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S HEA

The angels, not half so happy as in heaven, went envying her and me...

Annabel Lee

ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE PRESENT DAY

“WANT TO GO HOME?

Pete stood in the doorway of the lightkeeper’s bedroom, coffee mug in hand, leaning against the doorjamb.

Shea wrestled the blankets away from her shoulders as she sat up in the bed, bleary-eyed and wishing she could take a longer nap after not sleeping much last night. “What time is it?” she asked.

Pete glanced at his watch. “Three p.m.”

“No, I don’t want to go home.” Shea sprang from her afternoon nest in bed and straightened her shirt over her leggings. She ruffled her curls and then gave up and reached for a baseball cap she’d hung on the bed rail. Smashing it onto her curls, she wiped the sleep from her eyes. “I want to find out what’s going on.”

Pete frowned, the blue of his flannel shirt making his eyes more vibrant. “I don’t know if it’s safe.”

“I’m not afraid of corn-syrup blood,” Shea retorted with a small grin. If Pete should know anything about her after a decade of marriage, it was that when challenged, she stiffened her upper lip and met it. She wasn’t the type to run to the hills, cry foul, or give up.

“Then I’ll stay longer.”

Okay, that wasn’t what she’d meant. “I don’t need you to protect me, Pete.” Shea patted his chest as she slipped past him and out the door of the bedroom. He followed. “I will be fine.”

“I kinda like it here, though.” He either ignored or didn’t pick up her subtle hint that he wasn’t particularly welcome. “I’m surprised.”

“I told you that you would three years ago when I asked you to come to Silvertown for our anniversary.” Rebecca jogged down the narrow stairs to the sitting room and into the kitchen. She looked around for her purse. Finding it, she rifled inside for her keys, then remembered she didn’t have a car. “Can I take your truck?”

Pete’s expression remained placid—like usual. “Sure.”

“Great, where are your keys?”

“I’ll drive.” He set his mug on the table and edged past her toward the entryway, removing his keys from his pocket and exiting the house.

Shea released a puff of frustrated air and closed her eyes, seeking internal fortitude and patience. “Why?” She moaned to herself and then followed Pete out the door.

He was already in his truck and waiting when she reached for the passenger door. She didn’t get in but waited until Pete looked at her.

“Pete, I want to do this by myself.”

“I know” was all he said.

“Then can I take your truck?” Shea pressed.

Pete twisted in his seat to give her a direct look as she stood on the ground with the passenger door open. “No. I’m going with you.” There was an edge to his voice that made her bristle.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Seriously.” Pete’s eyes took on a steely glint. “I don’t care how much you don’t like my company, Shea, I’m not messing around with your safety.”

She snorted. “No one is trying to kill me, Pete.”

“A busted windshield?” he countered.

“Vandalism.”

“Fake blood on the window and a creeper outside?” he shot back.

“A tourist being stupid.” Shea used the police’s reasoning.

“A man suspiciously dying in the lighthouse.” Pete made it into a statement.

“Fifteen years ago.” Shea had the distinct feeling she was losing this battle.

“A ghost with a vendetta against anyone who lives in the lighthouse.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Shea half laughed in exasperation and half glared at him. “Pete! You don’t believe in ghosts.”

“No, and I don’t believe in coincidences, and I don’t believe in leaving you hanging out to dry.”

“You’re not,” Shea reassured her husband, at the same time realizing that one thing was certain about Pete. He could always be counted on. He was predictable. A creature of habit. But that included being there when she needed him—if not emotionally, at least physically. “I want to be left alone. It’s why I came here in the first place.”

“To get away from me,” Pete added, yet there was no hurt in his voice or expression.

Shea hesitated. They’d never had a frank discussion about their dying relationship. She’d just been really good at expressing herself when it came to what she wasn’t happy with, and Pete was really good at not expressing that he cared.

“Pete—”

“Get in, Shea.” He patted the seat next to him in a friendly gesture. “You may not like me here, but I don’t like you here alone. So we’re at an impasse.”

“You’re acting like I can’t take care of myself.” Shea climbed into the cab of the truck.

“Why do women think when a man wants to protect them, they’re assuming the man thinks the woman isn’t tough?”

Shea had no answer to that, so she shut the door as Pete fired up the truck.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he shifted the vehicle into reverse.

Shea drew a steadying breath. She wanted to rant at him, but at the same time, a piece of her melted as she stared straight ahead, trying to figure out how Pete had pieced together a question longer than two words.

“I’m trying to find Captain Gene.” Shea leaned against the counter at the diner, very aware of Pete hovering behind her and making a pretense of looking at postcards on a rack. It was obvious that even though he’d come with her with an intent to protect, he was trying to be considerate and stay out of her way.

Marnie gave Shea an apologetic smile. “Hon, I don’t know what to tell you. The last time the captain was in the diner was just after Christmas.”

“I have this gut feeling he could fill in some of the blanks surrounding the history of the lighthouse,” Shea said, her shoulders dipping in disappointment. Out of all the locals she’d been advised to chat with, Captain Gene seemed too interesting not to try to find.

Marnie tucked a piece of graying hair behind her ear. “And Mom couldn’t give you enough info?”

Shea smiled kindly. “We were interrupted by the windshield thing.”

Marnie rolled her eyes. “That was awful. Mom is still talking about it. But seriously, she’d love to still chat with you! Fill in any blanks she can for your research.”

Shea glanced over her shoulder at Pete, then back at Marnie. “Do you know anything about a woman named Rebecca? Apparently, she was tied to the lighthouse as well, and Jonathan Marks had been digging into her story when things got ... weird.”

Marnie’s face fell, and a shadow crossed her eyes. “Oh. That story.”

Shea waited.

Marnie tapped her fingernail on the counter and gave Shea a frank stare. “I don’t understand what all the hoopla was about. Jonathan was so interested in it, though, and then ... well, you know. Just everything about that lighthouse consumed him.”

“You knew Jonathan too?” Shea asked.

“Too?” Marnie questioned.

“I was talking to Penny at the Dipstick Saloon and—”

“Oh.” Marnie shook her head. “Penny.” Then she glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping and lowered her voice. “Penny gets a little vicious. You need to be careful with her.”

“What do you mean?” Shea asked. She felt Pete step closer behind her and knew something in Marnie’s tone had piqued his curiosity.

Marnie sighed, “Oh, gosh, I hate talking ill about folks, but Penny sort of had a thing for Jonathan. Even back in high school. And when he moved back to the area, at first it was like he was too good for her, and then for some reason things changed. While staying at the lighthouse, he started confiding in her or ... or something.”

Shea waited.

Marnie sniffed, straightening a pile of diner receipts, stabbing them through with the metal prong of the receipt holder. “Penny never really liked me. She thinks my mother tells stories. She has all sorts of her own theories—especially when it comes to Jonathan being killed.”

“What do you think happened?” Shea was willing to set aside her quest to find the elusive legend, Captain Gene, in light of Marnie’s willingness to confide.

“I don’t know.” Marnie’s gaze was direct and honest. “I really don’t. Whether he was just done with life or something more nefarious happened.” Marnie sighed. “I just know that nothing about Annabel’s Lighthouse has ever been just nice, sweet history. There’s something off there, like a curse. And this Rebecca ... I don’t know about her. My mother might.” Marnie reached out and gave Shea’s arm a pat. “Believe me, there are times I wish that lighthouse didn’t exist.” Her eyes brightened then. “Oh! Did you chat with August Fronell? Remember how I mentioned to you a few days ago that he’s the other whiz about the area? He might know about this Rebecca character.”

Shea had forgotten about him. She had heard his name the first day scouting in Ontonagon, so it’d be worth following up on.

“Thanks, Marnie.” She offered a grateful smile to the woman, who returned it.

“Anytime, hon. And, really, don’t be shy to knock on Mom’s door. I promise, we don’t make it a habit to have bricks thrown through the windshields of our guests’ cars.”

Shea laughed even as Marnie lifted her hand in a wave to Pete. “Nice to meet you!”

He dipped his head in his silent way.

Marnie leaned forward. “Gosh, hon, you do have a looker of a hubby, I tell you!” A conspiratorial wink and her declara tion floated over Shea’s shoulders right to Pete, whose mouth twitched only slightly in the wake of the compliment.

Shea led the way out of the diner. She’d not told Marnie that Pete was her husband, but apparently word had gotten around town fast. And a looker? Shea gave Pete a sideways glance. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Average. Average was the word she’d always used to describe Pete. But for a moment, she saw him through Marnie’s eyes. Square jaw, broad shoulders, unshaven whiskers ... he was all right, she supposed.

But all right didn’t make up for everything else. Everything she thought she wanted but didn’t have. Everything she had but didn’t think she wanted.

“Fronell?”

“Hmm?” Shea’s head shot up, and she realized they were standing next to Pete’s truck. He was waiting for her next move. “Oh. Sure. Yes.”

“K.” Pete rounded the truck to the driver’s side and hopped in.

Shea climbed into the truck also, wishing for the first time in a long while that she could continue to see Pete through Marnie’s eyes. Attractive. A “hubby.” It was sexy and endearing simultaneously, though right now Shea could see only Pete. Just good ol’ Pete.

They’d uncovered that August Fronell lived in the local nursing home after Shea had given Marnie a quick call back at the diner to ask. She should’ve just asked when they were there, but Marnie’s comments about Pete had more than distracted her.

When Pete pulled into the parking lot of the one-story, sprawling center, Shea grimaced. “Eek. I hope I die before I get to this point.”

“Why?” Pete hopped from the car.

“Because.” Shea followed. “Think about it. No family to visit you. A bunch of strangers taking care of your day-to-day needs. I value my independence too much.”

Pete shrugged as they walked side by side into the facility. “Might be nice.”

Shea gave him a sideways look. “How so?”

“Three meals a day. Nice nurses.”

“Nurses, huh?” Shea shot him a look. “I get it.”

Pete didn’t answer, he didn’t even smile, he just held the door for Shea, and she entered ahead of him. At the registration desk, she got the directions to Mr. Fronell’s room, and they started down the appropriate wing.

“I need to ask him what he knows about Annabel, about this Rebecca, and about Jonathan Marks,” Shea said, even though Pete didn’t seem to take much interest in anything but following her. “I’m curious if Rebecca even plays a part in the story, or if she’s just a rabbit trail. I do need to stay focused on my book too. I don’t know if my editor wants me to go too deep into the conspiracy theories surrounding the history of the lighthouse or focus strictly on Annabel’s thread.”

Again, no response from Pete, but it didn’t matter because they’d reached the door of Mr. Fronell’s apartment. Shea knocked. Waited. Then knocked again.

“Door’s open!” a wobbly voice hollered.

Shea pushed it open and was instantly assaulted by the scent of peppermint, stale air, and the heat of a thousand fires. The elderly man must’ve had his thermostat set to eight-two. She noticed Pete push his sleeves up his arms after he closed the door.

August Fronell was a small man. His frame was bent at the shoulders, and his ears looked too large for his face. Wispy white hair was neatly combed, and he wore dress pants and a cardigan as though he were a little old accountant who’d forgotten he was retired. He sat in a wheelchair, his feet encased in black orthopedic shoes.

“Mr. Fronell, I’m—”

“Shea Radclyffe.” The man was sharp as a whistle, as were his brown eyes. “Heard rumblings you were in town asking questions for your next book.”

“You’ve read my books?” She smiled in pleased surprise.

“Nope. Not a one,” Mr. Fronell retorted.

Pete gave a suspicious clearing of his throat.

Shea quickly swallowed her humble pie. “Well, you heard correctly. I have a lot of questions, if you’d be willing to chat with me?”

Mr. Fronell eyed her for a second. “You’d be better off chatting with Gene.”

“Captain Gene?” Shea’s interest perked at the same time she felt instant disappointment. August Fronell didn’t seem to want company.

“Gene’s the one who knows everything. ’Course, no one takes his stories seriously. Just stories, they all believe.”

“And you don’t?” Shea inquired.

Mr. Fronell gave her a sharp look. “Gene don’t lie. What Gene says, is. That’s the truth of it.”

“When you say he knows ‘everything’...”

“I mean everything.” Mr. Fronell nodded. His hands massaged the arms of his wheelchair in a reflexive motion he probably didn’t even realize he was doing. “He knows the truth about Annabel’s Lighthouse and everything that ever went on there. Not to mention Pressie.”

“The mysterious creature of Lake Superior?” Pete inserted to Shea’s surprise.

Mr. Fronell smiled, his gaze bypassing Shea to take in Pete. “You betcha! You heard of Pressie?”

Pete nodded, and Mr. Fronell didn’t seem to take offense at Pete’s lack of words.

“There’s a lot more hiding in the depths of Lake Superior than folks realize. Pressie, the shipwrecks, dead bodies, loot, treasure—it’s all there.”

“Treasure?” Shea interrupted skeptically, and Mr. Fronell shot her an almost irritated look.

“Sure. Shipwrecks carry more than just basic cargo.”

To Shea’s surprise, Pete said, “I was reading a book on the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald .”

Mr. Fronell snapped his fingers. “I was around for that one. It was 1975, and that shipwreck was one for the books. I was friends with a fella from the other ship the Fitzgerald was on the waters with.”

This had nothing to do with Annabel. Shea was growing antsy, but Pete followed Mr. Fronell’s wave to take a seat, and he lowered himself onto the couch.

Shea stood in disbelief at the sudden camaraderie between the two men. The very unhelpful camaraderie.

“Did you know that in ’94 they found a body of one of the crew members?” Fronell’s grin wiped away any irritation from earlier.

“I didn’t.” Pete shook his head.

“Yep. And they’ve retrieved the ship’s bell—all two hundred pounds of it. You can see that in the museum in Paradise.”

“We should go.” Pete glanced up at Shea.

He had to be kidding. But Shea let the men talk. Fronell was warming up to Pete, and in the meantime she was collecting her thoughts and how to segue from shipwrecks to Annabel’s Lighthouse.

Pete looked back to Fronell. “So aside from the Fitzgerald , do you know of other shipwrecks?”

Fronell waved him off with a throaty chuckle. “All sorts of them. There’s over ten thousand in the Great Lakes.”

“Ten thousand?” Shea interjected.

Fronell seemed to have forgotten she was there, and he startled. “Only about three hundred and fifty or so in Lake Superior,” he added with a scowl. “Don’t know that they count the little ones in there.”

“Little ones?” Pete prodded.

“Yeah. Like Annabel’s,” Fronell said.

Shea sent Pete a wide-eyed look. He’d totally gained the man’s trust and then somehow expertly directed the conversation back to the point Shea had tried to start at. Only this time Fronell was relaxed—as long as she didn’t interrupt.

“Annabel was in a shipwreck?” Pete pressed.

Fronell crinkled his nose. “Not really. Her skiff broke to pieces in the waves. She drowned. I don’t think they tabulate those little ones into the calculation of ships lost in the lake.”

“Why was Annabel in a skiff on the lake?” Shea inserted, taking the liberty to ease herself onto the arm of the couch by Pete and hoping her question didn’t shut Fronell up.

He seemed to tolerate her inquiry. “A spat with her husband, they say. An’ if we knew Annabel’s last name, we could maybe figure out who her husband was. Anyway, Gene knows more, but she was married to a man in Silvertown back in the early days of the copper mines. She was married and died the same year, I think it was, and she was one of the few White women in the area at the time. Story goes, she and her husband got in a fiery spat, and Annabel pushed out in the skiff right as a storm was blowing up. Nothing her husband could do but watch as the skiff was tossed about and broke apart. Couldn’t get to her. She died just off the shoreline where the lighthouse is today.”

That was more than Shea had ever heard.

“Did they recover her body?” she had to ask.

Fronell gave a short nod. “They did. Buried her in the woods not far from the lighthouse.”

Another new discovery. Shea bit back a smile of excitement.

Fronell continued. “Her grave was marked by an old stone. Probably tipped and grown over by now. I last saw it back in the 1980s, but there’s been no reason to go back there.”

“Have you heard of a woman named Rebecca?” Shea asked.

Fronell’s head whipped around, and he skewered her with a look. “Why do you ask?”

“Um ... the name just happened to come up in my research.” Shea tiptoed around the truth. She was hesitant to bring up Jonathan Marks, especially as she still sat there speared by Fronell’s dark eyes.

“Leave Rebecca out of it. It’ll go better for you and everyone else.”

Shea frowned. “But—”

Pete’s hand on her knee stopped her, and she stared at him with annoyance. Pete ignored her. “Rebecca is more off-limits than Annabel.” It was a statement acquiescing to Fronell’s directive.

The elderly man shifted his attention to Pete and gave him a nod. “Annabel has turned legend. Folks round here love a story of a ghost set on vengeance or love—both are debated. But only a few of us old-timers know of Rebecca—and we don’t talk about Rebecca. She did no good for this area. None at all.”

“But...” Shea started, then bit her tongue. It hadn’t once crossed her mind that Rebecca might be disliked according to the historical accounts. That she might be someone not worth remembering, maybe even a villainess in the story of Annabel.

“ Gene is the only one who has the right to talk about Rebecca,” Fronell finished. And it was final. Shea could read it in his expression and knew it by the way Pete stood and shook hands with the man.

The conversation was over, although now Shea wanted to find out more than anything who Rebecca was, why Captain Gene had the right to speak of her, and where in the Porkies the elusive captain might be?

A NNABEL

THERE’S A WISTFULNESS IN DYING.

The world becomes quiet around you.

But I can see your face. I can see in your eyes how you wish me dead.

So I will die.

For you.

I will die because of your hatred and your desperate love.

I will die for all you gave to me and all you refused me.

When death comes calling, I answer it.

When the tempest swells, I row into it.

My life is worth nothing, but you—you are worth everything.

There is a wistfulness in dying, for the loss of what was, what is, and what could be.

The loss of what could be is what haunts me most.

It’s the what that will never be that will chase after you when I am gone, riding on the cold breath of my watery vengeance. I shall never release you, my heart and my soul. You are what gave me breath. You are what gave me death.

I made my vows, and I shall keep them.

Even in death we shall not part.