of my students. Gossip’s her religion. And that’s bitchy. I hate being bitchy. Negative vibes,” she added, shaking her arms as if to shake those vibes loose to be carried off by the breeze. “It’s just that she’s so goddamn self-righteous, so concerned, so full of it. The way she talked it was like they’d sent in an assault team to pin down the crazed killer, who I have the bad judgment to sleep with. And she acts like she’s just worried for the community, and of course for me as you could smother me in my sleep or bash my head in or—
“Oh God, Eli.” She stopped short, appalled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That was stupid. Stupid and bitchy and insensitive—three things I most hate to be. I’m supposed to cheer you up or support you—or both. Instead I’m snapping and slapping at you, and saying horrible and stupid things. I’ll stop. Or I’ll go and take my crappy mood with me.”
Anger and frustration flushed her face, he noted. Horrified apology lived in her eyes. And the breeze from the sea streamed through her hair so the wild curls danced.
“You know, my family, and the friends I have left, don’t talk about it. I feel them creeping around it like it’s a . . . not an elephant in the room but a fucking T. rex. Sometimes I felt it would swallow me whole. But they crept around it, didn’t want to talk about it any more than was absolutely necessary.
“‘Don’t upset Eli, don’t make him think about it, don’t depress him.’ It was damn depressing knowing they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me how they felt, what they thought other than the ‘It’ll all be fine, we’re behind you.’ I appreciated knowing they’d stand up for me, but the screaming silence of that T. rex, and what they felt inside, almost buried me.”
“They love you,” Abra began. “They were scared for you.”
“I know it. I didn’t just come here because Gran needed someone in the house. I’d already decided I had to get out of my parents’ place, find a place—I couldn’t or hadn’t drummed up the energy to do it, but I knew I had to get away from that creeping silence—for myself and for them.”
She understood exactly. A lot of people had crept around her after Derrick had attacked her. Afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid to say anything at all.
“It’s been a terrible ordeal for all of you.”
“And back again because today I had to tell them what was going on before they heard about it from somebody else.”
Sympathy rolled through her again. She hadn’t thought of that part. “It was hard to do.”
“Had to be done. I played it down, so I guess that’s the Landon way of handling things. You’re the first one who’s said what you think, what you’re feeling, without filters. The first one who doesn’t pretend that T. rex isn’t right here, that somebody beat Lindsay’s head in, and plenty think it was me.”
“Thoughts and feelings and the passionate expressing of same were big in my house.”
“Who’d have guessed?”
That teased out a wisp of a smile. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I must have used up my quota of restraint today when I didn’t knock Heather on her butt.”
“Tough girl.”
“I know tai chi.” She deliberately rose up on one leg in the Crane.
“I thought that was kung fu.”
“Both are martial arts, so watch it. I’m not so mad anymore.”
“Me, either.”
She walked to him, linked her arms around his neck. “Let’s make a deal.”
“All right.”
“Thoughts and feelings on the table, whenever necessary. And if a dinosaur walks into the room, we won’t ignore it.”
“Like cooking, you’re going to be better at it than I am, but I’ll give it a shot.”
“Good enough. We should go back in so I can watch you cook.”
“Okay. Now that we’ve . . . set the table, there are some things I should say.”
He led the way back in. At the island, he picked up a pepper, studied it as he tried to figure out how to cut it.
“I’ll demonstrate again.”
While she topped, cored, sliced, he picked up his wine. “Corbett knows I didn’t kill Lindsay.”
“What?” Her head shot up, her hand stilled on the knife. “Did he say that to you?”
“Yeah. I’ve got no reason to think he’s bullshitting me. He said he read the files, looked at everything, and he knows I didn’t kill her.”