Page 8

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S HEA

I and my Annabel Lee...

Annabel Lee

ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE PRESENT DAY

“THAT SHOULD DO IT. Holt finished screwing in a new bulb, and light flooded the room, relieving Shea of that little detail.

She rubbed her hand against her thigh, apprehension swirling in her gut. “You didn’t mention there was a murder here fifteen years ago.”

Holt zipped shut the duffel bag of tools and supplies he’d brought with him after Shea’s call that the light fixture had blown out. He smiled, dimples creasing his cheeks. “You mean suicide?”

“That’s not what the documentary I just watched implied.” Shea didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but she was still unnerved.

“Oh, that documentary?” Holt leaned his hip against the table and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “A small crew came up here about three years ago and filmed that. Until that point, no one thought much of Jonathan Marks’s death being more than what was concluded in the end.”

“The documentary brought up good points,” Shea countered.

“Yeah? So did that streaming-service documentary about that killer from your neck of the woods in Wisconsin. Anyone from these parts knows it turned a murderer into a hero.”

“Did it?” Shea tried to squelch her nerves, which brought out the challenger side of her personality.

“I don’t know.” Holt dismissed her with a laugh. “I’ve never paid much attention to true crime—or supposed crime. I live in this area to avoid that sort of thing.”

Shea matched his smile, drew a deep breath, and released it. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so edgy.”

“Sure you do.” Holt reached for his duffel bag and swung the strap over his shoulder. “You just saw a show that told you a guy died in the living room you’re staying in. That’s weird. And then Annabel goes and blows a lightbulb on you.”

“Annabel?” Shea offered a dubious grin.

Holt winked. “She’s blamed for just about everything odd that goes on here at the lighthouse. Just wait. One of these nights you’ll look out onto the shore and see a wispy, white form of a woman and you’ll know it’s true. All the tales of Annabel haunting the area are true.”

“You believe that?” Shea’s curiosity was doing away with the final remnants of her anxiety.

Holt shrugged. “When you’re born and raised around legend, you tend to take it seriously. Stories must come from somewhere, even if they’re not all true.”

Shea motioned for Holt to put down his duffel bag and make himself comfortable. The world outside was dark. The sound of the lake was rhythmic in its pattern. She was alone in a lighthouse, and with her curiosity and anxiety both piqued, she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. She didn’t mind the company.

A sideways glance at Holt as he made his way home reminded her that there was also probably a bit of selfish motive in her invitation. He was intoxicating. The way he listened to her. Bantered with her. Interacted with her. Heck, he even completed a full coherent sentence versus one-word grunts. Maybe she should feel guilty for her attraction, and part of her did. The part of her that remembered the Sunday school teachers pounding the Ten Commandments into her as a kid. But it was obvious to even a mosquito on the wall that her and Pete’s marriage had an expiration date. Didn’t it?

“So then. What do you believe about Annabel?” Shea reached for a mug. “Tea?” She followed up her first question with a second.

“Sure.” Holt nodded. “What do you know about Annabel?” He countered Shea’s original question with his own. As he did so, he sank onto a chair at the table and hoisted his boot-clad feet onto the seat of another.

Shea set a kettle under the farmhouse sink’s faucet and turned the water on to fill it. “Well, I know she was one of the first group of European women who moved to and settled in this area.”

“Back in the late 1840s, yes,” Holt responded.

“And I know she died in 1852, but no one knows where she’s buried.”

“Fact.” Holt’s words reassured Shea she was going in the right direction.

She placed the kettle on the stove and reached for the knob to increase the heat on the burner, then laughed when she remembered it was literally an old-fashioned cookstove.

“Add some wood to the firebox,” Holt suggested with a sideways smile.

Shea laughed softly. “Yes, sir.” As she reached for kindling in the woodbox next to the stove, she continued, “Lore states that Annabel’s cause of death is up for debate. She drowned in Lake Superior, we know that, but why and how is what’s questioned.”

“Yep.” Holt reached for a paper napkin from the middle of the table and began to fold it into a triangle. “Some say she rowed the skiff out as far as she could and waited for the lake to claim her. Others say she was fleeing something or someone and drowned.”

Shea paused and turned with a frown. “Well now, this brings up a question in my mind. I wonder . . .”

“Wonder what?” Holt matched her furrowed brow.

“Well, Jonathan Marks died here. Annabel died here.”

“Mmm, not exactly.” Holt shook his head. “The lighthouse wasn’t built when Annabel died.”

Shea frowned, trying to understand. “That’s even weirder. How is it she haunts the lighthouse then? Why is it called ‘Annabel’s Lighthouse’?”

Holt’s chuckle warmed her insides. “Because even ghosts need a place to live.” His grin blindsided her with its charm. “I mean, it’s hardly fair she has to wander the shore forever. As for her death and then Jonathan Marks’s death, well, that’s just an interesting coincidence.”

Shea held her index finger in the air. “Gibbs’s rule number thirty-nine: There’s no such thing as coincidence.”

Holt shifted in his chair. “Quoting fictional television characters won’t win you an argument.” He chuckled.

Shea tipped her head. “Sure, but it’s still true.”

“So your plan now is to tie Annabel’s and Jonathan Marks’s deaths to the lighthouse and solve both of their deaths?” Holt’s mouth was set in a teasing line, and Shea couldn’t help but laugh at herself.

“No. I’m just here to learn about Annabel and who she was. I want to feature the lighthouse and its lore. I just wasn’t expecting more current ‘lore’ to impact the story. It just makes me think, that’s all, nothing more, I guess. That being said, Annabel is an icon for this lighthouse, but I need more info than what I’ve got. I need to know her full name, where she was born, what brought her to the U.P., who she was attached to here, and so on. I still want to know more about why she’s associated with a lighthouse that wasn’t built until the 1860s, after her death.”

“That last part is easy.” Holt slid his feet off the chair and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.

Shea waited, even as the teakettle began to whistle.

“This is where Annabel wanders. The shore out front of the lighthouse. It was right off this point that she’s said to have drowned. When the lighthouse was built, it wasn’t just the keeper who moved in and took over the quarters. Annabel did too.”

Shea curled up in the bed, its pillow-top mattress most assuredly not original to the lighthouse. With three bedrooms to choose from, Shea had opted for the keeper’s room, where she had a good view of the lake. And she wasn’t far from the bathroom, which had been added on in later years. Nor did she have to climb the metal stairs up to the attic with its claustrophobic rooms.

It was past midnight. Holt had stayed for tea, and their conversation soon deviated from Annabel and the lighthouse and the death of Jonathan Marks to more personal history. She’d learned Holt had grown up in the U.P. and later moved to Ontonagon, where he’d been able to put in a bid for the Silvertown Lighthouse—its official name. He’d spent the last two years fixing it up, making sure it met all the necessary requirements for a historical site, and prepping it for rentals. She also learned he’d been married to his high-school sweetheart but was now divorced. He was an only child who didn’t give details about his parents. He was just a good ol’ northern boy with dimples who could swallow her whole.

Shea gave her pillow a punch and tossed onto her side in a restless fit of energy. Her research instincts were in high gear. After the recent revelation about Jonathan Marks, she really wanted to investigate more—and she wanted to not think about the fact that a man had bled all over the floor just below the bedroom she was trying to sleep in.

If she could just sleep, then tomorrow morning she’d plan a trip into Ontonagon and look up Captain Gene, Edna Carraway, and—wasn’t there another person? Her mind was getting foggy, yet her muscles felt taut with energy.

Sleep was elusive.

The floor creaked.

Her eyes popped wide open.

The window rattled.

It was just the wind.

Right?

It had to be just the wind.

The floor creaked again, like the weight of footsteps.

Shea propped herself up on an elbow, narrowing her eyes to see through the darkness.

Silence.

Thirty seconds later, she lowered herself back onto her pillow.

The floor creaked.

“Go to sleep, Annabel,” Shea commanded out loud.

But it didn’t make her feel any better. Especially when she swore she’d heard a whispered “no” echo back from outside the keeper’s bedroom door.