Whiskey Beach

Chapter Seven

PART OF THE JOB WAS BOREDOM. KIRBY DUNCAN SLOUCHED in his nondescript sedan, nibbling on carrot sticks. He had a new lady friend, and the potential for sex convinced him to drop ten pounds.

He’d managed two.

He’d moved the car once in the past two hours, and considered moving it again. Instinct told him Landon was probably settled in for a while—family dinner most likely as Duncan had snapped shots of the mother, the father and most recently the sister with husband and toddler in tow.

But his job was to sit on Landon, so sit he would.

He followed the job into Boston—an easy tail even with traffic—to the building that housed Landon’s lawyer. That had given him an opportunity to do a casual walk-around of Landon’s car. Nothing to see there.

Some ninety minutes later he’d followed Landon around the Commons, then tailed him to a high-priced salon, waiting while Landon got a trim. Not that Duncan saw much difference for the fifty-plus the snip cost.

But it took all kinds, Christ knew.

Landon made another stop at a florist, came out loaded.

Just a guy running a few errands in the city before he paid a visit to family. Ordinary crap.

In fact, as far as Duncan could see, all Landon did was ordinary crap, and not a hell of a lot of that. If the guy killed his wife and got away with it, Landon sure wasn’t out celebrating.

His report, to date, ran pretty thin. A few walks on the beach, the encounter with the sexy housekeeper and the woman who’d given Landon a solid squeeze—and turned out to be the married mother of three.

He figured there was some heat between Landon and the housekeeper, but he couldn’t connect them prior to Landon’s return to the house at the beach.

Still, his background check showed him Abra Walsh had a history of hooking up with violent types, which would make Landon the perfect match—if he bashed the wife’s head in, which Duncan had come to doubt. Maybe Landon was her current choice, he thought, but current was key as he couldn’t find one crumb to start a trail cozying the two of them up before the murder.

Even the thin report he had didn’t hold with the client’s insistence Landon was guilty, or with the certainty of Duncan’s old friend Wolfe, one of Boston’s finest, that Landon had snapped and bashed his cheating wife’s brains in.

The longer he watched, the less guilty the poor bastard looked.

To draw out information, he’d tried the direct approach, as with the sexy housekeeper, and the more circular style with the clerk at the B&B and a couple others. Just commenting on the big house on the bluff, asking, as any tourist might, about its history, its owners.

He’d gotten an earful there about a fortune built initially on booze, from pirate plunder to distilleries to running whiskey during the bad old days of Prohibition. Legends of stolen jewels hidden for generations, family scandals, the expected ghosts, heroes, villains right up to Eli Landon’s scandal.

His most entertaining source had been the pretty clerk in a gift shop who’d been happy to spend a half hour on a gloomy, preseason afternoon gossiping with a paying customer. Gossips often stood as a PI’s best friend, and Heather Lockaby had been plenty friendly.

She felt terrible for Eli, Duncan recalled. Deemed the dead wife a cold, unfriendly snob who couldn’t even take the time to pay visits to Eli’s elderly grandmother. She’d gone off track with Hester Landon’s fall, but he’d reeled her back easily enough.

According to the loose-tongued Heather, Landon hadn’t lacked for female companionship during his summers and breaks at Whiskey Beach, or during his teens and twenties in any case. He’d liked to party, to suck down beers at the local watering holes and ride around in his convertible.

Nobody, according to Heather, expected him to settle down and get married before he hit thirty. And there’d been plenty of speculation about that, which had died off when no baby came along.

It was obvious there was trouble in paradise when Eli stopped bringing her to Bluff House, then when he stopped coming. Nobody blinked an eye when word circulated about a divorce.

And she, personally, knew before it came out that the cold fish of a wife was having an affair. It just stood to reason. She didn’t blame Eli one bit for being upset and lighting into her. No, she didn’t. And if he killed her, and naturally she didn’t think that for a minute, she was sure it had been an accident.

He didn’t ask how smacking a woman on the back of the head with a poker a few times equaled accident, as he’d already dropped two hundred and fifty bucks on whatnots to keep her talking, and outside of the entertainment value, she’d given him nothing.

Still, he found it interesting that at least some of the locals suspected the favored son of murder. And suspicion opened doors. He’d be knocking on them in the days to come and earn his fee.

For now, he considered moving on, calling it a day. Or at least taking a quick bathroom break.

He shifted his numb ass side to side as his cell phone rang.

“Duncan.” He shifted again at his client’s voice. “As it happens I’m sitting outside his parents’ house on Beacon Hill. He drove into Boston this morning. I’ll have a report for you by—”

He shifted butt cheeks again as the client interrupted with a spate of questions.

“Yeah, that’s right. He’s been in Boston all day, met with his lawyer, got a haircut, bought some flowers.”

The client paid the bills, he reminded himself as he logged the call in his book. “His sister and her family went in about a half hour ago. Looks like full family visit. Given the timing, I’d say he’s here for dinner at least. I don’t think there’s going to be any more activity here so . . . If that’s what you want. I can do that.”

It’s your money, Duncan thought, and resigned himself to a long evening. “I’ll contact you when he comes out.”

When the phone clicked in his ear, Duncan shook his head. Clients paid the bills, he thought again, and ate another carrot stick.

Maybe he’d been gone only a few weeks, but it felt like a homecoming. Logs snapped and flamed in the big stone fireplace, the old dog Sadie curled in front of it. Everyone sat around what they called the family parlor, with its familiar mix of antiques and family photos, red lilies in a slim vase on the piano, as they might have sat, talked, sipped wine on any evening before the world collapsed.

Even his grandmother, who rather than object had enjoyed having him carry her down the steps and depositing her in her favored wingback chair, chatted away as if nothing had changed.

The baby helped, he supposed. Pretty as a gumdrop, fast as lightning, the not-quite-three-year-old Selina just filled the room with energy and fun.

She demanded he play, so Eli sat on the floor and helped build a castle out of blocks for her princess doll.

A simple thing, an ordinary thing, and something that reminded him he’d once imagined having kids of his own.

He thought his parents looked less strained than they did when he left for Whiskey Beach a few weeks before. The ordeal they’d been through had deepened the creases in his father’s face, brought a near-translucent pallor to his mother’s.

But they’d never wavered, he thought.

“I’m going to feed this very busy girl.” Eli’s sister laid a hand over her husband’s for a squeeze as she rose. “Uncle Eli, why don’t you give me a hand getting her set up?”

“Ah . . . sure.”

Since Selina, her doll dangling from her fingers, lifted her arms, beamed that irresistible smile, he scooped her up to carry her into the kitchen.

The broad-shouldered Alice ruled over the expansive six-burner stove. “Hungry, is she?”

Selina immediately deserted Eli, stretching her arms out for the cook. “There’s my princess. I’ve got her,” she told Tricia, expertly securing Selina to the shelf of her hip. “She can eat and keep me company—and Carmel, too, once I tell her we’ve got our girl to ourselves. We’ll have dinner on the table for the rest of you commoners in about forty minutes.”

“Thanks. If she gives you any trouble—”

“Trouble?” Eyes popping comically wide, Alice spoke with exaggerated shock. “Look at that face.”

Laughing, Selina wrapped her arms around the cook’s neck and gave her version of a whisper. “I have cookies?”

“After your dinner,” Alice whispered back. “We’re fine.” She made a shooing gesture. “Go relax.”

“Be good,” Tricia warned her daughter, then took her brother’s hand. At nearly six feet, with a toughly toned body and a determined will, she easily pulled him out of the kitchen, then away from the parlor toward the library. “I want a minute with you.”

“I figured. I’m fine. Everything’s fine, so—”

“Just stop.”

Unlike their more soft-spoken, diplomatic mother, Tricia took her personality clues from her straight-ahead, flinty and opinionated paternal grandfather.

Which could be why she now served as COO of Landon Whiskey.

“We’re all being very careful to talk about anything but what happened, what’s happening and how you’re dealing with it. And that’s fine, but now it’s you and me. Face-to-face, no e-mail, which you can carefully compose and edit. What’s going on with you, Eli?”

“I’m writing pretty steadily. I’m taking walks on the beach. I’m eating regular meals because Gran’s housekeeper keeps making them.”

“Abra? She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”

“No. She’s interesting.”

Amused, Tricia sat on the arm of a wide leather chair. “Among other things. I’m glad to hear all that, Eli, because it sounds like just what you should be doing right now. But if it’s all going so well, why are you back in Boston?”

“I can’t come in, see my family? What am I, banished?”

And even then the way her finger shot up, pointed, reminded him of their grandfather.

“Don’t evade. You didn’t have any plans to come back until Easter, but here you are. Spill it.”

“It’s no big deal. I wanted to talk, face-to-face, with Neal.” He glanced toward the doorway. “Look, I don’t want to upset Mom and Dad, there’s no point. And I can see they look less stressed. The Piedmonts are making noises about a wrongful-death suit.”

“That’s bullshit, just bullshit. It’s straight-out harassment at this point, Eli. You should . . . talk to Neal,” she ended, and blew out a breath. “As you did. What does he think?”

“He thinks it’s noise, at least for now. I told him to hire a new investigator, to find a woman this time.”

“You’re coming back,” Tricia stated, and her eyes filled.

“Don’t. Jesus, Tricia.”

“It’s not just that—you—or not altogether. It’s hormones. I’m pregnant. I cried this morning singing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ with Sellie.”

“Oh. Wow.” He felt a grin start up from his feet, straight up through his heart. “That’s good, right?”

“It’s great. Max and I are thrilled. We’re not telling anybody yet, though I think Mom suspects. I’m only about seven weeks. What the hell.” She sniffed back the tears. “I’ll clear it with Max. We’ll tell everybody at dinner. Why not make it a celebration?”

“And keep the topic off me.”

“Yes, don’t say I never did anything for you.” She rose, wrapped her arms around him. “I’ll shift everyone’s focus if you promise no more careful e-mails, not to me. You tell me when you’re having a bad day. And if you are, and you want company, I can work it so Sellie and I come up for a couple days. Max if he can manage it. You don’t have to be alone.”

She would, he thought. Tricia would shuffle, realign, reschedule—she was an expert at it—and she’d do it for him.

“I’m doing okay alone, no offense. I’m figuring things out I let go of for too long.”

“The offer stands. And we won’t wait for one if you’re still there this summer. We’ll just come. I’ll float like the whale I’ll be by then and let everybody wait on me.”

“Typical.”

“Say that when you haul around an extra twenty pounds and obsess about stretch marks. Go ahead back. I’m just going to peek in and make sure Selina hasn’t sweet-talked Alice into those pre-dinner cookies.”

At nine o’clock that evening, Abra finished her at-home yoga class, grabbed a bottle of water as her students rolled up mats.

“Sorry I was a little late,” Heather said—again. “Things just got away from me today.”

“It’s no problem.”

“I hate missing the warm-up breathing. It always helps me.” Heather let out a sigh, pushed air down with her hands and made Abra smile.

Nothing brought Heather down. She imagined the woman talked in her sleep, just as she did through a sixty-minute massage.

“I ran out of the house like a maniac,” Heather continued. “Oh, I did notice Eli’s car wasn’t at Bluff House. Don’t tell me he’s already gone back to Boston.”

“No.”

Unwilling to leave it at that, Heather zipped up her coat. “I just wondered. It’s such a big house. With Hester, well, she’s a fixture, if you know what I mean. But I imagine, especially with everything he must have on his mind, Eli just rattles around in that place.”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“I know you see him when you go over to take care of the house, so that’s some company. But I’d just think, with all that time on his hands, well, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. That can’t be healthy.”

“He’s writing a novel, Heather.”

“Well, I know that’s what he says. Or that’s what people say he says, but he was a lawyer. What does a lawyer know about writing novels?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Ask John Grisham.”

Heather opened her mouth, closed it again. “Oh, I guess that’s true. But still—”

“Heather, I think it’s starting to rain.” Greta Parrish stepped up. “Would you mind giving me a ride home? I think I may have a little cold coming on.”

“Oh, well, sure I will. Just let me grab my mat.”

“You owe me,” Greta murmured as Heather dashed off.

“Big time.” She gave the older woman a grateful squeeze of the hand, then hurried off to look busy stacking mats.

The minute her house was empty, she let out a sigh.

She loved her at-home classes, the intimacy, the casual conversations before and after. But there were times . . .

After she’d straightened the sunroom, she went upstairs, put on her favorite pajamas—fluffy white sheep frolicking over a pink background—then walked back down.

She intended to pour herself some wine, build up the fire and snuggle in with a book. The sound of rain plopping on her deck made her smile. A rainy night, a fire, a glass of wine—

Rain. Damn it, had she closed all the windows in Bluff House?

Of course she did. She wouldn’t have forgotten to . . .

Did she? Absolutely every one? Like the one in Hester’s home gym?

Squeezing her eyes tight, she tried to visualize, tried to see herself walking through, securing the windows.

But she just couldn’t remember, just couldn’t be sure.

“Hell, hell, hell!”

She wouldn’t relax until she’d checked, and it would take only a few minutes. In any case, she’d made that turkey stew earlier. She’d take the container she’d culled out for Eli down with her.

She pulled it out of the refrigerator, then took off her cozy socks to stick her feet in her ancient Uggs. She pulled her coat over her pj’s, grabbed a hat and, dragging it over her head, jogged out to her car.

“Five minutes, ten tops, then I’m back home with that glass of wine.”

She zipped down to Bluff House, unsurprised by a rumble of thunder. Late March equaled crazy in the weather department. Thunder tonight, snow or sixty and sunny tomorrow. Who knew?

She made the dash through the rain, heading straight for the front entrance, keys in one hand, turkey stew in the other.

She booted the door closed with her hip, reached out to flip the light switch so she could key in the alarm code.

“Great. Perfect,” she muttered when the foyer remained dark. She knew all too well the iffy power in Bluff House during a storm, or in Whiskey Beach altogether. She flicked on the little penlight on her key ring and followed the tiny beam to the kitchen.

She’d check the windows, then she’d report the power outage—and the fact that the backup generator had failed. Again. She wished Hester would update that old monster. She worried how Hester would get by in a serious power outage, no matter how the woman pointed out she’d been through plenty of them and knew how to hunker down.

In the kitchen, she retrieved a full-size flashlight out of the drawer. Maybe she should go down into the basement, check the generator. Of course she didn’t know what to check, but maybe.

She started for the door, stopped. Dark, cold, potentially damp. Spiders.

Maybe not.

She’d just leave a note for Eli. If he came home in the middle of the night to no power, no heat, no light, he could bunk on her sofa. But first she’d check the windows.

She hurried upstairs. Naturally, the window she’d worried about was secured, and naturally now she could clearly remember pulling it shut, flipping the latch.

She went back down, turned toward the kitchen. She wasn’t easily spooked, but she wanted to get home, wanted out of the big, dark, empty house and into her own cozy cottage.

Thunder rolled again, made her jump this time, made her laugh at herself.

The flashlight flew out of her hand when he grabbed her from behind. For an instant, just an instant, full, mindless panic struck. She struggled helplessly, clawing at the arm hooked tight around her neck.

She thought of a knife held to her throat, of the blade skipping down her ribs, slicing flesh on the way. Terror shoved the scream from her guts to her throat where the arm chained it down to a choked wheeze.

It cut off her air, had her fighting to draw a breath until the room started to spin.

Then survival kicked in.

Solar plexus—hard elbow jab. Instep. Full-force stomp. Nose—a hard turn as the grip loosened, then a slam with the heel of her hand where instinct told her the face would be. Groin, fast, furious upward jerk of the knee.

Then she ran. Instinct again driving her blindly toward the door. Her hands struck it with enough force to shoot pain up her arms, but she didn’t stop. She dragged the door open, ran to her car, dragging her keys out of her pocket with a shaking hand.

“Just go, just go, just go.”

She hurled herself into the car, jabbed the key in the ignition. Her tires squealed as she threw the car in reverse. Then she whipped the wheel, shot it into drive, floored it.

Without conscious thought she drove past her own house, slammed the brakes in front of Maureen’s.

Light. People. Safety.

She ran to the door, shoved it open, stopping only when she saw her friends snuggled up in front of the TV.

Both of them lunged to their feet.

“Abra!”

“Police.” The room spun again. “Call the police.”

“You’re hurt! You’re bleeding!” Even as Maureen rushed to her, Mike grabbed his phone.

“I am? No.” Swaying, she looked down at herself as Maureen grabbed her. She saw the blood on her hoodie, on the pajama top beneath.

Not from the knife, no. Not this time. Not her blood.

“No, it’s not mine. It’s his.”

“God. Was there an accident? Come sit down.”

“No. No!” Not her blood, she thought again. She’d gotten away. She was safe. And the room stopped spinning. “Someone was in Bluff House. Tell the police someone was in Bluff House. He grabbed me.” Her hand went to her throat. “He was choking me.”

“He hurt you. I can see it. You sit. You sit down. Mike.”

“Cops are coming. Here.” He tucked a throw around Abra when Maureen led her to a chair. “You’re okay now. You’re safe now.”

“I’m going to get you some water. Mike’s right here,” Maureen told her.

He knelt down in front of her. Such a good face, Abra thought as her breathing labored. A caring face with dark puppy-dog eyes.

“The power’s out,” she said, almost absently.

“No, it’s not.”

“At Bluff House. The power’s out. It was dark. He was in the dark. I didn’t see him.”

“It’s all right. The police are coming, and you’re all right.”

She nodded, staring into those puppy-dog eyes. “I’m all right.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“He . . . He had his arm tight, tight around my throat, and my waist, I think. I couldn’t breathe, and I got dizzy.”

“Honey, there’s blood on you. Will you let me take a look?”

“It’s his. I hit him in the face. I did SING.”

“You what?”

“SING,” Maureen said as she came in with a glass of water in one hand, a glass of whiskey in the other. “Self-defense. Solar plexus, instep, nose, groin. Abra, you’re a miracle.”

“I didn’t think. I just did it. I must’ve given him a nosebleed. I don’t know. I got loose, and I ran. I ran out and came here. I feel . . . a little sick.”

“Sip some water. Slowly.”

“Okay. All right. I need to call Eli. He needs to know.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Mike told her. “Just give me the number, and I’ll take care of it.”

Abra sipped, breathed, sipped again. “It’s on my phone. I didn’t take my phone. It’s at home.”

“I’ll get it. I’ll take care of it.”

“I didn’t let him hurt me. Not this time.” Abra clamped a hand on her mouth as the tears came. “Not this time.”

Maureen sat beside her, drew Abra into her arms and rocked.

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“Shh. You’re okay.”

“I am okay.” But Abra held tight. “I should be dancing. I didn’t fall apart—until now. I did everything right. He didn’t hurt me. I didn’t let him hurt me. It just . . . it brings it back.”

“I know.”

“But that’s done.” She eased back, rubbed tears away. “I handled it. But for God’s sake, Maureen, somebody broke into Bluff House. I don’t know where they were or what they were doing. I didn’t notice anything out of place, but I only went up to the gym, into the kitchen. I nearly went into the basement to check the generator, but . . . He could’ve been down there. He must’ve cut the power to get in. The power was down. I—”

“Drink this now.” Maureen pushed the whiskey into her hand. “And just take it slow.”

“I’m all right.” She took a slow sip of whiskey, breathed out when it ran warm down her sore throat. “It started to storm, and I couldn’t remember if I’d closed all the windows. It nagged me, so I drove down. I just thought the power had gone out. I didn’t see him, Maureen, or hear him. Not with the rain and the wind.”

“You made him bleed.”

Calmer now, Abra looked down. “I made him bleed. Good for me. I hope I broke his goddamn nose.”

“I hope so, too. You’re my hero.”

“You’re mine. Why do you think I came straight here?”

Mike came back in. “He’s on his way,” he told them. “And the police are headed down to Bluff House. They’ll be here to talk to you after they do whatever they do.” He walked over, handed Abra a sweatshirt. “I thought you might want this.”

“Thanks. God, Mike. Thanks. You’re the best.”

“That’s why I keep him.” After a bolstering pat of her hand on Abra’s thigh, Maureen rose. “I’m going to make coffee.”

As she walked out, Mike crossed over to turn off the TV. He sat, took a sip of Abra’s whiskey. Smiled at her.

“So, how was your day?” he asked, and made her laugh.