Page 78 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
“You are, though,” he insisted. “You’re trying to ruin me, Rebecca, and I won’t allow it.”
“Why are you doing this?” Rebecca honestly didn’t know what had inspired her to supposedly steal the elusive papers to begin with. And she didn’t understand why her father had no qualms about abusing her to retrieve them.
Hilliard let out a burst of derisive laughter. “Why? Why!” He threw his hands in the air in exasperation, and Rebecca flinched back in her chair, afraid he would swing them at her next. “Because youdespiseme, that’s why. You’re like your mother. Wicked and subversive, and you feign meekness while you practice your wiles and trickery behind my back.”
A flash of recollection fluttered across Rebecca’s mind. That night. The night she had run through the woods before Edgar had found her at Annabel’s grave. She had stolen something. Sheremembered now. She recalled sneaking into this very room, taking a roll of papers from her father’s desk and slipping away into the night. A shout. Mercer chasing after her. Her escape to the woods, which became a nightlong attempt to evade him. Then Mercer caught up with her, and his assault was bruising. She had broken free using her teeth and her knees, had grabbed the papers and hidden in the underbrush until finally Mercer moved on. Still hunting for her. Rebecca remembered falling to the ground that was Annabel’s grave. She remembered nothing more until Edgar’s face came into view.
“Give them to me, Rebecca. The papers and the map.” Hilliard held out his hand as though she would pull the sheaf of papers from under her dress.
“I don’t know where they are.” Though she spoke the truth, her father didn’t believe her. A cry escaped her as the back of his hand connected with her cheek. A few choice names erupted from his mouth.
Rebecca doubled over, shielding her face from another backhanded slap.
Hilliard grabbed her by the collar of her dress, yanking her to her feet. “You are pathetic—just like your mother!” Spittle dotted Rebecca’s face as he held his mere inches away. “You have inherited her spirit. Pretend humility while cloaking a rebellious nature, one that’s determined to bleed me dry.” Hilliard shook her, and Rebecca whimpered. “You’ll be the death of me if I’m not the death of you first.”
“Please!” Rebecca begged, hating the weakness in her voice.
Hilliard released her with a shove, and she fell back onto the chair.
In that moment, as she shrank within herself under the weight of Hilliard’s threats, the room seemed as if it had faded away. Rebecca now floated somewhere in the past, the long-ago wish she had whispered as a child on her lips.“Who is my mother?”she’d asked him.
Hilliard had refused to give her a name. He refused to give Rebecca’s mother the honor of a remembered legacy. Instead, he had spoken only of his second wife. Aaron’s mother. A good woman, but not one Rebecca remembered well.
The room swirled and came back into focus. Rebecca gripped the arms of the chair, and suddenly she knew that her mother was more central, more key, to all of this. The survey and papers, the burned-down stamp mill, the silver ore, the lighthouse...
“Who is my mother?” Rebecca’s question had an edge to it that matched the steel in her father’s demeanor.
He stared at her for a long, horrible moment.
“Who is my mother?” Rebecca repeated, anger rising within her.
“Your mother?” Hilliard’s laugh was both rude and hateful. He entrapped Rebecca in his cold, hard gaze. “Your mother drowned in the lake.”
Rebecca didn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She knew. Before Hilliard ever said her name, Rebecca knew. And it terrified her.
“Your mother is Annabel.” Hilliard spat the words as though the name itself were filthy. “Annabel who haunts the lighthouse. Annabel who haunts the shores. Annabel who haunts the miners. Annabel who willnotremove this curse from me!”
“What curse?” Rebecca asked. “Please, I don’t understand.”
“You!” Hillard’s admission stole the last shred of hope from Rebecca’s soul. “You! She saddled me with a daughter who isn’t even mine. You pathetic bastard of a girl!”
31
SHEA
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee...
Annabel Lee
ANNABEL’S LIGHTHOUSE
PRESENT DAY
SHEA SLIPPED ONTO A BARSTOOL,and Penny set the requested Coke in front of her, bubbling over ice with a plastic straw. “So you think that Jonathan was murdered?” Penny confirmed, leaning her elbows on the bar.
Shea took a sip of Coke. “I have a strong suspicion. There’s potential motive for someone to take him out, and zero motive for Jonathan to have done it to himself.”
Penny nodded.
