Lighthouse on the Lake

by Elizabeth Bromke

  Kate was hard at work in the second upstairs bath with grand plans to also finish the kitchen and start some business planning, but Amelia needed to get out of the house and set about her research project.

  She kenneled Dobi with strict instructions to take a nap and, trusting that he’d do just that, took off on foot to Birch Village, the plaza of shops and eateries by the marina. There, she intended to get some basic information on the workings of lighthouses on Lake Huron. Her biggest question was who was now running the old Acton place? Who was in charge of the light and tending to the grounds? It would be information Michael Matuszewski, the lawyer, might have on hand, but Amelia was feeling the distinct motivation to “do” after all. So, while she awaited his response to her most recent text (a simple Can we meet today?), she strode directly to the wooden cabin at the corner of the dock and the boat ramp. If she garnered no useful details there, she intended to take Kate’s SUV and drive up there herself and nose around.

  The only other times Amelia had ever been to the little shack-style marina office was when she was a teenager who fooled around with cute tourists looking for boat rentals.

  Otherwise, the Hannigan family had their own dock with their own boat. No need to rent a slip. Wendell had always managed their various lake vessels. When he left, Nora took over, selling everything off under the claim that she didn’t have time for water sports.

  Her daughters, however, had long suspected the poor woman couldn’t bear to be reminded of her estranged husband.

  Amelia bounced up against the serving window of the marina shack. “Hi,” she greeted, flashing a toothy grin to the man inside. He was unfamiliar, but that didn’t mean much. Younger, too. Handsome, undoubtedly. He reminded her a bit of her ex, Jimmy, but not enough to stir any real emotion within. Besides, Amelia was a woman on a mission. Not a girl on the prowl.

  “Hiya,” he answered, grinning back.

  Amelia pushed her hand through her chestnut hair. “I’m looking for someone in charge,” she replied coyly.

  “I can be in charge,” he challenged, propping his elbows on the Formica countertop in front of him and leaning forward.

  Amelia grinned and glanced down then back up. “Well, I need to find out who runs the old lighthouse.” She nodded over her shoulder and up the shoreline.

  He looked past her and then returned his attention to Amelia. “There’s a lighthouse on this lake?”

  “Yeah.” Amelia grimaced at his ignorance. This person was probably closer to twenty than fifty and here she was, veritably flirting with him for information like some kind of harlot.

  The attendant shook his head. “I’m seasonal. Just started today, actually.” He shrugged innocently then dropped his voice. “I don’t even have a place to live, yet.”

  Amelia sighed. The kid’s charm wore off immediately. “All right, well who’s your boss? Is he around? Or she?”

  This time, he nodded, evidently aware she was losing patience, which must have mattered to him for some reason. Perhaps Amelia seemed important. Perhaps she carried some sort of power. She straightened her back as he stood up and leaned out the window craning around it to search the dock. “There,” he pointed a finger.

  Amelia followed it to a second man, clad in khaki shorts, a polo and boat shoes, the men’s uniform for Birch Harbor.

  She nodded and thanked the boy then turned in the direction of the dock, stepping easily onto it, her blouse tickling against her skin as a fresh breeze swept past her.

  “Are you the marina manager?” she asked behind him, as he finished tying off a speedboat to a piling.

  He turned to face her, his expression suspicious. “Yes,” he replied, his jaw set.

  Amelia bristled at the cold reception. She was unused to it. “Hi,” she answered. “My name is Amelia. I’m looking for some information about the lighthouse just north of town. Can you help me?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his feet. “What kind of information?”

  Amelia searched his shirt for a name tag—anything to help gain a little traction, a little familiarity. When she saw none, she diverted the conversation away from his wariness. “My family owns the house on the harbor over on Heirloom Cove.” She pointed behind him to the red house. He didn’t turn. “The Hannigans,” she added.

  At that, he swayed again, raising his eyebrows. “Hannigan?” he replied. “I know the Hannigans.”

  “You do?” she frowned and cocked her head. It was Amelia’s turn to be suspicious. If someone knew her family, then she ought to also know him. “I’m sorry, but how?”

  His tone softened, and he dropped his hands, tucking them casually into his pockets. “I’m a transplant from Rochester,” he began. She thought she detected a hint of sadness in his eyes. “I moved out here a year ago with my daughter.”

  Amelia felt the itch of curiosity stab her. “Then how do you know us?” she pressed.

  He chuckled. “Well, I don’t know you. I know a Hannigan, though. Miss Hannigan.” The sadness drained from his face, leaving in its place a small smile.

  Frowning deeper, Amelia wracked her brain. “My mom? Nora?”

  “Nora? No, no. I know of Nora, though. Maybe the Miss Hannigan I know is Nora’s granddaughter? She’s a teacher. Miss Hannigan. I’m sorry, her first name escapes me, I suppose.”

  “Oh, Clara!” Amelia cried. “My... my sister, Clara.”

  “She’s your sister?” He seemed skeptical, which Amelia did not especially appreciate. Clara wasn’t that much younger than Amelia.

  “Yes, she’s my sister.” Amelia was about to ask him if he worked for the school—if that was how he knew Clara, but then, there he was, tying off rentals like he owned the marina.

  He shifted his weight. “My daughter has Miss Hannigan for her English class. I, um,” If Amelia didn’t know any better, she’d say the man was blushing.

  “Right, she teaches junior high English. Her name is Clara.” Amelia’s frown vanished.

  “Clara. Right.” He seemed to mull the name over. “My daughter adores her.”

  At that, Amelia melted a little. Her former enthusiasm crept back into place. “That’s nice to hear. My sister loves her job.”

  A pause formed between them, reminding Amelia what she was there for. “So,” she went on, finding her rhythm again, “the lighthouse. I’m wondering if you know who runs it.”

  “No one,” he replied, gesturing to follow her down along the dock. Almost every slip held a vessel. A gentle current rocked them about their berths. Amelia shielded her eyes from the distant sun. Ahead of her, the man pulled down a pair of Ray Bans. He looked every bit the part of a self-assured summer tourist. And yet he wasn’t. He was a dad from the suburbs who managed the marina. She wondered how he stumbled across such a position. Running the Birch Harbor marina was no seasonal gig. It usually belonged to a local, someone with a good amount of prestige and a good-old-boy reputation. Not an inlander.

  He grabbed a broom that had been leaning precariously against a piling and swept small puddles here and there along the deck.

  “Well, what do you mean no one runs it?” she asked, following him as she studied a small rowboat that decidedly did not belong amongst the Bayliners and Yamahas.

  “Technology,” Jake replied, nodding behind her to indicate he was ready to head back off the dock. “Boats don’t rely on lighthouses as much as they used to. And this harbor isn’t big enough to warrant a payday for a lightkeeper.”

  Amelia’s shoulders slumped forward as she followed him back to land. “Do you know anything about the last one?”

  Jake propped the broom against the office and called a hello to the attendant before turning back to her. “Last what?” he asked.

  “The last lightkeeper.”

  “Oh, right.” He pushed his sunglasses back into his dark thatch of hair and crossed his arms over his chest again. “I’m sorry, but no. Like I said, I’m sort of new here. You could ask a local, though? Seems like every
body knows everybody else’s business around here.”

  She narrowed her eyes, heat from the rising sun at her back, boiling her blood. “I am a local,” she spat back then shook her head quickly. “Sorry. I just... never mind. Thank you for your help, Jake.” She offered the best smile she could muster, forcing herself to remember that her sister had to deal with this guy.

  He didn’t seem to notice her irritation and bid her goodbye with a warm expression. “Oh, ma’am?” he added as Amelia pushed off up the path toward Heirloom Cove.

  “Your sister is a great teacher.”

  A little laugh caught in Amelia’s throat. It was an odd addition to their otherwise stilted conversation. She waved and thanked him, knowing full-well that Clara was a good teacher.

  She didn’t need a marina manager newbie to tell her about her own family.

  Amelia was going to find out for herself.

  ***

  “I’m going to drive up to the lighthouse,” Amelia called to Kate, wherever she was in the house.

  Kate appeared in the doorframe of the kitchen. “What?”

  “I’m driving up to the lighthouse.”

  “What about your meeting with Michael?” Kate asked, blowing a strand of blonde hair out of her eye.

  “I’ll call him on the way.”

  “He won’t let you go there. Not without a key or something,” Kate protested.

  “It’s ours, right? I don’t need a key. I’ll break in.”

  “Amelia, don’t. You can’t just roll back into town and make trouble. Give me an hour, and I’ll come.”

  “I’m not waiting an hour,” Amelia answered, grabbing her purse off the table by the door. “Come now if you want. I’m taking your car.” She grabbed Kate’s keys from the ceramic bowl on the table.

  Kate propped her yellow-gloved hands on her hips and shook her head. “I can’t right now. If you aren’t going to wait for me, at least come back here soon and pick me up. I don’t want to miss out, you know.”

  Amelia shook her head. “You’re not missing out. I promise. If I see anything, I’ll call you right away.”

  Kate frowned, caught between her dedication to her chores and her curiosity. She held her palms up, helpless. “Just, at least call Michael first, okay? Don’t you have a meeting with him?”

  Amelia opened the door and called over her shoulder, “He can meet me at the lighthouse!” before pulling it shut and striding, for the first time in a long time, with a purpose.

  ***

  Before pulling out of the driveway, she checked her phone to find a missed text message.

  Walking back from the marina was nothing short of a feat in the emerging morning heat as she had silently drawn up a mental list of who, what, when, where, and how to access the lighthouse. Her interest in the place had grown like a fever. It was the last note their mother had left them.

  The lighthouse was the sisters’, and Amelia agreed to take it on as her new project. Clara, entirely disinterested in the goings on of Nora’s estate, was no help.

  Megan, too distracted by her personal life to offer much more than excuses for why she couldn’t make it to town, was useless.

  And then Kate, the one sister Amelia could always count on, would rather scrub a toilet than search an abandoned lighthouse.

  Sometimes, Amelia wondered if she was the adopted one.

  But then she remembered Michael, the lawyer. Trusty, Type-A Michael. Her exact opposite, with his mahogany-and-leather office and neatly organized files and binders and his precisely knotted tie.

  Perhaps he didn’t much care about the lighthouse. But his interest was piqued. There was something there, at that last meeting when he rounded them up to share Nora’s missing notes. He wanted to help Amelia, sure. But it was more than that. If Amelia didn’t know better, she’d take him for a voyeur. After all, Michael hadn’t grown up in Birch Harbor. He’d simply moved into town, sliding into his ancestral office space, taking up the work of his father and his father’s father there, in her community.

  What is it with these men who just up and moved to the lake? Amelia thought to herself as she slid a finger across her phone screen and opened the text.

  It was from him. A long-winded reply to her inquiry. Yes, he was available. No appointments until the afternoon. Just paperwork and phone calls. She’d be a welcome break for him.

  Welcome.

  Amelia’s gaze lingered on the last sentence before she tapped his name and put a call through.

  A text would not do. She had to speak to him personally.

  He answered on the first ring. “This is Michael.”

  “Michael, hi. It’s, um, Amelia.” She felt silly and wondered if he’d saved her as a contact. Maybe not.

  “Yes, I know. Hi.” His voice was different on the phone than in person. Warmer. Then again, maybe the phone had nothing to do with it. “Did you get my text?”

  “I did, thank you,” Amelia replied. “I know we were going to discuss how to... proceed with researching whether the Actons ever sold the lighthouse or if anyone else has a claim to it,” she went on, “but I’m, well, I’m heading up there now.”

  “To my office?”

  “No, I’m driving to the lighthouse, actually.” Amelia forced a small laugh, realizing she sounded anxious and ridiculous. Maybe she should go to his office first. That’d be more sensible. But was Amelia ever sensible? No.

  “Great idea,” he replied. Amelia nearly veered off the road.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes, we can see if someone lives there then come back and dig up any available records.”

  She leaned back in her seat, easing up on the gas as she drifted past Birch Village and farther north. “Oh, great. That’s great.” She faltered, glancing in her rear-view mirror and briefly assessing her hair. “Does this mean you’ll meet me there?”

  Amelia heard the grin in his voice. A man of adventure, to be sure. “I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 10—Kate

  Kate tugged the stopper from the kitchen sink. Murky gray water swirled down the drain, gurgling on its way. She turned on the faucet and rinsed the foamy residue of the cleaning solution. Little bits of dirt and muck ran down the sides. She wiped the inner rims, her rubber gloves squeaking on the clean porcelain.

  Irritated that Amelia didn’t wait for her but still had the gall to take Kate’s SUV, she let out a deep sigh and considered her next plan of action. There was no point walking to the lighthouse. It was too far. Clara was at work, busy and unavailable. Megan had returned home so Sarah could finish her last week of school before summer. Amelia was on a mission, fool’s or otherwise.

  Kate was alone in Birch Harbor. Save, perhaps, for one other individual who might be available should Kate have an emergency. Her mind flicked to Matt Fiorillo. Maybe it was a good time to call him and set something up. He could come assess her needs—the needs of the Inn, of course. Maybe he’d know someone who might want the job.

  She reached into her back pocket for her phone, but it wasn’t there. Retracing her steps in her head, she jogged upstairs and searched the second bath, taking a moment to admire how clean and pretty it now stood.

  But there was no phone.

  Kate left the bathroom and went into her bedroom, searching the bed and the nightstand then the dresser but still coming up empty.

  Wracking her brain, she jogged down the wooden staircase and moved into the kitchen, but it wasn’t there either. Not on the island or the table or on the counter by the fridge.

  After taking a long sip from her iced tea, a lightbulb flipped on in her brain. The basket of rags. She’d taken her basket of rags down to the washing machine.

  With a snap of her fingers, Kate passed through the basement door and trotted down the steps.

  The basement had long been used as storage for Nora Hannigan and her daughters, but the storage was chaotic and haphazard. A mishmash of cardboard boxes and wooden crates were stuffed together along hodgepodge shelving u
nits, lining every wall of the unfinished space. Old appliances and furniture towered at odd angles in the darkened corners. Mysterious stains spread from beneath the shelves, crawling toward each other in the center of the concrete floor.

  Behind the washer and dryer, three narrow wooden racks held dusty shoeboxes. And that was where Kate had left her phone, teetering between two of the rectangular boxes just above the crack that divided the washer from the dryer. She eyed it immediately and reached for the darn thing, but as she did, Kate tripped over her basket of wet rags and tumbled right into the washing machine. The shelf behind it, where her phone sat, rattled against her fall and her phone slid straight off and knocked its way down behind the machine but got stuck.

  “No!” Kate hissed under her breath. With a deep sigh, she briefly considered leaving the darn thing there indefinitely and getting back to work. Instead, though, she gripped the sides of the machine and pulled hard, freeing it from its rust-encrusted moorings.

  The phone bounced down farther and clattered to the concrete. Kate went to the far side of the machine and reached her hand behind it, barely able to get a finger to the slender device which had wedged just under the back corner of the dryer.

  Using the pad of her middle finger, she found purchase and pulled the phone inch by inch until she could grab it in victory and briefly assess that it was free of damage, before standing straight up and hitting her head on the underside of the shelf that ran along the top of the two machines.

  “Ouch,” she groaned in time to see that the shelf was not nailed or screwed down but rather just a freely sitting plank on two brackets, and she had dislodged it from its delicate position entirely. In slow motion, the splintery wood crashed forward, spilling no fewer than four shoeboxes and all their contents.

  Heavy papers and raw-edged envelopes flopped out between every crack and crevice. Another box let loose a thick stack of yellowed doilies. And another of the boxes must have contained extra hardware for the machines. Bolts and washers and random other pieces of metal clanked along between the washer and dryer, then scattered around like a set of marbles splayed onto the floor.