Whiskey Beach Part 29

"Yeah, some." Eli took the kitchen flashlight, started upstairs. He checked the office first, booted up his laptop.

If Duncan had been after anything, he suspected it would be a look at his personal e-mail, files, Web history. So he ran a quick diagnostic.

"Nothing since I shut it down this morning. That shows." He opened drawers, shook his head. "It doesn't look like anything's been gone through. And nothing's missing in here."

Eli walked out and into his bedroom. He opened a drawer, saw the couple hundred in cash he kept for easy access. "If he was up here," Eli said as he shone the light, turned a circle, "he left everything just the way I did."

"It could be Abra interrupted him before he got started. Look, you should take your time, take a good look around. You may want to wait until you've got some light. We'll be doing drive-bys, but he'd be pretty d.a.m.n stupid to come back at this point. It's late," Vinnie added, "but I don't have a problem rousting a private investigator out of bed. I'll follow up with you tomorrow, Eli. Do you want a lift home, Abra?"

"No thanks. You go ahead."

With a nod, he took out a card. "Abra's got one, but keep this around. You call me if you find anything missing, or have any more trouble. And if you pick up a board, we could see if you remember any of those lessons I gave you back in the day."

"In March? The water's freaking freezing."

"That's why real men wear wet suits. I'll keep in touch."

"He hasn't changed much," Eli commented when Vinnie's footsteps receded. "Well, the hair. I guess bleached-out shoulder-length isn't police issue."

"But I bet it was cute on him."

"You know each other? Before tonight, I mean."

"Yeah. He lost a bet with his wife last year and had to take one of my yoga cla.s.ses. Now he's a semi-regular."

"Vinnie's married?"

"With one and a half kids. They live down in South Point and throw exceptional barbecues."

Maybe Vinnie had changed, Eli thought as he continued to scan the room. He remembered a rail-thin guy, perpetually high, who'd lived for the next wave and dreamed of moving to Hawaii.

The beam pa.s.sed over the bed, then came back to shine on the hand towel, the pipe-smoking fish. "Really?"

"I'm going to see if I can manage a guard dog next. Maybe a rottweiler or a Doberman. Maybe it'll work."

"You're going to need a bigger towel." He scanned her face in the dim light. "You've got to be tired. I'll take you home."

"More wired than tired. I should've skipped the coffee. Look, you shouldn't stay here without any power. It's going to get colder, and no lights, no pump, so no water. I've got a more-or-less guest room and a really comfortable sofa. You can take either."

"No, that's okay. I don't want to leave the house empty after this. I'm going to go down and bang on the generator."

"All right. I'll go down, too, make girl noises and hand you inappropriate tools. You're gawky yet, but you should be able to stomp on any spiders. It's wrong, I know, considering the good work they do, but I have a thing about spiders."

"I can make manly noises and get my own inappropriate tools. You should get some sleep."

"I'm not ready." She gave a kind of shaking shrug. "Unless you have strong objections to my company down there, I'd rather stick around. Especially if I can have a gla.s.s of wine."

"Sure." He suspected, whatever she'd said to Maureen, she had nerves about being alone in her own house.

"We'll both get drunk and bang on the generator."

"That's a plan. I did a kind of half-a.s.sed cleaning down there before you came, at least in the main area, the wine cellar, seasonal storage. I don't really go beyond there, and I don't think Hester has in years. The rest of the place is huge and dark, dank and just pretty scary," she told him as they started downstairs. "It's not my favorite place."

"Spooky?" he said, and turned the flashlight under his chin for a horror-movie effect.

"Yes, and stop that. The furnaces make grunting and grinding noises, things clang and creak. And there's too many strange little rooms and s.p.a.ces. It's The Shining of bas.e.m.e.nts. So ..."

She stopped in the kitchen, got out the wine herself. "Courage from the grape, which may also counteract the very late-night coffee and adventure. How was everything at home? In Boston?"

"It was good. Really." If she needed to talk about something else, he could talk about something else. "Gran looks stronger, my parents look less stressed. And my sister's expecting her second child. So there was something to celebrate."

"That's wonderful."

"It switched the gears, if you know what I mean," he said as she poured wine for both of them. "Instead of being careful not to talk about why I moved here, we stopped thinking about it."

"To fresh starts, new babies and electricity." She tapped her gla.s.s against his.

After one sip she decided to take the bottle down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Maybe she would get a little drunk. It might help her sleep.

The bas.e.m.e.nt door creaked. Naturally, she thought, and hooked a finger in one of Eli's belt loops as he started down. "So we don't get separated," she said when he glanced back.

"It's not the Amazon."

"In bas.e.m.e.nt terms it is. Most houses around here don't even have bas.e.m.e.nts, much less Amazon bas.e.m.e.nts."

"Most aren't built on a cliff. And part of it's above ground level."

"A bas.e.m.e.nt's a bas.e.m.e.nt. And this one's too quiet."

"I thought it made too many noises."

"It can't make them without the furnaces, the pumps and G.o.d knows what other intestines are down here. So it's too quiet. It's waiting."

"Okay, you're starting to freak me out."

"I don't want to be freaked out alone."

At the base of the steps, Eli took a flashlight from its wall charger in a well-stocked and meticulously organized wine cellar.

There'd been a day, he imagined, when every niche would have held a bottle-the hundreds of them systematically turned by the butler. But even now he calculated a solid hundred bottles of what would be exceptional wines.

"Here. Now if we get separated you can send me a signal. I'll get the search party."

She released his belt loop, turned on the flashlight he gave her.

Like caves, that's how she thought of Bluff House's bas.e.m.e.nt. A series of caves. Some of the walls were the old stone where the builders had simply carved through. There were pa.s.sages and low archways, section to section. Normally, she could have flipped switches and flooded it with welcome light, but now her beam shimmered and crossed with Eli's.

"Like Scully and Mulder," she commented.