Lighthouse Bay

by Kimberley Freeman

  He laughed lightly. “Forget I asked.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. Besides, I don’t know if Juliet will ever speak to me again, so I’ll probably never have an opportunity to tell her.”

  They fell silent for a few moments. Bossy moved onto Damien’s lap and the sound of the sea and the beat of the fan lulled Libby into a reverie. Then Damien said, “Juliet told me about what happened the night Andy died.”

  The guilt, the mortification, was crushing. All she could bring herself to say was, “Oh.”

  He let the topic hang there, scratching Bossy’s ears.

  Finally, she said, “I know I did it. But it seems as though it happened to another person now. Twenty years. Half my life ago. I felt like an adult then, but I see now I was practically a child.”

  “When Juliet told me, I felt terrible for her. And I felt just as terrible for you.”

  Libby looked at him dubiously. “You did?”

  “We all make mistakes in our youth. Most of them aren’t fatal. You were very unlucky. I told Juliet that.”

  She looked down into her teacup, and noticed that her hands were shaking. Memories of that night were washing through her. The salt water in her throat, the chill wind, the sirens, the growing dread. Worst of all, Juliet’s screams like those of a wounded animal, not a person. “I was an idiot,” Libby managed to spit out. “He’d still be alive if I hadn’t gone in the water. He and Juliet would have married, had children. She would have been happy.” Tears brimmed. She blinked them back.

  “You don’t know that. They were kids when they got together; it might have all gone wrong down the track. There aren’t any guarantees.”

  “No. But I took away their opportunity to try to build that dream. I ruined her life.”

  “Her life isn’t ruined.”

  She looked up. “She said the same thing. Exactly.”

  “Then it must be true.” He smiled warmly, gently. “Is the accident the reason you ran away to Paris?”

  “Yes. I mean, I always wanted to get out of town. But when it happened, I wanted to be as far from Juliet as I could possibly be. The guilt was crushing me. It helped that she told me she never wanted to see me again.” Libby paused a moment, Juliet’s words still echoing in her ears, making the sickening guilt fresh again. She wanted to close her eyes and sink into the floor and never have to think of it again, but Damien was waiting for her to finish. “My French was good, so I bought a one-way ticket. I ran away. Literally. And somehow one year turned into two, then four, then ten, then . . . I missed everything. Every birthday, every Christmas, Dad’s funeral. I have no idea what Juliet did because I never asked her. I presumed she would tell me if she got married or had a child. Sometimes I wondered how her life was going, but it made me feel so guilty I . . .” Her voice shook and she had to take a deep breath to stop herself from crying. “I made myself forget about her,” she breathed.

  Damien rearranged Bossy on his lap and reached over to touch her arm gently. “It’s okay.”

  And something about his touch, his voice, made her fire up with anger. Who was this kid to feel sorry for her? To reassure her? She flinched and pulled away. “I know it’s okay,” she snapped, and then immediately felt embarrassed. She stood and walked to look out the window. She could feel him in the room behind her, waiting patiently. It seemed he hadn’t taken offense at her hot words. “Can we not talk about this?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “So, our lovesick lighthouse keeper . . .”

  “Yes, I’m missing some papers from 1901. His journal cuts off just when he’s getting interesting and . . . Er . . . Lovesick. Then there’s nothing more from him. The next journal I have is by the incoming lighthouse keeper.”

  Libby turned to face him, her back against the kitchen sink. He was still pinned to the sofa by Bossy. “Where would those papers be?”

  “I think I know. Somewhere I can’t get them.”

  She tilted her head quizzically.

  “At my house. With all my other things. My house that I can’t get into right at this moment. When Granddad died, he left loads of boxes full of books and papers. Mum stored about half a dozen in my spare room, intending to go through them some time. I think she’s forgotten about them. But I have a suspicion some of the old lighthouse documents are there, that Matthew Seaward’s journal is there.”

  “And why can’t you go and search the boxes? If they’re at your house?”

  He grimaced. “Because my ex is there. And she’s furious.”

  His predicament began to make sense. “What did you do to her?”

  It was his turn to be embarrassed and annoyed. “I didn’t do anything to her.”

  “You said she’s furious.”

  “Because I stopped loving her,” he blurted. “She’s furious because I stopped loving her.”

  Libby returned to the couch, sat next to him and reached over to rub Bossy’s ears. “So, she’s locked you out?”

  “And changed all the passwords on our joint accounts. But, you know, she’ll cool off eventually.”

  Libby watched his face for a moment. “You’re afraid of her, aren’t you?”

  “She has a bad temper. It’s a little intimidating.”

  “You can’t let her get away with it. You need your things. You need to move on.”

  “I know.”

  She smiled. “And I need the last part of Seaward’s journal.”

  He smiled in return, relaxing. “Maybe I’ll call her again. Maybe she’ll listen to me for once instead of screaming abuse and hanging up.”

  Libby couldn’t imagine anybody treating gentle, affable Damien that way, and she felt suddenly protective of him. “Would it help if I called her? Or came with you to see her?”

  But he was already shaking his head. “No, no, no. I have to do it alone.” He took a deep breath. “Thanks for the tea. I’m at the B&B if you need me.”

  “It’s hard for me to come down there. So don’t be a stranger. Drop by any time.”

  It was only as she was saying good-bye at the door that she remembered to tell him she thought Graeme Beers was her midnight creeper. Unlike Tristan and Scott, Damien believed her immediately.

  “What do you think he’s looking for?” he asked.

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “He’s never tried to get into the house?”

  “No. Thank God.”

  “It’s something about your property. Maybe he thinks he has some claim on it? Does he have family down here? Is he looking at the property boundaries?”

  “Or has he lost something here? And if so, how and what?” She leaned against the doorjamb. “Should I just confront him?”

  Damien shook his head. “Don’t. He could be dangerous. You never know.”

  Her skin crept with cold. “Sergeant Lacey doesn’t believe me.”

  “Just make sure you lock up well and keep your phone handy if they come by again. I wish I had a phone you could call me on, but it’s with the rest of my stuff.”

  For some reason, Libby found this funny. She repressed a laugh, but Damien caught the twinkle in her eye and he laughed too. It felt good to laugh at their twin predicaments.

  “Can I offer you some advice?” she asked him.

  “Sure, go on.”

  “If you want to woo my sister, you’d best make sure you’re cleanly out of that other relationship first. I have no idea if she considers your age difference a problem, but I know she’d be wary about getting entangled with somebody who has that much ex-girlfriend baggage hanging over him. You need to sort it out now, not later.”

  He nodded. “Good advice. I’ll think about it. And my advice to you?”

  She bristled, and he smiled at her. “Come on,” he said, “you have to take it.”

  “What, then?” she asked, making her voice even.

  “Forget about what you did in the past. Think about what you can do now, here in the present.”

  S
he nodded slightly. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  On Monday morning, Juliet came downstairs to find Melody hanging around Damien’s breakfast table, laughing and flirting. Juliet’s stomach clenched. Melody had just turned twenty, so she was technically closer in age to Damien than Juliet was. And, of course, she also had tight skin and coltish limbs. Juliet thought about sending Melody back to the kitchen to wait for the bakery delivery—that was her usual job, after all—but she relented. Cheryl had warned her. Datemate had confirmed it. She wasn’t about to stop Damien finding happiness elsewhere.

  “Morning,” she called softly, then went through to the kitchen.

  The bakery delivery arrived shortly afterwards, and she kept herself busy counting stock and checking off the invoice. The other B&B guest didn’t come down for breakfast and morning trade was very quiet. She made a scone mixture and was cutting scones carefully on the floured bench when Damien came up behind her.

  “Juliet?”

  She jumped, hand over heart.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I was miles away,” she replied. “How was your breakfast?”

  “It’s always great.”

  She swallowed hard. “Melody does a wonderful job of the weekday breakfasts. I couldn’t survive without her.” She smiled encouragingly. “She’s a lovely girl.”

  “Uh . . . yes.”

  “You two seem to get on well. You should get together some time. I bet she knows all the good night places . . .” She trailed off. Night places? Really? What did she know about what young people did?

  Embarrassed silence fell between them. Then Damien said, “I have to go away. A week at most. Perhaps less. I . . . I’ve got to sort some stuff out with Rachel. It can’t go on like this.”

  She nodded warily.

  “I promise I’ll be back to finish your kitchen.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ve already done so much.”

  “No, no. I will be back. I promise.”

  But she could feel it. He was pulling away, withdrawing from her life. Probably for the best. This crush was silly anyway. Crazy. She was embarrassed for herself. “Good luck,” she said.

  Then he moved closer and opened his arms to hug her. She was so surprised that the hug was over before she had a chance to sink in and enjoy it. She had a brief impression of his warmth, his texture, his beating heart, but most of all his smell: spicy, fresh, the sea. He backed away and said something under his breath.

  “Sorry?” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “I’ll keep your room for you,” she said.

  He smiled, then headed out the door.

  Everyone knew Juliet. It was one of the benefits of having lived in a small town her whole life. Everyone knew her and most wished her well. Some loved to gossip to her, though she didn’t enjoy gossip much. Nobody loved to gossip more than Shelley Faber, the secretary at Anderson and Wright Solicitors on Puffin Street.

  She was headed for the bank in the brief half-hour between the morning-tea rush and lunch rush, hoping to make a quick transaction. But Shelley, formerly Juliet’s classmate in Year Eleven English, was smoking a cigarette outside her office and spotted her.

  “Juliet! Just the person I wanted to see.”

  “Me? Why?”

  Shelley blew out a thin stream of smoke and butted her cigarette on the footpath. “Your sister. What’s she selling?”

  Juliet groaned inwardly. Why did everyone assume she knew what her sister did? “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Bronwyn over at Pariot’s said Elizabeth Slater had made an appointment to talk to a conveyance solicitor this week. Conveyance. Real estate.”

  The burn started low in her belly. “I know nothing. Libby and I are not close.”

  “Do you think—?”

  “I said I know nothing,” Juliet snapped. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

  Bank forgotten, Juliet marched down to the beach, slipped off her shoes and waded into the water. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Libby. Tristan Catherwood. Real estate. There was only one way all of those things were related. For years, the community had fought Ashley-Harris Holdings. Juliet had fought hardest of all, not just for the survival of her business but for the good of the town, its occupants, even the wildlife. What did Libby and Tristan know about Lighthouse Bay? Nothing. What was at risk? Everything.

  Juliet had not felt this desolate in a long time. All those years of struggle had used her up. She had tried so hard to secure her own future, only to find that future emptied out: no love, no family, and now for certain a dwindling business in a town irrevocably changed. And she wasn’t young anymore; recent events with Damien had made that horribly clear. All of a sudden, her life felt so brief, so ephemeral. She dug her toes into the sand, but the withdrawing waves pulled the ground out from under her feet. She closed her eyes, dizzy for a moment.

  But it was eleven-thirty. She couldn’t stand here forever feeling sorry for herself. Melody and Cheryl waited for her: the too-serious, used-up boss. The customers would come for today at least. What happened tomorrow or the day after or next year, nobody knew. Least of all Juliet.

  Libby woke deep in the night. She’d kicked her blanket off earlier, but now her skin prickled with cold. Half-asleep still, she reached for the blanket.

  Then she heard it. The car. The engine cut.

  She sat up, inched the curtain aside and looked out. Its headlights were still on. She couldn’t see the license plate.

  As Damien had advised, she slept with the phone next to her bed. She quickly dialed the police station and got a young constable. Libby told her what was happening, then hung up.

  It would take a few minutes for the police to get here. She watched out the window. A dark figure—she could easily map Graeme Beers’ son onto it—left the car and headed for the northern side of the house.

  Libby froze in indecision. She could confront him. She could demand to know what the hell was going on.

  He could be dangerous. You never know. No, she wouldn’t go near him. But she could creep around the southern end of the cottage and try to see the license plate from behind. With a license-plate number, even Scott Lacey would have to believe her.

  She rose and, still in her short cotton pajamas, went via the art room to grab her torch. She couldn’t go out the front door: if Graeme was in the car, he’d see her. So she quietly removed the flyscreen on the art room window. She pulled a chair up to the window and carefully climbed out, landing with a soft thud on the tangled garden bed. She stopped and caught her breath, her heart hammering so hard she could barely hear the beat of the sea, the clatter of crickets. She strained her ears for footfalls. Nothing. She crept around the southern end of the cottage and waited a few moments.

  She could see the car up on the street. If she walked directly out in the open, he would see her coming. So she clambered over the old fence, knocking off peeling paint and scraping her knee. Then, keeping low, she made her way up to the street. She flicked her torch on and peered around the side of the fence. She shone her torch directly at the license plate, and memorized the numbers.

  Then, running footfalls: Graeme’s son had seen her. She switched off the torch and shrank back, heart thundering, tripping over a stone and landing hard on her backside. The car roared into life, and screeched off over gravel.

  They were gone.

  But this time, she had them.

  She went back to the house, remembering only as she was trying to open the front door that it was locked from the inside. She rounded the house, intending to climb back in the art room window, then curiosity got the better of her. What were they looking for?

  Libby shone the torch in front of her. His footprints were clear in the mud beside the dripping hose. Carefully, she picked her way through the long grass, shining her torch this way and that, looking for some kind of clue. But all she saw were rocks and plants a
nd spider webs. She noticed some grass pressed down flat near the house and shone her torch directly on it. The cottage was on two-foot stumps. It looked like he had laid down on his stomach here and flattened the grass. She crouched low, sending the torch beam under the house, inhaling the smell of cold dirt. A mark in the dirt indicated he had slid a little way under the house and . . . She had to lean right under the house now . . . Here was a shallow hole, dug with a trowel.

  The sound of a car engine made her get up too suddenly, whacking her head on the underside of the house. She saw stars, dropped her torch and managed to catch herself on the boards before she fell.

  It wasn’t Graeme’s car this time. It was Scott Lacey in his police car. She met him out the front.

  “They were here again,” she said, rubbing her head where she’d struck it. “I got their plate.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I hit my head.”

  “And your knee.”

  She glanced down to see her knee caked in blood and dirt. She sighed.

  “Let’s go inside,” Scott said.

  “I’m locked out. We have to go in through a back window.”

  He touched her shoulder lightly. “Why don’t you wait here and I’ll climb in and open up for you?”

  She nodded gratefully. A few minutes later she was turning the lights on in her lounge room while Scott sat down and pulled out his notepad.

  “Tea?” she said.

  “Nah. Let’s just get this sorted.”

  She turned on the kitchen tap and inelegantly raised her leg to wash off her knee. She gave him the license-plate number and the make, model and color of the car.

  She turned to see Scott surreptitiously admiring her legs in her short pajamas. Self-consciousness made her cheeks go warm. He quickly looked away.

  “They’re looking for something, Scott,” she said. “They were looking under the house. You don’t know anything? Any local knowledge? What might they be looking for?”

  “I’ve got nothing,” Scott said, tapping his pen on his notepad. “But when we identify them first thing tomorrow, I’ll head out to ask them.” He looked up and smiled. “And you’ll be the second person to know.”

  She considered him, then said, “Are you still cranky with me on Juliet’s behalf?”