"If you stayed at Maureen's, I could signal you when and if he comes in. Then you could call the cops. They'd move in while he was here. Caught in the act."

"And if I'm with you, I can contact the police from right here, while you run your famous video camera."

"You just want to play in the secret pa.s.sage."

"Well, who wouldn't? He hurt you, Eli. He hurt my friend. He would have hurt me. I'm not going to sit at Maureen's. Together, or not at all."

"That sounds like an ultimatum."

"Because it is." She lifted her shoulders, let them fall in the most casual gesture. "We can fight about it. You can get mad, I can be insulted. I just don't see the point, especially on such a gorgeous morning when we're in love. The point I see, Eli, is I've got your back. And I know you've got mine."

What the h.e.l.l was he supposed to do with that? "It might not work."

"Negative thinking's unproductive. Plus, past history and pattern say it will work. This could be over, Eli, or at the very least he could be in police custody, charged with breaking and entering, maybe destruction of property, by tonight. And he'd be questioned on all the rest."

She leaned forward. "When that happens, Wolfe's going to have his first taste of crow."

"You had that ace up your sleeve," Eli replied.

"It's karma time, Eli."

"All right. But we're going to work this out, account for every contingency."

She poured them both a second cup of coffee. "Let's strategize."

While they talked, the sun broke over the horizon, splashing gold over the night-dark sea.

Just another day, Eli thought when Abra dashed out for her morning cla.s.s. Or it would seem so to anyone watching the movements, the comings, the goings, of Bluff House.

He walked the dog, crossing the beach at a light jog and in full view of Sandcastle. To please Barbie as much as to form a picture, he spent a little time throwing the ball for her, letting her splash into the water, swim out again.

Back home, she sprawled on the sunny terrace, and Eli went in to call his sister.

"Boydon Madhouse, and how are you, Eli?"

"Pretty good." He held the phone an inch from his ear as shrill shrieks threatened to break his eardrum. "What the h.e.l.l is that?"

"Selina strongly objects to being in time-out." Tricia raised her own voice, and Eli made it two inches. "And the longer Sellie screams and misbehaves, the longer she'll be in time-out."

"What did she do?"

"Decided she didn't want her strawberries at breakfast."

"Oh, well, that doesn't seem-"

"So she threw them at me, which is why she's in time-out. I have to change my shirt, which further means she'll be late for day care and I'll be late for the office."

"Okay. This is a bad time. I'll call you later."

"We're going to be late anyway, and I have to cool off so I don't give my beloved child a strawberry facial. What's up?"

"I dug up some old household and business ledgers. Really old, going back to the late 1700s, into the early 1800s. I've been going through them, pretty carefully, and I've come to some interesting conclusions."

"Such as?"

"I'm hoping you have time to look them over yourself, and we'll see if your conclusions jibe with mine."

"You don't want to give me a clue?"

Boy, he really wanted to. But ... "I don't want to influence you. Maybe I went off some shaky ledge."

"You've got my attention. I'd love to play with them."

"How about I scan you a few pages, just to give you a start? I should be able to come in, maybe the end of the week, bring the ledgers to you."

"You could. Or Max, the currently time-outed Sellie and I could come up Friday evening, have a weekend at the beach and I can play with them."

"Even better. But there'll be no strawberries if they cause this reaction."

"Usually she loves them, but girls do have their moods. I've got to go unshackle her, get us out of here. Send me what you can, and I'll take a look."

"Thanks. And ... good luck."

Following his morning agenda, he went up for his laptop. He sat out on the terrace, in view of Sandcastle, his trusty Mountain Dew on the table, as he scanned through his e-mails.

He opened one from Sherrilyn Burke first, began to read her updated report on Justin Suskind.

The man hadn't spent much time at work since the last report, Eli noted. A day here and there, a handful of out-of-office meetings. The most interesting, Eli found, had been to a law firm where he met with an estate specialist. And stormed out, obviously angry.

"Didn't get the answers you wanted," Eli sympathized. "I know just how you feel."

Through the report, he followed Suskind as he picked up his kids from school, took them to the park, to dinner, then home. His brief visit with his wife hadn't gone any better than his meeting with the lawyer, as he'd left in visible temper to speed away.

At ten-fifteen the night before, he'd left his apartment with a suitcase, a briefcase and a storage box. He'd driven north out of Boston, stopping at an all-night supermarket for a pound of ground beef.

He'd made a second stop an hour later, veering off the highway to a twenty-four-hour box store where he'd purchased a box of rat poison.

Ground beef. Poison.

Without reading further, Eli surged to his feet.

"Barbie!"

He had a moment of sheer panic when he didn't see her on the terrace. Even as he raced forward, she scrambled to her feet from where she sat at the top of the beach steps. Tail happily wagging, she trotted to him.

Eli simply went down to his knees, wrapped his arms around her. Love, he realized, could sometimes come fast, but it didn't make it any less real.