by Kim Allred
“Or to keep as much sky and open sea available to him while he was trapped ashore.” Ethan walked out toward the ocean. “This should be a good spot to capture the back of the house.” Ethan stopped at a point off-center from the house.
“Why did you put it that way? Trapped.” AJ had walked out to where he stood and turned, pulling the camera up to frame a shot.
“He was a sea captain. The sea was his first love. Its open air, open skies. He would have felt a bit trapped, I would think, living in a house on land. The windows would have eased some of his sense of confinement.” Ethan moved closer to the shore, looking out to sea.
AJ stopped taking pictures. “But he was in love with Mary. Surely that would have changed things.”
Ethan stared at some unknown point, rock solid against the breeze tugging at his shirt and ruffling his short hair. “Nothing mitigates the love of a captain for his ship and the sea.” Ethan turned back to AJ, nodding back to the house. “McDowell built this place to show his love for Mary, but it was also to give her a place to love as he loved the sea.”
Ethan turned toward the house, leaving AJ to stare after him, set against the raw power of the house, with its wood and glass structure. Her perception of the house changed as she looked at it from McDowell’s perspective, then again from Mary’s. “Mary would have loved this place, the home her captain had built for her,” she said. “But they would have been away from town back then, too far away for Mary to reach town for supplies or see family. McDowell had built this place to ensure his proximity to the sea. His gift of this house, he said, was a tribute of love. But, if he truly loved her, wouldn’t he have built something closer to town to preserve her happiness?”
“Now you see it as I do. If she had lived closer to town, to her parents, perhaps she wouldn’t have died.”
AJ studied the house before turning back to the sea. A shiver ran through her. “She must have been lonely, maybe even terrified out here. After his wife’s death, perhaps McDowell finally saw the house for what it was, a glass cage where he kept his possessions, belongings he had long neglected. And in that neglect, he discovered the guilt that lay at his feet.”
“Very insightful. Perhaps the reason why he abandoned his son and sailed away.”
“Never to be seen again.”
“And it seemed the sadness never left their son when he finally returned to the place. A legacy of tragedy.” Ethan walked to the back door and waited for AJ.
She ran to catch up with Ethan, eager to see what he had discovered in the house, but she already knew she needed to change her story. This was still a tragic love story. The tragedy, however, was not what fate had handed the captain, but in the heartbreak of his own making. In the end, she realized everything rested with the decisions people make.
13
The house proved difficult to find, which surprised Adam since it could be seen from the coastal highway, bits and pieces peering through the dense forest. Yet there seemed to be no direct route to it. He’d told his office he’d only be gone a couple of hours, but he should have blocked out the entire afternoon.
The weather wasn’t cooperating either. The skies had been a light gray when he left Baywood, but the rain started a few miles out of town, and its intensity increased the farther south he drove. He would be fighting the weather all the way home.
The GPS guided him off the coastal road and down a tree-thickened street, small but passable with oncoming traffic, the warm voice from the navigational system first turning him right, then right, then left and right again. The road finally led him to the small town of Kalapuya—if it could be called a town, it was so tiny. The simple post office told him it had to be a town, although in all the years he lived here, he had never heard of this place, never knew it was tucked away among the firs, hidden from plain sight. Along with the post office, the town boasted a small diner that appeared closed but not vacant, a machine repair shop of some sort—maybe farm equipment, maybe auto—and a general store with a couple of cars parked in front. As quickly as he arrived, the GPS guided him away from the small hamlet and back onto another tree-encased street, made darker by the clouds and rain.
Adam sighed for the hundredth time and reflected on how he got himself into these situations, each time a little deeper, each time requiring more effort to extricate himself. He could never leave well enough alone, and here he was, digging his way out again. At what point would he learn his lesson? He had worked hard to achieve his position as partner at the firm, not to be a hireling sneaking out of the office, working leads like some dime-novel private eye. His self-recrimination came to an end when the trees gave way to another small clearing, and the robotic voice told him he had reached his destination.
Three houses sat on the dead-end street, like forgotten sentinels in the rain, no longer remembering what they guarded. Yet they all appeared well maintained, two of the houses of newer design, perhaps built within the last couple of decades. The third, an old turn-of-the century farmhouse, had either been recently restored, or the owners had provided meticulous care over the decades. The back portion of the building looked like an addition, but it too appeared to have been completed some time ago. This was the house.
Relieved to see a car in the drive, Adam hoped someone would be home. He had taken a chance coming in the middle of the day, but his options were limited if he didn’t want to make excuses with Madelyn. He parked the car and stared at the house, deciding the best approach, when he caught a glimpse of someone coming out the back. A small figure, a young woman or teenager wearing a rain jacket and hood, carried a basket and scurried, head down, toward the back. Perfect.
Pulling up the collar of his Burberry raincoat, Adam raced across the street, sidestepping puddles. He stopped by the short wooden fence framing the small yard to wait for the woman. She bent over what must have been a vegetable garden and pulled out something that looked like lettuce. After she placed it carefully in the basket, leaves from some other plant joined the head of lettuce. Thankfully, being early spring, there wouldn’t be much in the garden for her to pluck.
As she turned from the garden, her pace quickened, trying to escape the rain that followed her up the path.
“Excuse me.” Adam tried not to shout, didn’t want to scare her.
She stopped and turned. Her head became visible under the hood, and Adam confirmed his guess that it was a young woman. She looked startled but not worried. “Hello. I didn’t see you drive up.”
One thing Adam loved about small towns—everyone was friendly and eager to help. Although small towns had their share of domestic violence and drugs, it hadn’t yet impacted the warmth of small-town hospitality, at least not in Baywood. This always worked in Adam’s favor, even when they discovered he was a lawyer.
“I don’t mean to bother you. This should only take a minute,” Adam said. “Are you Mrs. Mayfield’s daughter?”
“Her granddaughter, Sarah.” The young woman stepped under the porch roof, set down the basket, and stripped off her wet gloves.
“Oh, good, good. I was wondering if you could help me. I’m looking for something I believe belonged to your grandmother. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to make it for your estate sale.”
Sarah nodded. “Then you’d better come in and get dry. There are still a few pieces left. I haven’t decided yet whether to sell them through a dealer.” She grabbed her basket, left the gloves, and headed through the back door.
Adam slid through the gate, not believing his good fortune. Finally, luck was on his side. He smiled and almost whistled as he followed Sarah into the house.
14
AJ dropped into her chair. With dinner and dishes done for the evening, she finally had time to relax. She picked up her book from the side table—Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman by Stefan Zweig. Her discussion with Ethan about the French Revolution sparked an interest to revisit the subject, reminding her of how her father could entice her onto a topic. Turning to find her pl
ace in the book, she performed a quick mental cleansing of her day.
After returning to the office from Ethan’s, AJ spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening finishing the McDowell story. The old photos Ethan had discovered hidden away in some cabinet completed the article. When she restructured the story, she found herself writing toward Ethan’s interpretation of the house and Captain McDowell. She had no reason to believe his version was more accurate than a historian’s, yet everything he said rang true.
After skimming the same page several times, AJ closed the book. The last few days whirled through her head. She picked up her notepad and jotted down words: ship captain. Historical center. Old buildings. Town history. The inn. Ship captains. Mr. Jackson. Brown wavy hair.
AJ’s pen froze. Ship captains. That was it. The connection between stories wasn’t just old buildings like the McDowell house and the inn. There was an additional link between the two—the ship captains. One was long dead, somewhere across the seas, wherever he met his fate. The other, a living modern-day ship captain, who might be tied to the inn. He had a reason to dock there. It could be a coincidence, yet she might find a connection if she dug a little. She couldn’t see a reason not to try.
Assessing her options, AJ kept returning to the same conclusion: She needed to interview the captain. Deep in thought, she was scribbling notes and interview questions when the phone rang. She answered without checking the caller ID.
“Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. I had a very long closing yesterday, and I’ve been in Mapleton all day. But I want to hear about your dinner with Ethan.” Stella’s chatter couldn’t hide how tired she sounded.
“Why Mapleton?” AJ scratched through one of her notes and wrote something else.
“New clients looking for a place in town, but they need to sell their old place. Asked if I could take a look.”
“And?”
“Oh, it was a nice place. Acreage, farmland, if you’re into that kind of thing. Nothing I could do for them, so it was a waste of a long day. But hey, I’m all about client happiness, so what could I do?” Stella’s normal sparkle returned. “In the end, I turned them over to a friend. I’ll just get them their new place, which we found, a great little place over in the Meadows Estates. Cute little two bedroom. They want to scale back so they can travel. That’s my plan when I retire.” Stella had regained her energy and was throttling back up to full drive.
“Hmm. That’s nice.”
“You’re on a story and didn’t hear a word I said.”
“New client. Farm. Nice two bedroom. And there’s no way in the world you would ever retire to travel. Does that pretty much sum it up?”
Stella laughed. “That’s why I love ya. The true multitasker. And I could travel. So you found a story? Well, forget the story. Let’s start with Ethan.”
“Funny you should ask, since they both connect.” AJ laid down the notepad, updating Stella on her dinner with Ethan and his idea about old buildings as the subject of a new series, starting with the McDowell house.
“And I’m sure you put my name in there somewhere. I was the one who took Ethan to the creepy old house in the first place.”
“Yeah, I haven’t found a spot yet.”
“So what else about Ethan?”
“There’s nothing else to tell. It was a dinner and small talk about the buildings, then it moved to history.”
“So is he a nice guy? What about his background?”
“Ethan seems to find ways to talk about anything but himself, then ends up questioning me.”
“Maybe he was some sort of cop before he got into security.”
“I don’t know. He would fit the type, I guess, but there’s something about him I can’t figure out.”
They both fell silent. AJ thumbed the pages of her notebook. “So I have an idea on finding out more about the inn without looking nosy.”
“Oh God.” AJ could almost hear Stella slap her forehead. “I was supposed to be doing research for you. I’m so sorry, AJ. These last two days. But my calendar is almost non-existent the next couple of days. I can get on it in the morning.”
“I understand. It’s great you can help. But listen to this. I think I found Mr. Jackson. I was having lunch today at the café, and guess who walked in?”
“Sorry again, you left a message about him. How do you know it was him?”
“It wasn’t Mr. Jackson that walked in, it was the ship’s captain.”
“The guy on the boat?”
“Yep. And he was meeting an elderly man, someone I didn’t recognize. They talked for a few minutes and then the captain left with the guy. They got in the older guy’s truck. That has to be Mr. Jackson.”
“How do you know what truck they got into? There’s no parking lot.”
“I followed them.”
Stella’s voice turned conspiratorial. “My, my, you are on the hunt. So now you’re Miss Marple?”
“It was maybe half a block. I didn’t track them around town. Besides, I knew where they were going.” Sometimes Stella exasperated her.
“True enough.”
“So anyway, seeing them and working on the McDowell piece, this is my opening to research the inn as my next story. And interview our mysterious ship’s captain.” AJ’s excitement grew.
“Oh my God, it’s perfect.” Stella sounded earnest. “I forgot how old the inn is. Unlike the McDowell place, the inn has been well maintained over the years, but it couldn’t have been built much later than McDowell.”
“But I need an actual date. Then I’ll have my next story.”
Stella laughed. “You mean you now have a good reason to stalk and spy?”
AJ feigned hurt. “I investigate. Big difference.”
“And it’s different how?”
AJ attempted a cool, sophisticated air. “What I do is for the good of our readers, who have a need to know.”
They both laughed. “I’ll work on the county records in the morning. Good hunting.” Stella was gone.
AJ fell back into her notes, spurred on by her friend’s call. Stella’s agreement to help validated her course of action, assuming Stella wasn’t in it just for the gossip. Always a strong possibility. Eager to begin, she smiled and pictured the captain’s emerald-green eyes. She didn’t think she’d see that smug grin of his once he became the subject of her story.
15
The stars declined to give way, foretelling of a glorious day if AJ could depend on what the clear skies and the warmer morning air told her. A gentle breeze kissed her cheeks as she grabbed for the next hold in the cliff. Her muscles were singing, and she was only halfway. She knew better. She hadn’t climbed in a few days, and her body punished her for the lack of physical exercise. The admonishment was gentle. She wasn’t tired, and although her muscles strained, AJ knew she’d make the top without any problem, her arms and legs falling into their natural rhythm.
AJ had woken refreshed, mental clarity revitalized after days of cloudy darkness. When pressed for a story, she lived in a tunnel, her brain as gray and dismal as a Pacific Northwest winter. Over the last year, she had developed methods to work past her dry spells, typically through climbing or, strangely enough, poring through history books. She suspected staying away from her story freed her subconscious to work behind the scenes.
The interruptions over the last few days had not proved useful in giving her subconscious free range. Her mind had been too busy, all these new people. Her natural mental rhythm had been steered off course.
AJ grabbed the lip of the cliff, and with one quick swing, she landed and rolled onto her back to stare up at the dawning sky, stars still refusing to retreat from the rosy edges of the horizon. She gazed at the sky and sucked in air, ignoring the pain in her muscles, letting them melt into the ground next to her.
Once her breathing evened out, AJ peeked around her. She was trespassing now, but she didn’t want to find another spot to climb. She didn’t see anyone but noticed a light in one of t
he rooms of the house. With it still dark enough to provide some cover, she inched her way to a four-foot conifer, its shape perpetually bent, contorted by the constant winds.
She gazed out to sea, allowing the conifer to act as a shield from the house. The tide had begun its early return, the shallow waves mesmerizing, the calmness of the ocean a soothing balm.
“Good morning.” The man’s deep, rich voice made her jump but displayed no hint of any surprise on his part.
AJ spun around. Ethan stood a few short feet away from her. He sipped from a coffee cup, then lifted it toward her. “I’d have brought a cup for you had I known you were coming.”
AJ flushed, grateful there wasn’t enough light for Ethan to see it. She never considered herself trespassing when no one lived here. There was no one to bother or even notice her. She was about to apologize when Ethan stepped near her, extremely close to the edge. She remained silent as he gazed out toward the same calm ocean she had been viewing.
“There’s no better way to wake than to smell the freshness of the salt air and watch the morning light reflect off the waves.” Ethan took another sip of coffee and peered over the cliff’s edge to the shore below. “Especially after such a strenuous climb.” He turned to her, and AJ was relieved to see he wasn’t mad—more mildly curious, if she could read him from their few short meetings.
She looked out to sea. “This is one of my favorite climbs. The house was abandoned for such a long time, I figured no one would care. This point is a perfect spot, close to town but secluded enough to leave nothing but the sea.”
“And do you always climb so early?”
AJ ran a hand through her curls, then tugged on an end. “It’s the best time. I know the cliff well enough I don’t need much light, but I carry a headlamp if I need it. Being able to catch the first glimpse of the day, it’s like a fresh start, a reset. No matter what happened yesterday, today is a new day.” AJ played with the metal loops on her belt, a touch of pink on her cheeks.