What had Lily discovered twenty-five years ago? And had Melissa Clark somehow stumbled upon the same dangerous secret?
She touched the pendant at her throat, its warmth a reminder of her connection to both the past and whatever was unfolding now. The Hawthornes had always served as guardians of Westerly Cove in their own way. Perhaps it was time to take a more active role than simply waiting for clarity to come.
The next morning, she walked to the blue house with white trim on Harbor Street. The small yard looked meticulously maintained despite the season.
Her knock was answered quickly. Martha had been waiting. The woman who greeted her bore little resemblance to the vibrant person she remembered from her childhood. Twenty-five years of grief had carved deep lines around her eyes and mouth, turned her hair completely silver, and left her frame thin and brittle. But her eyes remained sharp, intelligent, and hungry for answers that had never come.
“Vivienne.” The voice carried hope and wariness. “Please, come in.”
The interior smelled of lavender and old books. Photographs covered every surface in the small sitting room—school portraits, family vacations, candid moments that captured a bright-eyed girl growing into a young woman. Then they stopped.
“I gave that new detective all of Lily’s research yesterday,” Martha said, settling into an armchair. “He was kind. Actually listened. Not like the others.” Her hands twisted in her lap. “Butthere’s something I didn’t tell him. Something I’ve never told anyone because they’d think I was crazy.”
“Tell me.”
Martha’s eyes filled with tears. “The last morning—before she went to school that day—she was different. Made me her favorite pancakes, told me she loved me, thanked me for raising her right. I knew something was wrong, but when I asked, she just smiled and said she was thinking about the future.” Her voice cracked. “I should have pushed harder. Should have made her tell me what she was planning.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“But I did know. A mother knows when her child is saying goodbye.” Martha wiped her eyes. “And that night, when she said she was going to study at her friend’s house, she hugged us both longer than usual. Told us she loved us again. Then she walked out that door, and I never saw her alive again.”
“There’s something else,” Martha said. “May I show you?”
She stood and led the way upstairs. The bedroom door stood open. Time had stopped inside—band posters on the walls, textbooks stacked on the desk, clothes folded in the dresser waiting for their owner to return. But her psychic senses recoiled from the space. The room hummed with unnatural energy, the air thick with the residue of violent death and unfinished business.
“Sometimes I hear typing. From her computer. Late at night, when the wind is right.” Martha’s voice trembled. “The machine hasn’t been turned on in twenty-five years, but I hear the keys clicking.”
A chill ran down her spine. The spirit was still here, still trapped, still trying to communicate the truth she’d died protecting.
On the desk sat an old laptop computer, its screen dark, surrounded by notebooks—personal journals Martha had keptseparate from the research materials she’d given Brooks. One lay open, the final entry dated the day she disappeared: “I know what they’re hiding. God help me, I know what they’ve done.”
“I’d like to touch some of her belongings, if you’re comfortable with that.”
Martha nodded, backing toward the doorway. “I’ll be downstairs. I can’t watch. But if it helps find that Clark girl, if it brings Lily some peace . . .”
Alone in the dead girl’s room, she approached the desk with careful reverence. She pulled off her gloves and placed her bare palm against the surface where the final hours alive had been spent, working frantically to document whatever terrible truth had been uncovered.
The experience hit her with physical force.
Lily crouched in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage at night, her camera clicking as she photographed documents spread across a desk. She worked with precision, recording each shipping manifest, each financial record, each piece of evidence.
The vision shifted. Lily climbed down into the tunnels, her flashlight cutting through darkness as she photographed hidden chambers, stolen artifacts, the infrastructure of a criminal empire. Her hands stayed steady, her focus absolute, even as fear tightened her features.
The chase ended in the central chamber. Winston Aldrich blocked her escape route. Lily backed against the stone wall, holding her camera against her chest.
“You don’t understand what you’re interfering with,” Winston’s voice carried practiced reasonableness. “This operation provides for hundreds of families.”
“You’ve killed people. Seventeen people who discovered the truth.”
Gerald Aldrich moved from the shadows. Terror spiked as she recognized the violence in the old man’s eyes.
“Give us the camera and the documentation. We’ll make this quick. An accident. Your family will be compensated.”
“No.” Her hand moved to the pendant at her throat—a protective charm. “The truth matters more than my life.”
Gerald Aldrich lunged forward. The cold water of the rising tide. The desperate struggle as both men held her down. In her final moments of consciousness, pressing the small recording device deeper into a crevice in the rock wall, praying someone would find it someday.
“Find it,” her spirit whispered as her body sank into dark water. “Someone will come who can see. Someone will finish this.”
