Harbour Falls (8 page)

“I guess so, since it’s your
island
,” I muttered under my breath.

Adam shot me a cocky grin, having heard me, as he unlocked the metal door. I rolled my eyes, again. Only this time it was in pretend exasperation. Chuckling, he pushed the creaky door open.

I took a few tentative steps inside and faltered when a sudden, inexplicable feeling of unease rushed over me in the cool and damp surroundings. Adam was beside me in an instant. “Are you OK?” he asked.

Though it made little sense, his proximity comforted me. I didn’t know if it was my head—or more likely my heart—talking, but I wanted to believe Adam was innocent of any involvement in Chelsea’s disappearance. I wanted to believe he was just another victim in this whole Harbour Falls Mystery mess.

Despite the chill in the air, my traitorous body warmed as he moved closer. “Maddy?” he asked, his voice laden with concern.

Whatever weird moment I’d had, had passed. “Yeah, I’m fine. I guess I just needed a minute.”

My eyes adjusted to the dimly lit interior, and I glanced around. A winding iron staircase circled up and up. Standing in the center of the lighthouse, staring up, it had the appearance of a black snail that had attached itself to the smooth, conical interior walls. A few tiny, recessed windows along the staircase provided the only illumination, dust motes swirling in the strips of light streaming in.

“Can we go up?” I asked, nodding to the spiraling steps.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “But we’ll have to be careful. It’s damp in here, and the steps are bound to be slippery.” And many of them were, but Adam was right behind me the whole way up. Ready to catch me if I fell.

Higher and higher we ascended. I stopped counting the steps when I reached two hundred, gasping when I made the mistake of glancing down.

I felt Adam’s hands come to rest above my hips. “I’m right behind you; you’ll be fine,” he promised. “We’re almost there.”

A few more steps and we reached a service room, no longer in use, of course. A small wooden ladder was attached to the wall. Adam climbed up first and then offered me a hand. “Still want to come up? Or are you backing out?” he asked. His tone was playful, and I could tell he was trying to put me at ease.

The ladder led to the lantern room, which was enclosed by large, glass storm panes. I wasn’t afraid anymore, so I took his hand and said, “I made it this far, didn’t I?”

“Brave girl,” Adam said as he hoisted me up with ease.

We’d finally reached the very top. I walked over to the large, dusty lens of the lighthouse beacon. Reaching out to brush away a few cobwebs, I said, “Think of all the sailors this light once guided to safety.”

“Or warned of the danger,” Adam added, though he said it so quietly I barely heard him.

I turned away from the lens and walked over to place my hand on one of the storm panes that separated us from the harsh elements. It was like being on a viewing deck, but unfortunately the thick haze of white made it impossible to see more than a few feet beyond the structure.

“I bet the view from up here is amazing on a clear day,” I said, sighing as I stared out into the dense veil of fog.

“It is.” Adam’s breath brushed over my hair as I felt him come up behind me. “There are hidden caves in the face of the cliffs.” He pointed, but there was entirely too much fog. “You can see them best from up here. When there’s no fog, of course.”

“Oooh, hidden caves. Sounds spooky,” I said, pretending to shudder. “You’ll have to show me sometime.” I leaned back into him, and he circled his arms around me, his heart a soothing tattoo of beats against my spine.

“I will. I’ll bring you back up here when it’s sunny.”

“Promise, Adam?” I asked coyly.

He spun me around so we were face-to-face, and I leaned back against the metal handrail. He said, “Under one condition.”

Oh, this is getting interesting.

I raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Do go on, Mr. Ward.”

“Let me take you to dinner next week, Ms. Fitch.”

“Next week?” I asked, glancing up at him through my lashes. “Why wait?”

Adam pulled me to him. “Well, I’d say ‘as soon as possible,’ believe me.” He brushed a stray wisp of hair from my cheek, carefully tucking it behind my ear. “But unfortunately, I have to fly out on business tomorrow, and I won’t be back until Wednesday.” Adam’s fingertips left a heated path as he traced my earlobe. “Let me take you to dinner when I return. We can fly down to Boston.”

Adam’s long fingers continued a lazy path to the back of my neck, where they lingered. He traced little circles, leaving my mind as foggy as the air outside. “Will you say yes, Maddy?” His voice dropped to a seductive whisper. “Say yes,” he coaxed.

“Boston,” I mused dreamily as I tilted my face to his. I closed my eyes as Adam leaned down. His lips so, so close. “Yes, yes,” I whispered in response.

Adam’s mouth brushed over mine. There and gone, soft as a feather. His hands trailed down my back, as my own lingered at the nape of his neck. I pressed myself shamelessly to him, and his breathing quickened in response. He ghosted his lips over mine once more, a shadow of a kiss that left my body aching for much more
. Oh God, help me, I am falling for you, Adam Ward

“Madeleine,” Adam whispered against my lips. “There’s something I should tell you.”

Are you falling for me too
? I thought. Hoped. Wished. But before he could continue, a loud buzzing sound pierced the quiet. He sighed against my lips. I let out a soft cry of frustration and dropped my forehead to his shoulder. The magic was lost. The moment passed.

“I’m sorry, Maddy,” Adam whispered into my hair, while fumbling in his back pocket for his phone.

Once in his hand, Adam barked into the offending cell, “Talk. This had better be fucking important.”

I could hear a male voice on the other end, but I couldn’t make out what the man was saying. From the caller’s tone and Adam’s monosyllabic responses, I gathered it was a business call. I kept my head on his shoulder while he talked. One arm remained around me, his fingers winding absently in my hair.

Several more seconds elapsed, and Adam ended the call. He kissed the top of my head. “Maddy?” I glanced up to find apologetic blue eyes looking down at me. “I’m sorry, but I had to take that call.”

“I understand. I guess we need to get back?”

Adam sighed. “Yeah, we should. Before it gets dark.”

Despite the fog, the trip back seemed to take less time. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want my time with Adam to end. He talked about the island, telling me how there had once been a keeper’s house next to the lighthouse. But it had been destroyed in a particularly bad storm many years ago.

When we reached my car, Adam walked me to the driver’s side door. “Be careful driving back,” he said, while I reluctantly slipped his coat off.

“Like it’s such a long drive,” I joked, handing him his coat. “Besides, you’ll be right behind me.”

“No, I won’t. I’m not going directly to my house.” I followed his glance to the café, now dark and closed for the night. Had Nate been the one calling him down at the lighthouse?

Disappointed, I uttered, “Oh, OK.”

I had to admit, I kind of liked the idea of Adam following me back. It made me feel protected. As I was getting in my car, he asked for my cell phone number. I had a sneaking suspicion he already had it, seeing that Ami had my number. But I still made a quick call to his cell from mine so he’d definitely have it ready to program in. We made plans for him to pick me up at seven on Wednesday evening, and he promised to call if anything changed.

As I drove along the lonely, dark road back to my cottage, I thought about how I was driving Adam’s old Lexus.
I wonder if he has an extra set of keys for it
, I thought to myself. “Probably,” I muttered aloud, sure that Adam had access to
everything
on this island.

After I reached the cottage, I put on my pajamas, settled on the sofa, and turned on the television. Thankfully, there was digital satellite service out here on the island, so I had something like four hundred channels from which to choose. I flipped through several and finally left on some kind of crime drama. It seemed apropos, all things considered.

There was an interrogation scene playing out, and it made me think about my upcoming visit to Billy’s. If the same bartender, Old Carl, was still working there, would he remember if the man witnesses had seen with Chelsea was J.T.? I had lots of pictures of J.T. from when I’d lived in Harbour Falls. Most were on my laptop. I scribbled down a note to print one out before Monday, so I’d have a photo to take with me for my own little interrogation of sorts.

At last I turned the television off and went up to bed. While I tossed and turned, waiting for sleep to come, I replayed my time with Adam at the lighthouse. Keeping my plans from him—to write a nonfiction account of the Harbour Falls Mystery—was going to be tricky. What had he meant when he’d asked if I’d ever considered writing about the mystery right in front of me? If he’d been referring to the Harbour Falls Mystery—and, really, what else could it have been?—then he was evidently taking it in stride. He’d not sounded
too
upset and had, to my relief, dropped the subject rather quickly.

Much like the Harbour Falls Mystery itself, the man at the center was a puzzle. And I longed to solve him, piece by piece.

Before leaving Nate urged me to stop back into the café soon. “It starts to get rather lonely around here this time of year, and I know Helena would love the company.”

So I promised to visit during the week but, again, wondered why Nate and Helena—both so outgoing and friendly—chose to live on this island. I deduced that Adam must have been paying them a bundle. But did the island really need a “manager” and someone to run such a low-volume café? Perhaps Adam wanted them here to ease his own loneliness? Or were Nate and Helena out here because they were hiding something? Maybe something related to the mystery? This last thought reminded me that I had yet to call my dad to ask him about the call records from the pay phone that had once stood at the Harbour Falls bank.

I grabbed my phone and, catching my dad at his office at City Hall, summarized for him what I’d found in the case files. “Do you think they’re still floating around somewhere?” I asked when I’d finished.

“I can look into it, but it’s been a long time. Those records—if they ever existed—were probably lost or destroyed.”

Thinking out loud, I blurted, “Funny the police never followed up.”

My dad was silent, and I suspected he was bristling. “Our police department never had the kind of manpower needed to head up that kind of an investigation, Maddy. You know that.”

“I know,” I conceded. It was true; the Hannigan disappearance had strained all of the resources in our small community.

“Anyway,” I continued, “we know what time she made the call. If we could just get a list of numbers that were dialed out that night, we could find out who Chelsea was talking to.”

“I’ll see what I can do, honey,” my dad promised, and then we quickly wrapped things up, since he was running late to a community meeting of some sort.

Fueled by the progress I was already making on this cold case, I fired up my laptop and began to scour my files for a good, clear photo of J.T. O’Brien, one I could take to Billy’s.

Browsing through the old photos brought back waves of memories. I randomly clicked a thumbnail to expand a picture from back when I was fifteen. It was a close-up of Ami and me, smiling and sunburned at the local pool. The caption read: Red as Lobsters—But Happy as Clams. I recalled that day perfectly; we’d forgotten to bring sunscreen, and consequently had been burned to a crisp. But damn, we’d had fun.

Still smiling, I clicked another image—this one was of J.T. and Ami standing in a line at a local amusement park. I’d caught them off-guard as the three of us, so close back then, had waited to ride what had been deemed, at the time, to be the latest and greatest roller coaster in the area. I stared at the photo and shook my head. Where had the time gone? How had my friends changed so much?

With a sigh, I closed the image and opened a folder labeled “Summer after Graduation.” And it was there I stumbled upon the mother lode of J.T. photos. Most had been taken down on Cove Beach, a few days following commencement. I remembered that day like it was yesterday. One of my graduation gifts from my father had been a digital camera, and J.T. and I had gone down to the beach to try it out.

There were several photos of J.T. goofing around near the water, but I ultimately chose a clear headshot, a sliver of blue sky the only background. I sent the photo to the printer and wondered what had happened to the friendly, shy boy I’d once called a friend. Was he the mystery man who’d been with Chelsea at Billy’s? Doing drugs together? If so, what kind of relationship had they had? Had their commonality of substance abuse brought them together? Had it torn them apart? After my strange interaction with J.T. on the ferry, it wasn’t hard to imagine something minor setting him off. There was something different about him now, something broken. Like a part of who he’d once been was lost. So maybe it wasn’t so farfetched to imagine he had played a role in Chelsea’s disappearance?

In any case, the suspect list was growing. Because if it turned out J.T. was once involved with Chelsea, then Jennifer was a suspect too. She loved J.T. and would have been insanely jealous had she known. Had she retaliated? Revenge was the oldest motive known to mankind.