considered going upstairs and crawling into bed with you, though I didn’t see the need to tell them that.”
“You didn’t see the need, apparently, to tell me either until now.”
“No, I didn’t. You were dead asleep. I did go up,” she added.
His eyes narrowed. “You came upstairs that morning?”
“I did. I woke a little uneasy—residual stress, I guess. And really grateful I wasn’t alone, but with all of the night before playing around in my head so I felt alone down here. I went to see if you were, by any chance, awake, and you weren’t. I debated waking you up, decided against. The fact was, seeing you up there helped me not feel alone down here.”
“You should’ve woken me. Depending on how you did, you could’ve stayed up there, or I’d’ve come down here with you so you wouldn’t have been alone.”
“Hindsight. I did tell the police I went upstairs early, saw you were still sleeping, so just came back downstairs. I got the very clear impression your Detective Wolfe thinks I’m a big ho and a skanky liar.”
“He’s not my Detective Wolfe.”
“He thinks he is.” Abra took a sip of wine. “I ran it through for them. I came back down, made coffee, ate some fruit, cut up some melon, pineapple and so on for you, made an omelet, left it on warm, wrote you a note, went home and meditated before I changed for an early class.”
“They knew coming in here I couldn’t have killed Duncan, then driven into Boston, searched his office and apartment, driven back.”
“His office? In Boston? What’s all that?”
“Apparently somebody tossed Duncan’s office and apartment in Boston, cleaned out his records, his computers. Which points to his client being his killer, unless you’re convinced I killed him. But they talked to you, knew you saw me here at nearly two in the morning and around six in the morning. Not just hard for me to pull all that off in four hours—not possible for me to pull it off. They knew there wasn’t enough time.”
“That depends.” She took another drink. “If you’re Wolfe and I’m a big, skanky lying ho, that puts me on the slippery slope to co-murderer.”
“Jesus Christ.” Eli set his glass down to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re not insinuating I’m a big, skanky lying ho co-murderer. Wolfe doesn’t believe he can be wrong about you killing Lindsay, which means you had to have killed Duncan, which means I’m a big, skanky and so forth. I’ve known people like him. They absolutely, without question, believe they’re right, so everything that calls that rightness into doubt is a lie, an evasion, a mistake.”
She slugged down some wine. “People like that make me . . . impatient.”
“Impatient?”
“Yes, right before they piss me off. The other detective, Corbett, he wasn’t buying it. He was careful, but he wasn’t buying I colluded with you to kill Duncan, or very much interested in Wolfe’s line of questioning leading to us having not only met long before you came back to Whiskey Beach, but carrying on a hot, sexy, secret affair, which naturally means we’re both complicit in Lindsay’s death.”
She shifted, unconsciously nearly mirroring the mermaid pose. “I told him, frankly, I haven’t decided if I’m going to have hot sex with you, but I’m leaning toward it, and if I do, it wouldn’t be secret and wouldn’t necessarily qualify as an affair, or not as he termed it, as neither of us is married or involved with someone else.”
“You told them . . .” Eli just sighed, picked up his wine again.
“Well, he made me impatient then pissed me off. Seriously pissed me off, and I’ve got a pretty high temper threshold. Suddenly I’m a liar, a cheat, a home wrecker, a tramp and a murderer. All because he can’t accept he pushed the wrong buttons and you didn’t kill anyone.
“Asshole.” She topped off her wine, offered Eli the bottle. He only shook his head. “So. Your turn.”
“Not much to add. I gave them the rundown, which would’ve run parallel to yours, and Vinnie’s—who Wolfe may think is a dirty cop to go along with my other friend, the skanky, lying ho.”
“And co-murderer,” Abra reminded him with a lift of her glass.
“You take it well.”
“Now, after peeling and dicing potatoes, and drinking a glass of wine. But back up, someone got into Duncan’s office and apartment in Boston and now there’s no record of his clients,