Whiskey Beach

by Nora Roberts

  “Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but he’d like to hook a search warrant with it. It screams setup, and a clumsy one at that, so I think Wolfe’s not buying it, but like I said, he wouldn’t mind giving your place a look.”

  “There’s nothing here. Nothing . . . but that gun.”

  “We’ll go through the process. I can get a warrant for a search, but it’d be easier all around if you just gave your permission.”

  She didn’t want it; it made her a little sick inside. But more, she wanted it over. “All right, search, look, do whatever you have to do.”

  “Good. When we finish, I want you to make sure this place is locked—including windows.”

  “Yes, I will. And I think I’ll spend the nights either at Bluff House or with my next-door neighbors until . . . for a while.”

  “Better yet.”

  “Do you have to tell Eli now?” She dropped her hand when she realized she’d been twisting the smoky quartz pendant she wore—one made in her craft room—around and around on its chain. “It’s just his family’s coming. They’re probably here now for Easter. Something like this is going to upset everyone.”

  “Until I need to talk to him again, I don’t have to tell him anything.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ve called for somebody to come in, check for prints, but—”

  “There won’t be any. But it’s the process.”

  “That’s right.”

  She got through it. Little house, she thought, didn’t take long. She stayed out of the way, stayed outside when she could. This was how Eli had felt, she realized, how he must’ve felt when the police came, to check, to search, to look for evidence. He must’ve felt, for that bubble of time, the house wasn’t his. His things weren’t his things.

  Vinnie stepped out. “They’re finishing up. Nothing,” he told her. “No prints on the window, on the box, on the contents.” He gave her back a quick rub. “The search is a formality, Abs. You okaying it without a warrant only adds weight to this being a setup.”

  “I know.”

  “Want me to hang out with you awhile?”

  “No, you should go home to your family.” To dye Easter eggs, she thought, with his little boy. “You didn’t have to stay this long.”

  “I want you to call me, anytime, for anything.”

  “I will. Count on it. I’m going to put myself together a little and go down to Bluff House. I want to see Hester.”

  “You give her my best. I can wait until you’re ready to go.”

  “No, I’m fine. Better. It’s broad daylight. There are people on the beach. He’s got no reason to bother me anyway at this point.”

  “Keep the doors and windows locked anyway.”

  “I will.”

  She walked him out. Her across-the-street neighbor sent her a wave, then went back to digging in his front garden. A couple of boys raced by on bikes.

  Too much activity, she assured herself, for anyone to try to get inside. And no reason now to do so.

  She got a trash bag, went into the bedroom. Kneeling, she threw everything on the floor away, box and all. She couldn’t know what he’d touched. If she could, she’d have thrown everything in the closet away.

  Instead, she freshened up her makeup, packed a small bag, included the sketch. After she tidied up the kitchen, she retrieved the strawberry-rhubarb pies she’d made, boxed them up.

  She carried them out to her car, went back for her bag, her purse. And when she locked her front door, her heart broke a little.

  She loved her little cottage, and didn’t know when she’d feel safe in it again.

  Nineteen

  PEOPLE, NOISE, MOVEMENT FILLED BLUFF HOUSE. ELI HAD forgotten what it was like to have so many voices speaking at once, so many activities rolling over each other, so many questions to answer.

  After the initial jolt, he found himself enjoying the company and chaos. Hauling luggage upstairs or bags and platters into the kitchen, watching his niece toddle everywhere—and holding what seemed to be intense conversations with the dog—noting his mother’s surprised approval when he pulled out a fancy tray of fruit and cheese to offer as a post-trip snack.

  But his biggest pleasure came from seeing his grandmother stand on the terrace, the breeze fluttering her hair as she looked out to sea.

  When he slipped out to join her, she leaned against him.

  In her beam of sun, the old dog Sadie raised her head, gave a little wag, then went back to sleep.

  “Sun warms old bones,” Hester said. “Mine and Sadie’s. I’ve missed this.”

  “I know.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. “And I think this has missed you.”

  “I like to think so. You potted pansies.”

  “Abra did. I water them.”

  “Teamwork’s a good thing. It’s helped knowing you’re here, Eli. Not just on the practical level of having someone in the house, but having you here. Because I think this has missed you, too.”

  The familiar vine of guilt and regret wound through him. “I’m sorry I stayed away so long. Sorrier I thought I had to.”

  “Did you know I hated to sail?”

  Pure shock had him gaping down at her. “You? Hester First Mate Landon? I thought you loved it.”

  “Your grandfather loved it. I had to take a pill to keep my stomach steady. I love the sea, but better when I’m on land looking at it. We sailed together, Eli and I, and I don’t regret a single pill, a single minute on the water with him. Marriage is a series of compromises, and at its best, the compromises create a life, a partnership. You compromised, Eli, and that’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “I was going to take you out tomorrow.”

  She laughed, quick and delighted. “Let’s not.”

  “Why do you keep the boat?”

  When she simply looked at him, smiled at him, he understood. For love, he thought, and pressed his lips to her cheek.

  She shifted to look him in the eye. “So, you have a dog.”

  “I guess I do. She needed a place. I can relate.”

  “A dog’s a healthy step.” She shifted again to study him more closely, and leaned on her cane. “You look better.”

  “I hope to hell I do. You look better, Gran.”

  “I hope to hell I do.” She let out another laugh. “We were a couple of wounded warriors, weren’t we, young Eli?”

  “Healing up now, and coming on strong. Come home, Gran.”

  She sighed, gave his arm a squeeze before she walked with the aid of her cane to a chair to sit. “I’ve got more healing to do yet.”

  “You can heal here. I’ll stay with you, as long as you need.”

  Something shimmered in her eyes. For a moment, he feared tears, but it was light. “Sit,” she told him. “I fully intend to come back, but now’s not the time. It would be both impractical and unwise to be here when I have all those damn doctors and physical therapists in Boston.”

  “I can take you in for your appointments.” He hadn’t realized, not really, until he’d seen her standing on the terrace, her eyes on the sea, how much he wanted her back. “We can arrange for you to have your therapy here.”

  “God, how much your mind’s like mine. I’ve considered exactly that almost from the moment I woke up in the hospital. Coming back’s one of the main things that got me through. I come from tough stock, and marrying a Landon gave me more. I made those doctors eat crow when I recovered, when I got on my feet again.”

  “They didn’t know Hester Landon.”

  “They know me now.” She sat back. “But I’ve got a ways to go yet. I need your mother. Oh, I need your father, too. He’s a good son, and always has been. But I need Lissa, bless her, for a while longer. I’m on my feet, but I can’t stay there as much as I’d like, as much as I will. So I’ll stay in Boston until I’m satisfied I’m steady again. And you’ll stay here.”

  “As long as you want.”

  “Good, because this is exactly where I want you, and alw
ays have. I wondered if I’d be the last Landon in Bluff House. The last who’d live in Whiskey Beach. I’ve asked myself more than once if the reason I never warmed to Lindsay was because she’d keep you in Boston.”

  “Gran—”

  “Well, however selfish and self-serving, it was part of the why. Not the whole, but part. I would have accepted that, or tried, if she’d made you happy—the way Tricia’s family, and her work at Landon Whiskey, make her happy.”

  “She’s a whiz at it, isn’t she?”

  “She takes after your grandfather, and your father. Born and bred for it. You’re more like me. Oh, we can handle business when we have to, and we’re not fools. But it’s art that pulls us.”

  Reaching over, she patted his hand. “Even when you turned your sights on the law, it was your writing that made you happiest.”

  “It seemed like too much fun to be a job. And now that it’s a job, it’s a lot more work. When I practiced law, it felt as if I had something important, something solid. More than daydreaming on paper.”

  “Is that all there is to it? Daydreaming?”

  “No. Lindsay used to call it that.” He’d nearly forgotten. “Not harshly, but . . . a handful of short stories wasn’t all that impressive.”

  “She preferred the impressive, and I don’t say that harshly. She was who she was. But in that series of compromises, the plain truth is Lindsay rarely pulled her weight. Or not that I could see. People who say not to speak ill of the dead just don’t have the spine to say what they think.”

  “You’ve got plenty of spine.”

  He hadn’t expected to talk of Lindsay, not here, not with his grandmother. But maybe this was the place to put some of it to rest. “It wasn’t all her fault.”

  “It’s rarely only one person’s fault.”

  “I thought we’d take our own steps, meld our strengths, weaknesses, goals. But I married a princess. Her father always called her that. Princess.”

  “Ah, yes, I recall that now.”

  “She always got what she wanted. She was raised to believe she could and would—and should. She was naturally charming, incredibly beautiful and absolutely believed her life would be perfect, exactly the way she wanted.”

  “And life isn’t a series of fairy tales, even for a princess.”

  “I guess not,” he agreed. “It turned out life just wasn’t perfect with me.”

  “She was young and spoiled, and given the chance, she may have matured and become less self-involved. She did have charm, and an excellent eye for art, for decor, for fashion. With time she might have made something of that, and of herself. But the blunt truth is, she wasn’t your match, or your mate, or the love of your life. You weren’t hers.”

  “No,” he admitted, “neither of us made the grade.”

  “The best that can be said is you both made a mistake. She paid too big a price for that mistake, and I’m sorry for it. She was a young, beautiful woman, and her death was senseless and cruel. It’s done.”

  No, Eli thought, not until who caused it paid.

  “I have a question for you,” Hester continued. “Are you happy here?”

  “I’d be crazy not to be.”

  “And you work well here?”

  “Better than I expected or hoped. For most of this past year writing was more of an escape, a way to get out of my head—or into another part of it. Now it’s my work. I want to be good at it. I think being here’s helped me with that.”

  “Because this is your place, Eli. You belong in Whiskey Beach. Tricia? We all know her life, her family, her home’s in Boston.” She glanced back, through the terrace doors where Selina sprawled on the floor beside an ecstatic Barbie. “This is a place for her to come, to spend a weekend, a summer break, a winter holiday. It’s not home for her, and never was.”

  “It’s your home, Gran.”

  “You’re damn right it is.” Her jaw lifted, her eyes went deep and soft as she looked over the heads of fluttering pansies and out to the roll of the sea. “I fell in love with your grandfather on that beach, one heady spring night. I knew he’d be mine, and we’d make our home in this house, raise our children here, live our lives. It’s my home, and what’s mine I’m free to give.”

  She turned to Eli now, and those soft eyes went steely. “Unless you tell me, and make me believe, that you don’t want it, you can’t make your life here, be happy here, I’ll be making arrangements to deed it to you.”

  Stunned, he could only stare at her. “Gran, you can’t give me Bluff House.”

  “I can do exactly as I please, boy.” She tapped her finger firmly on his arm. “As I always have and intend to continue to do.”

  “Gran—”

  She tapped her finger again, a warning this time. “Bluff House is a home, and a home needs to be lived in. It’s your legacy, and your responsibility. I want to know if you’re willing to make it your home, if you’re willing to stay, when I’m able to come back, and when I’m gone. Is there somewhere else you’d rather be?”

  “No.”

  “Well then, that’s settled. It’s a weight off my mind.” With a contented sigh, she looked out to sea again.

  “Just like that?”

  She smiled, reached over to lay a hand on his, gently now. “The dog clinched it.”

  Even as he laughed, Tricia opened the terrace doors. “If you two can tear yourself away, it’s egg-dyeing time.”

  “Let’s get to it. Give me a hand, Eli. I can get down, but I still have trouble getting up.”

  He helped her to her feet, then just wrapped his arms around her. “I’ll take good care of it, I promise you. But come home soon.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  She’d given him a lot to think about, but dyeing Easter eggs with a toddler—not to mention her very competitive fifty-eight-year-old grandfather—made it difficult to think. So Eli just rolled with it. By the time the doorbell chimed, puddles of dye pooled and splattered the newspaper covering the kitchen island.

  With the dog at his side, he opened the door for Abra. She stood with the straps of bags over each shoulder and a covered tray in her hands.

  “Sorry, I didn’t have enough hands to open it myself.”

  He just grinned at her, leaned over the tray to kiss her. “I was about to call you.” He took the tray, angling so she could get by him. “I thought you’d be here before this—but I did, with great effort and canniness—manage to save some eggs for you.”

  “Thanks. I just had some things to deal with.”

  “Is anything wrong?”

  “What could be wrong?” She set the bags aside. “Hello, Barbie. Hello.” Better to hedge, she decided, than dump distressing news on a family party. “Pies take time.”

  “Pies?”

  “Pies.” She took the tray back, walked with him to the back of the house. “From the sound of it, everyone’s settled in.”

  “Like they’ve been here a week.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Good. Really good.”

  She saw that for herself when they stepped into the kitchen. Everyone was spread around the island. Eggs, colored with varying degrees of skill and creativity, sat nesting in crates. She pumped up her smile, tried to put the horrible day behind her as attention turned to her.

  “Happy Easter.” She hurried over to set down the pies, turned immediately to Hester. After wrapping her arms around Hester, she closed her eyes, swayed a little. “It’s so good to see you here. It’s so good to see you.”