by JL Bryan
Chapter Thirty-Five
That was pretty much it. With the case wrapped, and Kara and the PSI people withdrawn from our offices, and no new client just yet, we had a chance to get back to thinking about the holidays.
Everyone was traveling in different directions for Thanksgiving—Calvin down south a few hours to see his daughter's family, Stacey to Alabama.
The group of us did end up having a pleasant, informal sort of party on the weekend before the holiday. This was back in the workshop, at the long work table, everything freshly scrubbed and restored to its usual place. We tried to pretend nothing had happened, but the outsiders had swept through like a hurricane, scattering us from each other.
Calvin sat at the head of the table, mostly quiet. I sat to his side. Stacey and Jacob joined us. I'd even messaged Hayden to come—he'd been pretty reliable through some tough spots with us—but he'd already left for Baltimore, withdrawn from us along with all the equipment he oversaw. We were stripped down to a bare bones operation now, in terms of gear as well as people. I was ready to get used to that again.
Across from us sat Grant Patterson from the Historical Association, along with his friend Jack Taylor. Both of them seemed a touch overdressed for the occasion, their dark tailored suits and silk pocket squares a contrast to Calvin's frayed flannel shirt, and to the scuffy jeans pretty much everybody else wore.
Grant would have loved hearing about Alyssa Wagner and her Hollywood Regency master suite, but I was still bound by confidentiality agreement. I made a mental note to arrange an introduction between them in the near future.
“What's the plan now, old friend?” Grant asked Calvin. “Will you be retiring to eternal seaside glory or not?”
“The Graybeard Villa isn't right on the ocean, unfortunately,” Calvin said.
“Is that really the name?” Stacey asked.
“Grayson Villas, maybe,” Calvin said. “Which isn't much better.”
“At least Graybeard sounds like an obscure but interesting pirate,” Jacob said.
“Having my retirement-villa deposit returned could prove tricky,” he said. “My family is still down there. And up here, I'm not much use on investigations anymore—”
“That's not—” I began.
“Stop,” he said. “I mean field work. There's not much I couldn't do by email.”
“Or Skype!” Stacey said, and Calvin winced.
“I'm still not comfortable using the Jetson phone,” he said.
“But then we'd miss your smiling face,” Stacey protested.
“The point is that Hunter and I can easily make the drive up here within a few hours, if needed,” Calvin said. “And I feel more than comfortable handing over all operations to Ellie.”
“To Ellie?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“What if Ellie's not totally ready for that?” I felt a sudden crush of responsibility.
“I could take over!” Stacey said.
“If that's the arrangement the two of you want—” Calvin said.
“Just kidding!” Stacey interrupted, looking horrified. “Ellie, I'm not trying to stage a coup here—”
“It's okay,” I said.
“I've been preparing you for this for some time,” Calvin told me.
I nodded. “Okay.” I wasn't sure what else to say. It was comforting to have him around as backup, and to help me figure things out—but as he'd said, he didn't really have to be physically close to do that, not in the twenty-first century.
“Hey, you forgot to try my cornbread-cranberry casserole!” Stacey said, sliding the cheesy dish my way.
“Thanks,” I said. I considered slipping it to the dog under the table, but I didn't want to make him sick.
And that was how our office Thanksgiving went, pretty much. I picked at my turkey leg and tried to envision the future.
Calvin was leaving, but not completely. Kara and pals were gone for now, but they still owned the firm. I was going to be in charge, until somebody else showed up to take over.
I could live with all this. I could understand all of Calvin's reasons for trying to get out of the business now, but none of them applied to me.
Like the lighthouse keepers of old, I bore the responsibility of keeping the light shining into the darkness, creating a patch of safety in a world of danger, standing on the shoreline between life and death, doing everything in my power to make sure that the darkness never won.
FROM THE AUTHOR
I hope you enjoyed the latest Ellie Jordan adventure!
Readers familiar with the Savannah area will recognize the Cockspur Island lighthouse on the cover. This antique structure does indeed stand at the mouth of the Savannah River where it meets the Atlantic, though it in a slightly different location than the lighthouse in this story. The history of the lighthouse is also fictional. The land and the stairs around the lighthouse really do disappear underwater as the tide rises, which I found fascinating and evocative.
The real lighthouse is at Fort Pulaski, an historic landmark where no private residence will likely be built anytime in the near future, so I moved it down to a fictional rocky spur at the northwestern corner of Tybee Island, where it could still mark the entrance to the south channel of the river. The idea of a private individual building a house there was more believable. In the real world, there is little development on that part of the island now, though a small portion of the area has been marked as expensive private lots for future construction.
Look for the ninth Ellie book sometime in 2017!
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Thanks for reading!
Also by J.L. Bryan:
The Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper series
Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper
Cold Shadows
The Crawling Darkness
Terminal
House of Whispers
Maze of Souls
Lullaby
The Keeper
The ninth book in the Ellie Jordan, Ghost Trapper series will be available in 2017.
The Jenny Pox series (supernatural/horror)
Jenny Pox
Tommy Nightmare
Alexander Death
Jenny Plague-Bringer
Urban Fantasy/Horror
The Unseen
Inferno Park
Science Fiction Novels
Nomad
Helix
The Songs of Magic Series (YA/Fantasy)
Fairy Metal Thunder
Fairy Blues
Fairystruck
Fairyland
Fairyvision