Whiskey Beach

by Nora Roberts

  and her pencil aside, she held out both hands.

  “Just what I needed to cheer up my day.”

  “You look tired,” Eli said immediately.

  “I have good reason. I just finished my daily physical therapy. You just missed meeting the Marquis de Sade.”

  “If it’s too hard on you, we should—”

  “Oh, stop.” She waved that away with one impatient flick of the wrist. “Jim’s wonderful, and has a nice sharp humor that keeps me on my toes. He knows what I can handle, and how hard to push. But after a session, I’m tired out. Now I’m reviving seeing both of you, and those gorgeous flowers.”

  “I thought I might have to step in, point Eli in the right direction, but it turns out he has excellent taste. Why don’t I take them down to Carmel, so we can put them in a vase for you?”

  “Thank you. Have you had lunch? We can all go down. Eli, give me a hand.”

  “Why don’t you just sit for a while first.” To close that deal, he sat himself. “We’ll go down after you recover from de Sade.” He gave Abra a nod, then turned to Hester when she took the flowers out. “You don’t have to push so hard.”

  “You forget who you’re talking to. Pushing hard is what gets things done. I’m glad you came, glad you brought Abra.”

  “It’s not as hard to come into Boston now.”

  “We’re working on healing, both of us.”

  “I didn’t push very hard in the early days of it.”

  “Neither did I. We had to get some traction first.”

  He smiled. “I love you, Gran.”

  “You’d better. Your mother should be home in about two hours, though your father won’t until after six. Are you going to stay to see your mother at least?”

  “That’s the plan, then we’ll head back. I have a house and a dog to look after.”

  “Looking after things is good for you. We’ve come a long way, both of us, in the last few months.”

  “I thought I’d lost you. We all did. I guess I thought I’d lost myself.”

  “Yet here we are. Tell me how the book’s coming.”

  “I think it’s coming okay. Some days are better than others, and sometimes I think it’s just crap. But either way being able to write makes me wonder why I haven’t done it all along.”

  “You had a talent for the law, Eli. It’s a pity you couldn’t make that your hobby, or we could say a sideline, and writing your vocation. You could do that now.”

  “Maybe I could. I think we all know I’d have been lousy in the family business. Tricia was always the one to follow in those footsteps.”

  “And damn good at it.”

  “She is, but even though it wasn’t for me, I’ve been learning more about it, or its history. Paying more attention to all its roots and beginnings.”

  Her eyes lit with approval. “You’ve been spending time in the library at Bluff House.”

  “Yeah, I have. Your grandmother-in-law ran whiskey.”

  “She did. I wish I’d known her better. What I do remember is a feisty, hardheaded Irishwoman. She intimidated me some.”

  “She must have been formidable to do that.”

  “She was. Your grandfather adored her.”

  “I’ve seen photos—quite the looker—and found more poking around Bluff House. But the roots of Landon Whiskey go back a lot further, to the Revolution.”

  “Innovation, the heart of gamblers, the head of businessmen, risk and reward. And the understanding people enjoy a good stiff drink. Of course, the war helped, as cold-blooded as that is. Fighting men needed whiskey, wounded men needed it. In a very true way, Landon Whiskey was forged in a fight against tyranny and a quest for liberty.”

  “Spoken like a true Yankee.”

  Abra came back with a vase of artfully arranged flowers. “They’re absolutely beautiful.”

  “They really are. Should I put them in here, or in your bedroom?”

  “In here. I’m spending more time sitting than lying down these days, thank God. Now that Abra’s back, why don’t we talk about what you really want to know.”

  “You think you’re smart,” Eli said.

  “I know I am.”

  He grinned, nodded. “We’re winding around what I really want to know. My way of thinking is the history of the house, of the business, might have some part in the whole. I just haven’t figured it all out. But we can jump forward a couple of centuries.”

  “I can’t see his face.” Hester fisted a hand in her lap. The emerald she often wore on her right hand fired at the gesture. “I’ve tried everything I can think of, even meditation—which, you know, Abra, I don’t do particularly well. All I see, or remember, is shadows, movement, the impression of a man—that shape. I remember waking up, thinking I heard noises, then convincing myself I hadn’t. I know I was wrong about that now. I remember getting up, going to the stairs, then the movement, the shape, the impression, and the instinct to get downstairs and away. That’s all. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Eli told her. “It was dark. You may not remember a face because you didn’t see it, or not distinctly enough. Tell me about the sounds you heard.”

  “I remember them better, or think I do. I thought I’d been dreaming, and may very well have been. I thought, Squirrels in the chimney. We had them once, long ago, but we put in guards, of course, since then. Then there was creaking, and half asleep I thought, Who’s upstairs? Then I woke up fully, decided I’d imagined it and, restless, finally decided to go downstairs for some tea.”

  “What about scents?” Abra asked.

  “Dust. Sweat. Yes.” Eyes closed, Hester focused. “Odd, I didn’t realize that until now, until you asked.”

  “If he came down from the third floor, is there anything up there, anything you can think of he would’ve been after?”

  She shook her head at Eli. “Most of what’s up there is sentiment and history, and what no longer fits in the practical living space. There are some wonderful things—clothes, keepsakes, journals, old household ledgers, photos.”

  “I’ve been through a lot of it.”

  “It’s on my long-range plan to have a couple of experts in, catalog for, eventually, a Whiskey Beach museum.”

  “What a wonderful idea.” It made Abra beam. “You never told me.”

  “It’s still in the planning-to-plan stages.”

  “Household ledgers,” Eli thought aloud.

  “Yes, and account books, guest lists, copies of invitations. I haven’t been through everything for a long time, and honestly really never through it all. Things change, times change. Your grandfather and I didn’t need a big staff after the children left, so we started using the third floor for storage. I tried painting up there for a year or two. There was only Bertie and Edna by the time Eli died. You must remember them, young Eli.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “When they retired, I didn’t have the heart to have any live-ins. I only had the house and myself to look after. I can only think this person was up there out of curiosity or hoped to find something.”

  “Is there anything up there that goes back to the Landons from the time of the Calypso wreck?”

  “There must be. The Landons have always been ones for preserving. The more valuable items from that time, and others, are displayed throughout the house, but there would be some flotsam and jetsam on the third floor.”

  Her eyebrows drew together as she tried to think. “I neglected that area, I suppose. Just stopped seeing it, and told myself I’d get around to hiring those experts one day. He might have thought there’d be maps, which is foolish. If we’d known X marked the spot, we’d have dug up the dowry ourselves long before this. Or he assumed there’d be a journal, one of Violeta Landon’s perhaps. But the story goes that after her brother killed her lover, she destroyed her journals, their love letters and all of it. If indeed they existed. If they did and survived, I should have heard of them, or come across them at some point.”

  “
Okay. Do you remember getting any calls, inquiries, having anyone come by asking about brokering some of the mementos, the antiques, anyone asking for access because they were writing a story, a book?”

  “Lord, Eli, I can’t count the times. The only thing that’s tempted me to hire anyone but Abra was the idea of having someone deal with the inquiries.”

  “Nothing that really stands out?”

  “No, nothing that comes to mind.”

  “Let me know if you think of anything.” And she’d had enough, Eli judged, and looked a little pale again. “What’s for lunch?”

  “We should go down and find out.”

  He helped her up, but when he started to lift her, she brushed him back. “I don’t need to be carried. I manage well enough with the cane.”

  “Maybe, but I like playing Rhett Butler.”

  “He wasn’t carrying his grandmother downstairs to lunch,” she said when Eli scooped her into his arms.

  “But he would have.”

  Abra retrieved the cane, and as she watched Eli carry Hester downstairs, understood completely why she’d fallen in love.

  Twenty-seven

  A GOOD DAY, ABRA THOUGHT WHEN THEY SAID GOOD-BYE to Hester. She reached for Eli’s hand to say exactly that as they walked to the car. Then spotted Wolfe leaning against his across the street.

  “What is he doing?” she demanded. “Why? Does he think you’re going to suddenly walk over there and confess all?”

  “He’s letting me know he’s there.” Eli got behind the wheel, calmly started the engine. “A little psychological warfare, and surprisingly effective. It got to the point last winter where I rarely left the house because if I went for a damn haircut, I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t walk in and take the chair next to me.”

  “That’s harassment.”

  “Technically, and yeah, we could’ve filed charges, but at that point he’d have gotten a slap. Wouldn’t really change anything, and the truth is I was too damn tired to bother. It got easier to just stay put.”

  “You put yourself under house arrest.”

  He hadn’t thought of it that way, not at the time. But she wasn’t wrong. Just as he’d thought, in some corner of his mind, of his move to Whiskey Beach as a self-imposed exile.

  Those days were finished.

  “I didn’t have anywhere to go,” he told her. “Friends eased away or just vanished. My law firm let me go.”

  “What about that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ tack?”

  “That’s the law, but it doesn’t hold much weight with important clients, reputations and billable hours.”

  “They should’ve stuck by you, Eli, even if only out of principle.”

  “They had other associates, partners, clients, staff to consider. Initially they called it a leave of absence, but I was done, and we all knew it. Anyway, it gave me the time and the reason to write, to try to focus on that.”

  “Don’t turn it into them doing you a favor.” Her voice snipped, sharp as scissors. “You did yourself the favor. You did the positive.”

  “I grabbed a lifeline with writing, and it’s more positive than letting go. When they didn’t come to arrest me, and believe me that was something I waited for every day, it gave me the chance to go to Bluff House.”

  A kind of purging, Abra thought. A hulling out that had left him tired and tense and, to her mind, entirely too willing to accept the hand dealt him.

  “And now?” she asked.

  “Now, the lifeline’s not enough. I can’t just hold in place, wait for the fall. I’m going to fight back. I’m going to find the answers. When I have them, I’m going to stuff them down Wolfe’s throat.”

  “I love you.”

  He glanced at her with a smile, but it faded into a look of wary surprise when he saw her eyes. “Abra—”

  “Uh-uh, better watch the road.” At her gesture, he tapped the brakes before he rear-ended a hatchback.

  “Terrible timing,” she continued. “Not romantic, not convenient, but I believe in expressing feelings, especially the positive ones. Love’s the most positive feeling there is. I like feeling it, and I wasn’t sure I would. We’ve got such crap behind us, Eli, and we can’t help that some of it’s still sticking to the bottom of our shoes. Maybe it helps make us who we are. But the bad thing is it makes us hesitate to trust again, reach out again, take those risks again.”

  Amazing, she thought, just amazing that saying the words out loud made her feel stronger, freer. “I don’t expect you to take those risks just because I did, but you should feel good, and you should feel lucky that a smart, self-aware, interesting woman loves you.”

  He navigated the tricky traffic to squeeze his way onto 95 North. “I do feel lucky,” he told her. And panicked.

  “Then that’s enough. We need better tunes,” she decided, and began to search and scan his satellite radio.

  That’s it? he thought. I love you, let’s change the channel? How the hell was a man supposed to keep up with a woman like that? She was a lot harder to negotiate than Boston traffic, and even more unpredictable.

  As the miles passed, he tried to think of something else, but his thoughts kept circling back to it like fingers seeking out a nagging itch. Eventually he’d have to respond, somehow. They’d have to deal with the . . . issue. And how the hell was he supposed to think clearly, rationally, about love and all it implied when he had so much else to deal with, to work through, to resolve?

  “We need a plan,” Abra said, and tossed him straight back into panic mode. “God, your face.” She couldn’t stop the laugh. “It’s a study of barely restrained male terror. I don’t mean an Abra-loves-Eli plan, so relax. I mean a Justin-Suskind-risked-sneaking-up-to-the-third-floor-of-Bluff-House-and-why plan. We need to systematically go through what’s up there.”

  “I’ve started doing that a couple hours a day, every day, and I’ve barely made a dent. Have you seen how much is up there?”

  “That’s why I said systematically. We stick with the stance he’s after the dowry. We expand that by the reasonable assumption he has information, right or wrong, that caused him to dig in that area of the basement. And we can further expand that by logical speculation. He was looking for more information, another lead, something that confirms—to his mind—the location.”

  Eli imagined there were a lot of invisible or missing dots, but all in all it wasn’t a bad way to connect what they had.

  “For all we know he found what he was after.”

  “Maybe, but he’s come back to the house since then. He still thinks the house is the key.”

  “Things weren’t jumbled up.” Eli thought it through. “I don’t know what kind of order things had in the trunks, the chests and storage boxes, the drawers in all that furniture up there, so they could have been searched through prior to the police. But if he did, he was careful about it. Then the cops went through it, and now it’s pretty jumbled up.”

  “How could he know someone wouldn’t go up there, and before he found what he wanted. He didn’t want anyone to know he had access to the house. We wouldn’t have known if we hadn’t been wandering around the basement in the dark.”

  “We were wandering around the basement because he cut the power. That’s a big clue to a B-and-E.”

  “Okay, that’s a good point. But would you have searched down there? If you’d come home, called the police, it’s really unlikely you’d have gone down to the basement, looking for signs the intruder had been down there. Or if you did, it’s not likely you’d have gone beyond the wine cellar.”

  “Okay. He took a calculated risk.”

  “Because he wants and needs the access, and maybe, if we do that systematic search, we’ll find out more about why. We have to wait for him to come back before we can try the ambush agenda,” she reminded him. “We might as well do something active until. More active,” she amended. “I know you’ve been researching and cross-referencing, and plotting out theories and connections, and the trip today
gave us new information to process. But I like the idea of actually getting my hands into things.”

  “We can take a deeper look.”

  “And spending some time up there might give you more ideas about how to use that space. I’m going to pick you up a paint fan.”

  “You are?”