Whiskey Beach Part 74

She saw that for herself when they stepped into the kitchen. Everyone was spread around the island. Eggs, colored with varying degrees of skill and creativity, sat nesting in crates. She pumped up her smile, tried to put the horrible day behind her as attention turned to her.

"Happy Easter." She hurried over to set down the pies, turned immediately to Hester. After wrapping her arms around Hester, she closed her eyes, swayed a little. "It's so good to see you here. It's so good to see you."

"Let me look at you." Hester drew her back. "I've missed you."

"I need to come visit more often."

"With your schedule? We're going to sit down with a gla.s.s of wine for you, and a martini for me, and you're going to fill me in on all the gossip. Because I'm not ashamed to say I've missed that, too."

"You're nearly up-to-date, but I can dig out a few more tidbits for wine. Rob." Abra rose on her toes to embrace Eli's father.

Eli watched her work her way through his family. Hugging came naturally to her, that physical contact, the intimate touch. But seeing her with his family made him realize she was woven through their lives in ways he hadn't understood.

He'd been ... apart, he thought now. Had taken himself to the side. For too long.

Within minutes she stood hip to hip with his sister, using a wax crayon to draw a design on an undyed egg, and talking about potential names for the new baby.

His father edged him aside. "While they're busy finishing up here, take me down and show me this business in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

It wasn't the most pleasant of tasks, but it needed to be done. They went down, started through. Rob paused beyond the wine cellar.

He stood, a man who'd pa.s.sed his height, his build-and the Landon eyes-to his son, his hands in the pockets of khakis.

"In my grandmother's day, this whole area was filled with jams, jellies, fruits, vegetables. Bins of potatoes, apples. It always smelled like fall to me in here. Your grandmother continued the tradition, though on a smaller scale. But then the days of the endless and elaborate parties faded off."

"I remember some elaborate parties."

"Nothing like the generation before," Rob said as they moved on. "Hundreds of people, and dozens of them who'd stay for days, even weeks during the season. For that, you needed a lot of idle time, a warehouse of food and drink, and a houseful of servants. My father was a businessman. If he had had a religion, it would have been business as opposed to society."

"I never knew about the servants' pa.s.sageways. I just heard about them."

"To my great disappointment as a boy, they'd been closed up before I was born. Mom threatened to do the same with parts of the bas.e.m.e.nt. I used to sneak down here with my friends. G.o.d knows why."

"I did the same thing."

"You think I didn't know?" Rob chuckled, slapped Eli on the shoulder. Then stopped again when they reached the old section.

"Christ almighty. I know you told me how extensive, but I didn't fully believe it. What kind of madness is this?"

"Treasure fever, I think. Nothing else makes sense."

"You can't grow up in Whiskey Beach and not come across treasure fever, even catch a mild case."

"You?"

"I believed-feverishly-in Esmeralda's Dowry as a teenager. Scoured books, hunted up maps. I took scuba lessons in preparation for a career as a treasure hunter. I grew out of it, but there's still a part that wonders. But this ... this is senseless. And dangerous. The police have no leads?"

"Not so far, or not that they're sharing with me. Then again, they have a murder on their hands."

Eli had considered this, had weighed the pros and cons of laying it all out for his father. He hadn't known until that moment, he'd decided to do so. "I think they might be connected."

Rob studied his son. "I think we should take those dogs of ours for a walk, and you can tell me why. And how."

Inside, Abra sat with Hester in the morning room.

"This is nice," Abra said. "I've missed this."

"You've kept the house beautifully. I knew you would." She gestured to the pots of flowers on the terrace outside. "Your work, I'm told."

"I got some limited a.s.sistance. Eli's not much of a gardener."

"That can change. He's changed since he's been here."

"He needed the time, the s.p.a.ce."

"It's more than that. I'm seeing glimpses of who he used to be, mixed with who he's becoming. It does my heart good, Abra."

"He's happier than when he came. He looked so sad, so lost and so angry under it all."

"I know it, and it's more than what happened in the past year. He let too much of himself go before that because he'd made a promise, and keeping promises is important."

"Did he love her? It doesn't feel right to ask him."

"I think he loved parts of her, and he wanted what he thought they could make together, wanted it enough to make the promise."

"A promise is a fearsome thing."

"For some, yes. For people like Eli. And for you. If his marriage had been happy, he might've become someone else yet, some other combination of himself. Someone who could have been content with his work in the law, his life in Boston, and he'd have kept the promise. I would have lost the boy who once thrived in Whiskey Beach, but that would've been fine. The same could be said about you."

"I guess it could."

"Is he seeing people?"

"He likes his solitude, but that goes with the work he's chosen. But yes. He and Mike O'Malley seem to have hit it off, and he's reconnected with Vinnie Hanson."

"Oh, that boy. Who'd have thought that half-naked, surf-riding, pot-smoking layabout would end up a county deputy?"

"You always liked him, it shows."

"He was so d.a.m.n affable. I'm glad Eli's reconnected with him, and is friendly with Mike."

"I think Eli makes friends, and keeps them, easily. Oh, and he spent the best part of an evening tossing them back with Stoney at the pub. They really hit it off."

"Good G.o.d. I hope someone drove him home, and I don't mean Stoney."

"We walked." Abra realized the implications of "we" the instant Hester's brows lifted.