The Spyglass Portal: A Lighthouse Novel

by Coverstone, Stacey

  “Wait! Is this 207-555-1000?”

  “Yes.”

  Her head began to swim. “Why do you have Linda’s phone?” she accused, suddenly worried for her friend’s safety.

  “Look, lady. This is my phone. I don’t know any Linda. I’m going to hang up now, okay?”

  “Please wait,” Sam begged. “I’m sorry, but I’ve called this number a thousand times in the past two years. It belongs to my friend, Linda Callison. Are you sure I’ve reached 207-555-1000?”

  It sounded like his patience had run out when he gritted, “This is the last time I’m going to tell you, lady. You must have dialed my number by mistake. There’s no Linda here. Never has been. I’ve had this phone and the same number for over three years. Look up your gal pal in the phone book and don’t call me again.”

  Click. The phone went dead in her ear. Three years? That couldn’t be. She eyeballed the phone. His idea was a good one, except phone directories didn’t list cell numbers and Linda didn’t have a landline.

  Sam’s paranoia kicked in full-tilt. Had Linda changed her number unexpectedly for some reason? That seemed the only possibility. Maybe someone had started stalking her on the phone, and she’d had to switch numbers quickly and hadn’t had a chance to call and tell her yet. A stalking seemed unlikely, but not impossible given her friend’s penchant for attracting the wrong kinds of men.

  Troubled, she decided to call Linda’s mom, to make sure Linda was okay. After looking up the number in her address book, and about to hang up after five rings, Samantha finally heard the click of the receiver and a soft voice came on the line.

  “Hello.”

  “Mrs. Callison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Callison. This is Samantha Landers. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. I’m Linda’s friend. I’m the one who flips houses for a living.”

  “You do what? Who did you say this is?” The woman sounded tired and confused.

  “Samantha Landers. I renovate houses and resell them, but that’s not why I’m calling. I’m calling about Linda. I’ve been trying to reach her since yesterday. She must have changed her number and forgot to tell me. I wondered if you would mind giving me the new one.”

  When there was no reply on the other end of the phone, Sam prodded. “Mrs. Callison, are you still there?”

  “I’m…here.” The words came out slow and suspicious.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have—?”

  Linda’s mom cut in. “Who are you? What kind of joke is this?”

  Dumbfounded at the angry tone, Sam attempted to explain again. “This is no joke, ma’am. I’m trying to reach your daughter. I’m her friend, Samantha.” It had been a while since she’d seen Mrs. Callison. It sounded like she suffered from dementia. But why hadn’t Linda told her?

  “How dare you torment me this way,” she cried. “I have no idea who you are or why you’re doing this to me. I have no money if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Money?” Sam’s heart squeezed tight. What was she talking about?

  “Don’t call me again or I’ll phone the police,” Mrs. Callison threatened.

  “What? Please don’t hang up. I don’t understand why you’re upset. I’m worried about Linda. She’s not answering her phone. Why won’t you help me?”

  After another brief pause, Mrs. Callison said, “My daughter is dead. A drunk driver killed her ten years ago. If you were really her friend, you’d know that. But I’ve never heard of you. Leave me alone.”

  The phone clicked off, leaving only the hum of the dial tone in Samantha’s ear.

  Linda is not dead. Mrs. Callison is wrong. This isn’t happening. Samantha threw the phone down and ran upstairs to the bathroom and dumped the bottle of pills Dr. Teagan had prescribed into the toilet. Perspiration beaded on her forehead as she flushed and dumbly watched the pink capsules as they disappeared with a whoosh.

  She closed the lid and sat down holding her head in her hands. Although she’d not grown up religious, there seemed to be no one else to turn to. Please God, whatever is plaguing me, let it end. I’ll deal with a brain tumor if that’s it. I’ll go back to the psychiatrist if I’m nuts. I’ll do whatever you want. Please just let everything go back to the way it was before Chad got hurt.

  Jumping up from the seat, she hurried into the bedroom and grabbed her pink baseball cap from off the bedpost. Her heart raced like a thoroughbred horse. She stuck her ponytail through the hole in back of the cap. It was the cap she wore on the construction site most days. Feeling it on her head was reassurance that she was in control, even if the world was spinning out of control. Her head needed clearing. The only way to do that was for the ocean air to brush her face and the water to splash her feet.

  Instead of heading north down the beach this time, she decided to go south. She took off jogging to get as far away from the lighthouse in as short of a time as possible.

  Trying to push every thought out of her mind, she concentrated on her arms pumping in rhythm with her legs. Before long, her breathing matched the ebb and flow of the waves splashing onto the shore next to her. It didn’t take long before she could actually feel the release of endorphins into her body.

  After what she thought must have been about a mile, her pace slowed, and her pulse slowed with it as the feelings of euphoria took full effect. Thank goodness her sense of balance had begun to return.

  As she stopped to watch a crab scurry across the white sand and then burrow underneath, she also spied some fully intact seashells scattered around. She collected a few of them into her hand. Then, without warning, a vision entered her mind. Like watching a movie, she saw herself as a child on what looked like this same stretch of beach.

  A woman in a flowing skirt scooped up some seashells and knelt in front of her, smiling. The woman’s eyes were bright and happy. A gold cross necklace with a diamond in the center dangled from her slender neck. “Look what I found,” she said, happily. “They’re for you, baby.” She dumped the shells into Samantha’s small hands. Sam dropped them into a plastic bucket and her mother snuggled against her cheek. Then she took Sam’s hand and they ran down the beach, laughing.

  The image faded as quickly as it had appeared. Samantha stared into the horizon, thinking back. Had she and her mom ever gone to the beach and collected shells together? She had no recollection of doing so. But they must have. The memory, if that’s what it was, was so vivid, particularly of the gold cross necklace, which had hung around her neck for twenty-six years. As she rubbed the smooth gold between her fingers, she tried to recall her mother wearing it at some point, and couldn’t. She’d given Sam the necklace when she was six years old. So why was she wearing it in this daydream?

  “Hey, lady! You want to help us with our sand castle?”

  Not realizing she’d been strolling, Sam staggered to a halt in front of a boy and girl who were building a sand sculpture using plastic shovels and buckets of water.

  “Leave the lady alone,” a woman in a striped bikini hollered from her lounge chair nearby. Book in hand and her body bronzed with oil, she flipped off her round sunglasses and apologized to Samantha for her children bothering her.

  “They’re fine,” Sam assured. “Here’s a topper for your castle,” she told the kids, sticking one of the seashells in the sand turret.

  “Thanks!” they shouted in unison.

  Walking further down the beach, she tried to push the daydream aside and enjoy the perfect weather. She stopped again when she got the distinct feeling that someone was watching her. Pinpricks of electricity crept along her collarbone. Her head pivoted, and her gaze landed on a small clapboard house sitting about a hundred feet offshore. It appeared to be decades old, or perhaps just not maintained well. Weeds sprouted up around it, its white paint had peeled, more than one window was broken, and the front railing looked rickety. She guessed it was abandoned.

  Who had lived there? A couple? A family? Had its tenants been happy? Had
the mother sat on the porch watching her children splash and play in the water like the mother she’d just exchanged pleasantries with? Had the father been a fisherman? Did the lighthouse guide him home from his voyages and into the welcoming arms of his waiting wife and kids?

  It was a nice portrait of the all American family. One Samantha had no intimate knowledge of. She’d never known her father and had no siblings. It had only been her and her mother, and Mom had worked day and night to make ends meet.

  A magnetic pull drew her closer to the shack. With each step she took, the air grew increasingly static with energy. Was a storm approaching? She glanced up. No sign of clouds in the sky. Only blue as far as the eye could see.

  A small sign planted in the sand beside the stairs said No Trespassing, but she couldn’t stop herself. Her curiosity was fully aroused. The law-obeying side of her whispered to turn around and leave while the inquisitive, risk-taking half convinced her to forge forward. It’d always been like that. An angel sat on one shoulder with the Devil sitting on the other—and the Devil usually won out.

  Her foot touched the bottom step as her hand gripped the wobbly handrail. One. Two. Three steps and she stood on the porch. Whoa. The breath caught in her throat.

  A tickle traced up and down her spine as her hand inched toward the doorknob. The uncontrollable urge to see what was inside was unstoppable. Her eyelids flickered closed when the image of the gold cross necklace gracing her mother’s throat flashed into her mind again. Why was she wearing it? It didn’t make sense. It had been given to Sam as a gift. Perspiration popped onto her forehead, and her body began to sway, triggered by a flood of emotions.

  When a high-pitched giggle broke the trance, Sam’s eyes sprang open and she stumbled backwards into the unstable rail.

  “Be careful,” a voice warned.

  Her petrified gaze darted in all directions. “Who said that?” The voice had sounded detached… not of this earth. Footsteps skimmed through the sand to the right of her. She glimpsed the heel of someone’s foot as he or she ran around the corner to the back of the house. Sensing eyes on her, Sam rotated her head and saw a face staring at her through the window.

  Stifling a scream, and with her heart in her throat, she tripped down the steps and ran.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She didn’t stop running until she reached the lighthouse. Panting, she leaned over, supporting her hands on her upper thighs and gulped in deep breaths of air. Plopping into the sand at the base of the lighthouse, she cursed herself for having acted as skittish as a rabbit.

  Leaning against the stone base, she wrapped her hands around her knees. Staring out to the sea, she waited for her thumping heartbeat to slow. What in the hell was going on? She’d hoped the hallucinations would stop with the flushing of the pills. But there was the bizarre conversation with Mrs. Callison and now this. Samantha knew it was time to get a grip before she suffered a full-out nervous breakdown.

  Obviously, that old shack had not been abandoned. It was hard to believe, but someone lived there. The face in the window had scared her out of her wits. But it was her own fault, because she shouldn’t have trespassed.

  Linda wasn’t dead. Her gut told her so. She also knew her mother was. Was she losing her mind? Had she contracted a virus or an infection that was eating her brain? She’d heard of such things.

  Dr. Teagan had warned her that her emotional and physical health could both be in jeopardy if she didn’t forgive herself for the role she believed she’d played in Chad’s accident. She’d come to Pavee Cove to do that and take back her life. She truly wanted to move forward and thought she’d made the first steps. But perhaps being around Aidan, a man who bore such a resemblance to Chad, down to the scar on his hand, was too much to deal with.

  She stood up and brushed off her shorts. Every action causes a reaction. Such was a pearl of wisdom that had been drilled into her by her mom from the time she was a child. It had been a code the two of them had lived by. To this day, Samantha had a hard time shaking free of the mantra.

  Looking up, she realized she still hadn’t switched off the light in the tower and made a mental note to do that, but first things first. Stepping inside the lighthouse, she snatched up her cell phone and dialed Dr. Teagan’s number. She’d told Sam to call anytime, if she needed her. Needing her now, Sam tapped her foot while waiting for the call to go through.

  When an automated message informed her the number was disconnected and no longer in service, she mumbled a curse under her breath and tried again. Again, she received the same message.

  With her nerves ready to snap like twigs, she stomped up the stairs and lay face down on the bed. Pounding the pillow with her fists was highly therapeutic. As was kicking and screaming into the mattress.

  Later when the outburst was over, she turned onto her back. Her gaze latched with the mahogany box on top of the dresser. She rolled off the bed and opened the lid. The brass felt heavy, smooth and cool beneath her fingers. Holding it close to her chest, her body felt like a wisp of air as she glided up the spiral staircase to the light tower. This time she flipped the switch to the lamp off before the white light blinded her.

  Stepping onto the observation deck with the spyglass to her eye, she waited for the anticipated blue mist to drift over the lens and then swung the instrument around.

  Down below, a family enjoyed the splashing surf. Samantha could see their facial expressions plainly as they laughed and played in the waves. A turtle trudging through the sand appeared as large as a tortoise. Swinging the spyglass in another direction, she spied a pretty stone cottage set off the beach near a stand of trees. Yet in another direction, a motorboat bounced over the waves beyond the reef. The driver of the boat was a man with auburn hair and freckles. His companion was a woman wearing a white bikini with gold trim. Her black hair was pushed off her forehead with a gold headband. A space between her front teeth didn’t take away from her pleasant smile.

  After a few minutes of what amounted to plain old eavesdropping, Sam lowered the spyglass, feeling like bugs were crawling over her skin. The very act of gazing through the lens was an intrusion into the lives of the people she watched. It was sick, now that she took time to think about it. If the woman in the white bikini knew she was studying her like a specimen in a lab, she’d freak out. This telescope had been invented for a ship’s captain to use at sea, not to spy on people on vacation. But Samantha couldn’t seem to stop.

  She observed the ocean and the beach a few moments longer before descending the winding staircase and returning the spyglass to its case. After securing the lid and hiding the box under some clothes in the top dresser drawer, she vowed never to look into it again. What she’d been doing was wrong.

  Downstairs, she tried Dr. Teagan’s number again. When someone finally answered, Samantha sighed in relief, knowing she must have misdialed earlier.

  “Good morning,” the receptionist said. “You’ve reached Dr. Teagan’s office. How may I assist you?”

  “Hello, Molly. This is Samantha Landers. Is Dr. Teagan available? I’d like to speak to her for a few minutes if she’s not in a session.”

  “I’d be happy to set up an appointment for a consultation, ma’am. What kind of insurance do you have?” Molly’s voice was professional and didn’t give off the slightest hint that she remembered Sam.

  Panic bloomed in Samantha’s chest. “Consultation? I don’t need a consult. I’m in Pavee Cove for a few weeks. Dr. Teagan arranged for a place for me to stay and said I could call her anytime I needed to talk. May I speak to her please, if she’s free?”

  “I’m sorry, but you need to be registered as a patient first, and that requires an appointment. What did you say your name was?”

  “Samantha Landers,” she repeated slowly. “You did say you’re Molly?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then you should know me. I’m already a patient of Dr. Teagan’s.” She could hear the tapping of Molly’s fingers on her computer keyboard
in the background.

  “Landers? No, I don’t have a file on anyone with that name. I know everyone who comes through the door. Perhaps you’ve called the wrong office. Could that be possible?”

  Samantha bit her tongue to keep from saying something she’d regret and reached for composure. That niggling feeling snaked across her nape. “Molly, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve been seeing Dr. Teagan for three months. She suggested I come to Pavee Cove for a rest, which is where I am now. She also told me to call anytime I wanted. Please tell me if she’s available. I really need to speak to her.”

  Molly continued to be polite. “Miss Landers, I’m sorry if I’m upsetting you, but as I mentioned, Dr. Teagan has no patients by that name. She is accepting new patients, however, so I’ll be happy to—”

  Samantha interjected. “I’ll prove I’ve been there before. Dr. Teagan’s office is ultra modern, furnished with a beige leather sofa and chair, off-white walls, a rug with a geometric pattern, and she keeps a bowl of peppermint candies next to the chair she sits in.” She smiled smugly, wishing she could see Molly’s contrite face.

  After a brief hesitation, the receptionist said, “Miss Landers, you must have Dr. Teagan confused with someone else. Her office is decorated in Old World Tuscany style. The walls are a soothing mint green, the furniture is overstuffed for the patients’ comfort, and she doesn’t keep candy in the office because she’s diabetic.”

  On the verge of tears for the second time that day, Sam pleaded with Molly to let her talk to Dr. Teagan. A few moments later, the doctor came on the phone. Her voice was soft and soothing. “Hello, this is Dr. Teagan.”

  “Thank God,” Sam breathed.

  “My receptionist tells me you’re quite distressed, Miss Landers. Are you thinking of hurting yourself?”

  Samantha gulped, not comprehending the reason for the question. “What? No. Some weird things are happening here that I need to talk to you about, Doctor.”

  “Where is here?”

  “Pavee Cove. The little town on the coast where you sent me.”