The Coast Road Home (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 13)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Who’s Quentin Blackwood?”

  “The doctor who started this hospital. Quentin used to be one of the most skilled surgeons you’d ever want to watch in an ER or an operating room for that matter. A gunman changed all that in a few seconds.”

  She let out a sigh and slunk down into the bed. “I guess there’s a lot of that going around.”

  “It’s one of the reasons I left Chicago’s trauma unit. More GSWs coming through the door than I could count, coming at me seven days a week. I lost most of them.”

  “Is it better here? Are you saying there’s none of that here?”

  “No, I’m not saying this is Utopia. Last fall we had a madman take hostages at the church. Seth Larrabee got his throat cut. I wish I could tell you there’s a place where that kind of violence doesn’t exist. But the truth is…”

  “Violence is everywhere. It took out my entire family on a day when spring was just around the corner. A wishful time after a long winter. That day, it was still cold, a chilly forty-five degrees, but the sun was out, shining bright, and the sky was clear, a beautiful day in Wisconsin, and I never saw it coming. Him. I never saw him until it was too late.”

  Three

  That evening, Gideon took those agonizing words home with him. As soon as he hit the door, he shed the dregs of hospital smells and changed into running clothes, loose shorts, and a T-shirt. He laced up his size fourteen Nikes and headed out the door again, taking off across the street for the beach.

  He’d discovered early on during medical school that one surefire way to get rid of pressure or lingering angst was to run until he felt he could cope with whatever issue had lodged in his brain. Whether that was a terminally ill patient or a sad case like Marley Lennox, it always seemed better if he worked it out in his head.

  There was something off about her story, something that didn’t quite add up. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was exactly. But he sensed she was holding back. And it nagged at him.

  He took the time to stretch before taking off down the length of shoreline where the hard, packed sand near water's edge provided the best course. It was low tide, so he had a clear path from underneath the lighthouse all the way around to the other side of Smuggler’s Bay.

  Tonight, he ran until the lamp posts winked on at sundown. Only after exhausting his energy did he head back home, hungry and thirsty.

  As he walked toward the gray and white stone cottage, he could imagine another century when smoke wafted from one of the two chimneys on either end, maybe while patrons danced to ragtime and got drunk on bootleg gin.

  He was thankful Logan had remodeled the interior with some pretense toward shifting from a dark, dank pub to a sea of light. Made of durable white oak, the vaulted ceilings brightened up the living space. Two large windows on either side of the front doors helped, providing a swath of western sunlight to flow in at sunset. Open and airy, the long shadows faded as he flipped on the lights and headed upstairs. A stone staircase that looked like it had been transported from a castle led to the top floor. What had once been the owner’s living space upstairs was now three spacious bedrooms and two full bathrooms.

  Logan had somehow managed to retain and recycle all the original hardware and light fixtures in the place. Old lantern sconces hung along the hallway as he made his way to the master bedroom.

  After grabbing a shower, Gideon put on a pair of sweatpants and headed down the back staircase to the kitchen. He stood at the eight-foot island guzzling from a bottle of water before reaching for a cold beer.

  Surveying the contents of his refrigerator, he decided on a cheese and mushroom omelet. It was quick, easy, and one of the few dishes he could master without needing much culinary skill.

  Ten minutes later, he stood at the stove babying the egg mixture to doneness he could handle before folding it over and then sliding the finished product onto a plate.

  He took a seat at the table and stared out into the darkness at the paved parking lot that was his backyard. Even though he couldn’t see it clearly, he knew it was still a crumbling mess because he hadn’t seen fit to address the problem yet. He’d been putting that off, and it was depressing. He needed to call someone and have them do a proper excavation, put in a backyard with grass or at least add on a garage or a carport. Something useful other than the peeling asphalt from the 1980s when someone had attempted to use the space and charge for parking at the beach. Failing miserably at that enterprise over the years, the pavement buckled from earthquakes or shoddy workmanship. Either way, his backyard was an eyesore and it needed to be addressed.

  He made a mental note to call Logan Donnelly. The sculptor would know the right people who did that sort of work. Gideon was more than a little surprised that the man known around town as a perfectionist, hadn’t already addressed the problem during renovations.

  As he cleaned his plate, Gideon kept thinking about Marley and everything she’d been through. He might as well admit that she’d drawn him in with those eyes, eyes that could change from green to brown depending on the light. And he couldn’t ignore her sad story.

  He finished his eggs and rinsed his plate before loading it into the dishwasher. He got himself another beer and strolled into the living room to catch the last of the Cardinal game at Busch Stadium.

  Furnished in warm browns and beiges, the room was something he’d come up with himself. Designed for comfort and a lived-in feel, it was better than the sterile, high-rise condo he’d called home in Chicago.

  As he sat there staring, not at the game, but at the stone fireplace on one wall, he couldn’t settle, maybe because his beloved Cards were losing badly at home against the mighty Cubs.

  “Weird. I still don’t understand how a Chicago native like you roots for the rival Cardinals,” Scott commented from his comfy seat, a leather side chair next to the ceiling to floor, built-in bookcases.

  It wasn’t the first time Gideon’s home had been invaded by a ghost. After signing the contracts, he’d been warned about the town’s infamous Scott Phillips. One of Quentin’s musings. By that time, though, it had been too late to back out of the deal. Of course, he hadn’t believed a word of it. Rumors and lore were part of small-town living. Even Chicago had its urban myths and ghost stories, most cities did. But as far as Gideon was concerned, it was all nonsense. He’d continued to believe that way right up until the visitor started showing up regularly and at odd times during the day or night.

  It had happened so frequently, that now he didn’t even blink when the man popped in unannounced. “Am I your first stop on the tour tonight or last on the list?”

  “I thought I’d grace you with my presence, have a nice chat after a hard day. You look like you need to talk.”

  “Just kicking back, enjoying my beer. What about you?” Gideon watched as an antsy ghost pushed to his feet and started walking around the room. “Seems like you’re the one with something on your mind.”

  “Have you ever taken the time to truly explore this place you bought, to truly value its place in history? It has quite a past. A lot of cool things went down here. Do you even know that during Prohibition the original owners smuggled in Canadian whiskey and French champagne down from Vancouver, using the pier right across the street to do it? Boatloads of the stuff came in at night and were stored below in the cellar. This house is one of the few places in town with a basement that runs the length of the building. Fifty people could easily take refuge down there.”

  Gideon lifted his beer to his lips. But just before taking a sip, he tilted the bottle toward Scott in salute. “You’re a handy guy to have around for a history lesson like that.”

  “Peasants,” Scott spat out. “Life is wasted on the living. There’s a secret panel in the other room they used as the pantry.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because as a kid I came here and poked around, found quite a bit of cool artifacts from that time, dozens of old liquor bottles, jars they used for moonshine, and old carafes
with stoppers in the top. Back in those days, they’d use anything as long as it could hold booze.”

  “You’re a man of many surprises,” Gideon remarked. He knew by now Scott was harmless as a bogeyman, but he recognized a restless spirit when he saw one. There always seemed to be a sadness in the man’s blue eyes.

  Under Gideon’s gaze, Scott went on, “When Logan remodeled this place, he switched it all around, the rooms, that is. I wasn’t even sure why. But now, I think his crew didn’t even discover all the hidden nooks and crannies this building has. And if the workers didn’t plug them, then the stairwell is still around.”

  Gideon leaned his head back and rested his neck on top of the couch cushion. Staring up at the wooden beams overhead, he was suddenly in the mood for an adventure. He got to his feet. “Okay, lead the way. Show me these hidden rooms you think exist. I’ve been here now for eight months. No one ever mentioned secret panels to me before now.”

  “You’ll need a flashlight,” Scott said with an eagerness in his voice that sounded like a Boy Scout willing to explore a new planet.

  Gideon obliged, grabbing his heavy-duty Maglite and following Scott to a ten by ten storage room off the kitchen. The utility area had shelves that looked solid enough to him, but they were empty because he didn’t have enough stuff to clutter it up yet. “I don’t even use this space.”

  “I see that,” Scott muttered as he went right to the spot, a section of shelving that pushed inward, away from the rest. “Put your full weight into that part of the wall and push hard. There are several layers of paint sealing it up. I bet it hasn’t been opened in two decades.”

  Sure enough, Gideon pressed against the wood, not expecting it to pop open. But when it did, he let out a gasp. “You weren’t kidding.”

  Impressed when the wall opened slightly, revealing a dark passageway to the lower level, he stood back in awe and watched as Scott headed straight into the shadowy bowels.

  Gideon preferred caution. He hesitated, stepping with care on the top step to test the strength and sturdiness of the wood. He’d admit to no one that the murky interior called to him. Shining his light to where he could see better, his foot made its first contact, the wood creaking under his weight.

  The ghostly Scott seemed unfazed, rattling off facts and details as he descended down into the basement. “The way smuggling worked back then was simple. The mother ships would anchor along the Pacific corridor, flying their foreign flags because they were coming from all over the world. If they stayed three miles offshore, they were considered in international waters. Those larger ships had been loaded with all kinds of booze, sometimes as many as fifty thousand cases onboard at any one time, stacked in the belly of the hull. The Coast Guard would try to focus on the rumrunners, the smaller boats that would line up along the sides of the mother ships to haul the stuff back and forth to land. Under the cover of darkness, those speedier boats would sometimes make six trips a night. They got away with it because the Coast Guard was outmanned, outgunned, and couldn’t keep up. All the Coast Guard had was an outdated World War I submarine at their disposal. Not enough to do much. The roadhouses and taverns along the coast relied on the rumrunners to stay in business, their highly sophisticated network that fed hordes of smaller skiffs making those countless bootleg runs to shore.”

  Fascinated now, Gideon could see how it worked. “And where did these mother ships originate from?”

  “Panama, Australia, Mexico, Belgium, France, Canada, Britain. You name it. What countries didn’t send liquor here by the tons? It was big business, worth millions.”

  Scott stopped when he reached the old dirt floor. “See, this section of the basement is separate from the rest. The one you know about is beyond that wall, the finished part Logan’s crew did. This still smells musty and dank. This is where they kept the main stash, hidden away in case they were raided.”

  Gideon aimed the light on one wall and was shocked to see evidence of it. Almost a century later, there were perhaps a hundred various glass bottles of different sizes lined up on shelves. Some had professional-looking black and gold labels on the front, while others looked more amateur in design. There were clear pints, dark pints, longnecks, some with no labels at all that looked like they contained homemade hooch. Others though carried considerable clout. Green bottles from distilleries touting French-made brandy, fancy cognac, twelve-year-old Scotch, and the best Irish whiskey.

  “How old were you when you came across all this?” Gideon asked.

  “Ten, maybe twelve.”

  “And you never took any of the booze?”

  “No. It seemed wrong to interfere with history.”

  “What do you think I should do with this?”

  “Enjoy its backstory. I would. Backstories are sometimes complicated.”

  Gideon realized that Scott wasn’t talking about bootleg liquor. “Why did you really come here tonight?”

  “I think you know what you have to do,” Scott said.

  “No, I really don’t,” Gideon countered as he went over to the shelves to take a closer look at the old inventory. But when he turned back to Scott for an answer, the ghost had already vanished.

  Gideon stood there, feeling like a fool. “The least you could do is explain the riddle,” he shouted into the cave-like darkness. “I’m not good at guessing games. If you want me to do something specific, just tell me what it is.”

  He knew how this worked. Scott didn’t intend to make another appearance tonight or explain anything.

  Pissed off now, when he got back upstairs, he jacked up his stereo. With music blasting from Nick Cave and Dave McCormack, he lost himself in pretending to sort it all out. He even made a list of things to ask Scott when he saw him again. But for now, the basement full of liquor was a mystery. Why he’d been taken down there in the first place was an even bigger unknown.

  Four

  Hospitals were noisy places, not the quiet pictures of solitude and escape that people wanted to believe.

  Marley would invariably get off to sleep, only to be jostled awake by a nurse taking her pulse or switching out her IV. It would take her almost an hour to settle again until the routine became depressing and she longed to get out of there.

  After three days, she still suffered from headaches and soreness. To break up the monotony, she walked up and down the corridor for exercise, hanging onto her IV stand for support.

  She stared out of every available window, from the lobby to physical therapy, longing to get a whiff of ocean air.

  To come all this way, only to be stuck inside seemed like a cruel joke. But she was used to life’s little ironies, the twists and turns that often mocked her efforts to move on.

  She refused to give up, though. Three years in, she couldn’t quit now because she had yet to find her happy place. There had to be more to life than misery and guilt.

  She tried watching TV, but the limited number of channels was less than inspiring.

  A woman showed up who owned a bookstore and doled out a stack of used paperbacks from a rolling cart. “I’m Hayden Cody. I hope you’re a reader.”

  Marley pushed to sit up, studying the book choices. “I am. Thank you so much.”

  “I brought mysteries and romance, thrillers and suspense, and a few nonfiction autobiographies. Take your pick.”

  She skipped over the tearjerkers and the latest killer thrillers knowing she wasn’t ready for that kind of mayhem. “I prefer to escape into a love story these days. It’s safer than mass murder or serial killings.”

  “You and me both,” Hayden said, handing her three bestselling romance novels. “This should keep you occupied until you can make it to the library on your own.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Straight down Ocean Street, a pretty estate known as the Bradford House. It’s on the other side of the Mammal Rescue Center. We’re still in the process of ramping up our books and stocking our shelves. We’ve been trying to lure a librarian down from San Francisco
, but so far, no luck.”

  “How about if I just stop by your store?”

  Hayden grinned. “I wouldn’t complain. I also sell candles and all kinds of gifts. If I sold just books, I’d go out of business in a week.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “Tell me about it. Reading keeps me sane. I love a good story.”

  “So do I. Which is why I can’t wait to read these. Thanks.”

  “No problem. I look forward to seeing you around town.”

  After Hayden left, she opened the most promising book but couldn’t keep her eyes trained on the words. She fell asleep, not because of the storyline, but because her head began to throb again.

  The brief nap made her feel better.

  Around six o’clock, she heard Gilly in the hallway rattling the dinner trays.

  For two days, Gilly had been trying to persuade her that the little Craftsman on Tradewinds was the answer to Marley’s housing dilemma.

  Marley wasn’t convinced. “I won’t move in without a month-to-month lease agreement. I’ll pay you rent like any other renter would do. It’s only fair. If you should find a buyer within that timeframe, then I’ll vacate the premises, no harm, no foul.”

  “Why are you so hard-nosed about this?” Gilly had wanted to know.

  “Because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m taking advantage of the situation.”

  Gilly rolled her eyes. “I’m practically begging you to move in, and you’re the one taking advantage?”

  “Look at it from my perspective. Once my car is fixed and I leave, I don’t want any hard feelings left behind. Me paying rent is the right thing to do. That way, people won’t think I’m a total loser.”

  “You’re not a loser.”

  “No, I’m not. That’s why I insist on paying rent.”

  Gilly gave up. “Fine. There’s a queen bed in the guest room we’ll drag into the master, or what I called the master. There’s only one bathroom, and it’s in the hallway. I’ll bring over a few dishes and silverware and clean towels. Get you all set up with the essentials.”