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S HEA

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee...

Annabel Lee

ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE PRESENT DAY

SHEA SLIPPED ONTO A BARSTOOL, and Penny set the requested Coke in front of her, bubbling over ice with a plastic straw. “So you think that Jonathan was murdered?” Penny confirmed, leaning her elbows on the bar.

Shea took a sip of Coke. “I have a strong suspicion. There’s potential motive for someone to take him out, and zero motive for Jonathan to have done it to himself.”

Penny nodded.

The strains of country music filtered through the bar as they shared a companionable silence, both lost in their thoughts. Shea had left Pete at the lighthouse. Now Shea was trying to collect the fragments of her research.

“I found out the Rebecca that Jonathan Marks was researching was actually Hilliard’s daughter,” Shea said, watching Penny’s reaction closely because she wasn’t sure at this point whether she trusted anyone in Silvertown or Ontonagon.

Penny’s lips thinned. “Edna told you that?”

“Yes,” Shea replied. “It was Edna who told me, although there are no online records or anything to corroborate it.”

Penny nodded. “I suppose that makes sense. They wouldn’t have kept detailed records—not back then when these parts were just being inhabited by settlers. So that means Jonathan’s theory was probably correct.”

“You know about his theory?” Shea frowned, wondering why Penny hadn’t offered it up prior to this.

Penny adjusted the earring in her ear that was on its way to freedom. Pushing its hook back through the hole, she smoothed the side of her peppery-gray hair. “Pieces of it. Not much.”

Shea searched for the right questions and came up short. “I don’t know where to go from here. Did Jonathan have a journal, or notes, or keep his research in the cloud? Was he close to anyone around here, someone he might have confided in?”

Penny started folding a square cocktail napkin into an origami crane.

“Penny?” Shea raised a brow, sensing Penny was way too interested in the napkin.

Penny bent a wing into place, then pressed the crane flat against the bar. “Fine.” She lifted her eyes, and there was an admission in them that surprised Shea. She hefted a deep breath. “Jonathan and I were ... well, we were in a relationship.”

“I know.” Shea clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Penny winced. “Marnie tell you? Well, Jonathan and I never really told anyone, but she’s as nosy as they come.”

Penny ran a fingernail along the seam in the back of the paper crane. “I’ve not spoken about my relationship with Jonathan because I feel if someone was willing to kill him over a ridiculously old history lesson, then they might be willing to do it again.” Sheepishness spread across Penny’s face. “I don’t want to be involved, Shea. I don’t have any need to be near this story.” There was a bitterness in her tone that Shea wanted to respect, and yet she couldn’t help but feel distrustful of Penny. Was she being completely forthright with Shea ... in anything she said?

“Penny, when I spoke to Mr. Fronell, he said the only person who had the right to talk about Rebecca was your father, Captain Gene. Edna was reticent to talk about her too, even though she finally did. Is it really because she’s still being blamed a century later for the downfall of Silvertown’s mining opportunities?” Shea gave a doubtful look to Penny. “What is it about this Rebecca that is so sacred that it’s your father’s ‘right’ to talk about her and no one else?”

Penny looked away and then turned and disappeared between the hanging doors that separated the bar from the kitchen.

Well, that went well . Shea reached for the paper crane and fiddled with it as she considered her next move. A few moments later, Penny returned, a cardboard box in her hands.

She plopped the box onto the bar in front of Shea. “Open it.”

Shea met Penny’s frank gaze, then slowly she unfolded the cardboard flaps. Inside were a pile of notes, newspaper clippings, a beat-up old book about Annabel’s Lighthouse, and a sheaf of dot matrix printed paper.

Penny pointed at the dot matrix papers. “Have a look at those.”

Shea pulled the first page from the box. It was a family tree of sorts, listing Penny’s name, her father’s, and those of relatives that branched off until showing the current generation and time.

“Now take a look at the next page,” Penny directed.

Shea flipped the page, reading aloud, “Your dad’s father was Timothy, who was born in 1932.”

“Keep going.”

“His father was Ralph.”

“And?” Penny led.

Shea leaned forward, unsure if she was reading it correctly. Her eyes shot up to Penny, and Penny’s face confirmed the truth. “Ralph was the son of Aaron Hilliard? Who is Aaron Hilliard?”

“Keep looking,” Penny urged. “Those are Jonathan’s notes. I don’t know where he found out all this stuff or if it’s even true.” She didn’t look pleased. In fact, she looked quite nervous.

Shea followed the hand-scribbled family tree. “Aaron is a half brother to Rebecca, and Rebecca is ... the daughter of Annabel?” Shea couldn’t help the higher octave in her voice. “Why didn’t you just come out and tell me this at the very beginning? You’re Annabel’s great-great-great niece!”

Penny pursed her lips. “When Jonathan discovered that, that’s when things went wrong for him. I didn’t want the same to happen to anyone else. But you’re too deep into this now. After Pete’s accident, well, now it all just needs to end. I just want it to go away.”

Shea grappled with the logic of it. “Is this because of that missing silver map?”

Penny’s face was ashen with withheld secrets. “If the map still exists—if the silver vein still exists—it could impact this area in so many ways. Conservation and land rights are likely to be contested—it would be opening a huge can of worms. Not to mention if someone finds the map to the silver vein, if it’s on private property, they could offer to buy the land without mentioning what they knew, and then all that silver would be theirs. There are so many ifs and buts, Shea.”

“You mean...?”

Penny nodded emphatically.

Shea completed her thought aloud. “If there is a silver vein in these woods, then the bust of the 1870s needn’t have happened. Whoever finds the map can potentially revive it and that creates—”

“Land war potential. Conservation issues. A whole mess, not to mention a lot of locals will want to dig into it and revive the wealth,” Penny inserted.

“And lay claim to it. Which means the value of what Rebecca stole from her father is very significant.”

“Also,” Penny went on, “if you’re a local, you probably believe that Annabel’s ghost will do anything to avenge any wrongs committed against her—and against her daughter.”

Shea sat straighter on her barstool. “You’re not saying...”

Penny’s lips flattened in resignation before she answered, “They say if a person gets too close to Rebecca’s secret, they also get too close to Annabel. And Annabel isn’t a friendly ghost where her daughter is concerned.”

“Or her legacy,” Shea added.

“But no one knows if Jonathan Marks ever found the map,” Shea concluded, recounting her conversation with Penny.

Pete rested in a lounge chair in the yard not far from the lighthouse and almost directly in the spot where he’d been hit by the car. The chair was padded with pillows, and he wore sunglasses to block the setting sun that reflected off the lake. It was quiet tonight, restful, almost as though the lake were relieved to have some of its secrets revealed.

“I can’t get over Annabel being a part of Penny’s family tree.” Shea shook her head, bending forward in her lawn chair to rest her elbows on her knees. “There’s so much I could put in my book now, but then I’m not sure about the infringement on privacy. Penny wants nothing to do with the map. In fact, she doesn’t really want to talk about this with anyone.”

“I guess finding Captain Gene isn’t important now,” Pete said.

“Isn’t it? If anyone would know if the map was ever found, I would think it would be him!” Shea declared.

“Why?”

She twisted to eye Pete as though he’d not even been listening. But then maybe his mind didn’t work like hers in connecting invisible dots. “Jonathan would have known the connection between Penny and her ancestry all the way back to Annabel. As conscientious about things as he supposedly was, if he’d found the map, he would’ve known the map at least—maybe not the land where the silver vein might be—should technically belong to Captain Gene, the next of kin.”

Pete lowered his sunglasses a bit. “Captain Gene.”

“Yes. He’s Rebecca’s nephew many times removed. Technically, Captain Gene is a descendant of Hilliard, who originally owned the bulk of Silvertown.” The breeze picked up and lifted some of Shea’s curls and blew them across her face. She pulled them away, paying no mind to Pete’s silence because it was customary. “Anyway, someone must’ve killed Jonathan because he had either found the map, and they wanted it, or he knew where it was.” Shea hesitated. Her conclusion still seemed questionable. “But why kill him if only he knew where the map was? Did he tell his killer before he died? Or did he have the map, and they killed him to get the map?”

“You’re making my head hurt,” Pete grumbled.

Shea ignored him. “The other thing is, I can’t get past the whole story of Annabel’s ghost.”

Pete seemed to agree. “Yeah, that’s weird. It’s a stretch for anyone to believe Annabel’s ghost smashed your windshield or drove that car into me.”

“Right?” Shea said.

She was enjoying the fact that Pete wasn’t off in a garage working on his cars and trucks. She had his attention, and she really liked that. She also wondered at his sudden willingness to engage with her. Maybe it was because his convalescing was forcing Pete to have to slow down. Or maybe he had really listened to her—listened to what her needs and desires were—even though, she had to admit, she’d shown herself to be acting selfishly as well.

“Edna said that Annabel’s ghost was quiet throughout the decades until Jonathan came along. I find that suspicious,” Shea mused.

Pete shot back a quick answer. “Maybe Annabel’s ghost is only a cover. You know, for someone who’s dead set on getting their hands on that map.”

Shea’s eyes widened. She looked at Pete. “Wait...”

“What is it?” Pete asked.

“Edna Carraway is the one who first told me about Annabel being protective. Penny said Edna sometimes shares ‘dementia-inspired’ tales. And I was at Edna’s house when my windshield was vandalized.”

“So?” Pete scowled. “What’s the connection?”

Shea frowned. “I know Edna didn’t do it, but if she concocted the idea of Annabel being protective of her legacy, then someone else had to have adopted the same idea.”

“You have someone in mind?”

“Marnie.” Shea leveled a look on Pete. “It has to be Marnie.”

“Edna’s daughter? The waitress at the diner?”

“It makes sense—at least that Marnie would know about the concept of Annabel’s ghost and her protective nature.”

Pete summarized, “So you think Marnie is after the silver map, and she’s the one who killed Jonathan Marks for it? Now you’re stretching, Shea.”

He was right. Shea collapsed back into her lawn chair, staring over the lake and wishing Annabel’s ghost would just walk up to them and tell them what had happened. “I’m never going to figure this out, am I?” Shea mumbled.

Pete’s low chuckle was her answer, followed by a contented sigh. “Probably not. But, if nothing else, Annabel has done one thing.”

“What’s that?” Shea asked.

Pete smiled. “She got you and me talking again. I’d say that’s a big accomplishment—for a ghost.”

It dawned on Shea in the middle of the night—like most things did when she was lying in bed wide awake with insomnia.

Annabel’s grave.

Penny had mentioned it wasn’t far away from the lighthouse. And if so, maybe there was a clue there that would help Shea put all the pieces together.

She knew she should wait until morning to go check it out. But as alert as she was, dawn seemed ages away. So Shea slipped from bed and dressed quietly in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. She left a note on the kitchen table just in case Pete woke up looking for her in the next fifteen minutes. She didn’t intend to be gone long, but the moon was almost full, the lake was calm, and the evening had been beautiful. All she needed was a flashlight and she’d be good to go.

Finding one in a kitchen cabinet, Shea flicked it on and exited the lighthouse. In the moonlight, the lighthouse itself towered like a sentinel, dark and unyielding, but also dormant. Its lantern no longer glowed as it had back in the day when it was essential for ships traversing Lake Superior.

Unsure where exactly Annabel’s grave was located, Shea started off toward the woods. This was also in the direction of Silvertown. Because the woods were sparser here, the area seemed more conducive to a graveyard. She swept the flashlight’s beam into the woods as she hiked between the trees. Exploring the woods at night was sort of fun—except a nagging sensation told her it was probably foolhardy if her theories proved to be true. Her theories were based on the argument that none of the recent happenings that involved damage or injury were accidental.

If someone was lurking in these woods, which were in the shadow of the lighthouse, and now Shea was announcing her nosy presence with a flashlight, scanning the area with its beam...

Smart, Shea. Real smart.

She flicked it off and plunged herself into darkness illuminated only by the moon. Yeah. She hadn’t thought this through. Shea was turning to traipse back through the woods toward the lighthouse when the toe of her shoe collided with something hard and sharp sticking up out of the earth.

“You’re kidding me,” she muttered under her breath, then squatted close to the ground, daring to flick the flashlight back on. Sure enough, the corner of a gravestone stuck out from the fern and the undergrowth.

Shea set the flashlight on the ground and made quick work of pulling wet leaves and other debris from atop the stone, and then she sat back on her heels.

There in carved letters was Annabel’s name.

Date of death said 1852, but there was nothing else. No other clues. Nothing to confirm Shea’s theories and recategorize them as facts.

“Hello, Annabel,” Shea whispered almost reverently. She ran a finger along the etching of the name. “What have you been hiding all these years? Why is the lighthouse so important to people?”

As if Annabel heard her, the breeze picked up, sending leaves swirling around Shea. Surprised by the sudden gust of wind, Shea fell onto her hip. Her left hand shot out to brace herself, and her palm scraped against another stone, buried beneath more debris.

Another stone?

Shea clawed at the moss and leaves that covered it. Like An nabel’s grave marker, this one also lay flat on the ground. Forgotten, untended, a story untold.

She grabbed the flashlight and held it over the name etched in this stone—this unknown stone.

Edgar.

Just a name.

No date.

Nothing to memorialize this man who had once lived.

Nothing to tell her why he had been laid to rest beside the tomb of Annabel and her lighthouse.