Lighthouse on the Lake

by Elizabeth Bromke

  Oh yes, she’d already dug around for the gun. Late the night before, she spent over an hour searching box after box in the basement, coming up empty handed. If all three of their father’s earmarked effects could be accounted for... then she’d have something to go on.

  But so far, all she had was a hunch and a waterlogged timepiece. Maybe she was crazy.

  “All I’m saying is, let’s check the cottage for the wedding band and his gun. Let’s call some relatives. And, if it’s even possible, let’s have Michael pull up the records. We have a right to know what they learned about Dad. Just because Mom didn’t tell us doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to know, Clara.”

  The pleading was useless, and Amelia could see that. Anyway, Wendell Acton wasn’t even Clara’s dad at all. She had little stake in the matter.

  An innocent grin lifted Clara’s face from its bewilderment. “You know? The last few days have been rough. The last few weeks. Months. Years. Amelia, all my life I never knew my dad. Then I was thrown a curveball, and it turns out I can know him—Matt, I’m talking about. None of us ever had that opportunity, so I get it. I am not into scary stuff like Megan, but I get it. I’ll help. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  “So will I.” The voice came from the back door. Megan, her expression steely.

  Amelia stood from the couch. “You will?” She looked from Clara to Megan and back again. “Both of you?”

  Clara glanced over her shoulder at Megan. “I take it the call didn’t go like you’d hoped?” Amelia understood Clara to mean that Brian and Megan had argued and that Megan was choosing her sisters over her soon-to-be-ex.

  “No,” Megan answered. “It didn’t go like I’d hoped.”

  Amelia offered a pained expression in solidarity, but Megan smiled. “Brian said he would help.”

  ***

  It turned out that Brian and Sarah were heading into town a little earlier than they’d planned. Megan had relayed to Amelia and Clara that Brian’s conference was canceled. He and Sarah could stay the night in Birch Harbor. He’d spend the night in town and help with research the next day.

  “Where will he stay?” Amelia asked, her eyes widening at the scandal.

  “He can share my room at the house on the harbor.”

  Amelia grinned to herself.

  “If it’s all right, Sarah can stay with you at The Bungalows,” Megan said to Clara. “That’ll give us more space, anyway.”

  Amelia grew impatient with the sleeping arrangements conversation. “If Brian can help and Michael can help, then I think we can get to the bottom of this.”

  “One question,” Megan asked as they headed out of the apartment and to Clara’s car for the short drive up to Birch Creek.

  “Yeah?” Amelia answered as she shot a quick text to Kate reminding her to let Dobi out for a potty break.

  “What is it we’re hoping to find?”

  ***

  The cottage on Birch Creek huddled against the shadows of a creaking willow tree. It was as picturesque now as it had been when the family first bought the land, back when it was a hidden grove on a babbling creek. As a teenager, Amelia sometimes wondered if jigsaw puzzle art was based on similar locales. She still did.

  Ivy crept up the sides of the house, and the navy-blue front door stood in stark contrast to the white wooden siding. Green potted ferns, shaggier than Amelia remembered from her most recent visit, waited like toy soldiers on either side of the welcome mat.

  Clara let them in slowly, flipping on a tiffany lamp near the door and tossing her keys onto a side table as if she was home.

  Technically, Amelia realized, Clara was home. She didn’t begrudge her sister a perfect nest like the cottage. It was so Clara, after all. But some degree of sadness tugged at Amelia’s heart. She didn’t have a home. Not yet. She didn’t have a quaint little cottage that was all her own. Perfectly eccentric and oddball and Amelia.

  Who was she kidding? She also didn’t have a job. Or the prospect of a job. All Amelia had was a task: decode Nora’s final note to the sisters. The lighthouse on the lake. They had a claim to it, apparently. Nora insisted as much, though her mind was probably addled and her memory weak and discordant.

  Once inside, Megan said she’d take the guest bedroom. Clara would take the living room and kitchen, where it was her job to unearth the address book so they could call their great uncle and others. Amelia wanted to dig into the master bedroom. Clara’s own temporary room there, where she’d slept some nights during her caretaking spell for their mother, was no priority in terms of their search. What the three needed to focus on were boxes, dressers, bins, and anything else where Nora could have hidden things.

  Amelia got to work immediately, carefully combing through drawers of shirts and pants, undergarments, and socks. Most of them were clearly Nora’s. Some were men’s items, but Amelia didn’t recognize anything as specifically belonging to their father. Not yet.

  Shoeboxes of photographs lined the floor of the closet, but Amelia knew better than to get sucked into that time warp of a chore. Her focus was on three things: a man’s wedding band, Nora’s missing letters, and the gun. The gun felt least relevant, but at least if they found it, they knew that Nora’s will wasn’t entirely off base.

  “I’ve got it!” Clara’s voice rang out from down the hall. Amelia tossed a stack of hangers onto the bed and rushed to the kitchen.

  “What?” She and Megan met there together. Clara was pressing a hardcover notebook to the table.

  “Her address book.”

  “Here, let me.” Amelia took over, thumbing directly to the first tab. “A. Actons. I’m starting with Hugh.”

  “Are we sure he’s still alive?” Megan asked. The question was no joke. Despite being the baby of the family, Hugh was still their father’s uncle and elderly at minimum, potentially infirm. The sisters had no way of knowing, since they spent little time reminiscing with the Acton relatives who did show up for the funeral.

  Things were that tense.

  Shrugging, Amelia answered, “If he died, I’m sure we would have heard.”

  She returned her attention to the address book. Hugh and Clarice Acton. Amelia slipped her phone from her pocket and started pressing her uncle’s phone number into her keypad.

  The other two waited worriedly.

  One ring. Two rings.

  “Hello?” The slow, sweet, crackling voice of an old woman came on the phone.

  “Aunt Clarice?” Amelia’s voice came out high and tight.

  A pause on the other end.

  Amelia swallowed. “Is this Clarice Acton?”

  “Yes?”

  “Aunt Clarice, this is Amelia, um. Amelia Hannigan. Wendell’s daughter?” She pressed her palm to her forehead, ignoring her sisters’ bewildered expressions.

  “Amelia?”

  “Yes. Nora and Wendell Acton’s daughter. Hi. I know this is a little... awkward, but I’m trying to get in touch with Uncle Hugh. Is he home? It’s important.”

  “Oh,” Clarice’s voice rose an octave. Amelia braced for an extended greeting. But the woman cut to the chase. “Yes, yes Hugh is home.” She chuckled quietly, as though it was silly for Amelia to even suggest he’d be out and about. “Just a moment while I get him for you, darling.”

  Amelia let out a sigh and flashed a thumbs up to her sisters.

  A minute later, a garbled, heavy voice came on the line. “This is Hugh.”

  Amelia’s heart sank. He sounded old and weak, and guilt swelled in her heart. They really should have been in touch more often. There was no excuse.

  “Uncle Hugh, this is Amelia. Wendell’s daughter?”

  A pause.

  “Amelia?” A wheezing cough cut him off briefly, but he recovered. “Amelia, of course. How are you holding up?”

  Hugh and Clarice had not attended Nora’s funeral, but they were surely aware, and his kind implication now acted as proof.

  “Well, I’m okay.” She pushed ahead before tears started t
o climb up her throat. “Uncle Hugh, I’m calling about the lighthouse. The lighthouse on the lake, here in Birch Harbor?”

  “Hm?” he grunted through a fresh round of phlegm. The old man coughed a few times, and Amelia waited. “‘Scuse me.” He cleared his throat. “The lighthouse?”

  “Yes. Where the Actons lived. Grandpa Acton, um—your brother? He ran the lighthouse just north of town. It’s where our dad grew up.”

  “It’s where he was last seen, too.”

  Amelia involuntarily recoiled. After a brief moment of pulling the phone away and checking her connection, she replied, “Last seen?” Could it be? Could great ol’ Uncle Hugh have remembered the investigation?

  “That’s right.” It sounded like he was taking a long pull of a drink. Just as she was about to prompt him, he spoke again, his voice clearer. “After his wife, I mean to say Nora. After Nora and you girls left town, he took up with my brother. My brother told us that young Wendell got real lonesome and couldn’t stand to miss you girls.”

  Delicately, Amelia tapped the speaker button. Her sisters crowded around. Though he was delivering no new information, it felt intimate to hear the old man recount what they had been told, too. Amelia repeated what he said, framing it as a question for Megan and Clara’s benefit.

  “Yes, you’ve got it right,” Hugh replied. “I don’t think he stayed at the lighthouse round the clock or anything. But he spent most of his time there. He was fixing his boat, last they seen of him.”

  Megan’s hand flew to her mouth, and Clara’s jaw dropped. Fixing his boat? That was new information. Amelia felt her breaths grow shallow, like there was some secret that had been hidden from her. By the whole world. She, and her sisters, had been too shielded. Too protected. They were made to believe he left. But Hugh’s words sliced through her chest like a knife. Lonesome. Last seen.

  She stuck her hand in her pocket and retrieved the watch, holding it in the palm of her hand for her sisters to see. Nodding at them and forcing herself to swallow, she continued the conversation with Uncle Hugh. “So, Uncle Hugh, what did everyone make of the whole thing? I mean... you didn’t hear from him again? My dad? Wendell, I mean?”

  His reply came instantly. “Well of course not. My brother and his wife called the police and everything. Your mom was worried as all get out,” he added.

  “What happened after that?”

  “Nothing happened,” the old man replied. “They kept looking for him, and they never found him. We looked, too. All of us. We came down and did the search party thing, but the fact was it seemed he’d run off.”

  Amelia exchanged a knowing look with Megan. That was the same story they were handed.

  Could it be? Could their otherwise loving, affectionate, supportive father be a deadbeat dad?

  She knew there was little more Uncle Hugh could offer, but still she tried. “Uncle Hugh, was there any, um... evidence that proved he ran away?”

  A wheezing cough came in reply, and he choked it out for a moment before clearing his throat. “Well, there was no evidence he stayed.” A dry chuckle followed, but the sisters did not laugh.

  Amelia considered that. She dug through her memory, and there she found the detail of his wallet being gone. Their grandparents claimed he’d kept a duffle bag at the lighthouse, and it was gone, too. But Wendell Acton was a smart man, and it made no sense that he wouldn’t take his handgun, the only gun he owned. The wedding band was another matter. Perhaps, if he had left, he’d meant it as a message to Nora, an attack on her heart. Would he do that to his daughters, though?

  “Thanks for your time today, Uncle Hugh.” Amelia let out a sigh.

  “You’re welcome. It’s no problem. And don’t be a stranger. Call anytime you’d like, young lady.” At that she smiled, but Megan was snapping her fingers and mouthing something.

  Frowning, she stalled him. “Oh, Uncle Hugh, there’s one more question we have.” A name took shape on Megan’s silent mouth, and Amelia nodded vigorously. “Have you ever heard of a woman named Liesel Hart?”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  Her shoulders collapsed forward, but she gave it one more try. “She holds the deed to the lighthouse now. Would you know anything about that? Did Grandma and Grandpa Acton sell it to her?

  He paused before answering. “That would make no sense. If I recall, my brother was dead set on you girls getting the lighthouse if it were possible. But he didn’t know, seeing as it belonged to the town or whatnot.”

  “Did anyone else in the family have a claim to it?” Amelia asked. Why, if the Hannigan sisters didn’t get it, would a different family member not get it? Unless Liesel Hart had some sort of in with the Coast Guard.

  “If they had, no one would have wanted it. I sure didn’t. Keeping up a lighthouse is hard work, you see. We did it all our lives. Rand was the only one of us what had any interest at all.”

  After she hung up, Amelia and the other two stared at the phone for a while.

  “If he doesn’t know Liesel, then I can’t see what she has to do with all this. Mom must have been confused again.” Megan settled on aimlessly tugging open kitchen drawers, searching with less fervor than they’d had when they arrived.

  “Her diary entries weren’t confused, though. Everything basically rang true,” Amelia reasoned.

  Clara copied Megan and pulled open a corner drawer that didn’t slide easily. “Amelia, do you think we need this Liesel person in order to find out where Wendell went?” Clara kept jerking the drawer, but it didn’t open. Amelia joined her there and slipped a hand inside, blindly shuffling around junk and successfully unsticking it. The drawer opened, and Amelia let Clara continue to rummage inside.

  “I don’t know anymore. If Uncle Hugh believes Dad just left, then maybe he did.” Exhaustion set in. She was tired of running down dead-end leads. It was growing later by the minute, and she began to think it was a mistake to come back to Birch Harbor. Her mother’s tantalizing note was nothing but a red herring for an heirloom that went to some stranger.

  “I’m going to call Michael and let him know that he can stop researching. I don’t want the lighthouse. Do either of you?”

  Clara and Megan also seemed deflated. Maybe they never were as invested in the property as Amelia. Maybe she ought to book the next flight to New York and beg for her job back. She could get back on a diet and start auditioning again. It was what she knew, after all.

  “Hey, look,” Clara whipped around with a folded page. “A brochure for the old museum.”

  Amelia glanced at it. “That’s neat.” Then she grabbed her phone from the counter and began to walk outside, where she could talk to Michael in private.

  “Wait, look,” Clara said again, the brochure held close to her face. Megan joined and read over her shoulder.

  “What is it?” Amelia asked, halfway to the front door.

  “Mom was a donor. I had no idea.”

  “Neat. Keep looking in there. Maybe you’ll find another diary entry that spells everything out for us. Maybe this little postmortem mind game can finally end,” she snarled. Her bad mood had sprung out of the call with Hugh, but she forced herself to offer a quick apology to her sisters before shaking out her hands and tapping Michael’s name on her phone.

  “Hey, I just finished my last meeting.” His warm voice melted the last of her irritation.

  “I hope it went well. Listen, Michael. We’ve been digging around here at my mom’s cottage up on Birch Creek. We haven’t found anything useful yet, but we called our Uncle Hugh; he was our father’s uncle, actually.”

  “Oh?” Background noise dulled Michael’s tone, and Amelia wondered if he, too, was growing bored with the wild goose chase.

  “He has never heard of Liesel Hart.”

  “Ah,” he replied. “So, you think the trail has gone cold?”

  “I think,” Amelia started to answer, but a shriek cut her short. “Hold on a second, Michael.”

  She opened the door to another shriek, belong
ing to Clara. “I found another one! Amelia!”

  Her phone pressed to her chest, Amelia dashed inside to determine the source of her sisters’ commotion.

  Chapter 29—Megan

  “Look.” Megan and Clara stood together just where Amelia had left them, at the corner of the kitchen counter where she had unjammed the junk drawer.

  Megan’s eyes dashed across the page before Clara began to read it aloud for them.

  There was no date on the entry. Not even a month this time. Though riddled with ambiguities, it highlighted one crushing specific.

  Nora’s darkest fear.

  Megan sank back as Clara started reading. The words came to life as she watched her sisters’ reactions.

  “‘Overnight my life has fallen into shambles. First handling a lovesick, hormonal teenager and her two sisters in a different state. Managing the hospital bills and complications I’ve thrust upon us because of my own fears, and for what? To save a little face? I never should have left. I should have listened to Wendell. Is it too late? I hope not.’” Clara glanced up at them, and Megan winced.

  “Keep going,” Amelia urged, nibbling her thumbnail as she continued to hold the phone against her chest.

  Clara lifted the paper back to her face. “‘It’s been a long time now, and things are settled well enough. Kate will be leaving for college. As far as the girls know, Wendell left us. But I know it’s not true. And what is worse is that I received a crippling phone call today. I’m not one to say no to new adventures, or old ones for that matter, but I had to say no to this. I don’t know what repercussions it will carry. Wendell’s parents have written me off completely. I have half a mind to believe they think I killed poor Wendell. Killed him! Why else would the police interview us over and over and over again? I finally wised up and hired Mr. Matuszewski.’” At that, Clara froze.