Page 16 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
“Oh,thatdocumentary?” Holt leaned his hip against the table and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “A small crew came up here about three years ago and filmed that. Until that point, no one thought much of Jonathan Marks’s death being more than what was concluded in the end.”
“The documentary brought up good points,” Shea countered.
“Yeah? So did that streaming-service documentary about that killer from your neck of the woods in Wisconsin. Anyone from these parts knows it turned a murderer into a hero.”
“Did it?” Shea tried to squelch her nerves, which brought out the challenger side of her personality.
“I don’t know.” Holt dismissed her with a laugh. “I’ve never paid much attention to true crime—or supposed crime. I live in this area to avoid that sort of thing.”
Shea matched his smile, drew a deep breath, and released it. “Sorry. I don’t know why I’m so edgy.”
“Sure you do.” Holt reached for his duffel bag and swung the strap over his shoulder. “You just saw a show that told you a guy died in the living room you’re staying in. That’s weird. And then Annabel goes and blows a lightbulb on you.”
“Annabel?” Shea offered a dubious grin.
Holt winked. “She’s blamed for just about everything odd that goes on here at the lighthouse. Just wait. One of these nights you’ll look out onto the shore and see a wispy, white form of a woman and you’ll know it’s true. All the tales of Annabel haunting the area are true.”
“You believe that?” Shea’s curiosity was doing away with the final remnants of her anxiety.
Holt shrugged. “When you’re born and raised around legend, you tend to take it seriously. Stories must come from somewhere, even if they’re not all true.”
Shea motioned for Holt to put down his duffel bag and makehimself comfortable. The world outside was dark. The sound of the lake was rhythmic in its pattern. She was alone in a lighthouse, and with her curiosity and anxiety both piqued, she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon. She didn’t mind the company.
A sideways glance at Holt as he made his way home reminded her that there was also probably a bit of selfish motive in her invitation. He was intoxicating. The way he listened to her. Bantered with her. Interacted with her. Heck, he even completed a full coherent sentence versus one-word grunts. Maybe she should feel guilty for her attraction, and part of her did. The part of her that remembered the Sunday school teachers pounding the Ten Commandments into her as a kid. But it was obvious to even a mosquito on the wall that her and Pete’s marriage had an expiration date. Didn’t it?
“So then. What doyoubelieve about Annabel?” Shea reached for a mug. “Tea?” She followed up her first question with a second.
“Sure.” Holt nodded. “What doyouknow about Annabel?” He countered Shea’s original question with his own. As he did so, he sank onto a chair at the table and hoisted his boot-clad feet onto the seat of another.
Shea set a kettle under the farmhouse sink’s faucet and turned the water on to fill it. “Well, I know she was one of the first group of European women who moved to and settled in this area.”
“Back in the late 1840s, yes,” Holt responded.
“And I know she died in 1852, but no one knows where she’s buried.”
“Fact.” Holt’s words reassured Shea she was going in the right direction.
She placed the kettle on the stove and reached for the knob to increase the heat on the burner, then laughed when she remembered it was literally an old-fashioned cookstove.
“Add some wood to the firebox,” Holt suggested with a sideways smile.
Shea laughed softly. “Yes, sir.” As she reached for kindling in the woodbox next to the stove, she continued, “Lore states that Annabel’s cause of death is up for debate. She drowned in Lake Superior, we know that, but why and how is what’s questioned.”
“Yep.” Holt reached for a paper napkin from the middle of the table and began to fold it into a triangle. “Some say she rowed the skiff out as far as she could and waited for the lake to claim her. Others say she was fleeing something or someone and drowned.”
Shea paused and turned with a frown. “Well now, this brings up a question in my mind. I wonder . . .”
“Wonder what?” Holt matched her furrowed brow.
“Well, Jonathan Marks died here. Annabel died here.”
“Mmm, not exactly.” Holt shook his head. “The lighthouse wasn’t built when Annabel died.”
Shea frowned, trying to understand. “That’s even weirder. How is it she haunts the lighthouse then? Why is it called ‘Annabel’s Lighthouse’?”
Holt’s chuckle warmed her insides. “Because even ghosts need a place to live.” His grin blindsided her with its charm. “I mean, it’s hardly fair she has to wander the shore forever. As for her death and then Jonathan Marks’s death, well, that’s just an interesting coincidence.”
Shea held her index finger in the air. “Gibbs’s rule number thirty-nine: There’s no such thing as coincidence.”
