The Cottages on Silver Beach Page 4

  Two years ago, he hadn’t had any nieces or nephews. Now he counted five. Milo, Gabriella, Christopher, Will and Chloe. Three-year-old Gabi, the child Katrina had adopted from Colombia earlier that year, was the youngest.

  All of the children had been absorbed into the Bailey clan through rather unorthodox ways, but now he couldn’t imagine their family without them.

  “Nothing, really,” Marshall said. “Only that you seemed in a big hurry to leave after the softball game, for a moment there. I’m glad you changed your mind, especially since I’m sure you’ve got work to do on your book.”

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he claimed. It wasn’t precisely the truth, but close enough.

  “Whatever your reason, I’m so glad you’re here.” Marshall’s wife, Andie, beamed at Elliot. “My children don’t see enough of their favorite uncle.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Cade Emmett protested.

  “Or me,” Bowie Callahan said with a mock glower.

  Andie smiled diplomatically at Wyn’s and Katrina’s respective husbands. “Their other favorite uncle.”

  Over the past eighteen months, he had come to care deeply for Andie. She had been wonderful for Marshall, had softened his hard edges and brought laughter and joy into his world.

  “My point is, I’m glad you could join us,” Andie said.

  “So am I.”

  “How long are you staying?” Katrina asked from her spot at the other end of the table.

  “I’ve got the rental cottage for three weeks. Long enough for your wedding reception and a couple extra weeks to finish my manuscript.”

  After that, he had no idea what he might be doing. That was nothing he was ready to share with his family yet. Nobody here in Haven Point knew about the shooting and he intended to keep it that way.

  Yes, that was right. He had lied to his family.

  He had told them he had bone spurs removed, though technically that wasn’t completely a lie since the surgeon had reported he had decided to take out a couple of small ones he’d seen while he was in there.

  Elliot just hadn’t mentioned the bullet the guy had also removed—nor did he plan to.

  “We’re so glad you can spend some time with us, darling.” Charlene smiled at him, but it didn’t quite push away the worry in her eyes. She had a fairly well-developed lie detector, especially after raising five children. Despite what he told her, he had a feeling his mother sensed something else was going on.

  She wouldn’t hear it from him, though.

  “You know I wouldn’t miss Kat’s big party,” he said.

  His youngest sister looked up from helping Milo and Gabi color on the white paper tablecloth with the crayons Barbara Serrano had provided before they sat down. “Excuse me—did I imagine a phone conversation a month ago where you specifically apologized and told me you wouldn’t be able to make it?”

  “Things change.” He shifted. “I’m here, right?”

  “And we’re all so glad,” his mother soothed. “I’m not glad you needed surgery on your shoulder but it was so nice of the FBI to give you time off for your sister’s reception.”

  “Wasn’t it?” he murmured. Nice hadn’t been part of that conversation. He had been ordered off the job while his shoulder healed and his actions were reviewed.

  “We should order before Elliot changes his mind and decides he’s had enough of us all,” Katrina said, and he reminded himself to hug her later.

  They were debating how many pies and what toppings when Wynona suddenly looked up.

  “Oh, there’s Megan and her niece and nephew.” Wynona beamed and waved vigorously. “Hey, Hamilton family!”

  His heart gave a ridiculous sharp kick and he couldn’t resist looking up. Megan was walking with Luke and his children. He knew he shouldn’t notice how bright and lovely she looked, with her auburn hair pulled back into a ponytail and her cheeks a little flushed from the cool of the evening.

  She smiled at the Baileys, though it became more like a grimace when her gaze landed on him before she quickly pasted her features back into a smile.

  Had anyone else noticed? he wondered.

  “Hey, everyone,” she said. “Great game, Miss Chloe. You rocked shortstop this week.”

  His step-niece grinned. “Thanks! Cassie was the star of the game, though.”

  “Great pitching, Cassie,” Elliot’s mother agreed.

  “You should join us for the celebratory pizza!” Katrina gestured to a table next to theirs. “We can pull up some chairs.”

  He could see instantly that idea didn’t appeal much to Luke. The other man gave the table a curt nod. “We wouldn’t want to intrude. Matter of fact, kids, maybe we should order our pizza to go. It’s been a busy day and I know we’re all beat.”

  The kids looked as if they wanted to protest but finally nodded.

  “You can at least wait here and visit while she brings it out to you, then,” Elliot’s mother insisted.

  Luke clearly didn’t like that idea but he was apparently just as helpless against Charlene’s sheer force of will as the rest of them.

  “I’ll go talk to Barbara,” he said to Megan and the children. “Go ahead and sit if you want.”

  “There’s room here by Chloe and Will,” Andie said.

  The children sat down and were soon talking to their friends, and Megan sat down and did the same with Elliot’s sisters. He knew he didn’t imagine the way she carefully avoided looking in his direction.

  As for Luke, he stood near the hostess table talking to Barbara Serrano and didn’t even come back after making their to-go pizza order.

  The man wanted nothing to do with him. Elliot sipped at his beer, trying not to look at either Hamilton sibling while he pretended to be engrossed in the conversation Marshall and Cade were having about a local auto burglary investigation.

  After fifteen minutes or so, a server came out from the kitchen with a large pizza box and a bag that probably contained side items like garlic bread and salad. She carried them over to Luke, who thanked her, still unsmiling, then carried the order over to their table.

  “Kids, here’s our food. Let’s go.”

  Cassie and Bridger grumbled a little but slid their chairs back from the table obediently.

  Luke turned to his sister. “You’re welcome to stay. I can leave you a few slices of our pizza or you can get something else.”

  She hesitated for only a moment, glancing around the table until her gaze landed on Elliot.

  “No. I have plenty of things to do at home tonight. I’d better run. Good night, everyone.”

  “Yeah. Night,” Luke echoed.

  The family left with Megan leading the way out of the restaurant, holding hands with her niece on one side and her nephew on the other.

  The moment the door closed behind them, Elliot finally felt as if his lungs could expand again.

  Charlene heaved a big sigh, watching after the Hamiltons. “Those poor children. My heart aches for them, growing up without a mother.”

  “They seem fairly well-adjusted,” Andie said. “They have lovely manners and seem to be doing well in school and have many friends.”

  “I think they’re doing great,” Katrina agreed. “I’m just sad for Luke, always living under the cloud of suspicion.”

  “Maybe there’s a reason for those suspicions,” Marsh said solemnly.

  “Oh, come now,” Charlene said. “Surely you don’t think he had anything to do with Elizabeth’s disappearance.”

  When Marsh didn’t answer, their mother turned on Elliot. “Tell him, Elliot. Lucas was one of your best friends. I can’t even begin to count the number of times he stayed at our house. You know he couldn’t have hurt his wife.”

  Elliot’s mother had been the wife of the Haven Point police chief for decades. She had to know the wo
rld was not always a safe and beautiful place. Husbands beat their wives, mothers hurt their children, strangers attacked strangers.

  Sure, compared to most places, Haven Point was a fairly safe community, but it wasn’t perfect.

  “It’s been quite a few years since I had a sleepover in the backyard with Luke Hamilton,” Elliot said quietly.

  “But you know who he is inside.”

  He didn’t. Not anymore. His friend had become a stranger since Elliot left town after high school. Most of that was Elliot’s fault. He hadn’t kept up with old friendships as well as he should have, too busy building his career and carving out his new life. But when he had come home and contacted Luke to grab a beer or something, the other man inevitably seemed to have other plans.

  People drifted apart. It wasn’t uncommon, especially when geography and time intervened.

  Elizabeth had been his friend, too. They had even been partners on the debate team the year he had been a senior and she had been a junior. They had both been officers in Honors Club and she had been funny and smart, the female lead in almost all the school plays and one of the prettiest girls in town.

  “You heard what Bobby Sparks said after the game. That’s a tough cloud for a man to live under, all these years later,” Charlene said. “It must be so hard, not knowing what happened to her. There’s nothing worse for a family. I wish one of the departments that have handled the case could have been able to discover something—anything—that might have helped find her.”

  “I can’t even begin to tell you the hours that have been devoted to the case, both by the police department and now the sheriff’s department. It’s still very much an open investigation,” Marshall said.

  “With little progress, apparently,” Charlene said tartly.

  “You know as well as anyone that there can be a lot going on behind the scenes that the public never knows about,” Marshall said.

  “Meanwhile, Luke Hamilton has to live his life under a cloud of suspicion,” Charlene said.

  The server brought their pizza just then, which effectively ended the conversation. Marshall should consider himself lucky Charlene was distracted by the children, Elliot thought. Their mother could be relentless.

  Later, while the women were busy talking about details for Katrina’s upcoming reception, Elliot turned to his brother.

  “What is the status of the investigation into Elizabeth’s disappearance?” he asked.

  Marsh looked down the table at the women, busy chattering away with each other, before answering. “Cold as that lake out there in January,” he admitted, frustration shading his voice. “Not much has happened for years. Every six months or so I’ll send my investigators through the files to do a fresh read, but all we have are dead ends. We get a few leads here and there, a tip called in that goes nowhere and the occasional crank call, but that’s about it.”

  “You must have a theory.”

  Marshall’s mouth tightened. “Depends on the day. I’ve gone back and forth. We have no eyewitnesses who saw or heard from Elizabeth Sinclair Hamilton past about eight p.m. the night she vanished. According to Luke, she went to bed early. He took a phone call from a subcontractor—we have the phone records that place him at home—close to ten, then says he fell asleep on the sofa before the evening news. When he woke up, it was five a.m., the baby was crying, and his wife was gone. Her car was still there, so if she left on her own, she walked—something she apparently liked to do. They had been fighting the night before, so he says he thought she went somewhere to cool down or maybe teach him a lesson about how hard it was to be home with a couple of little kids all day.”

  “Seriously?” Elliot couldn’t dispute that the burden of caring for a couple of tiny children might be tough on a relationship, but he had a hard time picturing Elizabeth being so petty.

  Marshall shrugged. “Doesn’t make much sense to me either. But that’s Lucas’s explanation for why he didn’t call police until almost dark. The thing is, his alibi is solid all day, between the nanny who showed early and the crew and subcontractors who were with him all day.”

  His brother paused. “There were rumors about trouble in the marriage before she disappeared but no actual facts to back that up.”

  “Any domestic disturbance calls?”

  “One,” Marshall acknowledged. “About a week before she disappeared, the neighbors went overseas for a month and had a couple of college students house-sitting for them. The house sitters called 911, said they heard shouting and crying coming from Luke and Elizabeth’s place and a woman in distress. Dad went to the house to check things out, talk to both of them, but didn’t end up making any arrests. He reported it as a misunderstanding.”

  Elliot didn’t want to think his father might have downplayed an actual domestic disturbance report simply because Lucas had been a friend of the Bailey family. He couldn’t be completely sure, though, especially in his father’s last few years on the job.

  “There were others who came forward after she disappeared and reported she seemed increasingly unhappy in the previous days,” Marshall went on. “There are also...certain indications she might have wanted to hurt herself. That’s one theory, anyway. Apparently she was suffering severe postpartum depression and was being medicated.”

  He had heard those rumors, too, but couldn’t easily credit it. The girl he had known in high school had been mercurial, certainly, but he wouldn’t have ever thought her capable of self-harm. It was entirely possible he didn’t have the whole picture, however.

  “Would you mind if I look over the files while I’m in town? Not that I don’t think your detectives are competent but maybe some fresh eyes could offer a new perspective.”

  Marshall gave him a closer look and Elliot tried to keep his features expressionless. “Why would you want to do that? Don’t you have enough on your plate, trying to finish a book?”

  More than enough, he had to admit. He would be working late every night to finish the revisions of his manuscript. But Elizabeth’s disappearance had haunted him for years and he hated unanswered questions.

  “She was a friend. I’d like to find out what happened to her. More than likely, I won’t see anything your people haven’t already considered, but it wouldn’t hurt to look.”

  “Sure. Why would I mind if the Bulldog takes a look?”

  He frowned at the nickname his siblings still sometimes called him. At least that one was better than the other one he knew Megan and some of her friends had called him. He’d overheard them talking at Marshall’s wedding.

  Mr. Roboto.

  Yeah, he knew exactly what she thought of him.

  “You’re welcome to take a look,” Marsh said. “Come over to the office tomorrow and you can see everything we have.”

  “Thanks.”

  He didn’t know if he would discover anything new, but the prospect of digging into an investigation filled him with anticipation. He would much rather focus on an intriguing case that had bothered him for years than the woman who lived next door to him, the woman he could never have—or the mess he had left behind in Denver.

  * * *

  “YOU NEED TO go home. Right now.”

  Megan took in the pinched features of her head housekeeper. Verla looked as if she would fall over at any moment. The only spots of color on her otherwise pale features were the bright blue of her eye shadow and a bright splotch of rouge on each cheek.

  “I’m okay.” Verla mustered a smile. “I’m almost done.”

  “No. You’re done now. The last thing I need is for you to end up in the hospital. Go home, climb into bed, turn on some trash TV and stay there until you feel better.”

  She didn’t miss the relief on the other woman’s features, though Verla did try to hide it. “We’re shorthanded,” the housekeeper protested. “Everybody else has left for the day and I don’t have anyone to clea
n the cabins, which are due for housekeeping services today. Cedarwood is actually overdue since Elliot put up a do-not-disturb sign all week.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Only two of them are occupied right now, so it shouldn’t take me more than an hour.”

  She didn’t want to think about who was staying in one of those cabins.

  Elliot had been there for a week, and though she had seen him coming and going, she had somehow managed to avoid being face-to-face with him since the night of the girls’ softball game.

  “I’m so sorry.” If anything, Verla’s voice sounded weaker than it had at the front end of their conversation.

  She pushed away thoughts of her unwanted guest. “You have nothing to apologize for, honey. You didn’t ask to get the flu. Now, go home and rest and don’t worry about anything for the next several days. I can organize the housekeeping crew and make sure they step up to take care of the workload. I prescribe sleep, chicken noodle soup and daytime television. In that order.”

  “Yes, Dr. Hamilton.”

  “Do you think you’re okay to drive home? I can have someone on the staff take you.”

  Verla rolled her eyes. “It’s three blocks. I think I’ll be fine.”

  Megan didn’t doubt it. Verla was agile and strong as a mountain goat, tough enough that even with the flu, she could probably parkour all the way home.

  “Take as long as you need. I’m not heading to Colorado for another week, and even if you’re still sick when it’s time for me to go, the rest of the staff can fill in.”

  “I hate to leave you in the lurch, but I don’t think I’d be much good to anyone until I kick this.”

  Megan ushered her out the door with all the assurances she could muster. As soon as she closed the office door behind Verla, her smile slipped away. Drat. She didn’t want to do this. Why did Verla’s remaining workload have to include the cottages?

  One would be relatively easy. The occupants of Hummingbird Cottage were a couple in their sixties, both retired schoolteachers, who were spending the week bird-watching and hiking around the area. They were quiet and pleasant, both tidy as could be.