Whiskey Beach Part 63

"Just let me ... wait."

"Oh, sure, now it's wait after you've-"

"Wait." He set her aside, his face stony now. She followed his gaze to the alarm panel.

"How did you manage to smudge that up? I'll clean it tomorrow," she said, reaching for him.

"I didn't." He stepped over, examined the door. "I think the door's been forced. Don't touch anything," he snapped when she went to him. "Call the police. Now."

She dug into her bag, then her hands froze when he pulled a knife out of the block. "Oh G.o.d, Eli."

"If there's any trouble, you run. Do you hear me? You go out that door and you run, and don't stop until you're safe."

"No, and now you wait." She punched numbers on the phone. "Vinnie, it's Abra. Eli and I just got back to Bluff House. We think someone's broken in. We don't know if he's still here. In the kitchen. Yes. Yes. Okay. He's coming," she told Eli. "He's calling it in on the way. He wants us to stay right where we are. If we see or hear anything, we go out, and get gone."

Her heart picked up another speed when she saw Eli's gaze turn toward the bas.e.m.e.nt door. "If you go down there, I go down there."

Ignoring her, he walked to the door, turned the k.n.o.b. "It's locked from this side. The way I left it." Still holding the knife, he walked to the back door, unlocked it, opened it, then crouched.

"Fresh marks here. Back door, facing the beach at night. n.o.body to see. He had to know I wasn't here. How did he know?"

"He must be watching the house. He must have seen you leave."

"On foot," Eli remembered. "If I'd just been taking a walk, I might have been gone for ten, fifteen minutes. It's a lot of risk."

"He might've followed you, seen you go into the bar. A calculated risk that he'd have more time."

"Maybe."

"The alarm pad." Still wary, Abra edged a bit closer. "I've seen that somewhere-TV, movies-I thought it was just made up. Spraying something on the pad so the oil from fingerprints comes up. You know what numbers have been pressed. Then a computer thing runs different patterns until it breaks the code."

"Something like that. It's how he might've gotten in before, when my grandmother was here. He could've gotten her keys, made copies. Just let himself the f.u.c.k in after that. But he didn't know we'd changed the code, so he cut the power the last time when the old code didn't work."

"That makes him stupid."

"Maybe desperate or panicked. Maybe just p.i.s.sed off."

"You want to go down there. I can see it. You want to know if he started digging again. Vinnie will be here any minute."

If he went down and she came with him, and anything happened, he'd be responsible. If he went down and she stayed put, and anything happened, he'd be responsible.

So, Eli concluded, he was stuck.

"I was gone about three hours. G.o.d d.a.m.n it, I gave him a nice, big window."

"What are you supposed to do? Pull a Miss Havisham and never leave the house?"

"The alarm system sure isn't doing any good. We're going to have to beef that up."

"Or something." She heard the wail of sirens. "That's Vinnie."

Eli slid the knife back into the block. "Let's go let him in."

Cops swarmed his house again. He was getting used to it. He drank coffee, and walked the house with them, starting with the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Determined b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Vinnie remarked as they studied the trench. "He got another couple feet in. He must've brought in more tools, and took them away with him this time."

Eli glanced around to make sure Abra hadn't come down. "I think he's crazy."

"Well, he ain't smart."

"No, Vinnie, I think he's crazy. He'd risk breaking in, again, to spend a couple hours hacking at this floor? There's nothing here. I talked to Stoney Tribbet tonight."

"Now there's a character."

"He is, and he also said something that makes clear sense. Why would anyone bury anything here? It's d.a.m.n hard dirt and rock, or a lot of it is. It's why we never bothered to lay concrete. If you bury something-excluding a body-don't you usually intend to dig it back up, at some point?"

"Most likely."

"Then why make it so d.a.m.n much work? Bury it in the garden, plant a f.u.c.king bush over it. Out front where the ground's softer, or where it's mostly sand. Or don't bury it at all, but hide it under floorboards, behind a wall. If I'm looking for the d.a.m.n treasure, I'm not going to use a pick and shovel down here. Or if I'm crazy enough to believe it's here, I'm going to wait until I know the house is empty for a couple days-like it is when my grandmother visits Boston-and I'm going to go at it with a jackhammer."

"I'm not going to argue, but this is what it is. I'm going to let Corbett know about this, and we'll increase the patrol. We're going to make noise about the extra patrols." Vinnie added, "If he's in the area, he'll hear about it. It should give him second thoughts about trying this again."

Eli doubted second thoughts would stop anyone willing to risk so much for a legend.

CHAPTER Seventeen

IN THE MORNING, ABRA RETURNED TO BLUFF HOUSE FROM her tai chi cla.s.s via the market, then detoured for a secondary stop. She couldn't guarantee Eli's reaction to what she'd picked up, but she had a pretty good idea what it would be-initially.

They'd work around it. Or, she admitted, she'd work around him. Not entirely fair, and she really hated to manipulate. But in this case, she firmly believed it was for the best.

She gauged her time as she unloaded the car. She had not only her regular cleaning on the slate, but the reordering after the police search. But no reason she couldn't get it all done, maybe throw a meal together, then get home for her in-house yoga cla.s.s.

It was all about prioritizing.

She stepped inside, instantly recalculated everything as instead of working in his office, Eli stood at the counter pouring coffee.

"I thought you'd be working."

"I was. Am. I needed a walk around to think through ..." He trailed off as he turned and looked down at the big brown dog currently sniffing at his pants leg. "What's this?"