by Nora Roberts
“Impatient?”
“Yes, right before they piss me off. The other detective, Corbett, he wasn’t buying it. He was careful, but he wasn’t buying I colluded with you to kill Duncan, or very much interested in Wolfe’s line of questioning leading to us having not only met long before you came back to Whiskey Beach, but carrying on a hot, sexy, secret affair, which naturally means we’re both complicit in Lindsay’s death.”
She shifted, unconsciously nearly mirroring the mermaid pose. “I told him, frankly, I haven’t decided if I’m going to have hot sex with you, but I’m leaning toward it, and if I do, it wouldn’t be secret and wouldn’t necessarily qualify as an affair, or not as he termed it, as neither of us is married or involved with someone else.”
“You told them . . .” Eli just sighed, picked up his wine again.
“Well, he made me impatient then pissed me off. Seriously pissed me off, and I’ve got a pretty high temper threshold. Suddenly I’m a liar, a cheat, a home wrecker, a tramp and a murderer. All because he can’t accept he pushed the wrong buttons and you didn’t kill anyone.
“Asshole.” She topped off her wine, offered Eli the bottle. He only shook his head. “So. Your turn.”
“Not much to add. I gave them the rundown, which would’ve run parallel to yours, and Vinnie’s—who Wolfe may think is a dirty cop to go along with my other friend, the skanky, lying ho.”
“And co-murderer,” Abra reminded him with a lift of her glass.
“You take it well.”
“Now, after peeling and dicing potatoes, and drinking a glass of wine. But back up, someone got into Duncan’s office and apartment in Boston and now there’s no record of his clients, who might have hired him to investigate you. And all his things were cleaned out of the B-and-B. So it’s a very logical leap to that client. The police have to make that leap.”
“Not if it’s Wolfe. I’m his white fucking whale.”
“I hated that book. Anyway, nobody who knows Vinnie is going to see dirty cop. And as we didn’t know each other until you moved here, it can’t be proven otherwise. Add to that my sex fast, and it’s really hard to box me as a big ho. All of that just weighs on your side, Eli.”
“I’m not worried about it. Not worried,” he insisted when she just lifted those eyebrows again. “That’s not the response. I’m interested. It’s been a long time since I’ve been interested in anything outside of writing, but I’m interested in figuring this out.”
“Good. Everyone should have a hobby.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“Not really. You’re not a cop or an investigator, but you are a legitimately interested party. And now, so am I. We have a hobby to share. Full disclosure. I saw your notes in the library.”
“Okay.”
“If you have something you don’t want me to see—such as that fabulous sketch of Mermaid Me, which I’d love if you replicated on good paper so I could have it—you need to put it away. I have a key, and I intend to keep using it. I was looking around for you.”
“Okay.” He did feel a little weird about the sketch. “Sometimes doodling helps me think.”
“That wasn’t doodling, it was drawing. Doodling’s what I do, and it looks like half-ass balloon animals. I liked Devil Vampire Wolfe, too.”
“That one had some potential.”
“I thought so, and drawing did help you think. The cast of characters, the connections between them, or among them, the timelines and factors, all there, all logical. That all seems like a good start. I think I’m going to make notes of my own.”
He considered a moment. “He’ll look at you. Wolfe will. And when he does he won’t be able to find any contact between us before I moved in here. He also won’t be able to find anything that weighs on the side of you being a lying, murdering, skanky ho.”
“How do you know?” She smiled at him. “I haven’t told you my story yet. Maybe I’m a recovering skanky ho with murderous tendencies.”
“Tell me your story and I’ll be the judge.”
“I will. Later. Now it’s time for your massage.”
He gave the table an uneasy glance.
“Your honor is safe with me,” she said as she rose. “This isn’t foreplay.”
“I keep thinking about sleeping with you.” Actually, he kept thinking about tearing her clothes off and riding her like a horny stallion, but that seemed . . . indelicate.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, but that’s not going to happen during the next hour. Strip it off, get on the table—faceup. I’m going to go wash up.”
“You’re bossy.”
“I can be, and while that’s a flaw and I do work on it, I wouldn’t want to be perfect. I’d bore myself.” She trailed a hand over his arm as she walked out of the room.
Since it didn’t seem time to tear her clothes off, he took off his own.
It was weird, being naked under the sheet. And weirder yet when she came back, turned on her nature music, lit candles.
Then those magic fingers started on his neck, the top of his shoulders, and he had to ask himself if it was weird when sex slid to the back of his mind.
“Stop thinking so hard,” she told him. “Let it go.”
He thought about not thinking. He thought about thinking about something else. He tried using his book, but the problems of his characters oozed away along with his muscle aches.
While he tried not to think, or to think about something else or use his book as an escape, she released knots, soothed aches, melted away hot little pockets of tension.
He rolled over when she told him to, and decided she could solve all the problems of wars, economy, bitter battles, by just getting the key players on her table for an hour.
“You’ve been working out.”
Her voice stroked as expertly as her hands.
“Yeah, some.”
“I can feel it. But your back’s a maze of tension, sweetie.”
He tried to think of the last time anyone, including his mother, had called him sweetie.
“It’s been an interesting few days.”
“Mmm. I’m going to show you some stretches, some tension relievers. You can take a couple of minutes to do them whenever you get up from the keyboard.”
She pulled, pressed, twisted, tugged, ground, then rubbed every little shock away until he lay limp as water.
“How’re you doing?” she asked when she smoothed the sheet over him.
“I think I saw God.”
“How did she look?”
He let out a muffled laugh. “Pretty hot, actually.”
“I always suspected that. Take your time getting up. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”
He’d managed to sit up, mostly wrap the sheet around the important parts, when she walked back in with a glass of water.
“Drink it all.” She cupped his hands around it, then brushed his hair away from his forehead. “You look relaxed.”
“There’s a word between ‘relaxed’ and ‘unconscious.’ I can’t think of it now, but that’s where I am.”
“It’s a good place. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Abra.” He took her hand. “It sounds weak and clichéd, but I’m going to say it anyway. You have a gift.”
She smiled, beautifully. “It doesn’t sound weak and clichéd to me. Take your time.”
When he came in she had the soup warming on the stove, and a glass of wine in her hand. “Hungry?”
“I wasn’t, but that smells pretty damn good.”
“Are you up for another walk on the beach first?”
“I could be.”
“Good. The light’s so soft and pretty this time of day. We’ll work up an appetite.” She led the way into the laundry for jackets, zipped up her own hoodie.
“I used the telescope earlier,” she told him as they stepped outside. “It’s a good spot for it.”
“I saw some crime-scene techs poking around by the lighthouse.”
“We don’
t have murder as a rule in Whiskey Beach, and fatal accidents don’t draw tourists. It’s important to be thorough. And the more thorough they are, the better it is for you.”
“Maybe so, but I’m connected. Somehow. The local cop asked if there were guns in the house. I hedged because I had this sudden thought that maybe whoever broke in took something out of the gun collection to shoot Duncan.”
“God. I never thought of that.”
“You’ve never been the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Anyway, they’re all there, in place, locked in their cases. When they get the search warrant, and they will, they may take them in for testing. But they’ll already know none of the weapons in Bluff House killed Duncan.”
“Because they’ll know what kind of caliber was used, and maybe even what kind of gun. I’ve watched my share of CSI-type TV,” she added. “They’re all antique-type guns in there. I doubt Duncan was shot with a musket or a dueling pistol.”
“Odds are low.”
“Regardless, we’re undoing our earlier work talking about cops and murder.” She shook her hair back when they reached the base of the beach steps, lifted her face to the softening blue of the evening sky. “Do you want to know why I moved to Whiskey Beach? Why it’s my place?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’m going to tell you. It’s a good beach-walking story, though I have to start back a ways, to give you the background.”
“One question first, because I’ve been trying to figure it out. What did you do before you came here and started your massage/yoga/jewelry-making/housecleaning business?”
“You mean professionally? I was the marketing director for a nonprofit out of D.C.”
He looked at her—rings on her fingers, hair flying everywhere. “Okay, that one didn’t make the top ten on my list.”
She gave him an elbow poke. “I have an MBA from Northwestern.”
“Seriously?”
“Deadly serious, and I’m jumping ahead. My mother is an amazing woman. An incredibly smart, dedicated, brave, involved woman. She had me while she was in grad school, and my father decided it was all more than he signed on for, so they split when I was about two. He’s not really a part of my life.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So was I for a while, but I got over it. My mother’s a human rights attorney. We traveled a lot. She took me with her whenever she could. When she couldn’t, I stayed with my aunt—her sister—or my maternal grandparents. But for the most part I went with her. I got a hell of an education and worldview.”
“Wait a minute. Wait.” The sudden flash had him gaping at her. “Is your mother Jane Walsh?”
“Yes. You know her?”
“Of. Jesus Christ, Jane Walsh? She won the Nobel Peace Prize.”
“I said she was an amazing woman. I wanted to be her when I grew up, but who wouldn’t?” Abra lifted her arms high for a moment, closed her eyes to welcome the wind. “She’s one in a million. One in tens of millions from my point of view. She taught me love and compassion, courage and justice. Initially I thought to follow directly in her footsteps, get a law degree, but God, it so wasn’t for me.”
“Was she disappointed?”
“No. Another very essential lesson she taught me was to follow your own mind and heart.” As they walked, she wound her arm with his. “Was your father disappointed you didn’t follow his?”
“No. We’re both lucky there.”
“Yes, we are. So I went for the MBA, tailored toward working in the nonprofit sector. I was good at it.”
“I bet you were.”
“I felt I was making a contribution, and maybe it didn’t always feel like the perfect fit, but close enough. I liked the work, I liked my life, my circle of friends. I met Derrick at a fund-raiser I spearheaded. Another lawyer. I must be drawn to the field.”
She paused to look out over the sea. “God, it’s beautiful here. I look at the sea every day and think how lucky I am to be here, to see this, to feel it. My mother’s in Afghanistan right now, working with and for Afghani women. And I know we’re both exactly where we’re meant to be, doing what we’re meant to do. But a few years ago, I was in D.C., with a closetful of professional suits, an overloaded desk, a crowded appointment book, and Derrick seemed like the right choice at the right time.”
“But he wasn’t.”
“In some strange way, he was. Smart, charming, intense, ambitious. He understood my work, I understood his. The sex was satisfying, the conversations interesting. The first time he hit me, I let myself believe it was a terrible mistake, an aberration, just a bad moment resulting from stress.”
Because she felt Eli stiffen, she rubbed her free hand on the arm wound with hers. “I saw his temper as passion, and his possessiveness as a kind of flattery. The second time he hit me, I left because once might be a terrible mistake, but twice is the start of a pattern.”
Reaching over, he closed his hand over the one she’d laid on his arm. “Some people don’t see the pattern when they’re in it.”
“I know. I talked to a lot of women in support groups, and understand how you can be persuaded to accept the apology, or begin to believe you deserve the abuse. I got out, and quickly.”
“You didn’t report it.”
Now she sighed. “No, I didn’t. I wanted the leaving to be enough. Why damage his career or put myself into a scandal? I took a short leave of absence rather than explain the black eye to coworkers and friends, and I came here for a week.”
“To Whiskey Beach?”
“Yeah. I’d come here with my mother years ago, then again with my aunt and her family. I had good memories here, so I rented a cottage and walked the beach, gave myself the time, I thought, to heal.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“Not then. I’d made a mistake, and told myself I’d fixed the mistake and to get on with my life. And, as foolish as it was, I was embarrassed. After my leave, I went back to work, but nothing seemed exactly right. Friends started asking what was going on, that Derrick had contacted them, told them I’d had a breakdown, which put me in what I considered the humiliating position of telling them he’d hit me, and I’d left him.”
“But he’d planted seeds.”
She glanced up at him. “It’s another pattern, isn’t it? Yes, he’d planted seeds, enough some sprouted. He knew a lot of people, and he was smart, and he was angry. He dropped little hints here and there about me being unstable. And he stalked me. The thing about being a stalkee is not always knowing it’s happening. I didn’t. Not until I started dating again, casually. Very casually. Look.”
She pointed to a pelican, soaring out over the water, then his fast dive for his evening meal.
“I try to feel sorry for the fish, but I just love watching the pelicans. They have the oddest shape, and it strikes me as ungainly—like a moose—then they compact that way and dive down like a spear.”
Eli turned her to face him. “He hurt you again.”
“Oh God, yes. In more ways than one. I should finish it. No need for all the minute details. My boss got anonymous notes about my behavior, my supposed abuse of drugs, alcohol, sex, my using sex to influence donors. Enough of them he eventually called me in, questioned me. And again I had to humiliate myself—or so it felt at the time—by telling him about Derrick. My superior spoke with his superior, and all hell broke loose.”
Now she took a long, careful breath. “Nasty little things at first. Having my tires slashed, my car keyed. My phone ringing in the middle of the night, repeatedly, with hang ups, finding someone canceled my reservations for lunch or dinner. My computers, work and home, were hacked. The man I was seeing casually had his car windows smashed, and anonymous complaints—ugly ones—sent to his boss. We stopped seeing each other. It wasn’t serious, and it seemed easier.”
“What did the cops do?”
“They talked to him, and he denied everything. He’s very convincing. He told them he’d ended things with me because I was too
possessive and had gotten violent. He claimed to be worried about me and hoped I’d get help.”
“A decent cop should’ve seen through that.”
“I think they did, but they couldn’t prove he’d done any of it.
