Whiskey Beach Part 107

"Spoken like a true Yankee."

Abra came back with a vase of artfully arranged flowers. "They're absolutely beautiful."

"They really are. Should I put them in here, or in your bedroom?"

"In here. I'm spending more time sitting than lying down these days, thank G.o.d. Now that Abra's back, why don't we talk about what you really want to know."

"You think you're smart," Eli said.

"I know I am."

He grinned, nodded. "We're winding around what I really want to know. My way of thinking is the history of the house, of the business, might have some part in the whole. I just haven't figured it all out. But we can jump forward a couple of centuries."

"I can't see his face." Hester fisted a hand in her lap. The emerald she often wore on her right hand fired at the gesture. "I've tried everything I can think of, even meditation-which, you know, Abra, I don't do particularly well. All I see, or remember, is shadows, movement, the impression of a man-that shape. I remember waking up, thinking I heard noises, then convincing myself I hadn't. I know I was wrong about that now. I remember getting up, going to the stairs, then the movement, the shape, the impression, and the instinct to get downstairs and away. That's all. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Eli told her. "It was dark. You may not remember a face because you didn't see it, or not distinctly enough. Tell me about the sounds you heard."

"I remember them better, or think I do. I thought I'd been dreaming, and may very well have been. I thought, Squirrels in the chimney. We had them once, long ago, but we put in guards, of course, since then. Then there was creaking, and half asleep I thought, Who's upstairs? Then I woke up fully, decided I'd imagined it and, restless, finally decided to go downstairs for some tea."

"What about scents?" Abra asked.

"Dust. Sweat. Yes." Eyes closed, Hester focused. "Odd, I didn't realize that until now, until you asked."

"If he came down from the third floor, is there anything up there, anything you can think of he would've been after?"

She shook her head at Eli. "Most of what's up there is sentiment and history, and what no longer fits in the practical living s.p.a.ce. There are some wonderful things-clothes, keepsakes, journals, old household ledgers, photos."

"I've been through a lot of it."

"It's on my long-range plan to have a couple of experts in, catalog for, eventually, a Whiskey Beach museum."

"What a wonderful idea." It made Abra beam. "You never told me."

"It's still in the planning-to-plan stages."

"Household ledgers," Eli thought aloud.

"Yes, and account books, guest lists, copies of invitations. I haven't been through everything for a long time, and honestly really never through it all. Things change, times change. Your grandfather and I didn't need a big staff after the children left, so we started using the third floor for storage. I tried painting up there for a year or two. There was only Bertie and Edna by the time Eli died. You must remember them, young Eli."

"Yeah, I do."

"When they retired, I didn't have the heart to have any live-ins. I only had the house and myself to look after. I can only think this person was up there out of curiosity or hoped to find something."

"Is there anything up there that goes back to the Landons from the time of the Calypso wreck?"

"There must be. The Landons have always been ones for preserving. The more valuable items from that time, and others, are displayed throughout the house, but there would be some flotsam and jetsam on the third floor."

Her eyebrows drew together as she tried to think. "I neglected that area, I suppose. Just stopped seeing it, and told myself I'd get around to hiring those experts one day. He might have thought there'd be maps, which is foolish. If we'd known X marked the spot, we'd have dug up the dowry ourselves long before this. Or he a.s.sumed there'd be a journal, one of Violeta Landon's perhaps. But the story goes that after her brother killed her lover, she destroyed her journals, their love letters and all of it. If indeed they existed. If they did and survived, I should have heard of them, or come across them at some point."

"Okay. Do you remember getting any calls, inquiries, having anyone come by asking about brokering some of the mementos, the antiques, anyone asking for access because they were writing a story, a book?"

"Lord, Eli, I can't count the times. The only thing that's tempted me to hire anyone but Abra was the idea of having someone deal with the inquiries."

"Nothing that really stands out?"

"No, nothing that comes to mind."

"Let me know if you think of anything." And she'd had enough, Eli judged, and looked a little pale again. "What's for lunch?"

"We should go down and find out."

He helped her up, but when he started to lift her, she brushed him back. "I don't need to be carried. I manage well enough with the cane."

"Maybe, but I like playing Rhett Butler."

"He wasn't carrying his grandmother downstairs to lunch," she said when Eli scooped her into his arms.

"But he would have."

Abra retrieved the cane, and as she watched Eli carry Hester downstairs, understood completely why she'd fallen in love.

CHAPTER Twenty-seven

A GOOD DAY, ABRA THOUGHT WHEN THEY SAID GOOD-BYE to Hester. She reached for Eli's hand to say exactly that as they walked to the car. Then spotted Wolfe leaning against his across the street.

"What is he doing?" she demanded. "Why? Does he think you're going to suddenly walk over there and confess all?"

"He's letting me know he's there." Eli got behind the wheel, calmly started the engine. "A little psychological warfare, and surprisingly effective. It got to the point last winter where I rarely left the house because if I went for a d.a.m.n haircut, I couldn't be sure he wouldn't walk in and take the chair next to me."

"That's hara.s.sment."

"Technically, and yeah, we could've filed charges, but at that point he'd have gotten a slap. Wouldn't really change anything, and the truth is I was too d.a.m.n tired to bother. It got easier to just stay put."

"You put yourself under house arrest."

He hadn't thought of it that way, not at the time. But she wasn't wrong. Just as he'd thought, in some corner of his mind, of his move to Whiskey Beach as a self-imposed exile.

Those days were finished.

"I didn't have anywhere to go," he told her. "Friends eased away or just vanished. My law firm let me go."

"What about that 'innocent until proven guilty' tack?"