it had to look like an accident, or suicide. Nothing that made the police, or the media, or anyone, question Landon’s guilt.
Because he knew, without doubt, Eli Landon had killed Lindsay.
He could use that, and already imagined forcing Landon to write out a confession before he died. Spilling that blue Landon blood as the coward begged for his life. Yes, he found he wanted that more than he’d realized.
An eye for an eye? And more.
Landon deserved to pay; he deserved to die. Making that happen would be nearly as rich a reward as Esmeralda’s Dowry.
When he saw Eli walk in, the rise of rage nearly choked him. The red-hot haze of it blurred his vision, urged him to reach for the gun holstered at his back, the same gun he’d used to kill Kirby Duncan. He could see, actually see the bullets punching into the Landon bastard’s body. The blood gushing as he fell.
His hands trembled with the need to end the man he hated above all else.
Accident or suicide. He repeated the words over and over in his head in a struggle to regain control, to calm his killing fury. The effort popped beads of sweat on his forehead as he fought to consider his options.
At the bar Abra waited for her drink orders and chatted with her favorite village character. Short, stocky, with a monk’s ring of wispy white hair, Stoney Tribbet worked on his second beer and a bump of the night. Stoney rarely missed a Friday night at the pub. He claimed he liked the music, and the pretty girls.
He’d be eighty-two that summer, and he’d spent every year of it—except for a stint in the army in Korea—in Whiskey Beach.
“I’ll build you your own yoga studio when you marry me,” he told her.
“With a juice bar?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“I’m going to have to think about that, Stoney, because it’s pretty tempting. Especially since it comes with you.”
His weathered map of a face went pink under its permanent tan. “Now we’re talking.”
Abra gave him a kiss on his grizzled cheek, then lit up when she saw Eli.
“I didn’t expect you to come in.”
Stoney turned on his stool, gave Eli the hard eye, then it softened. “Now that’s a Landon if I ever saw one. Are you Hester’s grandboy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stoney Tribbet, Eli Landon.”
Stoney shot out a hand. “I knew your grandpa—you got his eyes. We had some adventures together back a ways. Some long ways.”
“Eli, why don’t you keep Stoney company while I get these drinks served?”
“Sure.” Due to the current lack of a stool, Eli leaned on the bar. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Looks like I’ve got one here. Belly up, boy, and I’ll buy you one. You know your grandpa and I both had our eye on the same girl once upon a time.”
He tried to picture his tall, lanky grandfather and this fireplug of a man on adventures, and competing for the same woman.
A tough picture to mind-sketch.
“Is that so?”
“Rock-solid truth. Then he went off to Boston to school, and I scooped her up. He got Harvard and Hester, and I got Mary. We agreed we both couldn’t have done better. What’re you drinking?”
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
Pleased two of her favorite people were sharing drinks and conversation, Abra snaked her way through to deliver orders. As she moved toward the back, she saw the empty table, and the bills tossed on it.
Odd, she thought, putting the money on her tray. It looked like her solo had changed his mind about another tonic and lime.
At the bar Eli settled in, snagging a stool when an ass lifted off one, listening to stories—some he assumed were exaggerated for effect—about his grandfather as a boy and young man.
“He rode that motorcycle hell for leather. Gave the locals a fit.”
“My grandfather. On a motorcycle.”
“Most usually with a pretty girl in the sidecar.” Eyes twinkling, Stoney slurped through the head of his beer. “I thought he’d win Mary because of that motorcycle. She loved riding. The best I could offer back then were the handlebars of my bike. We’d’ve been about sixteen then. Used to have the best damn bonfires down on the beach. With whiskey Eli nipped from his father’s cabinet.”
Now Eli tried to picture the man he’d been named for driving a motorcycle with a sidecar, and pilfering his own father’s liquor supply.
Either the image came more naturally, or the beer helped it along.
“They threw some big parties at Bluff House,” Stoney told him.