way life goes. I’m not a lawyer, but I was raised by one, and it’s pretty damn clear they had to push the envelope and push it hard to get a search warrant. And it’s just as clear that Boston cop did the pushing.”
“No argument.”
“He should be sanctioned. You should sue him for harassment. You should be furious.”
“I was. And I talked to my lawyer. If he doesn’t back off, we’ll talk about a suit.”
“Why aren’t you still mad?”
“Jesus, Abra, I’m making chicken from a recipe I got off the Internet because going around the house cleaning up cop mess pissed me off all over again, and I needed something to do with the mad. I don’t have any more room for the mad.”
“Looks like I do, and plenty of it. Just don’t tell me unfair and wrong is just the way it goes. The system’s not supposed to kick people around, and I’m not naive enough to believe it doesn’t sometimes do just that. But I’m human enough to wish it didn’t. . . . I need some air.”
She shoved up, strode to the terrace doors, and out.
Considering, Eli set down the knife, absently swiped his hands on the hips of his jeans, and followed.
“Not helpful.” She waved a hand at him as she paced around the terrace. “None of that was helpful, I know.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It’s been stuck in my gut since I heard, even though I put two enormous brownies in there with it.”
He knew the classic female reliance on chocolate, though he’d go for the beer instead. “How did you hear about it?”
“My morning yoga class, one of my students. Gossip’s her religion. And that’s bitchy. I hate being bitchy. Negative vibes,” she added, shaking her arms as if to shake those vibes loose to be carried off by the breeze. “It’s just that she’s so goddamn self-righteous, so concerned, so full of it. The way she talked it was like they’d sent in an assault team to pin down the crazed killer, who I have the bad judgment to sleep with. And she acts like she’s just worried for the community, and of course for me as you could smother me in my sleep or bash my head in or—
“Oh God, Eli.” She stopped short, appalled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That was stupid. Stupid and bitchy and insensitive—three things I most hate to be. I’m supposed to cheer you up or support you—or both. Instead I’m snapping and slapping at you, and saying horrible and stupid things. I’ll stop. Or I’ll go and take my crappy mood with me.”
Anger and frustration flushed her face, he noted. Horrified apology lived in her eyes. And the breeze from the sea streamed through her hair so the wild curls danced.
“You know, my family, and the friends I have left, don’t talk about it. I feel them creeping around it like it’s a . . . not an elephant in the room but a fucking T. rex. Sometimes I felt it would swallow me whole. But they crept around it, didn’t want to talk about it any more than was absolutely necessary.
“‘Don’t upset Eli, don’t make him think about it, don’t depress him.’ It was damn depressing knowing they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me how they felt, what they thought other than the ‘It’ll all be fine, we’re behind you.’ I appreciated knowing they’d stand up for me, but the screaming silence of that T. rex, and what they felt inside, almost buried me.”
“They love you,” Abra began. “They were scared for you.”
“I know it. I didn’t just come here because Gran needed someone in the house. I’d already decided I had to get out of my parents’ place, find a place—I couldn’t or hadn’t drummed up the energy to do it, but I knew I had to get away from that creeping silence—for myself and for them.”
She understood exactly. A lot of people had crept around her after Derrick had attacked her. Afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to say anything at all.
“It’s been a terrible ordeal for all of you.”
“And back again because today I had to tell them what was going on before they heard about it from somebody else.”
Sympathy rolled through her again. She hadn’t thought of that part. “It was hard to do.”
“Had to be done. I played it down, so I guess that’s the Landon way of handling things. You’re the first one who’s said what you think, what you’re feeling, without filters. The first one who doesn’t pretend that T. rex isn’t right here, that somebody beat Lindsay’s head in, and plenty think it was me.”
“Thoughts and feelings and the passionate expressing of same were big in my house.”
“Who’d have guessed?”
That teased out a wisp of a smile. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I must have used up my quota of restraint today when I didn’t knock Heather on her butt.”
“Tough girl.”
“I know tai chi.” She deliberately rose up on one leg in the Crane.
“I thought that was kung fu.”
“Both are martial arts, so watch it. I’m not so mad anymore.”
“Me, either.”
She walked to him, linked her arms around his neck. “Let’s make a deal.”
“All right.”
“Thoughts and feelings on the table, whenever necessary. And if a dinosaur walks into the room, we won’t ignore it.”
“Like cooking, you’re going to be better at it than I am, but I’ll give it a shot.”
“Good enough. We should go back in so I can watch you cook.”
“Okay. Now that we’ve . . . set the table, there are some things I should say.”
He led the way back in. At the island, he picked up a pepper, studied it as he tried to figure out how to cut it.
“I’ll demonstrate again.”
While she topped, cored, sliced, he picked up his wine. “Corbett knows I didn’t kill Lindsay.”
“What?” Her head shot up, her hand stilled on the knife. “Did he say that to you?”
“Yeah. I’ve got no reason to think he’s bullshitting me. He said he read the files, looked at everything, and he knows I didn’t kill her.”
“I’ve just completely changed my mind about him.” She reached across to take Eli’s hand for a moment. “No wonder you weren’t as mad as I was.”
“It lifted something. There’s still plenty there, but it lifted some of it.”
He tried his hand at slicing as he told her what Corbett had said.
“So he thinks it’s possible, too, that whoever was in the house that night was in the house when Hester fell. And also possible that person shot Duncan.”
“I think it’s an angle he’ll work. My lawyer would kick my ass, and rightfully, if he knew how I’d talked to Corbett, what I told him. But—”
“Sometimes you have to trust.”
“I don’t know about trust, but he’s in the best position to find Duncan’s killer, and if and when, we’re going to get some answers.”
He set the green pepper aside, picked up the red. “Meanwhile, there’s someone out there who wants in this house, someone who’s already attacked you, and may have hurt my grandmother. There’s someone out there who’s killed a man. Maybe it’s the same person. Maybe it’s a partner, or a competitor.”
“Competitor?”
“A lot of people believe Esmeralda’s Dowry exists. When treasure hunters found the wreck of the Calypso some thirty years ago, they didn’t find the dowry. Haven’t found it yet, and more have looked. Then again, there’s no solid, corroborated evidence the dowry was on the ship when it wrecked on Whiskey Beach, or was ever on it. For all we know, it went down with the family’s trusted liaison when the Calypso attacked the Santa Caterina. Or the liaison absconded with the dowry and lived fat and rich in the West Indies.”
“Absconded. That sounds so classy.”
“I’m a classy guy,” he said, and finished the pepper. “Most of it’s rumor, and a lot of rumors conflict. But anyone who’d go to the tro
uble this guy has, who’d kill, is a true believer.”
“You think he’ll try to get back in, while you’re in the house?”
“I think he’s taking some time, waiting for everything to settle down some. Then yeah, he’s got to get back to it. That’s one thing. The other is there are people in the village, people you know, you work for, you give classes to, who—like what’s her name—are going to believe I did it, or at least wonder. That puts you in the middle—of possible harm, of certain gossip. I don’t want you there.”
“You can’t control what other people say and do. And I think I’ve already proven I can defend myself in the possible-harm category.”
“He didn’t have a gun—or didn’t think he needed to use it. Then.”
She nodded. She couldn’t deny the idea unnerved her, but she’d decided long before not to live her life in fear. “Killing me, or both of us, for that matter, in our sleep, or when I’m scrubbing the floor, only brings the cops in, again. I’d think that would be the last thing he wants. He needs to avoid attention, not only to himself but to Bluff House.”
“That’s logical. I’m looking at the big picture, and he hasn’t used a lot of logic so far. I don’t want you hurt. And I don’t want you dealing with anything like you dealt with this morning again because you’re involved with me.”
Eyeing him coolly, she took a slow sip of wine. “Are you cooking me a farewell dinner, Eli?”
“I think it’s better all around if we take a break.”
“‘It’s not you, it’s me’—is that the next line?”
“Look. It’s because I . . . because you matter to me. You’ve got some of your things in the house, and cops pawed through them today. Corbett may believe me, but Wolfe doesn’t—and he won’t stop. He’ll do everything he can to discredit you, because it’s your statement that takes me out of the equation in Duncan’s murder.”
“He’ll do that whether or not I’m with you.”
For a moment she considered how she felt about being protected—from harm, from ugly talk. She decided she felt fine about it, even if she didn’t intend to allow it.
“I appreciate your position. You think you need to protect me, to shield me from harm, from gossip, from police scrutiny, and I find I like being with a man who would try to do that. But the fact is, Eli, I’ve already been through all of it, and more, once in my life. I’m not going to give up what I want on the chance I may go through some of it again. You matter to me, too.”
She lifted her wine as she studied him. “I’d say we’re at an impasse on this, except for one thing.”
“What thing?”
“It’s going to depend on how you answer the question. Which is, do you believe women should get equal pay for equal work?”
“What? Yes. Why?”
“Good, because this discussion would veer off into another avenue if you’d said no. Do you also believe women have the right of choice?”
“Jesus.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Yes.” He saw exactly where she was taking him, and began to work on a rebuttal in his head.
“Excellent. That saves a long, heated debate. Rights come with responsibilities. It’s my choice how I live my life, who I’m with, who I care for. It’s my right to make those choices, and I take the responsibility.”
Her eyes narrowed on his face. “Oh, go right ahead.”
“And what?”
“Raised by a lawyer,” she reminded him. “I can see Mr. Harvard Law thinking through how to make a complicated argument to tangle up all my points. So go ahead. You can even throw out a couple of ‘wherefores.’ It won’t make any difference. My mind’s made up.”
He shifted gears. “Do you understand how much I’ll worry?”
Abra tipped her chin down, and those narrowed eyes went steely.
“That always works for my mother,” he pleaded.
“You’re not my mother,” she reminded him. “Plus you don’t have mother-power. You’re stuck with me, Eli. If you cut me loose, it has to be because you don’t want me, or you want someone else, or something else. If I walk away, it has to be for the same reasons.”
Feelings on the table, he thought. “Lindsay didn’t matter anymore, but every day I regret I couldn’t do anything to stop what happened to her.”
“She mattered once, and she didn’t deserve to die that way. You’d have protected her if you could.” She rose, went to him, slid her arms around his waist.
“I’m not Lindsay. You and I are going to look out for each other. We’re both smart. We’ll figure it out.”
He drew her in, stood with his cheek pressed to hers. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He didn’t know how he would keep that unspoken promise to her, to himself, but he’d do whatever he needed to do to keep it.
“Smart? I’m following a recipe for morons.”
“It’s your first day on the job.”
“I’m supposed to cube that chicken. What the hell does that mean?”
She drew back, then moved in again for a long, satisfying kiss. “Once again, I’ll demonstrate.”
She was in and out of the house. Early classes, cleaning jobs—his included—marketing, private lessons, tarot readings for a birthday party.
He barely knew she was there when he was working, yet when she wasn’t, he knew it acutely. The energy—he was starting to think like her—of the house seemed to wane without her in it.
They walked on the beach, and though he’d firmly decided cooking would never be a form of relaxation for him, he pitched in to help now and then.
He had a hard time imagining the house without her. Imagining his days, his nights without her.
Still, when she urged him to come the next night she worked at the bar, he made excuses.
He did want to continue researching the dowry, the ship, he reminded himself. He carried books out to the terrace to read there while he still had enough light, and settled down near the big terra-cotta pots Abra had planted with purple and yellow pansies.
As his grandmother did, he remembered, every spring.
They’d take the cool nights, even a frost if they got another. And that was likely, he thought, despite the blessed warm spell they’d enjoyed the last few days.
People had flocked to the beach to take advantage. He’d even spotted Vinnie through his telescope, riding waves with the same flash and verve he’d had as a teenager.
The warm, the flowers, the voices carried on the wind, and the cheerful blue of the sea nearly lulled him into thinking everything was normal and settled and right.
It made him wonder what life would be like if all that were true. If he made his home here, did his work here, reclaimed his roots here without the nagging weight still chained around his waist.
Abra flitting in and out of the house, filling it with flowers, candles, smiles. With heat and light and a promise he didn’t know he could ever make, ever keep.
Thoughts and feelings on the table, he remembered. But he didn’t know how to describe what he felt with her or for her. Wasn’t at all sure what to do with those feelings.
But he did know he was happier with her than he’d ever been without her. Happier than he’d ever believed he could be, despite everything.
He thought of her—high heels, short black skirt, snug white shirt, gliding around the noisy bar with her tray.
He wouldn’t mind a beer, some noise, or seeing her quick smile when he walked in.
Then he reminded himself he’d neglected the research over the last couple of days, and buckled down to it.
Not that he saw what possible use it could be, reading stories—for what else were they but stories?—of pirates and treasure, of ill-fated lovers and violent death.
But the hell of it was, it was the only clear channel he had to real death, and maybe, just maybe, some remote chance of clearing his name.
He read for an hour before the light started to go. He rose, wandered to the edge of the terrace to watch the sea and sky bl
ur together, watched a young family—man, woman, two small boys—walk along the surf, with the boys, legs pumping in shorts, dashing into the shallows and out again, quick as crabs.
Maybe he’d have that beer after all, take a short break, then