Page 25 of The Glass Dolphin

She knew this time capsule was not really a time capsule. This was a storage container for her grandmother. There was a reason the historians hadn’t been able to find a record of the time capsule—it didn’t exist.

The next display also held something a bit fun and whimsical. A shiny black record with gold lettering across the top.CAPTIOLit spelled, with Nat “King” Cole below the center hole, and the songMona Lisa.

Her grandmother had loved Nat King Cole, and one of Kristen’s earliest memories was listening to her grandmother sing while she worked in the kitchen.

She suddenly didn’t want anyone else to see her family heirlooms. She hadn’t even known they’d been misplaced, but everything she’d seen testified to her that this wasn’t a time capsule for the entirety of Five Island Cove.

“Oh, wow,” Alice whispered, and Kristen moved to the next display, which was a glass case that held newspapers. Some were just clippings, and they came from the Cove Chronicles. Little things like a new ferry line opening or the fifth annual Kaleidoscope of Colors Event.

Some were entire newspapers out of the mainland, with the most prominent one being the screaming headline of KOREAN WAR STARTS: NORTH KOREANS INVADE SOUTH KOREA.

She’d been born two years before the Korean War had begun. Her father had served overseas for a while, but unlike her grandfather, he’d returned. He’d helped his mother run the lighthouse until he’d passed it to Joel and Kristen to carry on the legacy.

Such fondness for her ancestors, for the roots from which she’d sprung, filled her. Tears heated her eyes, and she allowed herself to be moved in the crowd down the case.

Another Cove Chronicles headline sat there, this one still attached to the full newspaper as well. Kristen took in the headline all at once—ROSE WORTHINGTON SELLS LIGHTHOUSE—and the first of her tears fell.

“No,” she whispered. She leaned forward, trying to read the article. The paper was almost seventy-five years old, and the letters faded at best.

“Come on, dear,” Theo said, his hand slipping into hers. How he didn’t know the level of her distress, Kristen couldn’t comprehend. He tugged, but she pulled her hand away.

She needed to see that newspaper. The whole story. Right now.

Her adrenaline shot through her body, and she suddenly felt like someone had put a heated blanket over her head and around her shoulders.

“Kristen?” Theo asked.

“Mom,” Clara hissed.

All of her girls stood near the exit, as there wasn’t anything else to see in this “time capsule display.” They watched her with expressions ranging from confusion to wariness to something else entirely.

Frantic now, she spun around, trying to find a police officer. The one who’d asked her to keep moving met her eyes, and he came her way. “I need to see Chief Sherman,” Kristen said out loud, her voice strong though so much of her shook. “Right now.”

“What’s this about?” the officer asked. Kristen knew him, because she’d been very active in the Five Island Cove community for a long time.

“Brandon,” she said calmly. “This is not a time capsule. This is a remnant of my family history, which is why Chief Sherman couldn’t find any record of the capsule in Five Island Cove history.” She drew in a breath. “Now, I want to see him immediately so I can reclaim my property.”

“Let me get him,” Brandon Watts said, and he turned away from her and spoke into the radio on his shoulder.

Kristen couldn’t help turning back to that last newspaper in the case. How many people would realize the significance of it? Who had her grandmother sold the lighthouse to? Had she ever repurchased it?

If she hadn’t…then Kristen didn’t own what she’d always thought she had, and Reuben had no right to be living at the lighthouse, running it.

She had the strongest urge to storm over to the case and rip the paper from it. She could burn it, and no one would ever learn the truth.Shedidn’t even know the truth.

“Ma’am,” Officer Watts said. “He said you can come back.” He took her elbow and led her away from everyone waiting for her at the exit.

“Kristen,” Alice said helplessly.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Clara called, her voice so loud in the quiet hall.

Kristen said nothing as she followed the officer through a doorway and into a much more private hallway. Chief Sherman appeared near the end of it as he came out of an open doorway. He didn’t smile as she approached, and Kristen wanted to run at him and shout her questions in his face.

She maintained her composure, however, and Aaron gestured her into the room. “All right, Kristen,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

ChapterEleven

Kelli Webb couldn’t stand the silence in the lighthouse. She strongly disliked getting online and reading the speculation and rumors about the items on display at City Hall. She hated the fact that she’d come to Diamond Island today to meet her husband, and then they were on their way for the ultrasound that would tell Kelli what gender her baby was—and this joyous event that should be the big thing on the friends’ text would be overshadowed.

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