Whiskey Beach(122)
“Can we just have sex instead?” He grinned at her. “I’m always pretty positive about sex.”
“I’ll consider it. When are you going to let me read it?”
When he shrugged, she rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s go back to the previous request of some time ago. One scene. Just one scene.”
“Yeah, maybe. One scene.”
“Yay. You know, we should celebrate.”
“Didn’t I just suggest sex?”
Laughing, she slapped his leg. “There are other ways to celebrate.”
“In that case, we can celebrate when I’ve finished it.”
“Fair enough. I’m heading back to the dungeons.”
“I can give you a hand.”
“You could, or you could go back to work.” She lifted her joined palms, arrowed them down like a diver toward the water. “Poised for the splash.”
He smiled at her. “I should probably try for another couple hours. I’m going to lose time tomorrow. The investigator I hired is coming up to meet with me.”
“News?” she asked, sitting again.
“I don’t know. I read her report. Not much new, but she covered a lot of ground. The Suskinds separated.”
“It’s difficult to overcome infidelity, especially when it’s so public. They have kids, don’t they?”
“Yeah. Two.”
“Even more difficult.” She hesitated, shook her head. “And so I don’t repeat a mistake, I need to tell you Vinnie got in touch a couple hours ago. The bullets they recovered from Duncan’s body were fired by the gun I found in my cottage.”
He put a hand over hers. “I would’ve been surprised if they didn’t match.”
“I know. The fact that I called Vinnie when I found it weighs on my side. And the anonymous tip to Wolfe from a disposable cell phone—that seems sticky. But he wanted me to know that Wolfe’s digging into my background, my movements, trying to put you and me together before Lindsay’s murder.”
“We weren’t, so he can’t.”
“No, he can’t.”
“Relay all this to your lawyer.”
“I did. He’s on it. There’s nothing, Eli, and I think Wolfe only cares about me as a conduit to you. If he somehow links us to Duncan’s death, it’s more feasible you were involved in Lindsay’s.”
“It goes both ways,” he reminded her. “Since we’re clear on Duncan, it adds weight to me being clear on Lindsay’s.”
“Then you agree with him on the basics. The two murders are connected somehow.”
“I can’t believe I’m this close to two murders, a near fatal accident, a series of break-ins and an assault without there being connections.”
“I’m with you on that, but then everything’s connected under it all.” She rose again. “I’m going back to it so maybe we can figure out a way to be the hero and heroine of our own novel and help catch a bad guy.”
“We should go out to dinner tonight.”
Her eyebrows quirked. “We should?”
“Yeah. Barbie can guard the house. We should go out, have a nice dinner somewhere. You can wear something sexy.”
“Are we having a date, Eli?”
“I’ve let that slide. Pick a place,” he told her. “We’ll go on a date.”
“All right, I will.” She came back to lean down, kiss him. “You’ll have to wear one of your many ties.”
“I can do that.”
Good news, uneasy news, he thought when she left him. Questions to be asked and answered. But tonight, he was going out with a fascinating woman who made him think, who made him feel.
“I’m going back to work for a bit,” he told Barbie. “Then you can help me pick out a tie.”
He couldn’t watch the house every hour of every day. But he continued to spot-check. He knew he could get back inside again, even if Landon had changed the code again. He’d prefer to continue his search with the house empty, but the way Landon stuck to the place, he might have to risk going in when Landon was sleeping.
He’d begun to believe he’d gone in the wrong direction with the basement, at least that section of the mammoth space. But he had to finish to be sure. He’d spent so much time, so much sweat, so much money that he had to see it through.
He needed to get up to the third floor again. Somewhere in one of the trunks, under some cushion, behind some picture, he’d find a clue. A diary, a map, coordinates.
He’d been through the library in Bluff House while the old lady slept, but he’d found nothing of importance. He’d found nothing to match his own knowledge, his own meticulous and detailed research into Esmeralda’s Dowry.