an hour working alone to move the shelves out far enough to get through.”
“Laying an ambush. Eli—”
“I’m thinking about that, too.”
“Proactive instead of defensive.” Hands fisted on her hips, she strode around the room. “I knew this was going to be a good day. We can do something. We could catch him in the act.”
“I’m thinking about it. It’s not as simple as jumping out and saying boo. If the simplest explanation is also true, he’s not just an intruder. He’s a murderer. We don’t just jump into this.”
“We plan,” she agreed. “I think creatively when I clean. So I’ll get started, and we’ll both think.”
“And we wait to hear from the cops.”
“Oh yeah.” She deflated a little. “I guess we do. Maybe they’ll trace the gun and this will all be done. It would be better that way. Not as exciting, but realistically better is better.”
“Whatever happens, I won’t let you down.”
“Eli.” She took his face in her hands. “Let’s make a new pact, and promise not to let each other down.”
“That’s a deal.”
Twenty-two
HE HAD TO WORK. HE LET PLOTS AND PLANS FOR PROACTIVE ambushes cook in the back of his brain, but he had to get the story out, get those words on paper.
He hadn’t heard from his agent about what he’d sent her, but the holiday weekend bogged things down. And, he reminded himself, it wasn’t as if he was her only client.
He wasn’t even an important client.
Better to keep riding the wave of the story, and he’d have more to send in. If she had problems with what he’d already done, he’d deal with it.
He could go back, polish up another five chapters, send it off to give his agent a bigger part of the whole. But the story was running hot for him, and he didn’t want to risk dousing it.
He didn’t break until well into the afternoon when Barbie pulled him out of the zone by sitting at his knee, staring at him.
Her signal, he’d already learned, for: Sorry to bother you, but I’ve gotta go!
“Okay, okay, one second.”
He backed up, saved, and realized he felt a little buzzed, as if he’d downed a couple of excellent glasses of wine in rapid succession. The minute he stood, Barbie scrambled out of the room. He heard her running down the steps at warp speed.
She’d sit, quivering, in the kitchen, he knew, waiting for him and the leash. He called out absently to Abra as he moved toward the kitchen, and found the dog exactly where he’d expected.
He also found an artful club sandwich under clear wrap, topped by a Post-it, on the counter.
Have some lunch after you walk Barbie.
XXOO Abra
“She never misses,” he murmured.
He took the dog out, enjoyed the break nearly as much as Barbie, even when it began spitting chilly rain. With his hair damp, his dog soaked and his mind sliding back toward the book, he answered the phone in his pocket on his way up the beach steps.
“Mr. Landon, this is Sherrilyn Burke, Burke-Massey Investigations.”
“Yeah.” His guts tightened a little, anticipation and dread. “It’s good to hear from you.”
“I have a report for you. I could e-mail it, but I’d like to go over it with you in person. I can come out to you tomorrow, if that’s convenient.”
“Is there something I should worry about?”
“Worry? No. I like the face-to-face, Mr. Landon, where we can both ask and answer. I can be there about eleven.”
Brisk, he thought, professional. And firm. “Okay. Why don’t you send me the report in the meantime, then I’ll be up-to-date when we ask and answer.”
“Good enough.”
“Do you know how to get to Whiskey Beach?”
“Had a nice weekend there several years ago. And if you’ve been to Whiskey Beach, you know Bluff House. I’ll find you. Eleven o’clock.”
“I’ll be here.”
Nothing to worry about, he thought, as he took Barbie inside. But of course, everything about Lindsay’s murder, the police investigation, his own position worried him.
But he wanted those answers. Needed them.
He took his iPad and his lunch into the library. Abra would be running the vacuum or something upstairs, he assumed. And the rain made him want a fire. He lit one, then sat down with his tablet. He’d read the report while he ate.
Ignoring other e-mail for now, he downloaded the attachment from his investigator.
She’d personally reinterviewed friends, neighbors, coworkers—both his and Lindsay’s. And reinterviewed Justin and Eden Suskind, as well as some of their neighbors, coworkers. She’d talked to Wolfe, and had cornered one of