Page 13 of Murder in the Lighthouse

“That’s the simple explanation,” Brogan concurred. “I’m sure Theo will track down who has multiple sets of keys. I’m sure he’ll solve this in twenty-four hours or less. But that still doesn’t explain Bethany’s disappearance. We know she wasn’t found in the woods near the lighthouse. We know the sheriff’s department conducted a massive search at Wilder Ranch and didn’t find her there. So where is she? And is she still alive?”

“We need to talk to the Heywood family and find out more about Bethany. What do you know about her?”

“Only that she’s a thirty-year-old records clerk who loved to hike. She borrowed her mother’s Mazda sedan three weeks ago on Sunday morning because her car was in the shop. She went out to meet a stranger she didn’t know.”

“Did she have a habit of hiking with strangers she met online?” Lucien wondered. “It seems odd to me that in the world we live in, she’d trust a stranger like that. Maybe it was someone she knew and lied to her family.”

Brogan furrowed her brow in thought. “Okay. But what if she also lied about going to Wilder Ranch? The Mazda she was driving is still missing. She could have gone anywhere. South to San Diego or Santa Barbara. North to San Francisco. What if she intentionally misled her family? Maybe she met this guy at the lighthouse here in Pelican Pointe. That would explain how Sam ended up here. Maybe he realized she was never at the park and followed that lead here.”

“Lots of maybes. Maybe she planned to spend her Sunday with a person she knew. She could’ve been having an affair.”

“What if she never planned to go hiking?” Brogan voiced. “Maybe Sam’s killer abducted Bethany. And Sam tied it all together.”

“Exactly. Let’s pay a visit to the Heywood family this afternoon. Maybe they’ll remember something that might help us better understand Bethany’s mindset before she went missing.”

Brogan nodded in agreement. “Sounds like a plan. We can gather as much information from them as possible and then figure out our next move.”

“I’ll set up the meeting with her family. But before that, I should start looking into Bethany’s background, do the usual social media searches, and see if there are any leads to followfrom there. Using Bethany Heywood’s case as a distraction should buy us time to figure out what questions we want Graeme, Gordon, and Nigel to answer.”

“And Jack,” Brogan added. “But that’s not fair to Bethany. We need to approach it like any other case and give it our full attention. It isn’t her fault we have these personal issues to manage. If I had a lick of sense, I’d pick up the phone, confront Delia today, and get it over with. And you could do the same by contacting Daniella Hudson and explaining how you know Graeme fathered her son Evan.”

Lucien reached across the table and picked up a lock of Brogan’s hair. “But we won’t do that because a confrontation might send an eighty-year-old woman into cardiac arrest or shock or something. And we won’t take that chance. As far as Dani Hudson or Evan is concerned, why mess up their lives with a phone call out of the blue? If she hasn’t bothered to contact Graeme for child support in twenty years or to find out her son has me for a brother, why should I be the one to turn Evan’s world upside down?”

“Another reason I love you,” Brogan declared. “Sometimes I think we’re maybe too nice.”

“But we can sleep at night because we aren’t assholes.”

She stifled her laughter. “There is that. We’ll put the mystery weekend on hold for now. If

we do invite everyone to a getaway, we should come up with a decent plan that’s foolproof. I don’t want to create hard feelings at this stage of their lives.”

When the dogs approached the table to hunt for scraps that might have fallen on the floor, Brogan looked at Lucien. “Did you feed the dogs?”

“No. I thought you did.”

“You came down first to make coffee while I took a shower, remember? You totally blew them off. The first person downstairs always feeds the dogs. You know that.”

“I guess I had my mind on other things. I started coming up with questions about our plan. There are no easy answers to our personal situations. I had weird dreams about it all night.”

Brogan shoved away from the table and went to the pantry, where they kept the dog food. “Poor puppies, you thought we forgot you.”

“We actually did,” Lucien said.

She quickly filled their dishes with kibble and fresh water and watched the two pups devour their food.

Lucien got up to clear the dishes and load the dishwasher. But as he worked, he realized the weight of their personal dilemmas and the mysteries surrounding Sam and Bethany. He knew they faced a tangled web of secrets, lies, and unresolved questions on all fronts, things that might threaten to unravel their peaceful life in Pelican Pointe.

As the dogs finished eating and scampered off to play, he approached Brogan, heading into the den, and wrapped her up in a warm embrace.

“I told you we’d figure this out together,” he murmured softly, his voice filled with determination. “I meant it. We always find a way out of our sticky messes.”

Brogan leaned into his body, finding solace in his strength. She knew they were in for a bumpy ride ahead. Delving into the past meant confronting family secrets. Something they were all too familiar with doing. With his arms wrapped around her, she felt a glimmer of hope that they could emerge from this storm stronger than ever.

Taking a deep breath, Brogan turned in his arms. “I’m a little frantic about what I might find. Is my birth mother still alive, living life to the fullest somewhere in Sweden or Europe orTimbuktu? Or did something happen to her, and Rachel ended up raising me? How did that come to be? And where does my dad fit into this, other than acting as a sperm donor until Rachel dies in the plane crash? After that, does he show up and claim me as his? Why? Does that make sense to you? And where was Delia when all this took place?”

“See? We have a lot on our plate,” he said after a moment, kissing her hair. “Let’s agree right now that whatever we find out about your mother or Rachel Brinell, whatever we uncover about Evan and his mother going forward, it won’t change who we are. It won’t change what we’ve built here in Pelican Pointe. This is us, Brogan. Our lives, the lives we’ve made, don’t have anything to do with rock stars or how they lived in the past.”

“Agreed,” she murmured. “But I can’t guarantee it won’t sting learning the truth.”

---