Whiskey Beach (39 page)

“That Roger Landon was a selfish, unfeeling bastard, and his son, Edwin, a heartless son of a bitch. They had no right to throw away a life the way they threw away Violeta’s. And it’s not just
history
. It’s people.”

“Abra, you realize we’re arguing about someone who died nearly two hundred years ago?”

“And your point?”

He rubbed his hands over his face. “Why don’t we say this? We’ve reached the same basic conclusion. Part of that conclusion is Roger and Edwin Landon were coldhearted, hard-minded, opportunistic bastards.”

“That’s a little better.” Her eyes narrowed. “Opportunistic. You really believe, not only the dowry existed, not only that it came ashore with Broome, but that Edwin killed Broome and stole the dowry.”

“Well, it was already stolen property, but yeah. I think he found it, took it.”

“Then where the hell is it?”

“Working on that. But all this is moot if the basic premise is wrong. I need to start tracing Violeta’s son.”

“How?”

“I can do it myself, which would take time because it’s not my field, but there are plenty of tools, some good genealogy sites. Or I can save time and contact someone whose field it is. I know a guy. We were friendly once.”

She understood—someone who’d turned his back on Eli. And, she realized, however logical his argument, he understood what Violeta had gone through. He knew what it was to be cast aside, condemned, ignored.

“Are you sure you want to do that?”

“I thought about doing it weeks ago, but I put it off. Because— No, I don’t really want to do it. But I’ll try to take a page out of Violeta’s book. When the chips are down, it’s better to forgive.”

She moved to him, took his face in her hands. “You’re going to get that celebration after all. In fact, I’m going to go down and start on that. We should put those letters somewhere safe.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Eli, why do you think Edwin kept the letters?”

“I don’t know, except Landons tend to keep things. The chest of drawers may have been his, and putting them in that hidden niche might have been his way of keeping them but not seeing them.”

“Out of sight, out of mind, like Violeta.” Abra nodded. “What a sad man he must have been.”

Sad? Eli thought when she left. He doubted it. He thought Edwin Landon would have been a self-satisfied son of a bitch. No family tree grew without a few bent branches, he supposed.

He used his laptop to search for the contact number for an old friend, then took out his phone. Forgiveness, he discovered, didn’t come easy. But expediency did. Maybe forgiveness would follow, and if not, he’d still have answers.

W
ITH HER HAIR BUNDLED UP, HER SLEEVES HIKED TO HER
elbows, Abra looked up from layering slices of potato in a casserole dish when Eli came into the kitchen.

“How’d that go?”

“Awkward.”

“I’m sorry, Eli.”

He only shrugged. “More awkward for him than for me, I think. Actually, I knew his wife better. She’s a paralegal at my old firm. He teaches history at Harvard and sidelines in genealogy. We played basketball a couple times a month, downed a few beers here and there. That’s all.”

That was enough, to Abra’s mind, to deserve a little loyalty and compassion.

“Anyway, after the initial stumbling around and that strained and overenthusiastic ‘Good to hear from you, Eli,’ he agreed to do it. In fact, I think he feels guilty enough to make it a priority.”

“Good. It helps balance the scales.”

“Then why do I want to punch something?”

She considered the potato she’d just sliced in several vicious whacks. She knew exactly how he felt.

“Why don’t you go pump some iron instead? Work up an appetite for stuffed pork chops, scalloped potatoes and green beans amandine. A manly celebration meal.”

“Maybe I will. I should feed the dog.”

“Already done. She’s now stretched out on the terrace watching people play in what she considers her yard.”

“I should give you a hand.”

“Do I look like I need one?”

He had to smile. “No, you don’t.”

“Go, pump it up. I like my men ripped.”

“In that case, I might be a while.”

He sweated out the frustration and the depression that wanted to walk hand in hand. And once he’d showered off the dregs, he found he could let it go.

He had what he needed, an expert to solve a problem. If guilt helped solve the problem, it didn’t and shouldn’t matter.

On impulse, he took Barbie for a walk into the village. It struck him that people spoke to him, called him by name, asked how he was doing without any of the wariness, the awkwardness he’d become so accustomed to.

He bought a bouquet of tulips the color of eggplant. On the way back, he waved to Stoney Tribbet as the old man strolled toward the Village Pub.

“Buy you a beer, boy?”

“Not tonight,” Eli called back. “I’ve got dinner waiting, but keep a stool open for me Friday night.”

“You got it.”

And that, Eli realized, made Whiskey Beach home. A stool at the bar on Friday night, a casual wave, dinner on the stove and knowing the woman you cared for would smile when you gave her purple tulips.

And she did.

The tulips stood along with candles on the terrace table with the surf crashing, the stars winking on. Champagne bubbled, and right there, right then, Eli felt all was right with his world.

He’d come back, he thought. Shed the too-tight skin, turned the corner, rounded the circle—whatever analogy worked. He was where he wanted to be, with the woman he wanted to be with and doing what made him feel whole, and real.

He had colored lights and wind chimes on the terrace, pots of flowers and a dog napping at the top of the beach steps.

“This is . . .”

Abra lifted her eyebrows. “What?”

“Just right. Just exactly right.”

And when she smiled at him again, it was. Just exactly right.

Later, when the house lay quiet and his body still thrummed from hers, he couldn’t say why sleep eluded him. He listened to the rhythm of Abra’s breathing, and the muffled yips from Barbie as she dreamed, he imagined, of chasing a bright red ball into the water.

He listened to Bluff House settle, and imagined his grandmother wakened late at night by noises that didn’t fit the pattern.

Restless, he rose, thought to go down for a book. Instead he climbed up to the third floor to the stack of ledgers. He sat at the card table with his legal pad, his laptop.

For the next two hours he read, calculated, checked dates, cross-referenced from household accounting to business accounting.

When his head throbbed, he rubbed his eyes and kept going. He’d studied law, he reminded himself. Criminal law, not business law, not accounting or management.

He should pass this to his father, to his sister. But he couldn’t let go of it.

At three in the morning he pushed away. His eyes felt as though he’d scrubbed his corneas with sandpaper, and a toothy vise clamped over his temples and the back of his neck.

But he thought he knew. He thought he understood.

Wanting time to process, he went downstairs, dug aspirin out of the kitchen cabinet. He downed them with water he drank like a man dying of thirst before walking out onto the terrace.

The air glided over him like a balm and smelled of sea and flowers. Starlight showered and the moon, waxing toward full, pulsed against the night sky.

And on the cliff, above the rocks where men had died, Whiskey Beach Light circled its hopeful beam.

“Eli?” In a robe as white as the moon, Abra stepped out. “Can’t sleep?”

“No.”

The air rippled her robe, danced through her hair, and the moonlight glowed in her eyes.

When, he wondered, had she become so beautiful?

“I have some tea that might help.” She came to him, automatically reached up to rub at his shoulders, seek out tension. When her eyes met his, her look of concern turned to one of curiosity. “What is it?”

“A lot of things. A lot of big, unexpected things in one even more unexpected bunch.”

“Why don’t you sit down? I’ll work on these shoulders and you can tell me.”

“No.” He took her hands, held them between his. “I’ll just tell you. I love you, too.”

“Oh, Eli.” She gripped his fingers with hers. “I know.”

Not the reaction he’d expected. In fact, he thought, it was a little irritating. “Really?”

“Yes. But God.” Her breath caught as she wrapped her arms around him, held tight with her face pressed to his shoulder. “God, it’s so wonderful to hear you say it. I told myself it would be okay if you didn’t say it. But I didn’t know it would feel like this to hear it. How could I know? If I had, I’d have hounded you like a wolf to drag those words out of you.”

“If I didn’t say it, how do you know?”

“When you touch me, when you look at me, when you hold me, I feel it.” She looked up at him, eyes drenched. “And I couldn’t love you this much without you loving me back. I couldn’t know how right it is to be with you if I didn’t know you loved me.”

He brushed at her hair, all those tumbled curls, and wondered how he’d ever gotten through a single day without her. “So, you were just waiting for me to catch up?”

“I was just waiting for you, Eli. I think I’ve been waiting for you ever since I came to Whiskey Beach because you’re all that was missing.”

“You’re what’s right.” He laid his lips on hers. “What’s just right. It scared the hell out of me at first.”

“I know, me too. But now?” Tears spilled out of mermaid eyes and sparkled in the moonlight. “I feel absolutely courageous. What about you?”

“I feel happy.” Struck with tenderness, he kissed the tears away. “I want to make you as happy as I am.”

“You do. It’s a good night. Or day, I guess. Another really good day.” She pressed her lips to his again. “Let’s give each other lots more good days.”

“That’s a promise.”

And Landons keep their promises, she thought. Overwhelmed, she wrapped around him again. “We found each other, Eli. Just when, just where we were supposed to.”

“Is that a karma thing?”

She drew back to laugh up at him. “You’re damn right it is. Is this why you couldn’t sleep? Because you suddenly accepted your karmic path and wanted to tell me?”

“No. Actually, I didn’t know I was going to say it until you walked out here. One look at you, and it blew through me, all of it.”

“We should go back to bed.” Her smile was full of promise. “I bet I can help you sleep.”

“There’s another reason I love you. You always have really good ideas.” But as he took her hand, he remembered. “Jesus, I got caught up.”

“A habit of yours.”

“No, I mean I forgot why I came out here in the first place,
why
I couldn’t sleep. I went up and started working on the books—the ledgers, the accounts.”

“All those numbers and columns?” Instinctively she reached up to rub at temples she imagined ached. “You should have nodded off inside five minutes.”

“I found it, Abra. I found Esmeralda’s Dowry.”

“What? How? My God, Eli! You’re a genius.” She grabbed him, circled and swayed. “Where?”

“It’s here.”

“But here where? And do I need a shovel? Oh, oh! We have to take it to Hester, to your family. It needs to be protected, and . . . There must be a way to trace Esmeralda’s descendants, make them a part of the discovery. Hester’s museum. Can you imagine what this means to Whiskey Beach?”

“Talk about running with it,” he commented.

“Well, Eli,
think
of it. Treasure unearthed after more than two centuries. You could write another book about it. And just think of all the people who’ll be able to see it now. Your family could lend pieces to the Smithsonian, the Met, the Louvre.”

“That’s what you’d do? Donate, lend, display?”

“Well, yes. It belongs to the ages, doesn’t it?”

“One way or the other.” Fascinated by her, he studied her glowing face. “Don’t you want it? Even a piece of it?”

“Oh, well . . . Now that you mention it, I wouldn’t say no to one tasteful piece.” She laughed, spun in a circle. “Oh, just think of the history, the mystery solved, the magic uncorked.”

She stopped, laughed again. “Where the hell is it? And how fast can we get it and secure it?”

He turned her, gestured. “We’ve already got it. It’s already secured. Abra, it’s Bluff House.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“My ancestors weren’t as altruistic or philanthropic as you. They not only kept it, they spent it.” He gestured toward the house. “Built not just on whiskey, but pirate booty. The expansion of the distillery—the timing of it—the expansion of the house, those first innovations, the lumber, the stone, the labor.”

“You’re saying they sold the dowry to expand the business, to build the house?”

“In pieces, I think, if I’m reading all the accounting right. Over a generation or two, starting with the coldhearted Roger and Edwin.”

“Oh. I have to adjust.” She pushed at her hair and, he imagined, pushed back her excited thoughts of museums, and sharing. “Bluff House
is
Esmeralda’s Dowry.”

“Essentially. It doesn’t add up otherwise, not if you really dig into the expenditures, the revenue. Family lore says gambling—they liked to gamble and they were lucky. And they were smart businessmen. Then the war, the buildup of the country. All of that, yeah, but gamblers need a stake.”

“You’re sure it was the dowry.”

“It’s logical. I want Tricia to take a look, to analyze, and I want to hear back on James Fitzgerald. It adds up, Abra. It’s in the walls, the stone, the glass, the gables. They accounted for it, in their own way, Roger and Edwin, because they considered it theirs.”

“Yes.” She nodded at that. “Men who could cut a daughter, a sister, so completely out of their lives would consider it theirs. I see that.”

“Broome came with it to Whiskey Beach, and Whiskey Beach was theirs. They gave him shelter, and he disgraced their daughter, their sister. So they took what he stole and built what they wanted.”

“Ruthless,” she murmured. “Ruthless and wrong, but . . . it’s poetic, too, isn’t it?” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “And, in a way, a happy ending. How do you feel about it?”

“Maybe a lot of it was built on blood and betrayal. You can’t change history, so you live with it. The house weathered it. So did the family.”

“It’s a good house. It’s a good family. I think both more than weathered history.”

“Ruthless and wrong,” he repeated, “and I can be sorry for that. Lindsay’s murder was ruthless and wrong. All I can do about any of it is try to find out the truth. Maybe that’s justice.”

“That’s why I love you,” she said quietly. “Just that. It’s too early to call Tricia, and I don’t think either of us is going to get any more sleep. I’m going to make us some eggs.”

“That’s why I love you.” On a laugh, he turned to her, pulled her in. And as his gaze drifted over her head, he went still.

He saw, down at the point, a shimmer of light. “Wait.”

He moved quickly to the telescope, peered through. Straightening, he looked at Abra.

“He’s back.”

With a hand gripped on his arm, she looked for herself. “I kept wishing for this, so it could be done and over, but now that it is . . .” She took a moment to evaluate. “I feel the same way. Now, we
do
something.” She sent him a cool, fierce smile. “Let’s break some eggs.”

While she did so literally, and Eli made coffee, it struck him it might have been any morning, even if it started at barely five a.m. Two people in love—and that was new and fresh and
energizing
—fixing breakfast.

All you had to do was leave out the murderer.

“We could call Corbett,” Abra said, rinsing berries in the sink. “He could have that conversation.”