Page 17 of Light of Day (Sea Smoke Island #1)

Heading back out to Sea Smoke after a trip to the mainland always felt like freedom to Luke.

As if he could finally take a full breath and stand tall.

Even as a teenager, coming home from boarding school, he used to imagine the wind sweeping the cobwebs away as he sailed toward that big rock in the sea.

Living with his father was another type of imprisonment, but he’d solved that by breaking every rule and finding his own way of life on Sea Smoke Island.

He wouldn’t trade it for anything, even after his marriage broke up.

He’d take part-time dad, full-time constable, a man writing his own story, a hundred times out of a hundred when the other option was doing his father’s bidding.

After tying the Izzy C to his mooring, he rowed to the dock, where Heather had promised to meet him.

That was one thing missing from the life he’d chosen—a real relationship with a woman.

The closest he’d gotten since his divorce was Abby, but he hadn’t heard from her in a while.

Finding a real connection was such a challenge, and that was probably on him.

The breakup with Carrie had shaken him to his core.

He was still rebuilding. So far, no one he’d met had pulled him out of his frozen emotional rut.

Heather? She was different. He felt alive around her, for the first time in a long time.

The sight of her leaning on a post at the dock, watching the seagulls wheel overhead, brought a quickness to his pulse.

He sternly dismissed it. As soon as they found Gabby, Heather would be off like a rocket.

Finding Gabby came first, before anything else.

It would be safest to keep his distance.

He tied up his dinghy on the float. At high tide, he’d come back and haul it onto the shore, but at the moment the tide was at dead low.

“How did it go?” Heather asked as he reached the dock, panting a little. When the tide was this low, the ramp was so steep it felt like climbing a mountain.

“Smooth. We’ll get the report in a couple of days. How are things here?” He scanned her up and down. “You survived your meeting with my father. Are you still single?”

She laughed and cocked her head, the late-afternoon sun turning her hair a warm cinnamon color. “What makes you so sure I was single before?”

Oh shit. Why hadn’t he thought that? Maybe wishful thinking?

“Don’t look like that, I was and am. I don’t think I’m exactly what your father is looking for. Besides, his wife was there.”

“Celine, really? She’s on the island? She’s not a fan.”

“Well, she’s here, and she didn’t like me much. I asked some awkward questions. You might even say rude. She shut me down fast.”

If anything could make him like her even more, it would be that.

“Damn, sorry I missed that.” They walked across the wharf toward his truck, which was parked on the gravel up top.

He caught a few speculative glances coming their way, and knew the rumor mill would be shifting into high gear. “Did you learn anything?”

“Nothing really specific, but Gabby and your dad definitely had a conversation. He said it was about the hotel’s history.”

“That sounds like him.”

“Yes, but I think they’re something more. He said Gabby knew something. Add that to the text that he sent her, and I think it’s worth following up.” She shot him a glance. “Something seemed off with him. Like he wasn’t operating on all cylinders. Is he okay?”

“I don’t see him enough to say.” Knowing his father, he’d just cleverly avoided answering direct questions.

“Do you think if you questioned him you’d get further? I mean, as constable?” Heather asked.

He thought about it. Encounters with his father never went well, but he had a job to do. “I can try. Hey, I haven’t eaten all day. The line at my favorite taco shop in town was too long. Want to grab a bite before we go to Denton’s?”

She hesitated before nodding, and knew the urgency of finding Gabby was weighing on her. “Sure.”

“Fuel for the investigation,” he assured her. “We’ll take it to go.”

“No, let’s sit. You’ve been running all day. A little break won’t do any harm. Sometimes when I’m stalled out on a story, the best thing is to go for a run or take a shower or something. Just clear your head and think about something completely different for a minute.”

They walked past his truck and headed toward the Clambake Grill, with its several sets of wooden stairs climbing the ledge overlooking the harbor.

It was an awkward time, well past lunch, not dinnertime yet, and of the customers already seated, he didn’t recognize any of them.

That was a relief, because usually, as soon as people saw him, they remembered some issue or complaint they needed to discuss.

Being constable on a small island was exhausting. But he loved it, he knew in his bones.

“So you like to run?” he asked her, picking up on her last comment.

“Just for exercise. I injured my knee in college and had to quit soccer. It starts to hurt again after about two miles, so that’s my limit.”

He nodded as the waiter brought them water glasses. Their table looked out over the dock, where a group of kids were goofing around with fishing rods. He’d better keep an eye on them.

“I had my share of hockey injuries. I know the drill. Do you like living in Boston?”

“Here’s my thing.” She propped her elbows on the table.

“I really don’t care where I live. I know it sounds strange, but I’ve lived here, I’ve lived in Orono for college, I spent my junior year in England, and I now live in Boston, and it genuinely makes no difference to me.

I need work that’s interesting to me, and I need people I can talk to and I need my independence.

That’s it. As long as I have those things, I’m extremely adaptable. ”

“Okay then. Sounds like you know who you are.”

“I suppose. I can be kind of a bitch, full disclosure.”

He let out a surprised bark of a laugh. “Tell me more.”

“I don’t like to be patronized or dismissed. Those are my triggers. It’s a problem, because when you’re interviewing people or trying to gather facts, people act all kinds of ways. I’ve had to train myself not to react when someone talks down to me. Gabby helped me with that.”

Fear flashed in her eyes, just for a moment, but he could see her pull herself back from that panicky ledge of worrying about her friend.

“How so?” he asked gently.

“Because I saw the way people treated her, just because she’s a Black woman.

Not all the time, not everyone, obviously, but enough times.

It made what I experienced look minor in comparison.

It bothers her, she feels it. But she’s really good at keeping her eyes on the prize, as she says.

So I try to channel her in that kind of situation. ”

“She sounds like a very smart person.”

“She is, and she’s a great podcast co-host. The whole thing was her idea.

She dragged me into it kicking and screaming.

I didn’t think we could make any money on it, but it’s doing pretty well, considering we’ve only aired five episodes.

We’re going to miss this week’s, I guess.

I’ve been trying to figure out what to say or run. ”

He put a hand on hers, trying to comfort her, only to be surprised when she turned her hand over so they were palm to palm. So much more intimate that way. “Can I help in some way? Want to interview a small-town constable about what you do when a dead body washes up in a cove?”

Her eyes lit up with glints of gold. “That is actually a great idea. It’s a true-crime podcast, after all, among other things. Those kinds of details are fascinating to people.”

Oh shit. What had he gotten himself into?

“I didn’t bring any equipment with me, but…” She snapped her fingers. “Gabby probably has some gear in her suitcase. She has a portable setup she takes everywhere.”

“Cool,” he managed, making her grin.

“You didn’t think I’d take you up on it, did you?”

“Not really.” He threw up a hand when she started to respond. “But I’ll do it. Happy to, if it’ll help you out.”

“We’ll see. It’s more important to find her, but I really don’t want to let her down. It’s a side gig for both of us, but she’s done a lot more than I have.”

The server took their order—she ordered the fish chowder, while he asked for a burger and fries. At the mention of fries, she perked up and added some to her own order.

Once they were happily dipping their French fries into ketchup, Heather returned to the topic of Gabby. “The last thing she posted on Facebook was a photo taken from the inn, looking out over the ocean, toward the lighthouse.” With one hand, she scrolled through her phone to show him the post.

He read aloud. “Where the deepest secrets lie, only the truth can bring the light.”

“Does anything seem significant to you about that post, given your knowledge of the inn and its location?” she asked.

He studied the image behind the words. It was pretty enough—endless gray ocean, fog drifting across the surface, the lighthouse barely visible through the mist.

“Nothing jumps out,” he finally said. Then he peered closer and used his fingers to expand the photo. “Look at this.”

She leaned over the table and he angled her phone so she could see too.

“Is that a cobweb?” she murmured. “At the edge there?” She pointed at the same silvery wisp he’d noticed.

“That’s what I was wondering. I think she might have taken this photo from inside the Inn, maybe from her room.” He moved the photo around to see if any more anomalies appeared.

“It couldn’t have been from her room. Those windows are too small, we would have seen the frame. She must have been somewhere with bigger windows. The conservatory? By the way, what kind of pretentious name is that?”

“Every English manor has one, didn’t you know?”

They both laughed, but he kept scrutinizing the shot.

“Anyway, I don’t think she was there. Those windows always have mist on them.

It blows off the ocean and flows right to that area.

It’s a pain in the ass for the grounds crew.

They squeegee those windows twice a day, but they’re still usually misted up. Besides, the angle is wrong.”

He thought about the layout of the Inn, the balconies, the three stories, the widow’s walk. “The library,” he finally said.

“The library ? Holy smokes, I was just there. I don’t think I paid any attention to the view, though. I was completely focused on the extremely intimidating John Carmichael the Third. So you think she was there?”

“Yup.” He realized he’d forgotten about the burger in his hand, and bit into it, nearly dislodging a juicy pickle slice onto his plate. Very suave, dumbass. “ That’s where she took this photo, no doubt about it.”

“Maybe that’s where she had her conversation with your father.”

“Sure, but what’s the meaning of the text? The deepest secrets and all that?”

“The secrets have to do with your dad? The hotel?” She jerked her head up as something occurred to her. “Those display cases. I noticed some old newspaper clippings in there. Do you know what they’re about?”

“Yes, they’re all part of hotel lore. The building of it, how many trips the steamer took to deliver the materials, the grand opening attended by Charlie Chaplin, that sort of thing.

” Seeing her eyebrows lift, he explained, “It was a big deal at the time. My great-grandfather had a knack for marketing.”

“Well, there must have been something else. Something important. A secret.” She narrowed her eyes at Gabby’s photo. “A secret that people are lying about. See this? Where the deepest secrets lie ? She phrased it that way deliberately.”

Looking up, she sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “We have to get back into that library.”

“Agreed.”

Heather nodded. “You know, something Gabby said after her first visit here keeps coming back to me.”

“What’s that?”

“She said, whenever you see a space that’s all-white or nearly so, you have to ask how it came to be like that. It was probably intentional. Like Westerns.”

“Westerns? The movies?”

“Yes, those Westerns, with the high-noon showdowns and the cowboys. A quarter of real-life cowboys were Black, did you know that? A lot of them were freed slaves who fled to the west. But if you watch those old cowboy movies, you’d think they were all white except maybe a few here and there.

Those moviemakers wanted to create a mystique, and Black cowboys weren’t part of that.

They deliberately excluded that part of the reality.

” She paused to take a long sip of the iced tea she’d ordered.

“This is like my tenth iced tea of the day, by the way. Pee breaks incoming. Anyway, the point is, she told me that whenever I find myself in a white space, think about why it’s that way and who made sure it’s like that. ”

“Are you thinking about the Lightkeeper Inn?” He knew exactly why the inn was exclusionary; it was designed that way, had been ever since it was built.

Only the wealthiest, most long-established East Coast families had been welcome, and the fact that it was situated on an island made that easy to enforce.

“Honestly, it’s just something that’s been on my mind since I got back. I never really thought about it before. Now I can’t help noticing.” Her straw made a gurgling sound as she sucked in the last bit of her tea. “Shall we?”

“I’m ready. I suggest we sneak in, though, if we don’t want to be watched the whole time.”

She winked. “Whatever the constable says.”