by J. S. Marlo
Shielding his eyes from the sun with a raised hand, Avery surveyed the area for any sign of his suspect.
Where are you, Malcolm? The white sand and shimmering blue water were saturated with people of all ages, and the comparison with the needle lost in a haystack came to mind.
A cool breeze blowing from the ocean ruffled the grass growing on the dunes. He paused, then lowered his hand to his side. The lonely red-and-white lighthouse stationed at the top of the steep cliff where the beach ended seemed to mock his quest.
No matter which way he looked, there was no place to stash the body of a little dog, let alone that of a grown woman.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to play near the old lighthouse?” The woman’s voice rose over the sound of the waves. “It’s not safe.”
“The ghost was there, Mom,” a dark-haired boy, no more than eight or nine years old, shouted back. “He knocked on the door.”
“There’s no ghost.” Sounding totally exasperated, she grabbed a towel with one hand and the boy’s arm with the other. “We’re going home.”
The boy clung to his ghost story like a mad dog to his bone while his mother dragged him into the parking lot.
“Wait!” A hunch Avery could neither explain nor ignore prompted him to run after the woman and her son. “Ma’am? A moment of your time, please?”
She stopped and, without lessening her grip on her son, she turned toward him. “Yes?” The reply was even, but the glare in her eyes warned him to be brief and to the point.
“Could your son tell me about the ghost he heard?”
A heavy sigh whisked through her teeth. “He didn’t hear any ghost, just falling debris.”
“It was the ghost. He—”
“Tye! That’s enough!” A tug on the boy’s arm silenced his objections. “The lighthouse has been condemned for years. My son knows he’s not allowed to play there. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll go home and ground him. Good day.”
***
Ghosts? The kids mistook me for a ghost?
The only ghost story that Rowan recalled was the one Chris fed her on their first date when they drove by the lighthouse.
Her location dawned on her, and the sounds reaching her ears confirmed her suspicions. She was locked in the old lighthouse, where the waves broke on the rocks and the seagulls nested on the ledges of the cliff. If there were barricades, like Chris had told her, the chances that someone else would venture here twice in the same day were slim. It’d be easy for him to come back at nightfall and throw her down the cliff. Why he hadn’t done it yet escaped her.
If death was inevitable, making it easy for him to kill her needed not be. With her fingers, she felt the protrusion of the object. It was some sort of screw or bolt. A jagged head stuck out from the object and, with a fingernail, she could scratch the exposed thread.
Positioning her hands on each side of the screw, she lodged the strap binding her wrists together against the exposed thread.
Sweat dripped between her shoulders. Slow and steady. With little room to maneuver, she tried to rub the strap back and forth along the screw, hoping the friction with the thread would wear or tear the strap.
***
As Avery approached the rocky cliff featuring the lighthouse, the white sandy beach cushioning his steps was gradually replaced with stones and pebbles. The sunbathing crowd had dwindled to a few swimmers braving the stronger waves and current. On the lookout for Malcolm, he gave the faraway swimmers no more than a passing look.
The cliff proved to be more treacherous to ascend than he’d anticipated. Needing both hands to grip the rock, he had to abandon his cane. Each strenuous step he took challenged his weakened muscles into action. The fear that his legs would balk under the physical stress he imposed on his body didn’t hinder his ascent. And when he reached the top on his own two feet, his hope of returning to active duty rose with his pride.
On the cliff, warning signs and orange wooden barricades surrounded the lighthouse. There was no point calling Rowan’s name and warning Malcolm of his presence.
His senses heightened by the chase, Avery walked past the signs and around a barricade. All the windows of the lighthouse were boarded and the only entrance, a low door facing inland, was barred on the outside with a steel rod. The perfect dungeon.
The twittering of the birds and the smashing of the waves filled his ears. The young boy deserves a commendation for hearing the ghost of the lighthouse over such a racket.
Avery looked around for any sign of Malcolm. The man couldn’t be inside the lighthouse, not when it was barred from the outside, but he had to be nearby. Senses on high alert, Avery lifted the rod from the two supports fastened on each side of the door before discarding it on the rock.
With a mixture of dread and hope, he cautiously opened the door. Inside the lighthouse, the sun shone on the most beautiful sight—and restored the faith he’d lost the day Rachel died.
Kicking and twitching on the floor, Rowan blinked like a homing beacon.
“O’Reilly, you need to stop crawling into dark places,” he teased, releasing the nervous energy stored inside his body. “You’ll get in trouble one of these days.”
Skipping over a water puddle, he knelt by her side. She stilled and met his gaze. The fear in her eyes ceded its place to disbelief, then relief. The same relief that loosened his guts.
“You’re safe, Rowan.” He untied the gag, then tried to sit her up.
“Cr…” Something between a croak and a cry ended in a coughing fit.
“Don’t try to speak.” Her arms were trapped behind her back, hindering his attempt to sit her up.
“Chris. It was Chris,” she rasped. “He killed Mattie.”
“I know. Bill and I figured it out.” He wished for a bottle of water to soothe her dry throat. “Malcolm was after Buccaneer. When your aunt didn’t sell, he killed her. Now, don’t move.”
Heedless of his request, she tried to pull herself up. “Not Buccaneer. The bones. He was after the bones.”
The connection between the doctor and the bones stumped him, but now wasn’t the time to debate the killer’s motives, not when he loomed nearby. “Would you stay still for a moment?”
He leaned across her body and froze. The strap binding her hands was worn two-thirds of the way through and blood oozed from the raw lesions chafing her wrists. Near her fingers was a commemorative plaque with a blood-covered screw sticking out of the corner.
Pride swelled in his heart. She had fought hard to escape, and if time had been on her side, she might have succeeded. “I’m going to cut the strap.” From his back jeans pocket, he retrieved a knife and flipped the longest blade open.
“Is that a pink Swiss Army knife?” A hint of incredulity piqued in her voice.
“It was Rachel’s. She carried it everywhere. After she died, I kept it. Now stop wiggling like a fish. I swear, sometimes you and Rachel are evil twins.” The blade sliced across the plastic straps binding her wrists and knees like a fin through water. “Hold on just a few more seconds.”
He put the knife away before helping her to her feet. “Up and steady.” At the sight of tears pearling under her eyelashes, he wrapped her in his arms and graced her forehead with a tender kiss. “It’s over, Rowan. You get a second chance. We both get a second chance.”
“No, we don’t.” She gripped his shirt, and her saddened expression bore into his soul. “I’m not Rachel. I can’t replace her.”
Why she’d want to replace Rachel was lost on him. “What about Bjorn? Don’t you still love him?”
Tears streaked down her cheeks when she nodded. “I ran away, and I lost him.”
Lover Boy was an idiot for letting her go, and once Rowan was safely back home, he’d have a long man-to-man chat with Arnarsson. “You didn’t lose him. He—”
A shadow glided across the entrance, blocking the sun. “What a charming little reunion.”
***
Cold shivers originating fr
om inside her chest spread through her blood and rippled through Rowan’s entire body. If not for Avery’s arms, her knees would have buckled, and she would be lying on the floor. Again.
“Drop the rod, Malcolm.” Avery’s strong and steady command contrasted with the loud beating of his heart against her ear. “It’s over.”
“Stone.” Chris stood in the doorway with an iron bar in his hands. “If only you’d minded your own business.”
As Chris took a step inside, Avery hustled her behind his back. “You won’t get away, Malcolm. Don’t add another murder to your list.”
“You got it all wrong, Stone. I came here to rescue Rowan, but I was too late. You’d already strangled the poor thing. When you attacked me, I killed you in self-defense. The police will find me sobbing over Rowan’s battered body.”
The thought that she’d dated such a monster brought a surge of bile to her throat. “I hope they let you rot in jail and throw away the key.”
Avery’s back arched and the muscles in his arms tightened, but had she not been standing behind him and resting her hand on his shoulder to peep around him, she might not have felt the changes.
“The only thing rotting, Rowan, will be your flesh.”
Feet spread apart, Chris moved his hands back toward his shoulder, like a baseball player ready to swing at the ball. The bar rose, and an orange beam whooshed through the air. Avery pushed her out of the way. A heavy thud resounded in the lighthouse, and a scream escaped from her throat.
Chris dropped facedown into the water puddle.
“Did I kill him?”
Bjorn? Her eyes and her ears must have betrayed her. There was no way he could be here, clinging to an orange stud over Chris’s body.
“Great timing, Bjorn.” Seemingly unfazed by Bjorn’s apparition, Avery crouched by Chris’s head and checked his neck. “You missed. He’s still alive. Now ditch the barricade and take care of your girlfriend before she goes into shock and faints.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Arms crossed over his chest, Bill stood with his back against the side of his truck, his head turned toward the ocean. Dark sunglasses masked his expression, but Avery suspected Rowan to be on his mind.
Approaching the truck, Avery gripped the frame of the open window for support. His leg hurt from the exertion, but the pain felt good. “Reminiscing about the past or thinking about the future?”
“Is there a difference?” Steady breathing inflated and deflated Bill’s chest. “I suppose I should be grateful Malcolm didn’t harm her, but I can’t help wishing Bjorn had clobbered him to death. It would have spared Rowan the heartache of testifying.”
Revenge was never the answer and, deep down, they both knew it. “She won’t be alone in the courtroom, Bill, and justice will be served.” He intended to attend the trial and provide Rowan with the moral support she would need to go through the ordeal. “Bjorn is a decent young man. Malcolm’s blood didn’t belong on his hands.”
The handyman slowly nodded. “I saw you carried his backpack inside. I take it he passed the interrogation in the garage?”
Before letting Lover Boy see Rowan, Avery had grilled him until he was burned to a crisp. “He fed me a grandmother tale too far-fetched not to be true.” His gaze wandered into Bill’s truck. A duffel bag sat on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Avery did a double-take at the sight of the airline tag attached to the handle. KEF? The same IATA code he’d seen on the tag of Bjorn’s backpack. Stunned by the implications, he returned his attention to the older man. “Went on a trip, Bill? I heard Iceland was nice this time of year. Did you meet an old lady, by any chance?”
A shifty smile crinkled the corners of his mouth. “Someone had to talk some sense into Grandma.”
It surprised Avery that Bjorn hadn’t connected the dots yet. “How long have you known about the grandmother’s meddling?”
Bill removed his sunglasses and looked toward Buccaneer. The worries etched on his face softened, replaced by a peaceful glow. “I overheard Rowan spill her heart out to her stepfather near the stream, but she’d made him promise not to interfere. Someone had to set things right.”
The heart of a grandfather did beat inside the old man’s chest, after all, and he deserved a second chance. “You’re a good man, Wilmot. Now go to her. Do it for Mattie—and for your son.”
“What do I tell her?”
“The truth.” Reaching out, Avery clapped the old man on the shoulder. “And get rid of the airline tag before she finds out and wrings your neck for meddling with her love life.”
***
After a lengthy visit to the emergency room and an even longer bath, Rowan was content just to snuggle under the covers, all warm and safe in her room at Buccaneer.
“Anything else I can do for you, Miss Rowan?”
If Gail tucked the blankets any tighter she’d be wrapped like a mummy. “Have you seen Bjorn?”
“I believe he’s in the kitchen. I’ll send him right away.”
In the lighthouse, Bjorn had caught her in his arms when she’d collapsed, but he couldn’t have been real. He had to have been a product of the drugs that Chris injected into her veins, but she’d held on to the illusion. Only in the ambulance, as he rode with her, had she realized she wasn’t dreaming.
Many questions hung between them, questions that couldn’t be answered in the presence of nurses or doctors. Avery had picked them up at the hospital, and when they arrived at Buccaneer, he’d ushered Bjorn into the garage while Gail tended to her needs.
Gail closed the bedroom door behind her. Moments later, someone knocked.
“Come in.” Her voice quivered with anticipation—and fear.
The door opened.
“Would you like a visitor?” He stood in the doorway, his face as radiant as the last time she’d seen him in Iceland, before she ran away and made a mess of everything.
“Yes.” With her hand bandaged at the wrist, she patted the mattress beside her, but once he accepted her invitation, words failed her, and tears built in her eyes.
“Hey, no more tears.” With the back of his finger, he wiped the tears from her eyes before wrapping her in his arms. “I love you, Ro. Would you give us a second chance?”
She wanted to explain, but she couldn’t tell him the truth, not without hurting him. Unable to face him, she kept her head buried in the crook of his neck. “I couldn’t stay…but it wasn’t because of you.”
“I know.” He gently tilted her chin up with his thumb, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Amma told me everything.”
“She did?” His grandmother had betrayed them, used their love to her own selfish advantage, and Rowan didn’t trust that the old lady had told him the truth.
“She’d hoped I’d marry Fridrika if you left me.” A sharp breath of air whooshed from his mouth and breezed across her cheek. “Why didn’t you contact me after she forced you to write that letter? Were you afraid I wouldn’t believe you?”
For months, these questions had haunted Rowan’s nights, and to hear that his grandmother had confessed to her shameless scheme left a bittersweet taste in her mouth.
“She didn’t want you to marry a foreigner. She threatened to disown you and make our lives miserable if I didn’t write the letter and leave. I couldn’t ask you to choose between her and me.” Not when his grandmother was the woman who’d raised him after the death of his parents. It would have been too cruel. Duty had demanded she leave without hurting him. “So I just signed the letter differently, hoping you’d catch the clue—hoping you would contact me.” Except he hadn’t—until today.
“I noticed the signature, and I should have come right away, but I had tourists who fell into a crevasse and got rescued just before the volcano exploded, then Amma got sick—” He sighed, a long sigh that echoed into her soul. Nature wasn’t to blame, nor was his sense of duty. “Anyway, when I finally came here on Sunday, you were out with that sick doctor.”
“Last Sunday?” A pang of guilt sq
ueezed her heart, and she lowered her head. “I ruined everything, didn’t I?”
“No, Ro. I’m the one who screwed up and almost lost you.” A soft kiss brushed her forehead. “I should have waited at the bed-and-breakfast and insisted we talk. Instead, I began to believe the letter and was stupid enough to fly home without you.”
They’d both made mistakes they had ended up regretting. “I waited for you, Bjorn, but when I didn’t hear from you, I went out with him. He kissed me…twice.” Her skin itched at the memory. “It didn’t go any further.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation—and I can’t blame him for having great taste in women, can I?”
His voice carried no resentment, and when she inched away to look into his eyes, there was only love reflected in them. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Ro.” He reached out, and after so many months apart, she relished the soft caress of his thumb on her cheek.
A kaleidoscope of butterflies had awoken inside her chest, all fluttering in unison. “May I ask what changed your grandmother’s heart?”
“I’m not sure, but on Wednesday, a man visited her. I didn’t meet him, but he told her he was a relative of yours.”
“Pa went to see her?” But he’d promised not to intervene.
“It wasn’t your stepdad. Amma said he was old and bald with very disturbing eyes. One dark, one light.”
The description ruled out her pa, and aside from the eyes, it didn’t fit her brother, either. If anything, it might have described her father had he still been alive. “You don’t think the ghost of my father visited her, do you?”
A light shrug ruffled her human pillow, and she snuggled closer against his shoulder. “Whoever he was, he made an impression on her. She sends her blessings and begs your forgiveness.”