I stood at the bend in the stairs for a moment, watching Connor. Bertie had disappeared, and he was alone. He paced up and down in front of the magazine rack, patting his jacket pocket and mumbling under his breath. Charles wound himself around Connor’s legs. Connor bent down and picked the big cat up. “You okay with this, buddy?” he said.
Charles meowed and rubbed his head into Connor’s chest.
“Okay with what?” I asked.
Connor whirled around. “Lucy. I didn’t see you there.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. You and Charles were having a sweet little private moment there. What was it about?”
“Nothing!” Connor said. “I mean … nothing. Ready?”
“Yup,” I said.
We had a lovely dinner. I told Connor about last night’s book club meeting, and he said he was sorry to have missed it. His own meeting had been boring, repetitive, and totally nonproductive. He asked me if there’d been any developments in the Helena Sanchez murder, and I said I hadn’t heard from Sam Watson or anyone in the police department today. The bill came, and Connor paid as he’d suggested the meal. We went to Connor’s car, and he drove us out of town to the lighthouse.
We sat in the BMW for a few moments as the great first-order Fresnel lens flashed its beacon out to sea. “It’s still early,” I said. “Would you like to come in?”
He cleared his throat. “Actually, Lucy, I’d prefer a walk. How does that sound?”
“It sounds perfect.”
“Is that Louise Jane’s car over there?” He pointed to a rusty old van.
“It is. I wonder what she’s doing here at this time of night.”
“As long as she’s not trying to break into the library once again, I don’t really care.”
“She came with Sheila earlier. Maybe they drove into town together and she left her van to pick up later.”
We got out of the car. Connor took my hand in his, and we headed for the boardwalk. All was quiet. A light breeze blew from the east, bringing the taste of salt and the scent of the ocean. A half-moon hung high in the sky, throwing enough light to almost see by. Connor took out his phone and switched on the flashlight app. In the marsh, frogs croaked and insects chirped. A bat flew overhead. I took a deep breath of the salty air as we stepped onto the boardwalk, and the planks creaked beneath my feet. “I love it here.”
“As do I,” he said.
We walked toward the pier, holding hands, each of us wrapped in our own thoughts.
“So calm. So peaceful,” I said. “So quiet. Most of the time anyway. Although I can’t stop thinking about when I walked this way with Helena Sanchez on Friday night.”
“Lucy …” Connor coughed.
“Still,” I said, “we can’t let that bother us, can we? The lighthouse has seen a lot of things over the years. Not all of them pleasant.”
“No. But tonight, I’d like to think it’s a good night for the lighthouse.”
“It is,” I said.
“What I mean is …” When we were about halfway to the waterfront, he stopped walking. He let go of my hand and I turned to see what he was doing. He turned off the flashlight, put it in his pocket and then put his hands on my arms. He stared into my face. The light from the moon threw deep shadows into the crevices of his handsome face. His sharp cheekbones looked as though they’d been carved by a knife, and his lovely blue eyes glimmered in the moonlight. “Lucy.” He cleared his throat. “Lucy. I—”
A scream shattered the quiet of the night.
I yelped. Connor dropped my arms and whirled around. “Who’s out there?” He fumbled for his phone and switched on the flashlight.
A woman screamed again. Footsteps pounded the boardwalk, coming from the pier, heading our way. Louise Jane burst into the small circle of light cast by Connor’s phone. Behind her a brighter light broke the darkness of the marsh.
“What are you doing here?” Louise Jane shouted.
“What are you doing here?” Connor bellowed.
“What’s going on?” I yelled.
Sheila arrived, preceded by a circle of bright light, breathing heavily.
“Get that light out of my face!” Connor snapped at her. “I can’t see a blasted thing.”
She did so, and our feet and lower legs were lit up.
“Louise Jane.” Connor lowered his voice and his words came out slow and measured. “What is going on here?”
“I thought you were … it … him,” Sheila said. “Why’d you turn off your light anyway? No one walks around out here in the dark unless they’re up to no good.”
I refrained from pointing out that we’d done just that last Friday when Louise Jane told us stories.
“I don’t think I need to answer to you,” Connor said.
“You have to leave, right now,” Louise Jane said. “We can try to get him back.”
“Get who back?” Connor asked.
My breathing slowly returned to normal. I recognized the object in Sheila’s left hand. “That’s our book! I don’t believe it. You’re out here, creeping around in the middle of the night trying to contact Jeff Applewhite.”
“We can do what we want in the marsh, Lucy,” Louise Jane said. “This isn’t library property. We’re not creeping. Besides, it’s hardly the middle of the night. It’s barely ten o’clock.”
“That makes a big difference,” Connor said. “Louise Jane, please.”
“If I must,” she said. “We’re hoping we can use the book Jeff Applewhite took out of the library after he went missing, with or without the Blackstone necklace, to contact him.”
“What I meant,” Connor said, “is please go away. I didn’t mean tell me your fool of a story.”
“It was my idea,” Sheila said. “When I found out what a powerful connection Louise Jane has with the spirit world, I knew we had to give it a try.”
“You’re assuming Jeff is … uh … hanging around out here,” I said. “Why would he do that?”
“He took the necklace and he disappeared,” Sheila said. “It’s natural to assume he stole it for underworld figures, and they of course
