Enright Family Collection (32 page)

Nick slammed his glass on the bar. “Start from the beginning, and tell me everything.”

She did.

“Wait a minute,” he said when she had concluded. “You think there may be some connection between Maris’s death and Ry’s?”

“It’s beginning to look that way. Suppose for a minute that Maris did take this cashier’s check and cash it—”

“She’d have been walking around with a quarter of a million dollars. Where would she have stashed that?”

“I think that’s exactly what this Shuman wanted to know. So maybe she didn’t tell him.”

“And he killed her? Or maybe she did tell him and he killed her anyway, then hid the money and disappeared before Byers could figure out the fraud.”

“Then he came back looking for the money in Devlin’s Light.”

“Where else could she have hidden it? The house, the Light, or someplace in between?” India rationalized. “Maybe Ry caught him, and he killed Ry.”

“Hmmmm.” Nick pondered this. “I guess it makes as much sense as anything else. Ry really didn’t seem to have any enemies. I spent several days out at Bayview last week. I
couldn’t find one person who said one thing against him, India. From the faculty to the administrators, he was well liked, highly respected. Even the students I spoke with had nothing but good things to say about him. But didn’t you say that you thought there might have been two people involved in his death?”

“That’s a possibility. Someone to get his attention, to draw him out to the lighthouse. Someone waiting there to kill him.”

“Then there was someone else working with Shuman.”

“There were several names on the settlement papers. A lawyer, a settlement clerk, someone from the title company. At the very least, one of those persons would have had to be involved in order to have lent a sense of authenticity to the sale. Byers promised to fax me copies of all the documents first thing on Monday morning. Once I have the names of the players we can start to track them down.”

“That’s why you need to be back in Paloma early on Sunday?”

India nodded. “That’s part of it. I need to get my ducks in a row if I’m going to ask for a leave. The Man won’t be happy.”

“‘The Man?’”

“The D.A. My boss.”

“You’re really going to do it, then? Take time off?” His eyes watched her face.

“I am. I owe it to Corri to be here. I owe it to Aunt August to be here.”

“I think the person you most owe it to is India,” he said as the waitress tapped his arm to let him know their table was ready.

They were seated at a small round table in the dining room next to a window overlooking the side yard.

“There used to be a goldfish pond out there.” India pointed toward the darkness outside. “Ry and I used to bring bread crumbs and feed the koi. Some of them were as big as catfish. That was before this was a restaurant.”

“What did it used to be?” he asked, knowing that her face would light with the telling of it and loving the look on her face as she drew up a memory to share with him.

“It used to be Mrs. Mason’s place. Her husband was a
pharmacist. He died in the sixties, but she stayed on here until she died, maybe ten years or so after he did. Carol is their granddaughter.” India laughed then as she told him, “Now, understand that
Mr.
Mason’s family was
new
to Devlin’s Light. His family built this house in ‘87; that’s
1887.
Mrs. Mason, however, was from an old Devlin’s Light family. She was a Whitlock, one of the yeoman whaler families that settled here in the late 1600s.”

“‘Yeoman whalers?’” Nick looked amused. “There’s a new term.”

“There were thirty-five families—whalers—that came to the Cape May peninsula from New England and Long Island in the late 1600s. By purchasing large parcels of land—several hundred acres or so each—they were able to build modest plantations. They had come to hunt whales but stayed to work the land and become respected members of the community. In those days a yeoman occupied the rank just below that of gentleman. So ‘yeoman whaler’ refers to not only their occupation but their social standing in the community as well. Descendants of some members of those families ended up over time in Devlin’s Light. The Whitlocks were one of the families that sailed with the Devlins.”

“So Mrs. Mason outranked the old man, eh?”

“By several centuries.” She grinned.

The young waitress stopped by their table to recite the dinner specials, prompted by a card she had tucked into the palm of her hand. Nick stopped her midway through to order crabcakes for both of them, thus sparing the young girl from peeking at her cheat sheet.

“I’ve had dreams about these things,” India told Nick when the golden brown bundles of crabmeat were placed before them.

“Well, since my goal in this life is to make your dreams come true, I guess it’s a good start.” India blushed and smiled that half smile he was beginning to know well, and he grinned. “This is, after all, only our first real date.”

“What about that weekend in Paloma? We went to the museum, to the ballet …” she reminded him.

“That was a play date for Corri. This is a play date for you.” He smiled into her eyes and her heart flipped over in
her chest. “Now, tell me, what would you like to do after dinner?”

She looked across the table at his face, handsome as an autumn sky, his eyes warm and lush as honey, his dark hair a tumble across his forehead.

If she told him what she really wanted he’d fall off his chair.

Respectable, she told herself sternly. Keep it
respectable.

“Well, it might be fun to stop in at the parlor concert. Aunt August said the singer, Margarite Cosgrove, is truly wonderful.”

“You know, I might enjoy that.” He nodded. “I’m beginning to get suckered in to all this small-town stuff. All these Devlin things.”

India laughed.

“The concert’s for a good cause. All the money they raise during the year goes to maintenance of the good captain’s property. Then at the end of the Christmas season, they have the Twelfth Night Ball and everyone gets to come and see how their money was spent that year.”

“Would you like to go?” he asked.

“Go… to the concert?”

“To the Twelfth Night Ball.”

“Really? You’d go?”

“I’ve heard people talking about it since I moved to Devlin’s Light. It sounds like it might be fun.”

“Oh, Nick, it is!” She laughed, her eyes brightening. “It’s fancy dress, costume-y clothes, with the men in velvet waistcoats and the women in ball gowns. The fun part is that the dress can be from any time period from the 1600s to the present, because there has been a Twelfth Night Ball in that house every year except during wartimes. So the house has seen colonial-style gowns as well as Empire and Victorian. It’s wonderful. And there are dances from each time period—” She stopped and frowned. “I don’t suppose you know too many of them.”

“I know how to waltz.”

“Hah!” She leaned back in her chair. “The waltz is just the start of it. Actually, the ball begins every year with the Grand March.”

“Lost me,” he told her.

She took his hand and pretended to study his palm. “I see music in your future,” she said, lowering her voice dramatically. “And dancing. Lots of dancing. Dancing
lessons
, to be more exact.”

“I didn’t know you were part gypsy.”

“Everyone has a touch of gypsy.” She laughed. “Would you be up for dancing lessons if anyone is giving them this year? I’d hate to see you miss out on all the fun.”

“I don’t mind, but who will I be learning with?”

“I’ll go with you.”
Anywhere.

I’d go with you anywhere.
“Will you be home in time?”

“I’d like to be home by the weekend before Christmas. I’d like to go to Corri’s Christmas play and the Olsons’ Christmas Eve open house. I want to go caroling and I want to go on the House Tour.”

“Why, India Devlin, you sound homesick.”

“I didn’t even realize how much I missed it all. I had a chance to do this all last year with Ry and Darla. And I stayed in Paloma and worked. No one remembers the name of the case I worked on, whether I won it or lost it, whether there was an appeal or a retrial.” India swallowed hard. “But Darla remembers every minute of the last holiday season she spent with my brother.”

Nick’s hand reached over, his fingers tracing tiny circles on the inside of her wrist. “I’m glad you’ll be home. I want you to be home. I want to share the holidays with you this year.”
And every year
, he could have added. Instead, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the very spot where the invisible circles had wound around her wrist.

“Dessert?” The waitress appeared from nowhere and broke the spell his voice was weaving around India.

“You know, there’s a lot of dessert-type things left over from last night,” India told him pointedly. “We could skip the parlor concert and have dessert at home. You could build a fire.”

He got the picture. Corri out. Aunt August out.

Nick and Indy would stay in.

“Aunt August?” India called from the foot of the steps.

“I thought she went to the concert?”

“Just checking,” India said innocently.

“Hmmm.” Nick nodded. “Well, how ‘bout if I get that fire going? It’s chilly in here. And you can make us some coffee and get us dessert, and we can have it right here.”

India went to make coffee and to cut slices of cranberry apple tart with hands that were just slightly shaking. Hands that wanted to be touching his warm skin, fingers that wanted to run through that dark hair.

Keep it together, Devlin. Maintain a little dignity.

India managed to do just that for roughly thirty seconds after she set the tray on the coffee table in the sitting room and he pulled her down to the floor in front of the fire. He sought her mouth before she had a chance to seek his and together they plummeted into a swirl of sensation, of warm hands that sought warmer skin, of tongues seeking tongues and bodies needing bodies. His lips led a long slow trail followed by his all too clever tongue, down her throat from chin to collar bone, to where the neck of her sweater kept him from the rest of her. Her breath came in hot little bursts and she began to undo the buttons, his mouth following behind her fingers to tease every inch of her skin. He moaned softly when he reached her breasts, and he cupped each one in his hands while she caressed the sides of his face. She was too soft, her skin too delicious, his hands too wise. Her lips parted and a soft gasp escaped when he eased her breasts free and sought them with his mouth. She tugged him to her, fitting him to her body, wanting more of him, wanting all of him. Wanting-

“What was that?”

“What?” She opened her eyes but barely.

“It sounded like a car door.” He rose up on one arm. A car door? Now?

“Yup. That’s a car, all right.” Nick forced a cheerfulness he did not feel into his voice. “Darla’s car.”

“Darla?” India squeaked. “Oh, she’s bringing Corri home from the party.”

Nick bent down to kiss her swollen lips. “The child needs a lesson in timing.” He sat up and pulled her by the arms until she was seated next to him. “Why don’t you button yourself up while I let her in.”

“Do we have to let her in?” India teased.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Maybe we should send her right to bed. It is late for a little girl to be up.”

“Good thinking, sweetheart.” Nick laughed as goodnaturedly as one could under the circumstances and stood up. “And you’re right, it’s almost eight o’clock. Much too late for a six-year-old to be up on a Friday night.”

India stuck out her tongue at him and he laughed again.

Looking out the window, he said, “Oh, and there’s more good news. Darla and Ollie are coming in too.”

India sighed and began fumbling with the buttons on her sweater.

“Faster, sweetheart,” he told her. “I hear the pitter-patter of little feet on the porch.”

“You might as well go and let them in then, since they aren’t likely to go away.”

“Nick’s here!” Corri squealed from the door. “I won a prize at the party. In the scavenger hunt. And look at my balloon, it’s a Pilgrim. Ollie got the turkey, see? Get it, for Thanksgiving? Where’s Indy?”

“You make my head spin sometimes, Corri.” He laughed. “India’s in by the fire.”

Corri and Ollie flew in to show off their balloons and their party favors, little cornucopia baskets filled with candy.

“Just what you need.” India sat Indian-style, her back to the fire.

“Can we have milk?”

“Sure. Help yourselves. Darla, can we get you some coffee?”

“Sure,” Darla replied brightly.

“I’ll get it, Dar,” Nick told her, gesturing for her to sit in a chair near India’s feet.

“So, Indy. How was dinner?” Darla asked.

“It was fine. Great.”

“Umm. I see you decided to have your dessert and coffee back here. Nothing good on Carol’s menu tonight?”

“We just had so much left over from last night, we thought…”

Darla reached over and took a sip from India’s cup. “Well, your selection of desserts may be better, but I’ll bet Carol serves her coffee hot.”

India stood up and put her hand out for the cup.

“I was just on my way into the kitchen,” India said, avoiding Darla’s eyes, “to warm that up.”

“India … “Darla grinned meaningfully.

“What?”

“This.” Darla tried unsuccessfully to stifle a laugh as she tugged on the front of India’s sweater.

The buttons, hastily fastened, were done up out of sequence, making a bulge here and a gap there.

India reddened and cleared her throat. “I … ahem… well, you see, Dar …”

“Oh, I see.” Darla laughed as she rebuttoned India’s sweater for her. “I see perfectly well. And I think it’s about time.”