Whiskey Beach

by Nora Roberts

  empty.”

  “Damn it.” Okay, he sucked, right at the moment. “It won’t happen again. I was—”

  “Caught up,” she finished. “So you forgot to water and walk your dog, forgot to eat. I imagine you didn’t write. Instead, you spent all your time and energy on murders and treasure.”

  And damned if he’d apologize for that part. “I need answers, Abra. I thought you wanted them, too.”

  “I do.” She searched for calm as he thrilled the dog with another toss. “I do, Eli, but not at the expense of you, not if it costs you what you’ve rebuilt in yourself.”

  “That’s not what this is. It’s one afternoon, for Christ’s sake. One where all kinds of doors opened up into areas I need to explore. Because rebuilding isn’t enough if you don’t know.”

  “I understand. I do. And maybe I’m overreacting, except about the dog, because there’s just no excuse.”

  “How crappy do you want me to feel?”

  She considered it, considered him. Considered Barbie. “Pretty crappy about the dog.”

  “Mission accomplished.”

  With a sigh, she slipped out of her shoes, rolled her pants to her knees to wade into the surf.

  “I care about you. So much. It’s a problem for me, Eli, caring so much for you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s easier just to live my life. You’ve had experience there,” she added, pushing her hair out of her face when the wind carried it. “It’s easier just to live your life than to take that step again, that risk again. And it’s scary when you can’t seem to stop yourself from taking the step. I can’t seem to stop myself.”

  The turn of conversation left him baffled, and a little uneasy. “You matter to me more than I thought anyone would, or could, again. It is a little scary.”

  “I’m not sure either of us would’ve felt this way if we’d met a few years ago. If we’d been the people we were then. You pulled yourself out of a pit, Eli.”

  “I had help.”

  “I don’t think people take help unless they’re ready for it, whether they know it or not. You were ready for it. It hurts my heart to remember how sad and tired and dark you were when you first came back to Whiskey Beach. It would break it to see you that way again.”

  “That’s not happening.”

  “I want you to have your answers. I want them, too. I just don’t want them to be something that sends you back into that pit, or that puts you on the other side of it, that changes you back into someone I don’t know. It’s selfish, but I want who you are now.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He took a moment to line up his thoughts. “This is who I am, and who I am forgets things, gets caught up and is learning to like having someone remind him not to. I’m not that different from who I was before all this happened. But what happened focused me. I don’t want to be a problem for you, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m where I want to be. That’s one answer I’m sure of.”

  She pushed at her hair again, angled her head. “Get rid of a tie.”

  “What?”

  “Get rid of a tie. One tie, your choice. And let me read one scene of the book. One, again your choice. Symbolism. Throwing out something from before, offering me something from now.”

  “And that solves the problem?”

  She wagged her hand back and forth. “We’ll see. I guess I’ll go figure out what’s for dinner and make sure you eat.” She gave him a poke in the belly. “You’re still on the skinny side.”

  “Not a lot of meat on you either.” To prove it, he plucked her up, made her laugh as her legs wrapped around his waist.

  “Then we’ll have a really big dinner.”

  She pressed her lips to his, hers still curved as he spun her around. And as she drew back, saw just where he was headed.

  “Don’t! Eli!”

  She went into the surf with him, rolled and tumbled. Gasping, she managed to gain her feet, just as the next wave struck and sent her sprawling.

  Laughing like a maniac, Eli pulled her up again. “I wanted to see what it was like.”

  “Wet. And cold.” She shoved back her dripping hair as the excited dog swam around them. What did it say about her, she wondered, that his impulsive, silly act had wiped away her earlier annoyance and nerves? “Moron.”

  “Mermaid.” He pulled her against him again. “That’s what you look like, just as I thought.”

  “This mermaid has legs, currently freezing. And sand in very uncomfortable places.”

  “It sounds like a long, hot shower’s on tap.” Gripping her hand, he pulled her to shore. “I’ll help you out with that sand.” He laughed again when the wind struck. “Christ! It’s freezing. Come on, Barbie.”

  Caught up, that’s what it said about her, she thought. She was just caught up. She managed to snag her shoes as they ran across the beach.

  Twenty-four

  THE INSTANT SHE DASHED INSIDE THE MUDROOM, ABRA peeled off her dripping hoodie, toed off her soggy shoes.

  “Cold, cold, cold,” she chanted, teeth chattering as she dragged off her wet top, wiggled out of her clinging pants.

  The distraction of wet, naked, shivering Abra slowed Eli’s progress. He was still struggling with his sodden jeans when she streaked away.

  “Hold on a minute!” He fought off the jeans, his boxers, left the whole mess in a pile and a spreading pool of seawater and wet clumps of sand to race after her.

  He heard her chanting still.

  “Cold, cold, cold!”

  He caught up just after the shower spray exploded along with her garbled cry of relief.

  “Warm, warm, warm.”

  She let out a little shriek when he grabbed her from behind.

  “No! You’re still cold.”

  “Not for long.”

  He spun her around, plastering her against him, and grabbed a hank of her hair. And, covering her mouth with his, felt the heat rise.

  He wanted to touch, everywhere, all that wet skin, those long lines, those subtle curves. He wanted to hear her throaty laugh, the catch of her sigh. When she shivered now, it was from arousal, anticipation, while the flood of hot water rained over them both.

  Her hands glided over him, a light scrape of nails, an erotic dig of fingers. She turned with him under the spray, around and around through the pulsing waterfall, with her mouth a wet, hot demand against his.

  He wanted her happy, wanted to erase the trouble he’d seen in her eyes on the beach. He wanted to shield her from the trouble to come, as it surely would.

  Trouble, he thought, that seemed to cling to him like skin.

  At least here, here and now, there was only heat and pleasure and need. Here and now, he could give her all he had.

  She held on to him, even when he turned her around to slide his hands over her, she hooked an arm back, around his neck to keep him close. And lifting her face as she might to the rain, opened.

  Her body yearned toward more. Touch here, taste there—and patient, relentless, he stoked the yearning to a deep, glorious ache.

  When she turned, mouth to mouth again, he braced her against the wet tiles, and filled her.

  Slow now, slow, rising like the steam, falling like the water, floating on thick, wet clouds of pleasure. She looked through the mists, into his eyes. There were the answers, she thought. She had only to accept what she already knew, only to hold what her heart already wanted.

  You, she thought, as she let herself go. I’ve been waiting for you.

  When she pressed her face to his shoulder, shuddering with him on that final fall, she carried love.

  Lost in her, he held her another moment, just held. Then he tipped her face back, touched his lips to hers. “About that sand.”

  Her laugh made the moment perfect.

  In the kitchen, warm and dry, she plotted out dinner while he poured wine.

  “We can just throw a sandwich together,” he began.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you trying to gu
ilt me again, because I missed lunch?”

  “No, I think I notched that belt.” She set garlic, some plum tomatoes, a chunk of Parmesan on the counter. “I’m hungry, and you should be. Thanks.” She took the wine, tapped her glass to his. “But since you brought it up, you should tell me what you were so caught up in.”

  “I met with the investigator today.”

  “You said she was coming.” Intrigued, Abra turned from her hunt in the refrigerator. “You said before she had something new.”

  “You could say that.” When a thought struck, he held up a finger. “Wait. I want to try something. It’ll just take a couple minutes.”

  He went to the library for the files, slipped out the photograph of Justin Suskind. Taking it up to his office, he made a copy. He closed his eyes, tried to see the police artist sketch in his mind.

  With a pencil he tried adding longer hair, shadowing the eyes. He couldn’t claim to be Rembrandt, he thought—or even Hester H. Landon—but it was worth a shot.

  He took the photo and copy back downstairs, detoured back to the library for the files and his notes.

  When he got back to the kitchen she had two pots on the stove. A narrow tray of olives, marinated artichokes, cherry peppers sat on the island while she minced garlic.

  “How do you do that?” he wondered, and popped an olive into his mouth.

  “Kitchen magic. What’s all that?”

  “Files the investigator left, notes I’ve made. She went back to the beginning.”

  By the time he’d wound through it, pausing before telling her of Suskind’s presence in Whiskey Beach, she’d tossed a bowl of campanelle, mixed with tomatoes, basil and garlic. He watched her grate Parmesan over it.

  “You did that in like a half hour. Yeah, yeah, kitchen magic,” he said before she could reply. He dug into the pasta, filled her bowl, then his.

  Sliding onto the stool beside his, Abra sampled the dish. “Nice. It worked. So she thinks it’s all connected, too?”

  “Yeah, she— Nice?” he said after his own sample. “It’s great. You should write this down.”

  “And spoil the spontaneity? She’ll talk to Vinnie, right? And Detective Corbett.”

  “That’s the plan, and she’ll have a couple of fresh items to pass along.”

  “Such as?”

  “Let’s try this first.” He turned over the doctored copy, set it on the counter between them. “Does this guy look familiar?”

  “I . . . He looks like the man in the bar that night. A lot like the man in the bar.” She lifted the photo, studied it carefully. “It looks more like him than I was able to translate to the police artist. Where did you get this?”

  In answer, Eli turned over the original photo.

  “Who is this?” she asked. “Shorter hair, and a cleaner, smoother look about him. How did she find the man I saw in the bar?”

  “She didn’t know she found him. This is Justin Suskind.”

  “Suskind, the man Lindsay was involved with? Of course.” Annoyance flickered over her face as she tapped her fingers at her temple. “Damn it! I saw his picture in the paper last year, but I didn’t remember or put it together. Didn’t pay that much attention, I guess. What was he doing at the pub?”

  “Staking things out. A few months ago he bought Sandcastle, a cottage on the north point.”

  “He bought a house in Whiskey Beach? I know that house.” She jabbed a finger at Eli. “I know it. I do seasonal cleaning for one across from it. Eli, there’s only one reason he would buy a house here.”

  “To gain access to this one.”

  “But it’s crazy, it’s crazy when you think about it. He was having an affair with your wife, and now he’s . . . Did he have the affair so he could get information about the house, maybe hope to get more on the treasure? Or did he learn about all that during the affair?”

  “Lindsay never had much interest in Bluff House.”

  “But she was a connection,” Abra insisted. “She knew about the Calypso, the dowry, didn’t she?”

  “Sure. I told her about it the first time I brought her here. I showed her the cove where pirates used to moor. And about running whiskey during Prohibition. You know, impress the girl with local color and Landon lore.”

  “And was she? Impressed?”

  “It’s a good story. I remember her asking me to tell it at a couple of dinner parties back then, but that was more for laughs. She didn’t think much of, or about, Whiskey Beach.”

  “Suskind obviously did, and does. Eli, this is huge. He could be responsible for all of it. The break-ins, Hester’s fall, Duncan’s murder. Lindsay’s—”

  “He has an alibi for Lindsay.”

  “But wasn’t that his wife? If she lied . . .”

  “They’re separated, and she’s sticking by her original statement. A little reluctantly, Sherrilyn thinks, as she’s not feeling very friendly toward Suskind these days.”

  “She could still be lying.” Abra stabbed some pasta. “He’s guilty of other crimes.”

  “Innocent until,” Eli reminded her.

  “Oh, don’t go lawyer on me. Give me one good reason, other than bad behavior, he’d buy that house.”

  “I can give you a few. He likes the beach, he wanted an investment, his marriage is/was going south and he wanted a place to go, somewhere quiet so he could think it all through. He and Lindsay drove up here on a whim so she could show him Bluff House, so he bought the cottage here to remind him of that perfect day.”

  “Oh, that’s all bullshit.”

  He shrugged a shoulder at the spike of annoyance. “Reasonable doubt. If I were representing him, I’d make a big deal over my client being questioned for simply buying a beach house.”

  “And if I were a prosecutor, I’d make a big deal over the series of coincidences and connections. A house on this particular beach, where your family owns a landmark home and which has since his purchase experienced a series of break-ins?”

  She snorted, then fixed her face into serious lines. “Your Honor, I submit the defendant purchased said property and took residence in same for the sole purpose of illegally entering Bluff House to search for pirate treasure.”

  He smiled at her, leaned over to kiss her. “Objection. Speculative.”

  “I don’t think I’d have liked Lawyer Landon.”

  “Maybe not, but with what’s here, I’d’ve gotten Suskind off in a walk.”

  “Then flip it. How would Lawyer Landon build the case against?”

  “By finding out he has knowledge of or interest in Esmeralda’s Dowry, for one. Linking those fibers found at your place to him, that would be key. Tracing the gun to him. Tracing any of the tools in the basement to him, for that matter. If my grandmother could identify him as the intruder. And all the way back to breaking his wife’s statement. Better yet, find a way to put him in the house when Lindsay was killed, and that’s not going to happen. Dig up a witness or witnesses who would testify to some trouble between him and Lindsay. That would be a start.”

  Abra sipped her wine and considered. “I bet we’d find books and notes and all sorts of information on Bluff House and the dowry in his possession.”