HE COULDN'T CALL TIME WITH ABRA A ROUTINE, BUT HE supposed they developed a kind of pattern over the next few days.

She cooked, either at Bluff House or her cottage. They walked the beach, and he, too, began to smell spring.

He grew accustomed to having food put in front of him, to having a house filled with flowers, candles, her scent, her voice.

Her.

His work progressed to the point where he began to think he actually had something other than an escape from his own head.

He read, he worked, he dragged himself into his grandmother's gym. And for a few precious days even the idea of murder seemed to belong to another world.

Then Detective Corbett came to his door, with a team of cops and a search warrant.

"We have a warrant to search the premises, any outbuildings and vehicles."

Stomach knotted, Eli took the warrant, skimmed it. "Then I guess you'd better get started. It's a big house."

He stepped back, spotted Wolfe. Saying nothing, Eli walked out, grabbed the kitchen phone and took it out to the terrace to call his lawyer. Better safe-he'd learned that the hard way-than sorry.

Yeah, he could smell spring, he thought when he'd finished the call. But spring brought storms just like winter. He'd just have to ride this one out like the rest.

Corbett came out. "That's quite a collection of guns upstairs."

"It is. And unloaded, unfired, as far as I know, for at least a generation."

"I'd appreciate the keys to the cases."

"All right." Eli went inside, wound through to the library and the drawer in his grandfather's desk. "You know d.a.m.n well none of those guns fired the shot that killed Duncan."

"Then you don't have a problem."

"I've got a problem as long as Wolfe ignores evidence, timelines, witness statements and everything else but me." Eli handed over the keys.

Corbett's face remained impa.s.sive. "I appreciate the cooperation."

"Detective," Eli said as Corbett turned to go. "When you finish with this, find nothing? If you come back without real evidence, real motive, actual probable cause, I'm going to file suit against your department and the BPD for hara.s.sment."

Now Corbett's eyes flicked just a touch of heat. "That sounds like a threat."

"You know it's not. What it is, it's enough. It's way past enough."

"I'm doing my job, Mr. Landon. If you've got nothing to hide, the more thoroughly I do it, the sooner you're in the clear."

"Tell that to someone who hasn't been hounded for more than a year."

Eli walked out, got a jacket. He knew he shouldn't leave the house, but he couldn't stomach watching them go through Bluff House, through his things, through his family's things. Not again.

Instead he went to the beach, watched the water, the birds, the kids he realized must be on spring break.

His mother wanted him to come home for Easter dinner. He'd intended to go, to ask Abra to come with him. He'd been ready for it, primed for it-the family event, with Abra in it, the big ham Alice would bake and his mother would insist on glazing herself. The baskets, the candy, the colored eggs.

The tradition of it. And the comfort of it.

But now ... It seemed smarter to stay put, to stay out of everyone's way, everyone's life, until the police found Duncan's killer.

Lindsay's killer.

Or his own investigator found something that turned at least one key in one lock.

Not that that angle was going anywhere yet.

He looked up at Laughing Gull Cottage. Where was Abra? he wondered.

Teaching a cla.s.s? Running errands for a client or cleaning a home? Tucked into her own kitchen cooking, or in the little room she used for making earrings and pendants?

He'd been crazy to get involved with her, to drag her into this mess. Or, more accurately, let her push her way into it.

She had things in Bluff House. Clothes, shampoo, a hairbrush-little bits of intimacy. His stomach clenched into angry knots as he pictured the police pawing through what was hers because she'd left it in what was his.

He knew the comments, the smirks, the speculation-and worse, the guilt by a.s.sociation that would root in Wolfe's brain.

They'd search her house next if they could get a judge to sign off.

The thought galled him, infuriated him and sent him back to the house for the phone he hadn't thought to take with him.

Once again he took it out to the terrace, and once again contacted his lawyer.

"Change your mind?" Neal said when he came on the line. "I can be there in a couple hours."

"No, no point. Listen, I'm involved, on a personal level, with Abra Walsh."

"I already knew that, unless you're about to tell me you're sleeping with her."

"That's what I'm telling you."

He expected the sigh, and wasn't disappointed. "All right, Eli. Since when?"

"A few days ago. I understand about perception, Neal, so don't bother. The facts remain the facts. I'm asking for you to keep an ear to the ground in case Wolfe pushes for a search warrant for her place. Laughing Gull Cottage. She rents, but I can find out the owner if you need it. I don't want her ha.s.sled over this. She isn't part of it."

"She's your alibi, Eli. The cops have squat on you for Duncan, but she's a big part of the reason they have squat. It wouldn't hurt for her to get her own lawyer. She knows how it works."

His body, his voice stiffened. "Excuse me?"

"Eli, you're my client. She's your alibi. Wolfe insinuated the two of you were lovers when Lindsay was alive. Do you think I didn't run background on her? Exactly as you'd have done in my place? She's clean, she's smart, and from all accounts, she can hold her own. There sure as h.e.l.l isn't a law against the two of you having a relationship, so relax. If they take a pa.s.s at her, she'll come through it. But she should get a lawyer. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. Is there anything you're not telling me?"

"No. She brought me some d.a.m.n stew, Neal, and ended up getting attacked and tossed in the middle of a murder investigation. I want to do something. G.o.d d.a.m.n it, I want to do something besides just standing here."

"You did. You called me. I reached out to a contact on the BPD. Wolfe pushed and pushed hard for this warrant. He's about used up his currency where you're concerned. Let this play out, Eli. It's going nowhere. And the Piedmonts' suit has throttled back to a few mutters to reporters who bother to listen to them these days."