Deadly Christmas Pretense. Dana Mentink
even listening. Instead she was inspecting the ruined tire of the Vette. Then she lifted her face to the evening breeze, turning it in the direction of the ocean. She was clearly working out some sort of plan.
“I’m sorry,” she said simply.
Was that all she had said or had he missed some? He wasn’t feeling like asking her to repeat herself. “Sorry doesn’t quite cut it, Tammy. What’s going on?” He eased back on his heels and something bumped his leg. He stumbled, winding up on the ground, staring up into the face of Jingles.
Jingles placed a crooked paw on Liam’s chest.
“Jingles,” Liam yelled. The dog responded by swabbing his face with a warm tongue until Liam finally pushed him off. Jingles sat back, tail skimming the ground in happy lashes. Liam hauled himself to his feet and gathered up the rifle he’d dropped. “Can’t ya see I’m in the middle of a situation here?”
Jingles barked.
Liam ignored him this time and ordered a thunderous, “Stay.”
He turned back, flabbergasted to find that Tammy had gone, headed off into the night, leaving her disabled Corvette behind.
He looked across the field to where she must have headed: the fog-shrouded beach. “What’s gotten into you, Tammy?”
He almost smiled. She should know him well enough to realize she’d piqued both his concern and his curiosity. And Liam Pike had never been one to ignore either.
He whistled once, low and soft, which brought Streak to the fence on quiet hooves. Jingles was on his feet now, too, bottom waggling right along with his tail, apparently convinced his services were needed.
“Just try not to fall off a cliff, okay?”
Jingles barked once and then took up a position behind the horse.
Maggie was grateful there was just enough moonlight glowing through the coastal fog to help her orient herself. She was heading west, toward the beach and the lighthouse. Directly east, near where she’d spun out, must be the vast acreage of the Roughwater Ranch. That explained Liam’s arrival. She’d only heard bits and pieces from Tammy, enough to know that their relationship “had no legs,” whatever that meant. Imagine running into the guy. He, too, thought she was her sister, thanks to the darkness and the car. At least she knew he wasn’t the one Tammy had entrusted her stolen goods with. The poor man sounded as clueless as she felt.
Well, since you’ve stepped into Tammy’s shoes for better or worse, you’re going to rub elbows with her acquaintances. She hoped her rendezvous with her sister at the lighthouse would clear the whole thing up. Didn’t matter. She’d do whatever she could to pull her sister from the hot water.
But this time things were more serious than unpaid bills or romantic troubles. She thought about the train barreling past, inches from the front of the Corvette.
Way more serious.
Whispering a prayer, she picked up her pace. The grass gave way to a rocky black cliff. Reaching the edge, she peered down onto a rugged beach cloaked in fog. Ahead and to the right she could just make out the steep trail that led down to a jutting promontory of rock where the outline of the lighthouse was visible.
It was a historic structure, no longer in use, though there was a string of Christmas lights twined around the gangway and one small beacon at the top. The lights were courtesy of the ranch owners, Gus and Ginny Knightly, Tammy had told her, to honor the men and women who had served in the navy, as had Gus’s father. Maggie had been struck by the story, picturing the couple who believed in honor and respect, two qualities hard to come by these days, it seemed to Maggie.
She picked her way slowly, since the black rock was slippery with condensation and the moonlight partially obscured by fog. The roar of the surf grew louder. They should have met at a café or a gas station, but Tammy always did have a flair for the dramatic. Maggie could never understand it. She could be fully content spending every day bunkered behind a restaurant stove, cooking for patrons like she’d done for years in her parents’ café, gleaning plenty of excitement from managing a kitchen. It pained her that she’d had to walk away from several days’ wages to come to Driftwood. She’d kissed goodbye money that wouldn’t accumulate in her meager bank account, which wouldn’t help her with her goal of reopening her parents’ restaurant.
You’ll get there. The words were stoked with optimism but each year seemed to bring more troubles and financial setbacks. “Eliminate the distractions. Get this thing with Tammy settled and put your nose to the grindstone,” she whispered to herself before the wind snatched the words away.
The dial on her father’s old watch read nine thirty. Precise down to the second, it was not the loveliest accessory, but Maggie didn’t care. It was a part of her father and his legacy, and family was everything.
A rock tumbled loose from somewhere nearby. Maggie froze. Was there someone following? She strained to listen. The wind was howling now, numbing her cheeks. She zipped her thin jacket as far up as it would go, but the chill seeped in anyway.
Finally she made it to the level path that took her to the door of the lighthouse. She listened one more time and checked her phone. Again she dialed Tammy’s number, but the call would not go through on this wild, wind-whipped beach. No way to leave a message anyway; her sister had never bothered to set up her voice mail. Her fingers tingled with the cold.
She stared at the device, but the blank screen gave no answers. Had Tammy made it to the lighthouse or not? Perhaps she’d lost her phone. A crack sounded in the night. A rock falling into the ocean? Or something entirely different?
What if her pursuer had waited after the encounter with Liam, retreated, only to find a hiding place from which he could follow her?
She paused with her hand on the wooden door.
What if?
She had no other choice but to go in and follow through on the plan her sister had set in place earlier. Palm clammy, she shoved open the door.
The chilled interior of the old lighthouse smelled of mildew. In the gloom she could barely make out the spiraling metal staircase and cracked plaster walls glazed with moisture. The graffitied interior had been painted over, but more recent messages were scrawled in spray paint.
“Tammy?” she whispered. The only answer was the crash of the surf outside. “Tammy?” she said louder. She let a full two minutes go by before she made a decision. Her sister wasn’t there. She could feel it. It was time to get out.
Shoes crunched up the walk outside, heavy, not Tammy’s. Prickles of panic erupted up Maggie’s spine. There was nowhere to hide, no place to go, except up. Breath held, she scampered quickly up four steps, enough to take her out of the view of the doorway. The creak of the door split the night.
One second. Two...three. Immobile as a statue, she waited.
“Tammy?”
She recoiled deeper into the shadows, her back pressed against the cold plaster. Everything in her shouted at her to run up the staircase, but trapping herself at the top of an abandoned lighthouse would be suicide.
“I know you’re here, Tammy. I saw you come in,” he said.
She bit her lip.
His tone went soft and friendly with the hint of an East Coast accent. “Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt you earlier, back in Sand Bar.”
Hurt? Her heart thundered. Was he talking about the car accident?
“I just wanted to talk, but you didn’t cooperate. You should have stayed in the hospital, let me help you, not run off into the night.”
Hospital? Maggie clamped her teeth together to keep from screaming.
“I was told you’d picked up your Corvette