Whiskey Beach(142)
“I used to think I needed it. Not anymore.”
“Whiskey Beach is good for a writer.”
“It’s good for me.” He laid a hand over hers. “So are you.”
She brought his hand to her cheek. “The perfect thing to say.”
He followed the GPS, though he thought he could have found the house. He knew the area, actually had friends—or former friends—who lived there.
He found the pretty Victorian, painted pale yellow, with a bay window on the side where stairs led down from a deck.
A BMW sedan sat in the drive, and a woman in a wide-brimmed hat was watering pots of flowers on the side deck.
“Looks like she’s home.”
“Yeah. Let’s do this.”
The woman set down her watering can as they pulled in behind the BMW, and came to the edge of the deck.
“Hello. Can I help you?”
“Mrs. Suskind?”
“That’s right.”
Eli walked to the base of the steps. “I wonder if you have a few minutes to talk to me. I’m Eli Landon.”
Her lips parted, but she didn’t step back. “I thought I recognized you.” Her gaze, calm and brown, slid to Abra.
“This is Abra Walsh. I realize this is an intrusion, Mrs. Suskind.”
She let out a long sigh, and sadness moved in and out of her eyes. “Your wife, my husband. That should put us on a first-name basis. It’s Eden. Come on up.”
“Thank you.”
“There was an investigator here last week. And now you.” She pulled off her hat, ran her hand over a sunny swing of hair. “Don’t you want to put it behind you?”
“Yes. Very much. I can’t. I didn’t kill Lindsay.”
“I don’t care. That sounds horrible. It is horrible, but I can’t care. You should sit down. I’ve got some iced tea.”
“Can I help you with it?” Abra asked her.
“No, that’s fine.”
“Then would you mind if I used your bathroom? We drove down from Whiskey Beach.”
“Oh, you have a home there, don’t you?” she said to Eli, then gestured to Abra. “I’ll show you.”
It gave Eli a chance to gauge the ground. An attractive woman, he thought, an attractive house in an upscale neighborhood with well-tended gardens, a thick green lawn.
About fifteen years of marriage, he recalled, and two attractive kids.
But Suskind had tossed it all aside. For Lindsay? he wondered. Or for an obsessive treasure hunt?
A few moments later, both Eden and Abra came out again with a tray holding a pitcher and a trio of tall, square glasses.
“Thanks,” Eli began. “I know this has been hard for you.”
“You would know. It’s terrible to realize the person you trust, the person you’ve built a life with, a home with, a family with, has betrayed you, has lied. That the person you love betrayed that love and made a fool of you.”
She sat at the round teak table under the shade of a deep blue umbrella. Gestured them to join her.
“And Lindsay,” Eden continued. “I considered her a friend. I saw her almost every day, often worked with her, had drinks with her, talked about husbands with her. And all the time she was sleeping with mine. It was like being stabbed in the heart. For you, too, I guess.”
“We weren’t together when I found out. It was more a kick in the gut.”
“So much came out after . . . It had gone on nearly a year. Months of lying to me, of coming home from her to me. It makes you feel so stupid.”
She addressed the last directly to Abra, and Eli saw Abra had been right. Another woman, a sympathetic one, made it all easier.
“But you weren’t,” Abra said. “You trusted your husband, and your friend. That’s not stupid.”
“I tell myself that, but it makes you question yourself, what do you lack, what don’t you have, didn’t you do? Why weren’t you good enough?”
Abra put a hand over hers. “It shouldn’t, but I know.”
“We have two kids. They’re great kids, and this was devastating for them. People talk, we couldn’t shield them from it. That was the worst.” She sipped at her tea, fought visibly to conquer tears. “We tried. Justin and I tried to hold it together, to make it work. We went to counseling, took a trip together.” She shook her head. “But we just couldn’t put it back together. I tried to forgive him, and maybe I would have, but I couldn’t trust him. Then it started again.”
“I’m sorry.” Now Abra squeezed her hand.
“Fool me once,” Eden continued, blinking her eyes clear. “Late nights at the office, business trips. Only this time, he wasn’t dealing with someone ready to be stupid or trusting. I’d check on him, and I knew he wasn’t where he said he’d be. I don’t know who she is, or if there’s more than one. I don’t care. I just don’t care anymore. I have my life, my kids—and finally a little pride. And I’m not ashamed to say when I divorce him, I’m going to gut him like a fish.”