Lighthouse Reef (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 4)

by Vickie McKeehan

  He’d had his eye on Gina for quite some time. Ever since he had walked into Doc’s office for a back sprain and saw her sitting behind the counter. He’d been drawn to her big brown eyes, her slim figure, her youthful spirit. When it had been his turn to see Doc, Gina had even helped him into the exam room. All the while Gina had her arms wrapped around his shoulders, he had known it would be her…eventually. At twenty-one Gina was a little older than the others. But sometimes the hunter had to settle for what he could get. It wasn’t a perfect world. And Gina wasn’t a perfect solution. After all, he didn’t like to dip his toe into what the locals had to offer too often, too often might raise a red flag. That’s the last thing he needed.

  After all, he’d perfected his method quite a bit over the years.

  But as he stared out the front windshield into the night, he noticed Gina’s car up ahead begin to sputter and cough right on schedule. And now, here she was, ripe for the picking. It was only a matter of time before he had the twenty-one-year-old right where he wanted her. Then all he had to do was play the scene out he’d cleverly created and offer her a ride home.

  Piece of cake, he decided as he crawled out of his own vehicle. He walked to the Mazda, tapped on the driver’s side glass. When he saw her jump, when he saw her roll the window down in response, his lips curved up. “Looks like you need some help. Good thing I spotted you when I did. I was about to turn off the road up ahead.”

  Recognizing the man, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness, it’s you. You scared me half to death. My car just…started smoking and then died. I was going along fine but then it just quit running.” She spotted the gloves he wore, thought it strange because it didn’t seem cold enough for leather.

  “Let me take a look. Pop the hood for me.”

  “Would you? That’d be great.” Dutifully, Gina reached under the dash, pulled the lever for the hood release.

  While he had his head down he pretended to jiggle wires, inspect belts and hoses to make the ruse look real. Finally, he approached the window again. “Sorry but it looks like Wally’s going to have to tow you in. These little Japanese models are a mystery to me. Why don’t you go jump in my car there and I’ll take you home?”

  “Good idea. I wished I’d stayed put tonight,” Gina grumbled, never once thinking twice about the offer. She grabbed her purse which had a perfectly good cell phone tucked inside she could’ve used to call her dad. Instead of being afraid, Gina hopped out of the car, walked unconcerned to a white SUV and hopped inside.

  Gina’s parents, Clint and Eileen Purvis, didn’t discover their daughter hadn’t come home Saturday night until seven o’clock the next morning. That prompted Eileen to start phoning all of Gina’s friends only to learn no one had heard from her.

  By noon, Clint decided he’d waited long enough. Out of habit, he put in a distraught call to Ethan Cody. A parent now himself, Ethan, had in turn, phoned the sheriff’s department who in turn notified Deputy Dan Garver. Since Dan still hadn’t yet made the move to Pelican Pointe though and because it was a busy Memorial weekend in Santa Cruz, Dan didn’t respond to the call to the Purvis home until close to six o’clock Sunday evening.

  There was a reason Deputy Dan Garver hadn’t yet made the move to Pelican Pointe. The twenty-five year old deputy didn’t like the town at all. He preferred living in Santa Cruz and wasn’t the least shy about sharing that fact when pressed. He’d spent all his life in Santa Cruz and considered a tiny dot of a town like Pelican Pointe a demotion.

  But when he got a call like now, Dan couldn’t very well ignore it any more than he could the town.

  Once he got to the Purvis place though, even then, Dan had been reluctant to file a missing persons report on the girl. After all, it wasn’t illegal for a young woman to spend a Saturday night on the town partying and then come home sometime late the next day. “Maybe she’s out with some guy that you two don’t even know anything about, had herself a little too much to drink, lost track of the time, and stayed over at a friend’s house. It is a holiday weekend and young people do tend to party.”

  “Dan Garver, you do not have to stand there and remind me it’s a damn holiday. I know that. I also know Gina and she would never do anything like that. Hasn’t done that in all the years she’s dated. She’d call home first if she decided to stay overnight somewhere. She didn’t. And Eileen’s spent the entire morning calling everyone she knew,” Clint Purvis pointed out.

  “Besides, Gina specifically went to see Troy Dayton. They recently broke up. That’s where you should start looking, with Troy,” Eileen tossed in.

  “That’s just it,” Dan reasoned. “She and Troy may have hooked back up again for the evening. Did you think of that? Did you call him?”

  “Of course, we called him. Troy says he never saw Gina last night and that he hung out with Mona Bingham. The boy’s either a liar or something’s happened to our Gina,” Eileen said, her voice starting to show signs of breaking from worrying over her baby girl all day.

  “Never did like that boy,” Clint mumbled. “Fought too much with my Gina, if you ask me. If he’s done something with my Gina—”

  But even with their unwavering declarations from two worried parents, Dan believed they were overreacting. It had taken the threat of calling Brent or Ethan Cody at home for Dan to take down Gina’s information and file an official report.

  Because of the delay in getting the word out, people drove right by Gina’s red Mazda sitting on the busy Coast Highway all day Sunday without knowing she’d disappeared. It wasn’t until Betty Brinker and Pete Alden were coming back from Santa Cruz around midnight Sunday night that they spotted Gina’s abandoned car and thought it odd it was still in the same place as it had been earlier when they’d left town. Then and there from the side of the road, Betty used Pete’s cell phone to call Gina’s parents. That’s when they learned the woman hadn’t been seen for more than twenty-four hours.

  The location was less than a mile from Troy Dayton’s trailer.

  Playing piano at The Pointe three nights a week got Kinsey a front row seat to the crazy antics of some of its finest citizens. By observing without letting on you were, she knew, for example, what kind of wine Thelma Thompkins ordered every time she came in. Thelma was fond of crab cakes and washing them down at one sitting with an entire bottle of merlot from the Alexander Valley.

  Kinsey knew that Doc Prescott and Murphy were the most generous tippers while Frank Martin, the bank vice-president, was tightfisted when it came to leaving a gratuity.

  On a routine basis, Kinsey saw who ate too much, who drank too much, and had to have someone drive them home. Because of that she had come to believe Carl Knudsen, the pharmacist, obviously had a problem with alcohol. So did his wife, Elaine. The Knudsens came in at least once every weekend like clockwork and ordered the same thing. The couple started with martinis, drank four apiece, and then dined on lobster. Sometimes they wobbled to the front door with a little help from Jolene. Other times Kinsey was told the couple simply strolled out the restaurant to walk the six blocks home. It made her wonder how carefully Knudsen, the sole pharmacist in town, filled prescriptions. Was Carl able to stay sober all the while he did his job?

  When she mentioned it to Perry Altman, they laughed about it until Kinsey said, “It sort of reminds me of that character in It’s a Wonderful Life, you know, Mr. Gower, the druggist who drinks and if not for George Bailey dispenses the wrong medication to a customer. What if that happened here? It could be a serious situation one of these days.”

  “Wow, you’re right. To tell you the truth, I’ve thought the same thing. It’s one of the reasons I get all my drugs in Santa Cruz,” Perry said with a wink.

  “Thanks for the tip,” Kinsey said, only half-joking. “But that doesn’t really make me feel any better. Not everyone can go to Santa Cruz every time Doc writes them a prescription.”

  “I’ll tell you what I heard about Carl. He’s had a chip on his shoulder for most of his life
about this town. It seems he wanted to leave Pelican Pointe behind for good many times, even told his parents he wanted no part of sticking around to run the family drugstore. Carl couldn’t wait to get out long before he ever graduated high school. Apparently, Carl’s family had plenty of money to send him to UC Berkeley. In high school, he was supposedly a smart guy. Anyway, he was all set to go when his father died suddenly, which messed up his plans. His mother made him stay home to commute back and forth to UC Santa Cruz, mainly so Carl could keep the family drugstore going. At the time, Carl had a younger brother, Mark, and he was hoping Mark would eventually graduate college and take over the pharmacy so that would free up Carl to get out of here and do whatever it is he wanted to do with his life.”

  “Why didn’t he then?”

  “Good question. I heard Mark died from some kind of heart ailment. No one really talks about it. His death sent Carl into a depression and I guess a struggle with the bottle. He’s been drinking heavily ever since. At least he’s been that way for as long as I’ve been in town.”

  “What about Elaine?”

  “Carl met Elaine in Santa Cruz in college. You know Elaine’s Kent Springer’s sister, right?”

  “You’re joking. I didn’t know that. Elaine Knudsen is Kent Springer’s sister, the developer guy who killed Sissy Carr and tried to start a fire at Promise Cove?”

  “One and the same.”

  “I would never have guessed this town held so much drama when I first set eyes on this place.”

  Perry shook his head. “Small towns, honey. Besides, none of us picked up on the drama thing.”

  The drama thing, as Perry had called it, bugged Kinsey, especially knowing what she did about all the missing girls Logan had mentioned. Of course no one else had that knowledge.

  Later when she glanced up from the piano to see Jolene leading Logan into the dining room, Kinsey had the urge to stand up and pump her fist in the air. Instead she transitioned into Christine McVie’s Songbird just because she could.

  Their eyes met from across the room.

  Jesus, Logan thought, the woman had the most gorgeous eyes. Logan hadn’t even heard the waiter ask what he wanted to drink. In fact, he turned a blind eye to everything and everyone else in the room except the woman at the piano. He needed to sketch her just as she looked tonight. The way the light made her hair shine, the perfect posture, the way she moved with each note, the way her fingers glided over the instrument. He felt certain he could capture that flowing form. While his hand had healed he’d gotten out of the habit of carrying paper wherever he went like he had in his younger days. Another by-product of his time spent with Fiona. Out of desperation to catch the moment, without pencil or paper, he took out his cell phone to snap her picture.

  Kinsey had to smile when she saw him bring out his phone to use as a camera. She knew then, ever the artist, what was going on in that head of his. Good thing he didn’t have a clue what was spinning around in hers.

  Never one to watch the clock, she did now. She had approximately ninety minutes to entertain the remaining diners. Because when she got done here, she knew one thing. She intended to give Logan a private showing, one he wouldn’t soon forget.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Come Monday, Pelican Pointe’s annual Memorial Day parade came and went without its two newest citizens. Logan and Kinsey spent their day off, lazing in bed, making love, eating the omelets Kinsey had whipped up and munching on fresh wild strawberries she’d picked near the cliffs.

  As a cool ocean breeze drifted in through the open windows, they lay naked between the sheets, getting to know each other in the way lovers do when they have all the time in the world.

  He skimmed kisses down her thigh all the way to her knees and back up again. “You have such velvety skin.”

  She crooked her finger at him and said, “Come back up here and I’ll show you velvety.”

  “Yeah?” He licked his way back up to her nipple. “I like your tattoo.” With his finger, he traced the small, two-inch outline of a dream catcher over the curve of her left breast.

  “I got it after my mom died.” She ran a finger along the tat on his right bicep and the heavy triangle inked there. Inside were the words, “Never forgotten.”

  Along his other bicep was a date. When he saw her eyes track there, he said, “The date Megan went missing.”

  From that point Logan was determined to lighten the mood though. He didn’t want her spending the first day off she’d had in months thinking about such serious topics as murder. So he told her all the silly jokes he knew in a string of rapid fire nonsense. “What do cats eat for breakfast?” Logan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Mice Krispies.”

  “Eww.”

  “Don’t be such a girl. What did the sea say to the sand?”

  “You’re going to tell me.”

  “Nothing, it just waved.”

  She giggled like a teenager. “You must feel like you’re slumming every time you come in here.”

  He frowned. “What did you say? Why would you think that?”

  She spread her arms out wide. “Look around you, Logan. This is hardly a villa outside Rome. You couldn’t find a place more contrasting than what you’re used to if you tried. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m living over a garage.”

  “What the hell difference does that make? It’s eclectic. Have you forgotten I grew up less than two hundred miles from here in a blue-collar, speck of a town that’s only claim to fame was a nut factory. I’m not Fiona Perez with a stick up my ass for chrissakes.”

  Realizing she’d pissed him off, she backtracked. “Okay, okay. I just meant we’re very different, you and I, that’s all. You’ve seen the world, lived an artist’s life. You’ve been married. Me? I check groceries on the weekend, play piano to make ends meet and have never had a serious relationship that lasted longer than three months.”

  He took her chin firmly in his hand. “There’s no shame in checking groceries or playing piano. I’ve done things to make ends meet I’m not exactly proud of.”

  “Yeah? Like what?”

  “In my Los Angeles days, I modeled to pay the rent.”

  She wiggled her eyebrows up and down. “So if I Google those particular phrase there’s a chance I might come up with nude photos of you on some website?”

  “Sketches,” he corrected with a grin. “No digital cameras were used in the making of my limited contribution to the art world as a model.” When he saw her eyes go big, he went on, “Nude yes, porn no. And my time doing so was very brief before I gave up on the L.A. scene entirely. You and I both know that if there were videos out there the press would have uncovered them by now. But I’m not proud of those days.” He picked up a strand of her hair. “Why no long-term boyfriends, Kinsey? What’s wrong with the men in your neighborhood?”

  “Simple. No man wanted to get hooked up with a woman dealing with all my problems. My mother’s cancer took both time and money. I put everything on the back-burner, except my mom’s illness, to focus on job and school. Guys want attention. They don’t want a woman distracted by her menial jobs, term papers, and her mother’s chemo treatments.” When he gave her one of his piercing looks, she shrugged. “It’s a fact.”

  “I guess it is.”

  Because neither of them had any inclination to join the throngs of people that bunched along the beaches in town, lazing on towels, baking in the sun, they didn’t care to mingle today with anyone. That included the guests they could hear, laughing and playing down at the cove. The din drifted from the open windows as they stayed burrowed in their own little, self-imposed, inner sanctum.

  Intent on taking advantage of their time alone, they played half a dozen hands of gin rummy and hearts. When card games grew old, they turned on the television, only to get nothing but snowy reception.

  Kinsey sat on the floor to go through the stack of movie DVDs under the little table. When Logan joined her, he groaned at the choices. “
There’s nothing here but chick flicks. I’m not watching Mamma Mia, Dirty Dancing, or Beaches, anything but those three.”

  Kinsey snickered and shook her head. “The selections are rather limited. What about either Party Girl with Parker Posey or Jerry Maguire?”

  Logan sighed. “Looks like it’s Tom Cruise then.” He was about to slide in the disc when he spotted another DVD in the stack. “Wait a minute, what’s wrong with Princess Bride? ‘Hello, I’m Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die,’” he mimicked in his best Spanish accent. “Funniest movie made in the eighties.”

  “Looks like we have a winner,” Kinsey declared. “You start the DVD, I’ll pop the popcorn.”

  For the next couple of hours, they laughed at all the memorable lines, sometimes repeating them before the actors could actually recite them.

  Afterward, they nibbled on cold cuts and cheese and opened a bottle of pinot noir they found hiding in the back of the cabinet.

  “I have no idea where this came from. I didn’t buy it.”

  “Obviously left behind by the last occupant. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “I think that gift horse had to be Hayden.”

  “Cody? Really? There’s a story there.”

  “I’m sure there is. Let’s take our supper outside where it’s cooler.”

  They spread out a blanket high above the ridge to watch the fireworks until the talk inevitably turned to Logan’s past.

  There’d been something she’d wanted to know ever since she’d discovered he lived here. “Tell me about your early years in Pelican Pointe? Where did your grandparents live?”

  “Do you know where the rescue center is?”

  “Sure, it’s in the older section of town.”

  “There’s a little side street, Athena Circle, behind the old newspaper office, a cul-de-sac really with about fifteen homes or so, mostly little Spanish bungalows. These days a lot of them need work. But my grandparent’s house is no longer there. The house mysteriously caught fire and burned to the ground about two months after my grandmother died. I’d flown in for her funeral, flown out again. That was twelve years ago, the last time I was in this town to be exact, until now. Since my grandmother left me the house, I got this phone call in the middle of the night from some sheriff’s deputy that it was gone, toast. For me, it was like another strike against Pelican Pointe.”