With the muscles in his shoulders twisting into fists, he opened the e-mail.

He cut through the legalese, set aside the a.s.surances, even the questions of approach, and focused on the ugly center.

Lindsay's parents were, once again, making noises about filing a wrongful death suit against him.

It was never going to end, he thought. Never going to be over. Unless and until the police caught whoever was responsible for Lindsay's death, he was the default.

Lindsay's parents despised him, absolutely and without a sliver of doubt believed he murdered their only child. If they went forward with this-and the longer he remained the default, the more likely they'd do just that-everything would be dredged up again, swirled into the media hot box to cook and bloat. And spill over not only him but his family.

Again.

a.s.surances the case was unlikely to go forward now, or to gain much traction if and when, didn't help. They would beat that drum, for sure, righteous in their certainty that they sought the only justice available to them.

He thought of the publicity, all those talking heads discussing, a.n.a.lyzing, speculating. The private investigators the Piedmonts would hire-likely already had-who would come here to Whiskey Beach and bring that speculation, that doubt, those questions with them to the only place he had left.

He wondered if Boston PD's Detective Wolfe had any part in their decision. On bad days, Eli considered Wolfe his personal Javert-doggedly, obsessively pursuing him for a crime he didn't commit. On better ones, he thought of Wolfe as stubborn and wrongheaded, a cop who refused to consider that the lack of evidence might equal innocence.

Wolfe hadn't been able to put a case together that convinced the prosecutor to file. But that hadn't stopped the man from trying, from edging over the line of hara.s.sment until his superiors had warned him off.

At least officially.

No, he wouldn't put it past Wolfe to encourage and abet the Piedmonts in their quest.

Braced on his elbows, Eli rubbed his hands over his face. He'd known this was coming, he'd known this other shoe would drop. So maybe, in a horrible way, it was better to get it done.

Agreeing with the last line of Neal's e-mail, We need to talk, Eli picked up the phone.

The headache was a tantrum inside his skull, kicking, punching, screaming. Rea.s.surances from his lawyer did little to alleviate it. The Piedmonts made noises about a suit to increase pressure, to keep the media interested, to float the idea of a settlement.

None of those opinions, even though he agreed with them, rea.s.sured.

The suggestions to keep a low profile, not to discuss the investigation, to reengage his own private investigator hardly helped. He already intended to keep a low profile. Any lower, he'd be interred. Who the h.e.l.l would he discuss anything with? And the idea of pumping money and hope into private investigation, which hadn't turned up anything genuinely helpful the first time around, just added a layer of depression.

He knew, as his lawyer knew, as the police knew, that the more time that pa.s.sed, the less likely they'd find solid evidence.

The most likely endgame? He'd remain in limbo, not charged, not cleared, and shadowed by suspicion for the rest of his life.

So he had to learn to live with it.

He had to learn to live.

He heard the knock at the door, but didn't fully register the sound, the reason, until the door opened. He watched Abra muscling in a huge padded case, a bulging tote.

"Hi. Don't mind me. You just stand there while I drag all this in by myself. No, no problem at all."

She'd nearly managed it by the time he crossed over. "I'm sorry. I meant to get in touch, to tell you this just isn't a good time."

She leaned back against the door to close it, let out an audible whew. "Too late," she began, then her easy smile faded when she focused on his face. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Nothing." Not much more than usual, he thought. "This just isn't a good time."

"Do you have another appointment? Are you going out dancing? Do you have a naked woman upstairs waiting for hot s.e.x? No?" she answered before he could. "Then it's as good a time as any."

Depression spun into annoyance on a finger snap. "How about this? No means no."

Now she blew out a breath. "That's an excellent argument, and I know I'm being pushy, even obnoxious. Chalk it up to keeping my promise to Hester to help, and the fact that I can't stand seeing anyone-anything-in pain. Let's make a deal."

And d.a.m.n it, that reminded him of his earlier one with his grandmother. "What are the terms?"

"Give me fifteen minutes. If after fifteen minutes on the table you don't feel better, I'll pack it up, get out and never bring up the subject again."

"Ten minutes."

"Ten," she agreed. "Where do you want me to set up? There's plenty of room up in your bedroom."

"Here's fine." Stuck, he gestured toward the main parlor. He could push her out of the house faster from there.

"All right. Why don't you start a fire while I set up? I'd like the room warm."

He'd intended to light a fire. He'd gotten distracted, lost track of time. He could start a fire, give her ten minutes-in exchange for her leaving him the h.e.l.l alone.

But it still p.i.s.sed him off.

He hunkered down by the hearth to stack kindling. "Aren't you worried about being here?" he demanded. "Alone with me?"

Abra unzipped the cover on her portable table. "Why would I be?"

"A lot of people think I killed my wife."

"A lot of people think global warming is a hoax. I don't happen to agree."

"You don't know me. You don't know what I might do under any given set of circ.u.mstances."

She set up her table, folded away the cover, movements precise and practiced-and unhurried. "I don't know what you'd do under any given set of circ.u.mstances, but I know you didn't kill your wife."

The calm, conversational tone of her voice infuriated him. "Why? Because my grandmother doesn't think I'm a murderer?"

"That would be one reason." She smoothed a fleece cover on the table, covered it with a sheet. "Hester's a smart, self-aware woman-and one who cares about me. If she had even the smallest doubt, she would have told me to stay away from you. But that's just one reason. I have several others."

As she spoke she set a few candles around the room, lit them. "I work for your grandmother, and have a personal friendship with her. I live in Whiskey Beach, which is Landon territory. So I followed the story."

The lurking black cloud of depression rolled back in. "I'm sure everybody did around here."

"That's natural, and human. Just as disliking, and resenting, the fact that people are talking about you, reaching conclusions about you, is natural and human. I reached my own conclusion. I saw you, on TV, in the paper, on the Internet. And what I saw was shock, sadness. Not guilt. What I see now? Stress, anger, frustration. Not guilt."

As she spoke she took a band from around her wrist and, with a few flicks, secured her hair in a tail. "I don't think the guilty lose much sleep. One other-though as I said I have several-you're not stupid. Why would you kill her the same day you argued with her in public? The same day you learned you had a lever to dump some dirt on her in the divorce?"

"First degree wasn't on the table. I was p.i.s.sed. Crime of pa.s.sion."