the snow. Today the sea spread in a good, strong blue, and the sea grass swayed in the breeze. She watched a fishing boat—dull red against deep blue—lumber over the water.
Did he think of it as home now? she wondered. That view, that air, the sounds and scents? How long had it taken her to feel at home?
She couldn’t recall, not specifically. Maybe the first time Maureen knocked on her door holding a plate of brownies and a bottle of wine. Or maybe the first time she walked that beach and felt truly quiet in her mind.
Like Eli, she’d escaped here. But she’d had a choice, and Whiskey Beach had been a deliberate one.
The right one, she thought now.
Absently, she traced a finger along her left ribs, and the thin scar that rode them. She rarely thought of it now, rarely thought of what she’d escaped from.
But Eli reminded her, and perhaps that was just one of the reasons she felt compelled to help him.
She had plenty of others. And, she thought, she could add a new one to the mix. The smile she’d watched bloom over his face when he recognized Maureen.
New goal, she determined. Giving Eli Landon reasons to smile more often.
But right now, she needed to put his underwear in the dryer.
Eli had barely settled in Neal Simpson’s waiting area, declined the offer of coffee, water or anything else made by one of the three receptionists, when Neal himself strode out to greet him.
“Eli.” Neal, fit in his excellent suit, shot out a hand, took Eli’s in a firm grip. “It’s good to see you. Let’s go on back to my office.”
He moved athletically through the slickly decorated maze of the Gardner, Kopek, Wright and Simpson offices. A confident man, an exceptional attorney who at thirty-nine had grabbed full partner and put his name on the letterhead of one of the top firms in the city.
Eli trusted him, had to. Though they’d worked in different firms, often competing for the same clients, they’d moved in similar circles, had mutual friends.
Or had, Eli thought, as most of his had slipped away under the constant media battering.
In his office with its wide, wintry view of the Commons, Neal ignored his impressive desk and gestured Eli to a set of leather chairs.
“Let’s take a minute first,” Neal began as his attractive assistant brought in a tray with two oversize mugs filled with frothy cappuccino. “Thanks, Rosalie.”
“No problem. Can I get you anything else?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Neal sat back, studying Eli as his assistant stepped out, shut the door. “You look better.”
“So I’m told.”
“How’s the book going?”
“Some days better than others. Altogether not bad.”
“And your grandmother? She’s recovering from her accident?”
“She is. I’m going by to see her later. You don’t have to do this, Neal.”
Brown eyes shrewd, Neal picked up his mug, settled back with it. “Do what?”
“The small talk, the relax-the-client routine.”
Neal sampled the coffee. “We were friendly before you hired me, but you didn’t hire me because we were friendly. Or that wasn’t at the top of the list. When I asked you why you’d come to me, specifically, you had several good reasons. Among them was you believed the two of us approached the law and our work along similar lines. We represent the whole client. I want to know your state of mind, Eli. It helps me decide what actions or non-actions to recommend to you. And how much I’ll have to persuade you to take a recommendation you might not feel ready for.”
“My state of mind changes like the goddamn tide. Right now it’s . . . not optimistic but more aggressive. I’m tired, Neal, of dragging this chain behind me. I’m tired of regretting I can’t have what I had, even not knowing if I want it anymore. I’m tired of being stuck in neutral. It may be better than sliding off a cliff in reverse, the way it felt a few months ago, but it sure as hell isn’t moving forward.”
“Okay.”
“There’s nothing I can do to change how Lindsay’s parents—or anyone else—thinks or feels about me. Not until Lindsay’s killer is found, arrested, tried, convicted. And even then, some will think I somehow slipped through the fingers of justice. So screw that.”
Neal sipped again, nodded. “All right.”
Eli pushed to his feet. “I need to know for me,” he said, pacing the office. “She was my wife. It doesn’t matter that we’d stopped loving each other, if we ever did. It doesn’t matter that