Good for him.

She carried the dish and bottle to the kitchen, then stepped out onto the terrace. Surprised to see the telescope, she moved to it. When she looked through the eyepiece, the lighthouse filled her view.

She couldn't blame him for that. In fact it made her wish she had a telescope of her own. Hugging her arms against the chill, she stepped to the edge of the terrace to scan the beach.

And there he was, she noted, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched a bit against the wind. She watched until she saw him veer toward the beach steps.

She went back inside, poured two gla.s.ses of wine, then carried them both to the door to meet him.

"Gorgeous day, isn't it?" She pa.s.sed him a gla.s.s. "You can almost smell the leading edge of spring if you try hard enough."

"Spring? My ears are frozen."

"They wouldn't be if you'd worn a hat. I've got the fire built up again in the main parlor."

But his gaze had already landed on the kitchen counter. "You brought more cookies."

"They're for later." Deliberately she stepped over to block him. "After wine, conversation, ma.s.sage, then the really excellent ham and potato soup and beer bread I made this afternoon."

"You made soup and bread."

"I considered it therapy after dealing with the police. You reap the rewards. They came here, too."

"Yeah, they were here."

"You can tell me about that while we drink this wine. Or do you want me to go first?"

"Chronological order." He stripped off his jacket, tossed it on a kitchen stool. "What?" he said when she just stared at him, eyebrows lifted.

"Didn't your mother teach you to hang up your things?"

"For Christ's sake," he muttered, but he s.n.a.t.c.hed the jacket up, walked to the laundry room to tag it on a peg. "Better?"

"In fact, perfect. Chronological puts me first." On impulse she grabbed the bottle of wine. "In case," she added as she started toward the big parlor.

"You set this up?" he said when he saw the ma.s.sage table.

"I did, and get the weird thoughts out of your head. A ma.s.sage is a ma.s.sage, s.e.x is s.e.x. You may get one with the other, but not when I'm charging you. And I am."

"For the ma.s.sage or s.e.x, because I should know the rates going in."

"You're a funny guy when you're not brooding." She sat on the sofa, curled up her legs. "So, basically, I had to take the two detectives, one local, one Boston, through what happened here on Thursday night when I initially came in to check the windows, backtrack to my conversation with Duncan in the church bas.e.m.e.nt. Toggle back to what time you came back from Boston, meeting me at Mike and Maureen's, coming here to talk to Vinnie. What I said to him, what you said, what he said-all of which you already know. Going down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, ultimately finding the big hole, and verifying I stayed over, crashing on this very spot. What time I got up, which was about six. At which time I considered going upstairs and crawling into bed with you, though I didn't see the need to tell them that."

"You didn't see the need, apparently, to tell me either until now."

"No, I didn't. You were dead asleep. I did go up," she added.

His eyes narrowed. "You came upstairs that morning?"

"I did. I woke a little uneasy-residual stress, I guess. And really grateful I wasn't alone, but with all of the night before playing around in my head so I felt alone down here. I went to see if you were, by any chance, awake, and you weren't. I debated waking you up, decided against. The fact was, seeing you up there helped me not feel alone down here."

"You should've woken me. Depending on how you did, you could've stayed up there, or I'd've come down here with you so you wouldn't have been alone."

"Hindsight. I did tell the police I went upstairs early, saw you were still sleeping, so just came back downstairs. I got the very clear impression your Detective Wolfe thinks I'm a big ho and a s.k.a.n.ky liar."

"He's not my Detective Wolfe."

"He thinks he is." Abra took a sip of wine. "I ran it through for them. I came back down, made coffee, ate some fruit, cut up some melon, pineapple and so on for you, made an omelet, left it on warm, wrote you a note, went home and meditated before I changed for an early cla.s.s."

"They knew coming in here I couldn't have killed Duncan, then driven into Boston, searched his office and apartment, driven back."

"His office? In Boston? What's all that?"

"Apparently somebody tossed Duncan's office and apartment in Boston, cleaned out his records, his computers. Which points to his client being his killer, unless you're convinced I killed him. But they talked to you, knew you saw me here at nearly two in the morning and around six in the morning. Not just hard for me to pull all that off in four hours-not possible for me to pull it off. They knew there wasn't enough time."

"That depends." She took another drink. "If you're Wolfe and I'm a big, s.k.a.n.ky lying ho, that puts me on the slippery slope to co-murderer."

"Jesus Christ." Eli set his gla.s.s down to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, shut up. You're not insinuating I'm a big, s.k.a.n.ky lying ho co-murderer. Wolfe doesn't believe he can be wrong about you killing Lindsay, which means you had to have killed Duncan, which means I'm a big, s.k.a.n.ky and so forth. I've known people like him. They absolutely, without question, believe they're right, so everything that calls that rightness into doubt is a lie, an evasion, a mistake."

She slugged down some wine. "People like that make me ... impatient."

"Impatient?"

"Yes, right before they p.i.s.s me off. The other detective, Corbett, he wasn't buying it. He was careful, but he wasn't buying I colluded with you to kill Duncan, or very much interested in Wolfe's line of questioning leading to us having not only met long before you came back to Whiskey Beach, but carrying on a hot, s.e.xy, secret affair, which naturally means we're both complicit in Lindsay's death."

She shifted, unconsciously nearly mirroring the mermaid pose. "I told him, frankly, I haven't decided if I'm going to have hot s.e.x with you, but I'm leaning toward it, and if I do, it wouldn't be secret and wouldn't necessarily qualify as an affair, or not as he termed it, as neither of us is married or involved with someone else."

"You told them ..." Eli just sighed, picked up his wine again.

"Well, he made me impatient then p.i.s.sed me off. Seriously p.i.s.sed me off, and I've got a pretty high temper threshold. Suddenly I'm a liar, a cheat, a home wrecker, a tramp and a murderer. All because he can't accept he pushed the wrong b.u.t.tons and you didn't kill anyone.

"a.s.shole." She topped off her wine, offered Eli the bottle. He only shook his head. "So. Your turn."

"Not much to add. I gave them the rundown, which would've run parallel to yours, and Vinnie's-who Wolfe may think is a dirty cop to go along with my other friend, the s.k.a.n.ky, lying ho."

"And co-murderer," Abra reminded him with a lift of her gla.s.s.

"You take it well."

"Now, after peeling and dicing potatoes, and drinking a gla.s.s of wine. But back up, someone got into Duncan's office and apartment in Boston and now there's no record of his clients, who might have hired him to investigate you. And all his things were cleaned out of the B-and-B. So it's a very logical leap to that client. The police have to make that leap."

"Not if it's Wolfe. I'm his white f.u.c.king whale."

"I hated that book. Anyway, n.o.body who knows Vinnie is going to see dirty cop. And as we didn't know each other until you moved here, it can't be proven otherwise. Add to that my s.e.x fast, and it's really hard to box me as a big ho. All of that just weighs on your side, Eli."

"I'm not worried about it. Not worried," he insisted when she just lifted those eyebrows again. "That's not the response. I'm interested. It's been a long time since I've been interested in anything outside of writing, but I'm interested in figuring this out."