"Not in your new office." She rolled up the sleeves of his jacket, zipped it. "Plus, your art in there should be inspiring, stimulating and personal."

"I know just what would inspire and stimulate and qualify as personal." He reached for another jacket. "A full-length photo of you, wearing just those gla.s.ses."

"Really?"

"Life size," he said as he hooked Barbie's leash.

"That's a definite possibility."

"What?" His head came up fast, but she was already walking out the door. "Wait. Seriously?"

Her laugh trailed back as he and the dog chased after her.

CHAPTER Twenty-five

ELI EXCHANGED E-MAILS WITH HIS INVESTIGATOR, DEVOTED an hour a day to researching Esmeralda's Dowry and dived into his book. He put Abra off on the trip to Boston as the book was running hot for him. He craved those hours inside it, and the possibility, tantalizingly close now, of truly redefining his life.

He also wanted time to prepare. If he seriously meant to meet Eden Suskind, to try to talk to her about very sensitive areas of their personal lives, he needed to do it right.

Not so different, to his mind, from questioning a witness at trial.

And he wouldn't mind another day or two testing out the video camera and nanny cam he'd bought.

In any case, he found himself reluctant to leave Whiskey Beach, even for a day. Periodically he wandered out to the terrace, took a look through the telescope.

Sherrilyn's brief daily reports told him Justin Suskind remained in Boston, going about his business, living in an apartment near his offices. He'd visited his home once, but only long enough to pick up his two children to take them to dinner.

Still, he could return anytime. Eli didn't want to miss him.

He tended to walk the dog north on the beach in the afternoon, and twice did his run with Barbie past Sandcastle, climbing up the north beach steps to return by the road route.

It gave him a closer look, a casual study of the doors, the windows.

The blinds on Sandcastle remained firmly shut.

He told himself he'd take a few more days, let everything settle, let it all simmer in his head.

And, if part of the simmering, the settling led to the remote possibility he'd run into Suskind on one of his walks, have the satisfaction of confronting him face-to-face.

Eli felt he'd earned it.

When he knocked off for the day, he let himself think of Abra. He went downstairs, put Barbie out on the terrace as they'd both learned she'd stay and enjoy a little sunshine before their walk.

Then he checked Abra's daily schedule. Five-o'clock cla.s.s, he noted. Maybe he'd cook something.

On second thought, a much safer, more palatable thought, he'd get pizza delivered. They could eat outside in the dusky spring evening with the pansies and daffodils. He'd stick a couple of candles out there. She liked candles. He'd turn on the strings of gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s he'd found in his search-and-rummage through storage and managed to repair and hung on the eaves over the main terrace.

Maybe he'd steal some of the flowers around the house and put them on the table. She'd appreciate that.

He'd have time to walk the dog, put in an hour or so in the library, even set a nice outdoor table before she got home.

Got home, he thought. Technically, Laughing Gull was her home, but for all intents and purposes she lived in Bluff House, with him.

And how did he feel about that?

Comfortable, he realized. He felt comfortable about that. If anyone had asked him a few months before how he'd feel about being in any sort of relationship, he wouldn't have had an answer.

The question wouldn't have processed. There just hadn't been enough of him to form any part of any relationship.

He opened the refrigerator, thinking Mountain Dew or possibly Gatorade, and saw the bottle of water with its sticky note, one he'd ignored that morning.

Be good to yourself.

Drink me first.

"Okay, okay." He took out the water, peeled off the sticky note. It made him smile.

Did he say comfortable? True enough, he decided, but more than comfortable, for the first time in a very long time, he was happy.

No, there hadn't been much of him at the start of things, but there'd been plenty of her. She filled the s.p.a.ces. Now she made him want to do the same, even if it was only fumbling through a repair of a string of lights and hanging them because they'd made him think of her.

"Coming along," he murmured.

He'd walk the dog, drink the water, then shift to research mode.

At the knock on the door, he detoured to the front of the house.

"Hey, Mike." He stepped back-more progress, he thought. It pleased him to have a friend drop by.

"Eli. Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. We've been slammed. Housing picking up, and rentals, too. The spring season's rocking it."

"That's good news." Still he frowned.

"What?"

"The tie."

"Oh, yeah, pretty cool, huh? I got it at the consignment shop. Hermes," he added with a tony accent. "Forty-five bucks, but it's good for impressing clients."

"Yeah." Eli had thought the same once. "Yeah, I bet."

"So I looked through my files on Sandcastle, refresh my memory, you know. I can give you what's public record, and some impressions. Some stuff, you know, falls into confidential."