And that struck him as even more embarra.s.sing than lifting purple weights.

When he stepped into the kitchen, the smell hit him seconds before he spotted the plate of cookies on the island. Any idea of slapping together a sandwich went out the rain-washed window.

He lifted the ubiquitous sticky note on the film of plastic wrap, read as he pulled the wrap up and snagged the first cookie.

Rainy day baking. I heard your keyboard clacking, so didn't want to interrupt. Enjoy. See you tomorrow about five.

Abra

Should he reciprocate for all this food she kept making? Buy her flowers or something? One bite told him flowers wouldn't make the grade. He grabbed another cookie, hit the coffeemaker. He decided he'd build a fire, pick a book at random out of the library and indulge himself.

He built the fire to roaring. Something about the light, the snap, the heat meshed perfectly with the rain-whipped Sat.u.r.day. In the library with its coffered ceiling and dark chocolate leather couch, he scanned the shelves.

Novels, biographies, how-to's, poetry, books on gardening, animal husbandry, yoga-apparently Gran really got into the practice-an old book on etiquette, and a section of books centered on Whiskey Beach. A couple of novels, he noted, which might be interesting, histories, lore, a scattering of those written about the Landons. And several referencing pirates and legends.

On impulse he drew out a slim leather-bound volume t.i.tled Calypso: Doomed Treasures.

Considering the trench in the bas.e.m.e.nt, it seemed apt enough.

Stretched out on the couch, fire blazing, Eli munched on cookies and read. The old book, published at the turn of the twentieth century, included ill.u.s.trations, maps, biographical snippets of whomever the author deemed a major player. Enjoying himself, Eli delved into the fateful last voyage of the Calypso, captained by the not-very-infamous pirate and smuggler Nathanial Broome.

The book carved him as handsome, dashing, full of derring-do, which was probably a crock for any who didn't subscribe to the Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp school of pirates.

He read of the battle at sea between the Calypso and the Santa Caterina described in an adventurous, bloodless style that made him suspect, perhaps unfairly, the author had been a woman writing under the masculine nom de plume Charles G. Haversham.

The boarding and sinking of the Santa Caterina, the pillaging of its stores, the killing of most of its crew turned into high-seas adventure, with hefty doses of romance. Esmeralda's Dowry, according to Haversham, had been magically imbued with its mistress's loving heart so the jewels could be held only by one who'd found true love.

"Seriously?" Eli ate another cookie. He might've put the book down for a different selection, but the author had so obviously enjoyed the writing, and the style proved ridiculously entertaining, and took him into pockets of the legend he'd never heard before.

He didn't have to believe in the transformative power of love-as transmitted in this case by magical diamonds and rubies-to enjoy the telling of it. And he appreciated the consistency of the romantic bent in the author's contention that rather than a lowly seaman surviving the fateful wreck of the Calypso-with the treasure-it had been the dashingly romantic Captain Broome.

He read the entire book to its tragic (yet romantic) conclusion, then paged back to study the ill.u.s.trations again. Warmed by the fire, he dropped into a cookie coma with the book on his chest. He dreamed of sea battles, of pirates, of glinting jewels, of a young woman's open heart and of betrayal, redemption and death.

And of Lindsay, lying in the trench in Bluff House's bas.e.m.e.nt, the stone and dirt stained with her blood. Of himself standing over her, pickax in hand.

He woke in a sweat, the fire burned to a red simmer, his body stiff. Queasy, shaken, he dragged himself off the couch, out of the library. The dream, that final image, held so strong, so clear in his mind, he went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, walked through the maze of rooms. And he stood over the trench to be sure his dead wife wasn't there.

Stupid, he told himself. Just stupid to feel the need to check out the impossible because of the delusion of a dream brought on by a silly book and too many cookies. Equally stupid to think-hope-that because he hadn't dreamed of Lindsay in a few nights' running he was done with it.

However foolish it was, his earlier optimism and energy faded like chalk in the rain. He needed to go back up, find something to do before he let the dark close around him. G.o.d, he didn't want to fight his way back into the light again.

Maybe he'd fill in the trench, he told himself as he started back. He'd check with Vinnie first, then he'd fill it in. Make it go away, and screw whoever had come into Bluff House on their idiotic treasure hunt.

He nursed that little spark of anger-so much better than depression-fanning it as he continued back. Letting it grow and heat against whoever had violated his family home.

He was through being violated, through accepting that someone could have come into his home-or what had been his-killed his wife and left him to hang for it. Through accepting anyone might have come into Bluff House and had anything to do with his grandmother's fall.

He was through feeling victimized.

He stepped up into the kitchen, and stopped dead.

Abra stood, her phone in one hand, and a really big kitchen knife in the other.

"I really hope you're thinking of slicing some giant carrots with that."

"Oh G.o.d! Eli." She dropped the knife on the counter, where it clattered. "I came in, and the door to the bas.e.m.e.nt was open. You didn't answer when I called out. Then I heard someone, and ... I panicked."

"Panicking would be running. Sensible panicking would be running and calling the police. Standing there with a knife isn't sensible or panic."

"It felt like both. I need ... Can I ... Never mind." She simply got a gla.s.s, got a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. After drawing out its jeweled stopper, she poured it like breakfast juice.

"I scared you. I'm sorry." Her hands shook, he noted. "But going downstairs may happen from time to time."

"I know. It's not that. It's that on top of ..." She took a long drink, a long breath. "Eli, they found Kirby Duncan."

"Good." His earlier anger could round back again, and this time with a target. "I want to talk to the son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"You can't. They found his body. Eli, they found his body caught in the rocks below the lighthouse. I saw the police, I saw all these people over there, so I went out. And ... he's dead."

"How?"

"I don't know. Maybe he fell."

"That's a little too easy, isn't it?" They'd come for him again, he thought. The police, with questions. No getting around it.

"No one's going to think you had anything to do with it."

He shook his head, unsurprised she'd read his thoughts. He stepped forward, took the gla.s.s, took a long drink of his own. "Sure they will. But this time, I'll be prepared for it. You came to tell me so I would be."

"No one who knows you will think you had anything to do with it."

"Maybe not." He handed her back the gla.s.s. "But it's going to fuel the beast. Accused murderer connected to victim of another death. Plenty of dirt to throw, and some of it's going to hit you if you don't keep your distance."

"The h.e.l.l with that." Her eyes fired at him. The color distress had washed out of her face surged back. "And don't insult me that way again."

"It's not an insult, it's a warning."

"The h.e.l.l with that, too. I want to know what you're going to do if you believe some people will think you had anything to do with this, if you believe dirt's going to be tossed at you."

"I don't know yet." But he would. This time he would. "n.o.body's going to chase me out of Bluff House or away from Whiskey Beach. I stay until I'm ready to go."

"That's good enough. Why don't I fix us some food?"

"No, thanks. I ate the cookies."

She glanced at the plate on the island, and her jaw dropped as she counted a lonely six cookies. "Good G.o.d, Eli, there were two dozen. You should be sick."

"Maybe a little. Go on home, Abra. You shouldn't be here when the cops come. No telling when, but soon enough."