CHAPTER Twenty-two

HE HAD TO WORK. HE LET PLOTS AND PLANS FOR PROACTIVE ambushes cook in the back of his brain, but he had to get the story out, get those words on paper.

He hadn't heard from his agent about what he'd sent her, but the holiday weekend bogged things down. And, he reminded himself, it wasn't as if he was her only client.

He wasn't even an important client.

Better to keep riding the wave of the story, and he'd have more to send in. If she had problems with what he'd already done, he'd deal with it.

He could go back, polish up another five chapters, send it off to give his agent a bigger part of the whole. But the story was running hot for him, and he didn't want to risk dousing it.

He didn't break until well into the afternoon when Barbie pulled him out of the zone by sitting at his knee, staring at him.

Her signal, he'd already learned, for: Sorry to bother you, but I've gotta go!

"Okay, okay, one second."

He backed up, saved, and realized he felt a little buzzed, as if he'd downed a couple of excellent gla.s.ses of wine in rapid succession. The minute he stood, Barbie scrambled out of the room. He heard her running down the steps at warp speed.

She'd sit, quivering, in the kitchen, he knew, waiting for him and the leash. He called out absently to Abra as he moved toward the kitchen, and found the dog exactly where he'd expected.

He also found an artful club sandwich under clear wrap, topped by a Post-it, on the counter.

Have some lunch after you walk Barbie.

XXOO Abra

"She never misses," he murmured.

He took the dog out, enjoyed the break nearly as much as Barbie, even when it began spitting chilly rain. With his hair damp, his dog soaked and his mind sliding back toward the book, he answered the phone in his pocket on his way up the beach steps.

"Mr. Landon, this is Sherrilyn Burke, Burke-Ma.s.sey Investigations."

"Yeah." His guts tightened a little, antic.i.p.ation and dread. "It's good to hear from you."

"I have a report for you. I could e-mail it, but I'd like to go over it with you in person. I can come out to you tomorrow, if that's convenient."

"Is there something I should worry about?"

"Worry? No. I like the face-to-face, Mr. Landon, where we can both ask and answer. I can be there about eleven."

Brisk, he thought, professional. And firm. "Okay. Why don't you send me the report in the meantime, then I'll be up-to-date when we ask and answer."

"Good enough."

"Do you know how to get to Whiskey Beach?"

"Had a nice weekend there several years ago. And if you've been to Whiskey Beach, you know Bluff House. I'll find you. Eleven o'clock."

"I'll be here."

Nothing to worry about, he thought, as he took Barbie inside. But of course, everything about Lindsay's murder, the police investigation, his own position worried him.

But he wanted those answers. Needed them.

He took his iPad and his lunch into the library. Abra would be running the vacuum or something upstairs, he a.s.sumed. And the rain made him want a fire. He lit one, then sat down with his tablet. He'd read the report while he ate.

Ignoring other e-mail for now, he downloaded the attachment from his investigator.

She'd personally reinterviewed friends, neighbors, coworkers-both his and Lindsay's. And reinterviewed Justin and Eden Suskind, as well as some of their neighbors, coworkers. She'd talked to Wolfe, and had cornered one of the a.s.sistant prosecutors.

She'd walked the crime scene, though it had long since been cleared and cleaned, and was even now staged for sale. She'd done her own reenactment of Lindsay's murder.

Thorough, he thought.

He read her summaries, which included impressions.

The Suskinds had recently separated. Not surprising, he mused, considering the strain a cheating spouse put on a marriage. Add murder and a barrage of media that had made their marriage fodder for the ma.s.ses.

More surprising, he supposed, they'd stuck for nearly a year.

Two kids, though, he recalled. Too bad.

She'd spoken with desk clerks, bellmen, housekeeping at hotels and resorts that coincided with Lindsay's travel. And confirmed what he'd already known. Much of that travel had been in the company of Justin Suskind during the last ten or eleven months of her life.

How did he feel about that? he asked himself. Not much, not anymore. The anger was done, finished. Even the sense of betrayal had dulled, like stone washed by water, those sharp edges had smoothed away.

He felt ... sorry. Given the time, the process, he imagined the anger, the bitterness both he and Lindsay had felt would have burned itself out. They'd have gone their separate ways, they'd have moved on.

But neither of them had the chance. Whoever killed her had seen to that.

He owed it to them both to read the reports, meet the investigator, to do everything he could to find out why, who. Then put it away.

He read the report twice, thought it over as he sampled the smoothie he'd found in the fridge with its Drink me Post-it.

He decided to shift gears, got his notebook from the desk and yet another book on Esmeralda's Dowry from the shelves.

He spent the next hour winding along the author's speculative path. This one leaned heavily on the theory that the surviving seaman and the privileged daughter of the house, Violeta, had fallen in love. Her brother, Edwin, upon discovering them, had killed the lover. Violeta, reckless, wild, ran off to Boston, never to return. And Esmeralda's Dowry remained lost to the ages.

What Eli knew of family history confirmed Violeta had run off, been disowned and all but erased from any doc.u.ments through the wealth, influence and fury of her family for the disgrace.

The matter-of-fact tone used to depict the events might not have been as entertaining as others he'd read in the last weeks, but seemed more based in sense.