A Ghostly Light

by Juliet Blackwell

  Stephen beamed. Dad’s story had wound down, and at the mention of my wardrobe, he rolled his eyes. I was beginning to see where Caleb got it from. Dad wasn’t exactly a fan of my sartorial style.

  “The San Francisco Ballet is celebrating the opening of its eighty-fourth season with a gala on Saturday with a theme of ‘Old San Francisco,’” Landon continued. “They’ll be honoring a few fourth- and fifth-generation families. I’m embarrassed to say I only now heard about it.”

  “The what, now?”

  “The eighty-fourth season—” began Stephen.

  “Actually, sorry,” I interrupted him. “I really did hear that. I just wasn’t sure how it applied.”

  “You’re not a ballet fan?” Landon asked.

  “Of course I am,” I lied. “Who doesn’t like the ballet?”

  “I took you to see The Nutcracker one year, remember?” said Dad. “It was your mom’s idea. Had to drag you there kicking and screaming. You insisted on wearing your overalls, and slept through the whole thing.”

  Everyone stared at me. One interesting aspect of living with one’s father as an adult woman: Every stupid, childish thing I’d ever done as a youngster was liable to be thrown in my face. And there were plenty of stupid things because, after all, I had been a child.

  It was very humbling.

  “Yes, in fact, I do remember going to The Nutcracker, thanks, Dad. As I recall, I was also ten years old.”

  “A very tired ten-year-old, it seems,” Stephen muttered.

  “Don’t worry, Mel, our seats are on the main floor. I knew you wouldn’t want the balcony,” Landon said. Speaking of humbling. Landon had been up on that Pacific Heights roof with me, rolling around only inches from death—how come he hadn’t developed acrophobia? “I can’t wait to see you all dressed up.”

  “Again, just to clarify, my current spangles will not suffice?”

  “I don’t particularly care what you wear—though overalls might not be the thing. But I always see a gala as a chance to bring out that evening gown you hardly ever have the occasion to use.”

  “But I have so many formal gowns,” I teased. “How will I possibly choose?”

  “Mel, I am already seeing you in a sort of lemon chiffon, maybe off the shoulder . . . you will be lovely!” Stephen exclaimed, gazing at me and clapping his hands under his chin.

  My father gaped at him.

  “That’s very sweet of you, Stephen,” I said. “But you don’t have time to make me a dress before Saturday, do you?”

  “You just watch, my friend,” he said with a wink, a determined gleam in his eye. “You just watch.”

  “But . . .” I made a last stab at avoiding the ballet. “We were supposed to go see the outdoor movie on First Friday.”

  “The gala’s on Saturday,” Landon pointed out.

  “But that’s two nights out in a row out on the town.”

  For a normal person that might not be an issue. But as a contractor I got up at five in the morning, which meant I was usually down for the count each night around nine. For very special occasions I could force myself to stay up later, but two late nights in a row might do me in. It occurred to me that it was very possible that in dating me, Landon had won the booby prize in the Love Lottery.

  “If you don’t want to go, Mel, we won’t go,” said Landon. “But I adore the ballet. It’s a chance to contribute to the fund-raising effort, show you off, and expose you to another side of the city besides drywall and sewer systems.”

  Our gaze met and held. Landon wanted to “show me off.” What could I say?

  Stephen elbowed me and whispered, “I accept with pleasure . . .”

  “I accept with pleasure your kind invitation, good sir,” I uttered. “I would love to attend the gala with you. Draped in lemon chiffon, no less.” I pushed away from the table and headed toward the short hallway that led to Turner Construction’s home office. “But for now, I’m going to go talk to Stan about drywall and sewer systems—and the supply estimates—before dinner.”

  As Stan and I were discussing the estimates he had worked up, based on the numbers and measurements Dad had given him, the office phone rang.

  “Turner Construction, this is Stan.” Stan listened briefly and handed me the phone.

  “Mel Turner,” I said, feeling Very Professional.

  “Mel? It’s Ellis. Alicia said you came by Wakefield today; I’m sorry I missed you. The Richmond police just notified me that the crime scene has been released, and we’re okayed to get back to work on the island tomorrow.”

  “That was fast,” I said.

  I wondered, but didn’t ask aloud, how Ellis had managed this one. The billionaire got things done.

  • • •

  The only complication was that I had made a promise to spend time with Landon, who had the day free. So the next morning I headed back to Lighthouse Island with both Landon and Stephen at my sides.

  We drove to Point Moro, a small “village” made up of a few dozen people, not far from the historic town of Point Richmond. The winding road was hilly and bumpy, not well maintained; there were sections where the pavement was gone completely, leaving massive potholes in the dirt and gravel. The hills surrounding the town were undeveloped chaparral featuring blue agave, palms, and eucalyptus trees; we passed three deer grazing, undisturbed, in a meadow. It would have been bucolic if not for the huge tanks of the nearby Chevron Richmond Refinery perched on the top of the hills.

  Point Moro itself was located in a ravine alongside a small cove, where the docks were mostly protected from waves. A long time ago, before the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge was built, a ferry ran across the strait between Point Moro and Marin County. In 1939 a ferry captain tried to make a marina, but creating a proper breakwater was too expensive, so in the spirit of the wild frontier, he sank a bunch of old ships here instead.

  The flag of the “Point Moro Yacht Club” was a skull and crossbones, and the inhabitants of the small settlement liked to refer to themselves as pirates.

  Point Moro wasn’t typical for the Bay Area, at least not anymore. A few boats in the harbor were nice, but others were downright rickety and appeared on the verge of sinking. The handful of tiny houses onshore appeared to have been built by hand; a few had been fashioned out of rusting shipping containers. There were several still-inhabited but ancient RVs, and the backwater harbor was dotted with broken-down lawnmowers, green plastic garbage cans, an Army jeep, a stolen road sign. Wildflowers mingled with weeds along a set of long-abandoned railroad tracks.

  “This is . . . different,” said Landon.

  “That would be the word for it,” murmured Stephen.

  “I like it,” I said as I parked the car next to an old fifty-gallon drum. “It reminds me of places I remember from when I was a kid: like the stinky old cannery we used to crawl around.”

  “You used to crawl around an old cannery?” Landon asked.

  “I don’t mean when it was still working; it was abandoned.”

  “That makes me feel so much better.”

  We walked toward the dock. The morning was cold and hazy. Out on Lighthouse Island, the mournful foghorn blew, and the light flashed, its powerful beam cutting through the mist.

  “Now that so much of the Bay Area is covered in beige tract houses in neighborhoods with all the personality of a bar code,” I continued, “I find holdouts like Point Moro sort of . . . quaint. Anyway, Duncan—the skipper who ferries us across—is usually up in the café. Wait here for the rest of the crew; I’ll go get him.”

  The Gentleman’s Café was the only business establishment in Point Moro, and its biggest selling point—according to the posters in the window—appeared to be two-dollar beer. It was like a diner out of a time warp, but not in a kicky retro way. More like in a “has the window been washed in the last fifty years? And I don’t even want
to inquire as to the cooking facilities” way. It sold truly wretched coffee and stale pastries, and I hadn’t been able to bring myself to try the actual cooked food.

  The thin young woman behind the counter had a name tag that said, HI! I’M FERNANDA! But that was the friendliest thing about her. She would have made a good cop—her face was as emotionless and hard to read as Detective Santos’s had been. I nodded at her before heading over to sit with Duncan at his usual linoleum table by the window. He was finishing up a dubious plate of watery scrambled eggs and burned hash browns.

  “Good morning, Duncan, how are you?” I asked.

  “I’m wonderful! Just wonderful.” He smiled his typical smile, his Greek fisherman cap perched on his balding head. “Life is good, my friend. Life is very, very good.”

  Duncan was clearly one of those people who worked on maintaining a positive attitude. Normally I appreciated his cheery approach to life, though on the early morning runs it could be a bit much. In contrast, the pilot of the supply barge—a large, bald man named Lyle who sported multiple painful-looking piercings and a huge grizzly bear tattoo on one brawny arm—was taciturn and quiet.

  “I was so happy to get your call,” Duncan said. “I feared we might have a few days off, what with all that happened.”

  “The police released the scene early. So I suppose the project must go on.”

  Even though the coffee was wretched, I ordered a large cup to go, hoping to ingratiate myself with the surly Fernanda. No luck. She pushed it across the counter laconically, putting out a small carton of cream that looked like it had been out of the cooler too long. Luckily, I take it black.

  By the time Duncan and I returned to the dock, half a dozen of my workers were waiting. Waquisha was one of them; she seemed more out of place than ever without Jeremy, who had been needed on Matt’s library project in Pacific Heights. Yet another group consisted of several large young men, my friend Nico’s nephews, whom I could never keep straight, so I referred to them collectively as “the demo guys.” Luckily, construction workers were slow to take offense at such things.

  Duncan greeted everyone effusively, invited us all aboard, handed out life vests, and skillfully guided the boat out of the harbor.

  The vessel lurched and I grabbed for the side. Personally, I didn’t quite have my sea legs. I liked boats well enough, I supposed—I mean, they were a darned sight better than swimming these frigid waters—but I was more the “I’ll just sit here quietly and smile while secretly praying we don’t sink” type.

  Landon, in contrast, wore a blue wool pea coat, had a worn leather backpack slung over one brawny shoulder, and stood at the helm with his arms crossed over his chest and the wind blowing through his hair. The Old Spice jingle started running through my head.

  “You know,” Duncan said, “Richmond has a bad reputation, sure, but I’ve never had a problem. But then out on an isolated island, someone pushes a guy down the lighthouse stairs? How does that even happen? It’s a real shame.”

  I nodded. I didn’t particularly want to talk about what happened to Thorn in front of the demo guys; no sense in stirring up their imaginations. Besides, I didn’t want to think about Thorn any more than I had to. My mind was already focused on the job ahead: getting enough supplies out here, orienting the crew, and getting the demo started.

  “I tell you what, though,” Duncan continued. “Point Moro’s not real pretty, but they’re good folks. And sometimes you look at a real nice house, but the things that go on inside are downright ugly. So I guess you just never know. Anything can happen, anywhere.”

  “So true,” I murmured. And it was. A “pretty” life didn’t necessarily equate with a happy one. Turner Construction dealt with a lot of wealthy people and worked in some of the best neighborhoods in one of the most expensive cities in the nation. But a lot of people raised in luxury seemed unable to enjoy life, or were somehow compelled to destroy everything they had. My family life was decidedly messy—in more ways than one—but it was happy. We weren’t rich, but we did all right and I wouldn’t trade my situation for the world.

  And yet. . . I glanced up at Landon, who still looked like he was filming an Old Spice commercial. I needed to find new digs. Seriously. It was mortifying to have sex under my father’s roof.

  I was going to move “find an apartment” up on my to-do list. Right after I 1) rid Lighthouse Island of ghosts and 2) found Thorn’s murderer(s).

  “You really don’t have to do what my dad says and stick with me all day, you know,” I said to Landon when he finally joined me at the back of the boat. “After all, it’s not as though the killer is still lurking on the island. I’ve got the demo team with me, and Buzz brought yet another bodyguard, Krauss. He texted me already; they’ve been on the island for the last hour, checking out all the buildings. And if that weren’t enough for Calamity Mel, I have Stephen.”

  Stephen was holding on to the side of the boat with a white-knuckle grip, and looked a little green around the gills. Still, he nodded gamely.

  “Yep, I’ve got her back, no worries there,” he managed in a weak voice.

  “You just keep breathing deeply, Stephen. We’ll be there soon,” Landon said in a kind tone, and then turned back to me. “I like and respect your father, Mel, but I’m here for my own reasons. If you think I’m going to let you wander around alone on an island with even the possibility of a murderer lurking, I guess we need to talk about our relationship.”

  “It’s sort of scary, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I’d say a murderer on an island is certainly scary.”

  “I meant the word.”

  “What word?”

  “Relationship.” I shivered from a spray of cold bay water.

  “It depends on your perspective. It’s not scary to me.” Landon lowered his voice. “Anyway, you just focus on talking to ghosts. Let me watch for potential threats. Me and Buzz and Krauss—and Stephen, of course.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Also on the boat were a couple of small water tanks, a pallet of snacks—energy bars, nuts, chips—that Alicia had arranged for the workers, several coolers containing sandwiches, and basic equipment such as sledgehammers, crowbars, and power tools. The larger supply barge would start bringing over lumber, cement, and other heavier items as soon as we were set up to receive them.

  The ride from Point Moro would last another five minutes or so. It seemed as good a time as any to study a little physics. Landon had tried to explain it to me before, but I’d had a hard time following along.

  Ever since Landon had seen me in action with ghosts, he had been searching for a logical explanation. Like many men of science, if he couldn’t prove it, he didn’t quite believe it. And yet he kept his mind open to possibilities since, as he said, science was forever finding or proving things heretofore unsuspected.

  “So, Landon, run this ghostly physics stuff by me one more time.”

  “There are several theories,” he said, always happy to talk shop. “The one that first comes to mind, of course, is the multiverse or meta-universe, a hypothetical set of finite and infinite possible universes that comprise everything that exists, and would suggest the existence of parallel universes. And because the possibilities are infinite, then of course there could be multiple personalities, essentially an infinite number of you, leading an infinite number of different lives.”

  “A multitude of me and you out in the universe.”

  He gave me a secret smile. “Just imagine.”

  I punched him lightly in the stomach.

  “What was that for?” he asked.

  “Because if there are an infinite number of you, there are at least some universes in which you aren’t with me.”

  “I’m going to leave aside the possibility of jealousy over infinite universes, for the moment,” he said. “Especially since you’re the one with the Parisian postcard from th
e barely ex-boyfriend on the refrigerator.”

  “I took it down this morning.”

  “Be that as it may. Shall I go on?”

  “Of course you shall.”

  “Many scientists believe that this is more a philosophical debate than scientific, because finding the precise value of quark masses and other constants is impossible, since of course their values would be dependent upon the particular circumstances of the universe in which we live.”

  “Sometimes I lie awake half the night worrying about quark masses.”

  Landon continued as though he hadn’t heard me. “There are really four levels of the multiverse discussion, and I think what you call ‘ghosts’ are most likely to be a part of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In these, one’s doppelgängers live on a different quantum branch in infinitely dimensional space.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “Just to clarify, when you say doppelgänger, you don’t mean the spooky kind in the movies, right? Or . . . this isn’t like an Invasion of the Body Snatchers situation, is it?”

  “Good movie,” said Duncan. “I liked the original.”

  “Me too,” said Landon. “But no, I don’t mean it in a spooky way. In an infinite number of parallel universes, there would be any number of you, or of me, at all ages, in all circumstances.”

  This, I told myself, is what happens when you have a smarty-pants for a boyfriend. And then you ask him a question. “My brain hurts.”

  He chuckled. “For me, deciding how I want my coffee hurts my brain, but thinking about quarks and string theory is restful, somehow. Speaking of which, I do think M-theory might shed some light on the situation.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.” The boat slowed and bobbed, the water splashed, and Lighthouse Island loomed up in front of us.

  “It’s not as strange as it sounds. M-theory is basically a higher-dimensional extension of the string-theory vision of multiverses.”