Lighthouse Reef (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 4)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Until this moment I’ve never told another living soul what I’m about to tell you. I don’t want you judging Megan. Promise me you won’t do that.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  “Don’t use the word never!” Scott snapped. “It’s one of those words that has a habit of coming back to bite you in the ass when you least expect it.”

  “All right.” Logan swallowed hard and took a step closer to Scott. “Tell me. Now.”

  “Megan was pregnant. I was the father. We were just kids, Logan. She found out the first week of August, a couple of days before she went missing. From the first time I saw her that June we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We made out practically every time we were together, every time we touched each other. I guess it was inevitable.”

  Logan’s fists bunched at his sides. “If you’re about to tell me you killed her because of that, so help me God, I’ll dig up what’s left of you, here and now, and drive a stake through your fucking—”

  “Are you nuts? I was in love with Megan! I’d have married her in two heartbeats even as young as I was. Hell, it wouldn’t have taken that much. I’m trying to fucking tell you I didn’t just lose Megan that night she didn’t show, I lost the child she was carrying. I was in love with your sister, Logan. All the way in love and she just—disappeared. One day she was here. In one night she was gone. I was frantic, worried sick. That first week after she went missing, I thought maybe she’d gone to San Francisco. We used to talk about going there. So I got in the car like an idiot just to see if I could find her. For two days I drove around the city, going to all the places we’d talked about seeing together. I don’t know what I’d hoped to accomplish. But I had to do something. After I got back, I went to see your grandparents. They told me Megan didn’t even bother to take a single item of her clothes or her money with her. I knew then something bad had happened. I just didn’t know what.”

  Logan watched as the man choked up, got tears in his eyes. How was that even possible? he wondered. But Logan was convinced what he saw was heartfelt anguish on Scott’s face. He had to force out the words. “But you know what happened to her, don’t you?”

  “I spent years not knowing. Even when I moved Jordan back here I had this tiny little corner of my heart that hoped, prayed Megan had made it back to Pelican Pointe in the years since I’d been gone. That she was living right here with my child, alive, happy, even if she was with another man, I didn’t care at that point. I’d fallen in love with Jordan. But if Megan was here, living happily ever after, at least I’d know she was okay. But—”

  “Is Megan dead?”

  Scott swallowed hard and nodded. “I know it now—with certainty. And something inside you has always known it, too.”

  “Tell me. Give me a name, goddamn it! Stop this fucking bullshit game of yours, once and for all, and give me his name.”

  “Do you think I don’t want to? Do you think I don’t want the son of a bitch who killed her to pay? Of course, I do. I want it more than you could possibly imagine. I’ve waited for you to come. I’ve waited years for justice, to see the bastard get what’s coming to him, for you to finally find the balls to walk back into this town and do something about it other than bitch and moan and feel sorry for yourself.”

  Deflated, Logan muttered, “Then I don’t understand.” It was Logan’s turn to pace. “Screw your rules. What can you tell me about the bastard? At least give me something concrete.”

  “Everything that’s happened here is connected. Everything. Find the pattern. Kinsey is here to help you. Let her.” With those simple words, Scott faded away.

  This time Logan held his tongue. Something during the confrontation had moved inside him. Whether it was steely determination, or just plain, old-fashioned Donnelly stubbornness, he couldn’t say. But whatever it was he couldn’t wait to rush back to Kinsey, to tell her what he’d learned.

  Almost an hour later, he stood in front of the studio door and knocked. When Kinsey opened it she took his breath away in a thin pale blue robe, a pink tank top and pink-plaid pajama shorts. He wanted to eat her up. A wash of candlelight flickered behind her. Dolores O’Riordan’s voice in the background reminded him dreams were impossible to ignore. Logan cocked his head to one side. For a minute he simply stared at Kinsey’s face, her eyes. For lack of anything else, he held out the two dozen yellow roses in his hand. “You might not want to answer the door like that.”

  She rolled her eyes and took the flowers, stuck her nose into the huge blooms, deeply inhaled the fragrant buds. “Nick installed a peephole two weeks ago. Where have you been, Logan?”

  “I went out…to see Wade Hawkins. Do I get to come in?”

  She brought the door back wider. “Why?”

  “So I can tell you I’m sorry.”

  She studied him. “No, I mean why did you go see Wade?”

  “To get his take on Scott. Look, I owe you an apology. Kinsey.”

  “It’s okay. I realize you don’t have to believe the same things I do. It isn’t a prerequisite in order to sustain a relationship.”

  “No, it isn’t. But I was wrong. I had a long talk with him.”

  “Wade does like to talk…”

  “No, not with Wade with Scott.”

  “What?”

  Logan told her everything Scott had said, almost word for word. When he was done she had to sit down on the sofa.

  “Oh my God, Logan. Why didn’t we consider that?” When she saw the look of confusion on his face, she added, “No, really. Listen. In order to solve this we have to think back to Megan’s life at the time. What was happening here in this town back then? Who was here? We need to make a list.”

  He grinned at that. “Scott said you were here to help me and that I should let you.”

  “Let me? Well, he’s right about one thing. We need to find the pattern. And to do that we need Ethan’s help. We need those files on the ten women, Logan. Do you think you could stop arguing with him long enough to work on that?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Hmm, why do you suppose Megan and Scott didn’t meet at the lighthouse? Didn’t you say the town considered that place Make Out Point?”

  “If you don’t mind I’d rather not think about my sister like that—”

  Frustrated with him, she blew out a breath. “That isn’t what I’m getting at here, Logan. Even teenagers in love appreciate their privacy. They’d look for a spot where if someone approached they wouldn’t be caught in the act, so to speak, someplace out-of-the-way. There was a reason Scott and Megan didn’t meet at the lighthouse.”

  “Maybe they’d been caught there before.”

  “Or maybe they suspected someone might be watching them there.”

  Logan sucked in a breath, ran a hand through his hair. “I’ve been underneath the pier. There’s no way anyone could sneak up on a couple in the throes of passion there without making a lot of noise from all the rocks you have to deal with.”

  “Exactly, and if two people suspected a voyeur lurking about, the pier would provide a better degree of privacy where they’d have time to cover up, fix their clothes if they heard feet crunching on those rocks.”

  Logan shook his head. “You’re brilliant, you know that? That’s amazing.”

  “That’s more like two teens getting creative. Tell me something. Why the change of heart? Scott must’ve indicated to you he was trying to help that first night you were here.”

  “I don’t know exactly, other than the fact I’d spent a couple of years trying to piece together all the girls that had gone missing here, years consumed with hunting down facts. I was steeped in reality, dealing with details, not a bunch of paranormal crap. I even created a spreadsheet about it.”

  She frowned. “And when were you planning to share that?”

  A sheepish look crossed his face. “Until about an hour ago, I was determined to do this alone.”

  “And now?”

  His eyes had changed. She rec
ognized that look as he took a slow perusal down her body. “That robe, I want you out of it.” The music drifted to Rufus Wainwright’s piano chords and Hallelujah as he tugged her toward the bed.

  The tenderness she saw in his green eyes drew her in. Her breath backed up as his arms came around her. Nothing prepared her for the tender kiss he placed on each corner of her mouth or the way his long, lean fingers stroked her flesh.

  They swayed in place until his hands made quick work of the robe. It dropped to the floor as he yanked her top up over her head. His hands slid into her shorts, cupped her rear end. All the while he feasted along the curve of a breast, tugged on a ripe nipple.

  He eased her back on the mattress.

  His tongue tasted, flicked over her belly button, licked at skin sweet as honey. He skimmed downward, brushing along her inner thigh. The warmth drew him in.

  Kinsey gripped the sheets as sensations built, as blinding pleasure shattered through her.

  When he moved above her, she leveraged up, shoved him back on the pillows, and straddled his body. “My turn now,” she whispered, her voice husky with the urge to give back. Taking the lead, she leaned over him, made sure the peaks of her breasts brushed along his chest. She took long, slow sucks on his neck, ate at his mouth before gliding down his lean torso. She used her teeth to nip, her tongue to arouse. Feathering his hard abs, she licked along his belly until she guided him into her.

  Locked as one, her hips began to pump. Tempo began to layer slowly, ever so gently. Then the blood spiked for real. Gentle waves began to snap and break with want. Arching her back, she rode in sweet and fiery measures with one purpose. Need spiraled up then sprinted along in a burst of blinding light. The brilliant orange and red shimmered just before the colors merged, splashed hotter, brighter. As Kinsey took them both through the flash fire, Logan finally let go. Every barrier he’d ever created dropped away.

  And with it, found the peace that had so eluded him.

  By the time she collapsed on top of him the music had changed to Springsteen. While the drumbeat kept time and Bruce warned about a brilliant disguise, Logan reached up, toyed with a few strands of her hair. “That was intense.”

  “Maybe we should yell at each other more often.”

  “Until this minute I would’ve said that was a bad idea. But…I can’t argue with the results.”

  “Were things really that bad with Fiona, Logan?”

  “I’m not bringing that woman into this bed, not now, not ever,” he stated flatly.

  Kinsey blew out a sigh. “I’m not…but you’re so…furious. Is she why you’ve closed yourself off, become so guarded?”

  Logan sat up, smoothed his hair back. “Kinsey, she damn near broke my spirit. If that wasn’t bad enough, I almost let her.”

  Kinsey swallowed hard, needing to know all of it. “You loved her that much?”

  “At the time I thought what I felt for her was love. It wasn’t. I’d never before been in that kind of all-consuming relationship. Believe me, it burned out quick. Maybe I’m just not wired to make that kind of connection with anyone. Some people aren’t meant to.”

  “Ever?”

  “I’m not walking that path again, Kinsey. Not for anyone.”

  “Well, that’s blunt enough.”

  “You need to know where I’m coming from.”

  “Oh believe me, you’re coming through loud and clear.”

  Chapter Twenty

  A week later Troy’s supporters needed to regroup.

  Inside Ethan’s living room, they met to go over what they knew in the hopes they could come up with something, anything that might shed light on Gina’s real killer.

  Standing in front of the bookcase, Kinsey looked around the room. After thirty minutes of hashing things over, it was more like grasping at straws, thought Kinsey as she noted the mood of the team was much more somber. As if the longer Troy remained in jail, the more reality took hold Troy Dayton was truly up against a wall. And it was up to the people in this room to do something about it.

  “The prosecution has DNA. And I’m convinced when they announce the results it’ll come back exonerating Troy,” Kinsey ventured.

  “So, what are we supposed to do, let Troy rot in jail without helping him out? Most of the town is convinced he’s guilty. I’m not even sure how he’ll get a fair trial,” Jordan pointed out.

  “The trial will be held in Santa Cruz,” Ethan stated. “The jury pool will probably be residents from there. And it will likely take months to get to trial.”

  “Whoever did this to Gina had to be watching her when she left to give Troy back his stuff,” Logan considered. “The killer followed her.”

  “Rumor has it Gina’s vehicle was tampered with,” Wally added. “I don’t know what they did to it because the cops towed it into Santa Cruz. But there are several age-old methods to disable a car. If that rumor turns out to be true, let’s say the car sputters and stops leaving Gina alone sitting at the side of the road in the dark. Someone stops to help her.”

  “Only he isn’t there to help,” Jordan added, chills forming on her arms.

  “Do you think Gina knew him?” Hayden asked.

  “It’s possible because if she screamed, no one in that area reported hearing a thing.”

  “It’s a very remote, dark area of town,” Lilly added. “I wouldn’t even go out at night with the kids when I lived out there.”

  “Exactly,” Logan said. “For us to believe a stranger did this, we’d have to buy the fact that someone unfamiliar to the area, exits off the interstate, veers onto the 101, follows the Coast Highway, happens to see a young woman experiencing car trouble and then decides to pull over to kill her then and there.”

  “And conveniently the victim has just broken up with her boyfriend, who lives less than a mile down the road where the body is ultimately found,” Hayden added.

  Kinsey paced the length of the bookcase. “If your point is that a stranger couldn’t have done all that, I agree. But it also doesn’t do a whole lot to help Troy either. Having had a brief discussion with the prosecutor this week, his theory is that Troy left Mona at her house, after dropping her off, he then headed home to his trailer, that he encountered Gina along that dark road. The two of them argued, and in a fit of rage, Troy dragged her out of the car, took her to his trailer where he strangled her and dumped her body five hundred feet from his front door,” Kinsey concluded. “The problem with all of that bunk is it doesn’t jive with the evidence.”

  “You’d think with all that activity Troy’s fingerprints would be all over her car,” Nick surmised.

  Kinsey shook her head. “Forensics turned that car upside down. Troy’s prints were nowhere on that Mazda. The D.A. shared that much but little else.”

  “That should be enough to tell them he wasn’t there,” Logan retorted.

  “You’d think. But their theory is he must have gone back, wiped his prints off the vehicle. Troy was her boyfriend up until a few weeks ago. Their reasoning is his prints should have been there…somewhere.” When others shot her weird looks, she added, “I’m serious. That’s what the D.A. said.”

  “You’re kidding?” Hayden said flatly. “It sounds like we might be fighting an uphill battle we can’t win.”

  “Where are we on the DNA?” Cord asked.

  “Still waiting on the results. You want my two cents? My guess is they’re dragging their feet on releasing the results because Troy’s DNA wasn’t found on Gina.”

  Logan wanted them back on track. “Okay, people, what exactly do we have that points to someone else other than Troy? At this point, we need a suspect list to give Troy’s defense attorney, which brings me to Collier Davis. Davis finally got back in touch with me. He’s agreed to make the trip down from the Bay to talk to Troy, doesn’t mean he’ll represent him, just meet with him, decide if he wants to take Troy’s case or not.”

  “I’ll help with the legal fees,” Nick offered.

  “Okay, thanks for tha
t. As soon as Davis agrees to represent Troy I’d like to be able to provide him with a list of people we think needs to be checked out, which means hiring a private investigator.”

  “A private investigator might be the way to go. Because unless we find someone who has a history of abusing women, what chances do we have of finding Gina’s killer?” Nick asked.

  “It’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Cord said. “It could be anyone.”

  “The only guy I can think of with a history like that was Kent Springer and he’s been dead for almost two years now,” Nick offered.

  Lilly fidgeted in her seat. She cleared her throat. “Do you really think it might be someone like Kent? Someone with a history of making sexual advances or having problems dealing with women?”

  “We all know Kent was suspected of doing away with that woman over in Santa Cruz. Those were the rumors. But Nick’s right, we can’t blame this on Kent Springer,” Wally pointed out.

  Logan made a mental note to background this Kent person. The guy may not have killed Gina but he damned sure could be the man who had taken Megan.

  Lilly toyed with the zipper on her purse, clearly hesitant about the topic. “This may not mean anything, but I’ve wanted someone to know about this for quite some time. Maybe now’s the right moment,” Lilly finally blurted out, still nervous. “I probably should’ve mentioned it to you before now, Ethan, but at the time, I was brand new in town with two little kids and I didn’t really think anyone would believe me anyway. Besides, I was afraid.”

  Ethan noticed the look of panic form on Wally’s face.

  “You’re starting to scare me, Lilly. You’d better tell me what you’re talking about,” Wally stated.

  Lilly swallowed her mouth suddenly very thirsty. “It’s about Derek Stovall, my stepfather. It’s probably nothing.”

  “That look on your face sure doesn’t make me think it’s nothing,” Wally replied with tension layered in his voice.