The boarding and sinking of the Santa Caterina, the pillaging of its stores, the killing of most of its crew turned into high-seas adventure, with hefty doses of romance. Esmeralda’s Dowry, according to Haversham, had been magically imbued with its mistress’s loving heart so the jewels could be held only by one who’d found true love.
“Seriously?” Eli ate another cookie. He might’ve put the book down for a different selection, but the author had so obviously enjoyed the writing, and the style proved ridiculously entertaining, and took him into pockets of the legend he’d never heard before.
He didn’t have to believe in the transformative power of love—as transmitted in this case by magical diamonds and rubies—to enjoy the telling of it. And he appreciated the consistency of the romantic bent in the author’s contention that rather than a lowly seaman surviving the fateful wreck of the Calypso—with the treasure—it had been the dashingly romantic Captain Broome.
He read the entire book to its tragic (yet romantic) conclusion, then paged back to study the illustrations again. Warmed by the fire, he dropped into a cookie coma with the book on his chest. He dreamed of sea battles, of pirates, of glinting jewels, of a young woman’s open heart and of betrayal, redemption and death.
And of Lindsay, lying in the trench in Bluff House’s basement, the stone and dirt stained with her blood. Of himself standing over her, pickax in hand.
He woke in a sweat, the fire burned to a red simmer, his body stiff. Queasy, shaken, he dragged himself off the couch, out of the library. The dream, that final image, held so strong, so clear in his mind, he went down to the basement, walked through the maze of rooms. And he stood over the trench to be sure his dead wife wasn’t there.
Stupid, he told himself. Just stupid to feel the need to check out the impossible because of the delusion of a dream brought on by a silly book and too many cookies. Equally stupid to think—hope—that because he hadn’t dreamed of Lindsay in a few nights’ running he was done with it.
However foolish it was, his earlier optimism and energy faded like chalk in the rain. He needed to go back up, find something to do before he let the dark close around him. God, he didn’t want to fight his way back into the light again.
Maybe he’d fill in the trench, he told himself as he started back. He’d check with Vinnie first, then he’d fill it in. Make it go away, and screw whoever had come into Bluff House on their idiotic treasure hunt.
He nursed that little spark of anger—so much better than depression—fanning it as he continued back. Letting it grow and heat against whoever had violated his family home.
He was through being violated, through accepting that someone could have come into his home—or what had been his—killed his wife and left him to hang for it. Through accepting anyone might have come into Bluff House and had anything to do with his grandmother’s fall.
He was through feeling victimized.
He stepped up into the kitchen, and stopped dead.
Abra stood, her phone in one hand, and a really big kitchen knife in the other.
“I really hope you’re thinking of slicing some giant carrots with that.”
“Oh God! Eli.” She dropped the knife on the counter, where it clattered. “I came in, and the door to the basement was open. You didn’t answer when I called out. Then I heard someone, and . . . I panicked.”
“Panicking would be running. Sensible panicking would be running and calling the police. Standing there with a knife isn’t sensible or panic.”
“It felt like both. I need . . . Can I . . . Never mind.” She simply got a glass, got a bottle of wine from the refrigerator. After drawing out its jeweled stopper, she poured it like breakfast juice.
“I scared you. I’m sorry.” Her hands shook, he noted. “But going downstairs may happen from time to time.”
“I know. It’s not that. It’s that on top of . . .” She took a long drink, a long breath. “Eli, they found Kirby Duncan.”
“Good.” His earlier anger could round back again, and this time with a target. “I want to talk to the son of a bitch.”
“You can’t. They found his body. Eli, they found his body caught in the rocks below the lighthouse. I saw the police, I saw all these people over there, so I went out. And .