Page 36 of Light of Day
“Sure, but what’s the meaning of the text? The deepest secrets and all that?”
“The secrets have to do with your dad? The hotel?” She jerked her head up as something occurred to her. “Those display cases. I noticed some old newspaper clippings in there. Do you know what they’re about?”
“Yes, they’re all part of hotel lore. The building of it, how many trips the steamer took to deliver the materials, the grand opening attended by Charlie Chaplin, that sort of thing.” Seeing her eyebrows lift, he explained, “It was a big deal at the time. My great-grandfather had a knack for marketing.”
“Well, there must have been something else. Something important. A secret.” She narrowed her eyes at Gabby’s photo. “A secret that people are lying about. See this? Where the deepest secretslie? She phrased it that way deliberately.”
Looking up, she sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “We have to get back into that library.”
“Agreed.”
Heather nodded. “You know, something Gabby said after her first visit here keeps coming back to me.”
“What’s that?”
“She said, whenever you see a space that’s all-white or nearly so, you have to ask how it came to be like that. It was probably intentional. Like Westerns.”
“Westerns? The movies?”
“Yes, those Westerns, with the high-noon showdowns and the cowboys. A quarter of real-life cowboys were Black, did you know that? A lot of them were freed slaves who fled to the west. But if you watch those old cowboy movies, you’d think they were all white except maybe a few here and there. Those moviemakers wanted to create a mystique, and Black cowboys weren’t part of that. They deliberately excluded that part of the reality.” She paused to take a long sip of the iced tea she’d ordered. “This is like my tenth iced tea of the day, by the way. Pee breaks incoming. Anyway, the point is, she told me that whenever I find myself in a white space, think about why it’s that way and who made sure it’s like that.”
“Are you thinking about the Lightkeeper Inn?” He knew exactly why the inn was exclusionary; it was designed that way, had been ever since it was built. Only the wealthiest, most long-established East Coast families had been welcome, and the fact that it was situated on an island made that easy to enforce.
“Honestly, it’s just something that’s been on my mind since I got back. I never really thought about it before. Now I can’t help noticing.” Her straw made a gurgling sound as she sucked in the last bit of her tea. “Shall we?”
“I’m ready. I suggest we sneak in, though, if we don’t want to be watched the whole time.”
She winked. “Whatever the constable says.”
18
But apparently itwasn’t as simple as that. Nothing ever was when it came to the Lightkeeper Inn.
“That’s my father’s inner sanctum. People are only allowed in by special invitation. I’m definitely not on that guest list anymore,” Luke told her. “He’s the only one with a key. I have to pull some strings.” He tapped on his phone.
“Text sent.” Luke pushed back his chair and picked up the check the server had left. “In the meantime, I’m going to look through Denton Simms’ place, you’re welcome to come along.”
“Of course I’m coming.” She scrambled to her feet. “And you don’t have to get that?—”
He held up his hand. “Official expense. Forget about it.”
Whether that was true or not, she relaxed. The who-pays-the-bill moment was always the part of a date that she dreaded the most. Her instinct was to split things equally, but some guys found that insulting, while for others, splitting down the middle was a sign that they weren’t interested after all. The guys who insisted on paying would sometimes give off an entitled vibe after that. It was all so loaded, no matter what. She and Gabby used to joke that everyone should sign a prenup before a date, in which all terms were laid out in advance.
But “official expense”? She could live with that. Not that it was a date. But if she and Luke did go on a date, she knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t make it awkward at the end. That was really all she asked.
At Denton Simms’ house, a surprise awaited. As soon as Luke pushed open the door, a streak of orange flew through the air and landed on Heather’s chest. She yelped and stepped back, feeling Luke grab her by the arm. An orange-striped fluff-ball of a cat clung to her neck, his front paws wrapped around her in a trembling hug.
“That’s Savannah,” Luke said, laughter running through his voice. “She must really like you.”
“Denton’s cat?” She could barely speak through the soft fur blocking her mouth.
“Yes. I forgot to warn you there might be a hungry cat here. I asked Jimmy to wait until we went through the place.”
“Hi Savannah.” She stroked the quivering cat’s head and whispered to it. “You’re all right. You’re all right.”
With the cat cuddled in her arms, she followed Luke through the mudroom, which held quite a collection of fishing boots and oilskins, into the living room. That room was dominated by the recliner facing a large TV screen mounted on the wall. Next to it sat a side table that held a bottle of Captain Morgan’s rum, a clamshell ashtray, several remote controls, and a box of cigars. “Talk about a man cave,” she murmured.
“Yeah, after his wife died, Denton turned into a bit of a recluse. Let’s find that cat some food.”
