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Praise for Diane Chamberlain

‘Emotional, complex and laced with suspense, this fascinating story is a brilliant read.’

—Closer

‘An excellent read’

—The Sun

‘This complex tale will stick with you forever.’

—Now

‘A hugely addictive twist in the tale makes this a sizzling sofa read … a deeply compelling and moving new novel.’

—Heat

‘This exquisite novel about love and friendship is written like a thriller … you won’t want to put it down.’

—Bella

‘A bittersweet story about regret and hope’

—Publishers Weekly

‘A brilliantly told thriller’

—Woman

‘An engaging and absorbing story that’ll have you racing through pages to finish’

—People’s Friend

‘This compelling mystery will have you on the edge of your seat.’

—Inside Soap

‘A fabulous thriller with plenty of surprises’

—Star

‘Essential reading for Jodi Picoult fans’

—Daily Mail ‘Chamberlain skilfully … plumbs the nature of crimes of the heart.’ —Publishers Weekly

‘So full of unexpected twists you’ll find yourself wanting to finish it in one sitting. Fans of Jodi Picoult’s style will love how Diane Chamberlain writes.’

—Candis

‘The plot is intriguing and haunting revelations will have you glued to the very end.’

—Peterborough Evening Telegraph

‘I was drawn in from the first page and simply could not put it down until the last. I think I have found a new favourite author.’

—Daily Echo

‘[A] gripping summer read that’s full of twists and turns—5 stars’

—Woman’s Own

‘The compelling story of three friends who are forced to question what it is to be a friend, mother and a sister.’

—Sunday World

‘A gripping novel’

—The Lady (online)

‘Diane Chamberlain is a marvellously gifted author. Every book she writes is a gem.’

—Literary Times

‘A strong tale that deserves a comparison with Jodi Picoult for, as this builds, one does indeed wonder if all will come right in the end.’

—lovereading.co.uk

‘I couldn’t put it down.’

—Bookseller

Kiss River

Diane Chamberlain

GETS TO THE HEART OF THE STORY

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Also by Diane Chamberlain

Keeper of the Light

The Lost Daughter

The Bay at Midnight

Before the Storm

Secrets She Left Behind

The Lies We Told

Breaking the Silence

The Midwife’s Confession

Brass Ring

The Shadow Wife

The Good Father

For Haseena and all the other waiting children

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

—Richard Bach

Chapter One

THE AIR CONDITIONER IN HER AGING CAR WAS giving out, blowing warm, breath-stealing air into Gina’s face. If she could have torn her concentration away from her mission for even a moment, she would have felt a pang of fear over what the repair of the air conditioner would cost her. Instead, she merely opened the car windows and let the hot, thick, salt breeze fill the interior. She took deep breaths, smelling the unfamiliar brininess in the air, so different from the scent of the Pacific. The humidity worked its way into her long hair, lifting it, tangling it, forming fine dark tendrils on her forehead. Another woman might have run her hands over her hair to smooth the flyaway strands. Gina did not care. After six days of driving, six nights of sleeping in the cramped quarters of the car, several quick showers stolen from fitness clubs to which she did not belong and eighteen cheap, fast-food meals, she was almost there. She was close enough to Kiss River to taste it in the air.

The bridge she was crossing was very long and straight and clogged with traffic. She should have expected that. After all, it was a Friday evening in late June and she was headed toward the Outer Banks of North Carolina, an area she supposed was now quite a tourist attraction. She might have trouble finding a room for the night. She hadn’t thought of that. She was used to the Pacific Northwest, where the coastline was craggy and the water too cold for swimming, and where finding a room for the night was not ordinarily an impossible chore.

The cars were moving slowly enough to allow her to study the map she held flat against the steering wheel. Once she left the bridge, the traffic crawled for a mile or so past a school and a couple of strip malls, and then perhaps two-thirds of the cars turned right onto Highway 12. She turned left and entered an area the map identified as Southern Shores.

Through the open car windows, she could hear, but not see, the ocean on her right. The waves pounded the beach behind the eclectic mix of flat-topped houses, larger, newer homes and old beach cottages. In spite of the slow-moving stream of cars, the Outer Banks seemed open and wide and empty here. Not what she had expected from reading the diary. But the diary had not been about Southern Shores, and as she continued driving, live oaks and wild vegetation she did not recognize began to cradle the curving road. She was approaching the village of Duck, which sounded quaint and was probably expensive, and interested her not in the least. After Duck, she would pass through a place called Sanderling, and then through a wildlife sanctuary, and soon after that, she should see a sign marking the road to the Kiss River lighthouse. Although she knew she was miles from the lighthouse, she couldn’t help but glance to the sky again and again, hoping to see the tower in the distance through the trees. Even though it was the tallest lighthouse in the country, she knew she could not possibly see it from where she was. That didn’t stop her from looking, though.

She had more time to study the little shopping areas of Duck than she wanted, since the cars and SUVs crept along the road at a near standstill. If the traffic didn’t clear soon, it would be dark by the time she reached Kiss River. She’d hoped to get there no later than five. It was now nearly seven, and the sun was already sinking toward the horizon. Would the lighthouse be closed for the evening? For that matter, would it be open to the public at all? What time did they turn on the light? Maybe they no longer did. That would disappoint her. She wanted to see how it illuminated Kiss River, once every four and a half seconds. If people were allowed to climb the lighthouse, she doubted they would be permitted to visit the lantern room, but she would have to get into that room, one way or another. Only recently, she’d discovered that she was a pretty good liar. She’d lived her entire life valuing honesty and integrity. Suddenly, she’d become manipulative, a master at deceit. She could, when pressed, travel far outside the law. The first time she’d snuck into a fitness club to use the shower on this trip east, she’d trembled with fear, not only at the possibility of being caught, but at the sheer dishonesty of the act. By the time she sauntered into the club in Norfolk, though, she’d almost forgotten she didn’t have a membership at the place. The end justified the means, she told herself.

So, if visiting the lantern room of the lighthouse was not allowed, she would find another way to get up there. That was the entire purpose of this trip. She would talk with someone, one of the guides or docents or whatever they were, and make up a reason for needing to see that room. Research, she would say. She was writing about lighthouses. Or taking pictures. She touched the borrowed camera hanging around her neck. It was heavy, impressive looking. She’d make up something that would sound plausible. One way or another, she needed to see the lantern room and its enormous globe of glass prisms, the Fresnel lens.

The drive through the wildlife reserve seemed to go on forever, but at least the traffic had thinned out, as cars turned onto roads leading to the houses near the beach. The remaining traffic moved briskly and the road was, for the most part, straight. Gina could examine the map easily as she drove. The sign indicating the location of the lighthouse should be somewhere along here, she thought. The road to Kiss River would run off to the right, cutting through the red oaks and loblolly pines, although it was possible that the landscape had changed since the days of the diary. Given the size and newness of many of the houses she had passed, it was possible the trees were completely gone by now and the road lined by more of the touristy homes.

Finally, she spotted a narrow road heading east into the trees. She pulled to the side of the main road, as close to the trees as she dared, and studied her map. There was no street sign, no hint at all that anything special lay down that road, but this had to be it. On the map she could see the way the land jutted out from the road. There was no river at Kiss River. It was little more than a promontory with a whimsical name and a towering lighthouse. Surely that lighthouse was a tourist attraction. So why was there no sign?

She wondered if she should continue driving up the main road to look for another, more promising, turn, but shook her head. The sign must have blown over or been struck by a car. Trusting her map, she turned right onto the road.

Instantly, the road jogged to the left, surrounding her by trees. The macadam was rutted and poorly maintained, and the road twisted its way into near darkness. The air was dusky, the trees so thick that little light could cut through them. Through the open windows, she heard the buzzing of crickets or frogs or some other critter, and the sound grew louder the deeper she drove into the forest.

The road ended abruptly at a small cul-de-sac in the woods. Stopping the car, she turned on the overhead light. The map clearly showed the cul-de-sac, with a smaller road leading from it out to the lighthouse. Looking to her left, she spotted a narrow gravel lane with a heavy, rusty chain strung across its entrance. A sign hanging from the chain read in bold red letters, NO TRESPASSING.

This could not be right, she thought. Even if the lighthouse itself was not open to the public, the grounds surrounding it and the keeper’s house certainly should be.

She checked the map again. There were no other roads like this one, ending in a cul-de-sac. This was it, whether she wanted it to be or not. She looked up at the gravel lane beyond the chain again. The path was foreboding, dark and shrouded by trees.

She did not consider herself a brave person, although these last few months she had found courage in herself she’d had no idea she possessed. Getting slowly out of the car, she locked the door behind her. She did have a flashlight in the trunk, but the batteries had died somewhere in Kentucky, so she carried only her map and the camera around her neck as she walked across the cul-de-sac. One end of the chain was attached to a tree, the other padlocked to a post. Skirting the post, she started walking down the gravel lane.

Even if this was the wrong road, she told herself, what harm could she come to by walking down it? True, she could break an ankle in one of the many ruts or trip over one of the tree roots that raised the gravel in a disorderly veinlike pattern. More likely, though, the worst that could happen was that she’d come to someone’s tucked-away home. She would apologize, ask for directions to the lighthouse. But then she remembered the horses. There were wild horses out here. And wild boars. They could be dangerous, she remembered reading in the diary. She imagined trying to climb one of the stubby trees to escape them. Her heart pounding, she listened hard for the sound of horse hooves or breaking twigs and realized that, this deep into the woods, she could not even hear the traffic. Only the thick, strange buzz of those crickets or whatever they were. It occurred to her that she would have to walk back through these woods again, and it would be even darker by then.

How far had she walked? It couldn’t have been more than a quarter of a mile. Stopping on the road, she peered hard through the trees. The road had looked quite short on the map, and surely she should be able to see the top of the lighthouse by now. She walked a bit farther and heard a whooshing, pounding sound that took her a minute to recognize as the ocean. It sounded close. Very close.

Ahead of her, the road turned slightly to the right. The vegetation was thinner and she could see light between the branches of the trees. Quickening her step, she suddenly broke free of the forest and found herself in a small, sand-swept parking lot. Had this been the visitors’ parking lot for the lighthouse? One thing she knew for certain by now: for whatever reason, the Kiss River light was no longer open to the public.

Through the trees and shrubs surrounding the parking lot, she saw the curved white brick wall of what had to be the lighthouse, and she knew immediately that something was wrong. There was a narrow path cutting through the trees, and branches scratched against her bare arms as she followed it. A few steps later, she stopped, staring in horror at what stood in front of her.

“No,” she said aloud. “Oh, no.”

The lighthouse rose high above her, but the top portion of it was missing. The lantern room was gone, and the entire tower could not have been more than three-quarters of its original height. Craning her neck, she could make out several steps of the steel staircase jutting a few yards above the jagged opening at the top of the tower.

She stood numbly, consumed by a distress that went far beyond disappointment. No wonder no one else was out here. It must have been the sea that destroyed the lighthouse, because even now the breaking waves swirled around the base of the tower, and it was apparent from the packed, damp sand beneath her feet that it was not yet high tide. A storm, she thought. This was the work of a damn storm.

Panic rose up inside her. She’d driven all this way. All this way. For nothing. For dashed hopes. Shutting her eyes, she felt dizzy. The sound of the waves cracking against the base of the lighthouse filled her ears, and a spray of salt water stung her face.

As she took a few steps toward the tower, a house came into view thirty or so yards to her left. The keeper’s house. Long ago abandoned, most likely, although she noted the windows were not boarded up and two white Adirondack chairs graced the broad porch. Odd.

She looked up at the tower again, then took off her sandals. Dangling them from her fingertips, she stepped into the shallow water. It was colder than she’d expected, and she caught her breath at the unanticipated chill. The sand sucked at her feet and the water rose nearly to her knees one moment, only to fall to her ankles the next.

She climbed the three concrete stairs leading to the foyer beneath the tower. Despite her disappointment over finding the lighthouse damaged beyond repair, she still felt a thrill at finding herself inside it. She knew this place. Oh, how she knew it! She knew, for example, that there had once been a door at the foyer entrance, although there was no sign of one now. She knew there might be birds inside the tower, and indeed, when she took another step deeper into the foyer, she heard the flapping of wings above her.

She was in the cool air of a circular room. The floor was covered with octagonal black and white tiles, and on the white brick wall across from her, the steel stairs rose at a diagonal. Walking across the room, she dropped her sandals on the floor near the first step and began to climb.

The stairs had a woven texture and she could see straight through them to the purply-gray sky high above her and, as she climbed higher, to the dimly lit floor below. The spiral of stairs gradually narrowed and she quickly grew breathless. She’d never been great with heights, and she hugged the cold, white brick wall as she rested on the landings. Through the wavy glass of the tall, narrow windows at each landing, she could see the keeper’s house. Then she’d return to the stairs, clutching the railing, no longer daring to look down as she climbed higher.

The stairs rose several yards above the opening of the lighthouse, right up into the evening sky. Gina leaned against the brick wall, her heart beating more from fear than from exertion as she contemplated climbing those last few unprotected steps. She could sit on that top step, she thought, and look out at the ocean. Maybe she’d discover the lens was directly below her in the shallow water near the base of the lighthouse.

She forced herself up another step, then another, holding on to the railing with both hands, and when she reached the top step, she turned and gingerly sat down on it. She was above the world here. The ocean was spread out in front of her like a huge, deep-purple rug fringed with white. The thick wall of the lighthouse looked as if it had been chewed off by some huge monster, leaving the jagged edges of the brick behind.

What was she going to do now?

Afraid of losing her balance, she carefully leaned a bit to the left and pulled the small photograph from the rear pocket of her shorts. Pressing it against her knee, she studied the image. A little girl. Much smaller than she should have been for being one year old, her age when the picture was taken. Skin the color of wheat. Very short, jet-black hair. The hugest, darkest eyes. Sad, hopeful eyes.

Gina shut her own eyes, feeling the sting of tears behind the lids. “I’ll find a way, sweetheart,” she said out loud. “I promise.”

She sat very still for a long time, watching the last traces of daylight disappear in the sky, her mind only on the child in the picture. She did not think about how she would manage to climb down the spiral staircase in the dusky light, or walk back to her car through those darkening woods, or find a room on a Friday night in a place overrun by tourists.

She must have moved her head just a fraction of an inch to the left, because something caught her eye and made her turn around. And what she saw then stopped her breath in her throat. Every window of the keeper’s house glowed with stained glass.

Chapter Two

CLAY O’NEILL STOPPED HIS JEEP DIRECTLY IN front of the chain. Removing the key he kept attached to his visor, he got out of the car, unlocked the padlock, then dragged the chain to one side of the road. He tried to remember if his sister would be home yet. It was Friday, and Lacey usually attended an Al-Anon meeting on Friday evenings. He would leave the chain open, then. Save her the effort of unlocking it.

Once back in the Jeep, he noticed a car parked on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac. Strange. Someone must have left it there, then hiked through the woods to the beach. He forgot about the car as he turned onto the gravel road, avoiding the familiar ruts and driving very slowly, since he had nearly broken an axle on one of the tree roots a few weeks earlier. He would need to trim some of the branches back one day soon; they scraped the roof of the Jeep as he drove through the tunnel they formed above him.

Emerging from the woods, he could see the keeper’s house, its windows aglow with stained glass. Seeing the house so alive with color in the gray dusk of evening, he understood why Lacey insisted on setting the lights on a timer. She usually beat him home after work and she’d told him she hated coming home to a dark house, but he knew her real reasoning: she loved to see her handiwork glowing from all the windows. He’d argued that it was a huge waste of electricity, but he didn’t argue hard or long. Lacey had done too much for him. He would let her have her lights. He supposed the stained glass comforted her in a way, and although he would never admit it to her, it comforted him as well. Their mother had also been a stained-glass artist. Coming home to those windows was like hearing an old lullaby.

He parked in the inch of sand that covered the corner of the parking lot nearest the house, then got out and opened the rear of the Jeep to retrieve the groceries. It had been his turn to do the shopping, and he had bought thick, mauve-colored tuna steaks to grill for a late dinner, along with a week’s worth of milk and cereal and fruit and some cleaning supplies. The grocery bags were heavy, but he managed to carry all four of them as he made his way across the sand to the house.

Setting the groceries down on the new wooden countertop in the kitchen, he heard Sasha bounding down the stairs. The black Lab ran into the room to greet him, and Clay leaned over to give him a hug.

“Hi, boy,” he said, scratching the dog’s broad chest. “Bet you’d like to go for a walk, huh?”

Sasha took two steps toward the door and looked back at his master. Poor neglected dog, Clay thought as he opened the refrigerator door. “Just let me get this stuff put away and I’ll be right with you,” he said.

The small kitchen was the first room he and Lacey had helped refurbish when they moved into the house six months earlier, right after the first of the year. The room was a small square, with pine cabinets and wood flooring. The original porcelain-topped table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by four oak chairs. The room was inelegant but functional. Elegance was not their goal in this house. Historical accuracy was far more important.

He had finished putting away the groceries and was nearly to the door with Sasha when he happened to look through the kitchen’s rear window. Beneath the wide panel of stained glass hanging from the sash, he could see the lighthouse. The sun was down, the sky a milky gray, but he could still make out the silhouette of the tower, and he looked hard at it. Something was different. Squinting, he leaned closer to the glass. He knew how the tower should look from here. He knew the ragged shape of the rim and the way the spiral staircase rose above it. The line of that staircase was blurred now, and it took him a moment to realize that someone was sitting up there, on the top step, the place he thought of as his own private roost.

Was it Lacey? But no, her car was not in the parking lot. It was a stranger, then. It was so rare to see anyone out here. Tourists had long ago forgotten Kiss River, and the road had been chained off ever since the storm destroyed the lighthouse ten years ago. It was possible to get to the lighthouse by the beach, but difficult, since the water had eroded so much of the sand. By boat, perhaps? His eyes scanned the area in front of the lighthouse for a boat. He didn’t see one, but it was too dark to be sure. Then he remembered the car parked in the cul-de-sac.

“Come on, boy,” he said, opening the door and stepping onto the porch. He kicked off his sandals, picked up the flashlight from the seat of one of the Adirondack chairs and headed toward the tower. Sasha ran full speed toward the trees at the side of the yard, where he liked to do his business.

It was a woman sitting on the lighthouse stairs, that much he knew for certain. Her long hair rose and fell with the breeze, and she was facing the sea. And looking to break her neck, he thought. Those stairs could be treacherous in the dark if you weren’t used to them. The waves swirling around the base of the lighthouse shone white with froth, and Clay stepped into the chill water, keeping enough distance between himself and the tower that he could still see the woman when he craned his neck to look up.

“Hello!” he shouted, just as a wave crashed onto the beach.

The woman didn’t turn her head, and he guessed she could not hear him over the sound of the sea.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo!” he hollered. “Hello!”

Sasha came running at the sound of his call, and this time the woman peered over the edge of the tower at him. So high above him, she was very small, her features invisible. If she answered him, he didn’t hear her.

“It’s dangerous up there,” he called. “You’d better come down.”

The woman stood up, but Clay instantly changed his mind. It would be too dark inside the tower. “Wait there!” He held up a hand to tell her to stay. “I’ll come up and get you. I have a flashlight.”

He told Sasha to stay on the beach, then waded through the water to climb the concrete steps into the foyer. Turning on the flashlight, he saw the familiar, eerie, nighttime look of the stairs and railing against the curved white brick wall. He was used to the stairs and took them easily, without a hint of breathlessness. He made the climb nearly every day, sometimes more than once. The tower was a wonderful escape.

The salt breeze washed across his face as he stepped above the broad, jagged-edged cylinder of bricks. The woman stood up again, backing away a bit, and he thought she might be afraid of him. Understandable. It was dark; she had nowhere to run.

“You could trip going down the stairs in the dark,” he said quickly, showing her his flashlight.

“Oh. Thanks.” Her dark hair blew across her face, and she brushed it away with her hand.

She was extraordinarily beautiful. Very slender—too slender, perhaps—with long dark hair and large eyes that looked nearly black in the dim light. There was a fragility about her, as if a good gust of wind could easily blow her from the top of the tower.

As though reading his mind, she lurched a bit, grabbing the railing. He knew how she felt. The stairs held you suspended in the air above the tower, and it was easy to experience vertigo. The first few times he came up here with Terri, he’d actually felt sick. The stairs were solid and sturdy, though. It simply took the inner ear a while to get used to that fact.

“Sit down again,” he said. “We’ll wait till you feel steady on your feet before we go down.”

The woman sat down without a word, moving to the edge of the step closest to the railing, which she quickly circled with both her hands. Clay sat one step below her.

“What brings you up here?” He tipped his head back slightly to look at her, hoping he didn’t sound as if he was accusing her of something. Behind her windblown hair, the sky had turned a thick gray-black. There were no stars. No moon.

“Just … I …” Her gaze was somewhere above his head, out toward the dark horizon. “What happened here?” she asked, letting go of the railing with one of her hands, waving it through the air to take in the lighthouse and all of Kiss River. “What happened to the lighthouse?”

“Hurricane,” Clay said. “More than ten years ago.”

“Ten years.” The woman shook her head. She stared out to sea, and Clay thought her eyes were glistening. She didn’t speak.

“I’m Clay O’Neill,” he said.

The woman acknowledged him with a brief smile. “Gina Higgins.” She pointed behind her to the keeper’s house. “Has that become a museum or something?” she asked.

“No.” From where he sat, the house looked like a church, its windows filled with color. “It was abandoned for many years,” he said. “Then a conservation group I’m part of took it over. My sister and I are living in it while it’s being restored. We help with the work and act as general contractors, for the most part.” The restoration was progressing very slowly, and that was fine with him. There was no target date, no reason to rush.

Gina looked over her shoulder at the house. “The stained glass …”

“It’s my sister’s,” he said. “She just hung it in the windows while we’re living here. It’s not part of the restoration.”

“Your sister made it?”

“Yes.”

“What a talent,” Gina said. “It’s beautiful.”

He nodded, glancing at the house again. “She’s pretty good at it.”

“And what are the plans for the house when it’s refurbished?”

“Actually, none, so far,” he said. Holding tight to the railing, he stood up to peer over the edge of the tower, hunting for Sasha. He spotted the dog nosing at a pile of seaweed and took his seat again. “Possibly a little museum,” he said. “Possibly a B and B. Maybe even a private residence. The situation is unusual, since the lighthouse is off limits. They aren’t sure they want to draw people out here. I was surprised to see you here, actually. How did you get in?”

“I walked in from the road, where that chain is. I ignored the No Trespassing sign.” She looked beautifully sheepish. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s off limits because it’s dangerous out here, as you can probably tell,” he said. “But you haven’t gotten yourself killed, so no big deal. Were you hiking? Exploring? Most people don’t even realize this lighthouse is here anymore.”

“Oh, I’m an amateur lighthouse historian,” Gina said. She touched the camera hanging around her neck. “So I was curious to see the Kiss River light and get some pictures of it. Where is the rest of it? Where is the Fresnel lens?”

She pronounced the word FREZnal instead of FraNELL. Odd for a lighthouse historian. But she’d said she was an amateur; she had probably seen the word in writing but had never heard it spoken before.

“The Fresnel lens is somewhere at the bottom of the ocean,” he said, diplomatically using the correct pronunciation, and even in the darkness, he could see coins of color form on her cheeks.

“Why didn’t they raise it?” she asked. “It’s very valuable, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yes, but there was a lot of opposition to raising the lens,” he said. His own father, once an advocate for saving the lighthouse, had led the fight against finding the lens. “The travel bureau and the lighthouse society wanted it raised, but the locals tend to think that things should remain right where nature puts them. And, as you can imagine, they’re also not keen on bringing even more tourists to the area as it is. Besides, who knows? The lens could be in a thousand pieces down there.”

“But it also could be in one piece, or in just a few pieces that could be put back together,” she argued, and he knew she had a feisty side to her. “I think it’s a crime to leave something that’s historically valuable on the bottom of the sea. It should be displayed in a museum somewhere.”

He shrugged. He didn’t really care about the lens. Never thought about it, actually. In the great scheme of things, it did not seem worth getting upset over.

“It was a first-order lens, wasn’t it?” Gina asked.

“Yes. It’s three tons, at least. Whether it’s in one piece or a hundred, it would be a job to bring it out. Once they got the thing up, it would probably have to spend months in an electrolyte bath so the metal parts didn’t disintegrate in the air.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” she said. “The metal parts are brass, aren’t they? Brass wouldn’t need an electrolyte bath.”

She was right, and he was wrong. And also a little impressed.

“And if it’s three tons,” she continued, “it couldn’t have drifted too far from the lighthouse, then, could it?”

He looked out toward the black cavern of the sea. Long ago, he and Terri would drive up here to Kiss River and sit on these stairs at low tide, trying to spot the lens, expecting to see it jutting out of the water. They never were able to spot it. “It was an unbelievable storm,” he said. “And there have been a few just as bad since then. The coastline’s really changed here. Before that storm, the water was never up this high. It’s washed away the beach. By now the lens could be just about any—”

“Hey!”

The shout came from the beach, slipping past Clay’s ears on the breeze. Leaning over, he saw a flashlight far below them.

“Hey, Lace!” he called back. “We’ll be down in a sec.”

Turning to Gina, he stood up. “That’s my sister,” he said. “Are you ready to go down?”

She nodded. He held his hand out to her as she stood up, but she didn’t take it. Leading the way down the staircase, he kept his flashlight turned backward a bit to light the stairs for her. “Watch your step,” he warned. “It’s not as easy in the dark.”

He moved slowly, aware that Gina had a death grip on the railing behind him, and it was a while before they exited through the tiled foyer. The waves washed over their feet and legs once they’d descended the three concrete steps into the water. Sasha bounded toward them, splashing their arms and faces as they waded to the dry sand where Lacey stood.

Gina nearly ignored Lacey as she squatted low to the ground to pet Sasha, and Clay’s opinion of the woman instantly rose a few notches. Sasha rolled in the sand, exposing his stomach to the stranger, and Gina obliged by rubbing his belly.

“That’s Sasha,” Clay said. “And this is my sister, Lacey. Lacey, this is Gina …?” He couldn’t recall her last name.

“Higgins.” Gina stood up, wiping her sandy hand on her shorts before extending it to Lacey.

“Are you a friend of Clay’s?” Lacey asked as she shook Gina’s hand, and Clay heard the hope in her voice. His sister would love nothing better than for him to have a new woman in his life.

Gina smiled at her. “No,” she said with a slight laugh. “I’m a trespasser, actually. I was up on the lighthouse when it got dark and your brother rescued me. That’s all.”

“Really?” Lacey raised her eyebrows at him.

“She came in from the road,” he explained.

“I walked around the chain,” Gina said. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see—”

“No big deal,” Lacey said, waving her unlit flashlight through the air. Her long red hair was tied back against the breeze, and her fair skin glowed white in the darkness. “We don’t own this place.” She glanced from Gina to Clay and back again, and he could almost see what she was thinking. Right age, very attractive, perfect for Clay. “Are you here on vacation with your family?” she asked. “Or with a bunch of girlfriends?” Clay nearly groaned at her transparent probing. Why didn’t she just come right out and ask the woman if she was available to be fixed up with her pathetic brother?

“I’m alone,” Gina said. “Just here for a few days.”

“She’s a lighthouse historian,” Clay said.

“Amateur,” Gina added, glancing away from him. She was probably still embarrassed over her pronunciation of Fresnel.

“Well, listen.” Lacey swatted a mosquito that had landed on her bare shoulder. “Have you eaten? Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Oh, no,” Gina protested.

“We know absolutely every minute detail there is to know about the lighthouse,” Lacey coaxed. “We can tell you everything.” He knew his sister would not take no for an answer. He understood how her mind worked. It wasn’t so much that she was hoping to fix Gina up with him, or that she was eager to tell her stories about the lighthouse. It was that she couldn’t bear to think of anyone being alone.

“I bought plenty of fresh tuna for dinner, so you might as well stay,” Clay said, surprising himself as well as Lacey. “Then one of us can drive you back out to your car.” The truth was, he didn’t want her to go, either. He wanted to see her in the good light of the kitchen. He wanted to find flaws in that perfect face.

Gina looked down at Sasha, who was leaning against her thigh. She scratched the dog behind his ears.

“All right,” she said. “That’s so nice of you. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about walking back through those woods, with the wild horses and pigs and all.”

He and Lacey stared at her, then started to laugh.

“Wild pigs?” Lacey asked.

“I’d heard there were wild pigs,” Gina said. “Boars, I mean.”

“A long, long time ago,” Clay said, wondering where she’d received that piece of information. Whatever lighthouse source she was using had to be ancient. She hadn’t known the Kiss River had been destroyed. And wild pigs?

“The horses were moved way up past Corolla and fenced in,” Lacey explained. “Too many were getting killed because of the traffic. And it used to be open range here, long ago. Full of cows and hogs, and some of them did run wild. Mary Poor, who used to be the keeper, told me about them. I think there’s still some wild boar up in the wildlife refuge.”

“You know Mary Poor?” Gina asked. The name was obviously familiar to her.

“I did,” Lacey said. “She died a few years ago, but I used to visit her in the nursing home where she was living.”

“I’d love to hear more about her,” Gina said.

“Sure,” Lacey said, motioning in the direction of the house. “Let’s get dinner started and I’ll tell you all about her.”

The three of them began walking toward the house, sand sticking to their damp feet. Gina was tall and long-legged, and she carried her sandals dangling from her fingertips. Watching her, Clay nearly forgot about the charcoal.

“I’ll fire up the grill,” he said, breaking away from the women to make his way to the shed where he kept the charcoal. He was only half-surprised when Sasha elected to stay at Gina’s side rather than walk with him. His dog could be as manipulative as his sister.

* * *

When he brought the grilled tuna steaks into the kitchen, he found Lacey and Gina making salad and boiling cobs of corn. They were deep in conversation, deep in that world of women that was so natural for them and so elusive to men like him. They were talking about the history of the light station, Lacey entertaining Gina with tales of the keepers, Mary and Caleb Poor. She knew far more than he did, due to both her interest in the subject and her relationship with Mary, and Gina kept her eyes on his sister while she tore apart the leaves of romaine, clearly enraptured.

In the light of the kitchen, Lacey and Gina looked like two women in a painting, one a redhead, the other raven-haired. Both beautiful. Both slender, fair-skinned. His twenty-four-year-old sister looked tougher than Gina, though. The muscles in Lacey’s arms and legs were tight and defined. Her face was fuller. She not only had her mother’s vivid hair and artistic talent, but her dimples as well, along with that pale, freckled skin that needed serious protection from the sun. Although she was also fair, Gina looked as though she might be able to tan well, but he doubted her skin had seen the sun in years. She was older than he’d thought, a couple of years older than himself. Thirty maybe. The damp sea air had found its way into her hair, which had taken on the same windblown, wild look that would mark Lacey’s hair if she were to let it loose.

He put the plate of tuna steaks on the porcelain-topped table and Gina brought over the salad, while Lacey carried the platter of corn.

“Where do you live?” Clay asked, taking his seat at the table. He passed Gina the tuna steaks, motioning to her to help herself.

“Bellingham, Washington,” Gina said. “It’s north of Seattle.”

“Washington!” Lacey said. “What are you doing out here?”

“I had time off,” Gina said, reaching for the salad, and, Clay thought, measuring her words. “I teach school, so I have summer vacation, same as the students. I’m familiar with the lighthouses in the Pacific Northwest, and I wanted to visit some in the East. I thought I’d start here.”

Clay laughed as he transferred one of the steaks to his plate. “Well, you picked the wrong one to start with,” he said. “Tomorrow you can drive up to the Currituck Light. That one’s in great shape and open to the public.”

“Bodie’s not that far,” Lacey added. “And Hatteras is only a couple of hours from here. You probably know that they moved the Hatteras lighthouse a few years ago because it was going to fall into the sea, just like this one did—” Lacey nodded toward the beach “—so you might find that really intriguing. They have a video there you can watch.”

Gina nodded. “Thanks,” she said, poking corn holders into the ends of the cob on her plate. “I’ll be sure to see them all. But right now I’m a bit distressed over the fact that the Kiss River lighthouse is crumbling away. And I don’t understand why no one has tried to see if the lens is still in one piece.”

“I agree with you,” Lacey surprised him by saying. “I think they should have at least salvaged the lens.”

“You’ll have to fight Dad on that one,” Clay said.

“Why your father?” Gina looked from him to Lacey.

“He’s got OCD,” Lacey said with a flash of her dimples. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder. He used to be obsessed with saving the lighthouse. He led the Save the Lighthouse committee. After the hurricane, he became obsessed with keeping it the way it is and leaving the lens in the ocean.” She held up a hand to ward off the obvious question. “Don’t ask me to explain why my dad is the way he is, because I can’t.”

“Is he … does he … have some say in what happens to the lighthouse and the lens?” Gina asked.

“Not officially,” Lacey said. “But when it comes to the locals, everyone follows his lead.”

There was silence at the table for a moment, filled only by the crunch of corn and the chink of forks against the plates. Gina took a swallow of iced tea.

“This is the first time I’ve eaten fresh tuna,” she said, putting down her glass. “It’s wonderful.”

“My favorite,” Lacey agreed.

“You must get a lot of salmon where you live,” Clay said.

“Tons.” Gina nodded. She cut another piece of the fish with the side of her fork, but didn’t bring it to her mouth. “If I wanted to look into getting the lens raised,” she said, returning to the more difficult topic, “is your father the person I should talk to?”

Clay didn’t understand her apparent interest in the lens, but after growing up with his father, he was accustomed to an unexplained fixation on the Kiss River light. He nodded. “If you don’t have his backing, you can forget about getting anyone else’s,” he said. “But … and don’t take offense at this, please … you have to keep in mind that you’re an outsider here. People won’t much care what you want. The fact that you’re a lighthouse historian, though, might give you a little credibility.”

Gina’s huge, dark eyes were on him as she set down her fork. “Where would I find him?” she asked. “Your father?”

“He’s a vet,” Lacey said. “He works at Beacon Animal Hospital in Nag’s Head.”

“Is that far from here?”

“Half an hour,” Clay said. He pictured Gina walking unannounced into the animal hospital, and his father’s response when he realized the purpose of her intrusion. “If you want to contact him, though, I’d call him first. And don’t get your hopes up.”

“I won’t.” Gina smiled at him, but it was a quick smile that seemed somehow false. “So,” she said, “what sort of work do the two of you do? I assume you’re in construction?”

Lacey shook her head. “I’m a part-time vet tech at the animal hospital,” she said. “And a full-time stained-glass artist.”

She sold herself short, Clay thought. Vet tech and stained-glass artist just scratched the surface of who his sister was. She also volunteered on a crisis hot line, tutored kids at the local elementary school, read to residents in the nursing home where Mary Poor used to live and attended Al-Anon meetings in support of her biological father, Tom Nestor, who was also her stained-glass mentor and—at long last—a recovering alcoholic. She gave blood regularly and had donated her bone marrow the year before. She had, in short, turned herself into their mother, who the locals used to call Saint Anne. Lacey’s gradual metamorphosis into Annie O’Neill made Clay uncomfortable.

“And how about you?” Gina was looking at him.

He finished chewing a mouthful of salad. “Architect,” he said.

“Really?” Gina asked. “What sort of architecture?”

“Residential,” Clay said. “I have an office in Duck.”

For the first time that evening, he felt the too-familiar dark cloud slip over his shoulders. It used to be that, even before Clay would say he was an architect, he’d say that he trained dogs and their owners for search and rescue work. That had been his avocation and his passion, but he hadn’t put Sasha through his paces once since Terri’s death, and he no longer bothered to return the calls from people looking for training. Lacey had nagged him about it at first but quickly learned that approach could only backfire. It made him angry. It made him wonder if she’d loved Terri at all. She used to say that Terri felt more like a sister than a sister-in-law. Then why didn’t she understand that he just didn’t feel like doing a damn thing that reminded him of his wife?

“What grade do you teach?” Lacey asked their guest.

“Junior high,” Gina said. “Science.”

That explained her knowledge of brass and the electrolyte bath, Clay thought.

“Rough age,” Lacey said, and Clay had to smile to himself. Lacey had been one of the roughest fourteen-year-olds imaginable.

“I love it,” Gina said. “I love the kids.”

“Do you have any of your own?” Lacey asked.

Gina didn’t answer right away. She toyed with her salad for a moment, pushing a cherry tomato around with her fork. “No,” she said. “Someday, I hope.”

“Are you married?” Lacey asked. God, Clay thought. His sister could be so damn nosy. But his eyes fell to Gina’s hands, searching for a wedding ring. She wore two rings, actually: on her right hand, a small ruby in a white-gold or platinum setting, and on her left hand, an onyx set in silver. Her fingers were long and slim, like the rest of her, and her nails were unpainted, pink and rounded, cared for but not pampered.

Gina shook her head. “Not married,” she said.

Clay stood up and lifted his plate from the table to carry it to the sink. He had never been very good at sitting still for long, especially not for after-dinner small talk. He was just like their father that way, filled with a nervous sort of energy that had driven Terri crazy and was now doing the same to his sister. Lacey had long ago given up on asking him to stay seated for a while after dinner.

“Well.” Gina looked at her watch as if he’d given her the cue that it was time to leave. “I’d better be going,” she said. “I still have to find a room for tonight.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Clay asked from the sink. It was a Friday night at the end of June. She would never find a room.

“No.” She looked guileless. “I didn’t think about making a reservation. After I saw the traffic coming over the bridge this afternoon, I knew I should have, but …” Her voice faded away as she shrugged. “It’s not a problem for me, though. I slept in my car the entire trip out here. I can certainly do it one more night.”

“That’s crazy,” Lacey said. “You stay with us tonight, Gina. Tomorrow you can look for a room. No way we’re letting you sleep in your car.” Lacey didn’t look at him as she spoke. He knew she didn’t want to see any disapproval in his eyes.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Gina said. She looked genuinely chagrined by the invitation. “You’ve already been so kind. And after I trespassed on your property and took over your evening.”

“You’re staying here,” Lacey insisted. “The spare bedrooms haven’t been redone yet, but you’re welcome to take one of them as is, if you like. We have clean sheets for the bed. So you have no excuse not to stay.”

He knew he should speak up himself. He should tell her it was okay, that he’d like her to stay, but for some reason the words were stuck in his throat.

Gina played with her crumpled napkin where it rested on the table. “Well, thank you so much,” she said, glancing from Lacey to him. “I can’t believe how nice you two are being to a perfect stranger.”

“Let’s go move your car,” Lacey stood up.

“May I use your bathroom first?” Gina asked, and Clay pointed the way. Once she was out of hearing range, Lacey dared to look at him.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

“No,” he said. “It’s fine.” But he couldn’t explain the apprehension he felt at the thought of sharing the house with this stranger, a lighthouse enthusiast who couldn’t pronounce Fresnel, if even for just one night.

Chapter Three

GINA KNEW THIS ROOM. SHE HAD NEVER BEEN in it before, but she knew it all the same. She stood in the doorway in the darkness, breathing hard, although the small, soft-sided suitcase she’d carried up the stairs, along with her backpack and camera, was not heavy. Without turning on the light, she walked to the window and, with a little work, managed to open it. A soft breeze blew through the screen. The sky had changed since she’d first walked into the house earlier that evening, and now it was filled with stars, more stars than she’d seen before in her life. She could make out the tower, a gray ghost against the night sky, fifty or so yards away from her.

In all her fantasies of what this day might bring, she had not expected to find herself in this room, this house. She had not expected to eat dinner at that old kitchen table, running her fingers over the smooth porcelain, knowing things about it her host and hostess could not know.

The last thing she’d expected was to be taken in, however temporarily, by two strangers. How quickly they had felt like friends! Lacey, primarily. She reminded Gina of one of her students, a red-haired girl with an expansive nature, the sort of person who could talk to anyone as if she’d known them all her life. But Gina was not here to make friends. She was not generally an introvert, but she would have to keep to herself on this trip. Lying to strangers to get what she needed was one thing; lying to friends, another. And already she had lied to Clay and Lacey.

Fresnel. She squeezed her eyes shut, still embarrassed by her faux pas. A lighthouse historian, my foot. But Lacey and Clay seemed to buy it, or at least to accept it. Tomorrow she would find herself a room, then see if she could talk with their father about raising the lens. And if he said to forget it? She wasn’t certain what she would do then. One bridge to cross at a time.

The lens was so close. Through the window, she could hear the sound of the sea, the breaking of the waves. White foam swirled around the base of the lighthouse under the night sky. The lens was out there, just below the surface of the water. There had to be a way.

She switched on the lamp on the night table. From her suitcase, she pulled the T-shirt she would sleep in and her toiletries bag, which held only her toothbrush, toothpaste, floss and sunscreen. She wore a bit of makeup when she taught, but lately, her looks had been the last thing on her mind.

The small pink diary with its broken lock and tattered corners rested on the clothing in her suitcase, and she took it out and set it on the bed Lacey had already made up for her. She knew the diary’s contents by heart.

Pulling off her shorts, she extracted the picture of the little girl from her pocket and propped it up against the lamp. She finished undressing and climbed beneath the covers, then picked up the picture to study it in the lamplight. She had wanted things in her life. She’d wanted her mother to get well. She had at one time wanted a husband and a good marriage, but that was not to be. But never had she wanted anything so much as to hold this child in her arms again.

She set the picture back on the night table, then turned out the light. Lying in the old, full-size sleigh bed in the dark, she could still see the stars. Years ago, the light from the lens would have shot through this small bedroom once every four and a half seconds, illuminating the walls and the ceiling and the covers on the bed.

Yes, she knew without a doubt whose room she was in.