Chapter 12 - The Lighthouse at Low Tide
The lighthouse stood on a rocky point outside Stonington, its white paint peeling and its windows boarded. We arrived just before sunset with Omar, Grace, and two state investigators. Matthew stayed with Mrs. Alvarez at the safe apartment.
The front door was locked, but the brass key opened a small service entrance beneath the stairs.
Inside, dust covered the floor. A battery lamp glowed in the lower room. On a table sat a fresh cup of coffee, a map, and a photograph of Matthew at his seventh birthday party. The coffee was still warm. A second mug sat beside it, untouched. Someone had left a wool blanket over the back of a chair and a pair of dry boots beneath the table. This was not a forgotten hideout. It was a place someone still used, and whoever had used it expected to return.
Someone had been there recently.
Grace found a second ledger taped beneath the table. It contained the original contracts and a list of payments to the men who had sabotaged Nicholas's boat.
At the bottom was a signed authorization from Richard Sloane.
Then we heard footsteps above us.
Omar raised a hand. We went still.
A door opened. A man's voice called down the stairwell.
"Alex?"
I knew that voice.
I had heard it in my childhood bedroom, across dinner tables, through hospital walls, and in the last voicemail my brother had left seven years ago.
"Nick?" I whispered.
A figure appeared at the top of the stairs.
He was older, thinner, and scarred.
May you like
But he was my brother.
He looked at me and said, "You took your time."
