Nobody, according to Heather, expected him to settle down and get married before he hit thirty. And there’d been plenty of speculation about that, which had died off when no baby came along.
It was obvious there was trouble in paradise when Eli stopped bringing her to Bluff House, then when he stopped coming. Nobody blinked an eye when word circulated about a divorce.
And she, personally, knew before it came out that the cold fish of a wife was having an affair. It just stood to reason. She didn’t blame Eli one bit for being upset and lighting into her. No, she didn’t. And if he killed her, and naturally she didn’t think that for a minute, she was sure it had been an accident.
He didn’t ask how smacking a woman on the back of the head with a poker a few times equaled accident, as he’d already dropped two hundred and fifty bucks on whatnots to keep her talking, and outside of the entertainment value, she’d given him nothing.
Still, he found it interesting that at least some of the locals suspected the favored son of murder. And suspicion opened doors. He’d be knocking on them in the days to come and earn his fee.
For now, he considered moving on, calling it a day. Or at least taking a quick bathroom break.
He shifted his numb ass side to side as his cell phone rang.
“Duncan.” He shifted again at his client’s voice. “As it happens I’m sitting outside his parents’ house on Beacon Hill. He drove into Boston this morning. I’ll have a report for you by—”
He shifted butt cheeks again as the client interrupted with a spate of questions.
“Yeah, that’s right. He’s been in Boston all day, met with his lawyer, got a haircut, bought some flowers.”
The client paid the bills, he reminded himself as he logged the call in his book. “His sister and her family went in about a half hour ago. Looks like full family visit. Given the timing, I’d say he’s here for dinner at least. I don’t think there’s going to be any more activity here so . . . If that’s what you want. I can do that.”
It’s your money, Duncan thought, and resigned himself to a long evening. “I’ll contact you when he comes out.”
When the phone clicked in his ear, Duncan shook his head. Clients paid the bills, he thought again, and ate another carrot stick.
Maybe he’d been gone only a few weeks, but it felt like a homecoming. Logs snapped and flamed in the big stone fireplace, the old dog Sadie curled in front of it. Everyone sat around what they called the family parlor, with its familiar mix of antiques and family photos, red lilies in a slim vase on the piano, as they might have sat, talked, sipped wine on any evening before the world collapsed.
Even his grandmother, who rather than object had enjoyed having him carry her down the steps and depositing her in her favored wingback chair, chatted away as if nothing had changed.
The baby helped, he supposed. Pretty as a gumdrop, fast as lightning, the not-quite-three-year-old Selina just filled the room with energy and fun.
She demanded he play, so Eli sat on the floor and helped build a castle out of blocks for her princess doll.
A simple thing, an ordinary thing, and something that reminded him he’d once imagined having kids of his own.
He thought his parents looked less strained than they did when he left for Whiskey Beach a few weeks before. The ordeal they’d been through had deepened the creases in his father’s face, brought a near-translucent pallor to his mother’s.
But they’d never wavered, he thought.
“I’m going to feed this very busy girl.” Eli’s sister laid a hand over her husband’s for a squeeze as she rose. “Uncle Eli, why don’t you give me a hand getting her set up?”
“Ah . . . sure.”
Since Selina, her doll dangling from her fingers, lifted her arms, beamed that irresistible smile, he scooped her up to carry her into the kitchen.
The broad-shouldered Alice ruled over the expansive six-burner stove. “Hungry, is she?”
Selina immediately deserted Eli, stretching her arms out for the cook. “There’s my princess. I’ve got her,” she told Tricia, expertly securing Selina to the shelf of her hip. “She can eat and keep me company—and Carmel, too, once I tell her we’ve got our girl to ourselves. We’ll have dinner on the table for the rest of you commoners in about forty minutes.”
“Thanks. If she gives you any trouble—”
“Trouble?” Eyes popping comically wide, Alice spoke with exaggerated shock. “Look at that face.”
Laughing, Selina wrapped her arms around the cook’s neck and gave her version of a whisper. “I have cookies?”