The state trooper assigned to her, drove Vivenne and Martha to the station, where Brooks met them at the entrance. His expression was composed, but Vivienne caught the exhaustion around his eyes. Neither of them had slept much since pulling Melissa from the tunnels.
“Hello, Martha.”
“Detective,” she said, stopping in front of him. “Thank you again.”
Brooks nodded. “Just doing my job. I’m sorry it took someone this long to give you the closure you needed. Agent Porter’s set up in the conference room.”
Brooks held the door for them. “Are you joining us?” He directed his question toward Martha.
“If it’s okay.”
“Fine with me. I think Agent Porter has some questions for you too. Fair warning—she’s got questions about the three sets of evidence Lily hid. How you knew their exact locations.”
“I saw it in a vision when I touched her journal. The same way I saw everything else.”
“I know. But Porter’s going to want details. Specifics about your process.”
The conference room held more people than Vivienne expected. Agent Porter sat at the head of the table, surrounded by other FBI agents. Chief Sullivan occupied the far corner, his face carefully neutral.
“Ms. Hawthorne.” Porter stood, gesturing to an empty chair. “Thank you for coming. We’ve recovered all three sets of evidence you identified. The lamp room cache, the church garden burial, and the set Mrs. Morgan kept. Together, they provide comprehensive documentation of the Aldrich smuggling operation dating back to 1947.”
Vivienne took the offered seat, Martha beside her. Brooks remained standing near the door, his detective’s instinct to observe rather than participate.
Porter continued. “What we need now is your help understanding the spiritual component. Lily Morgan’s camera contained photographs of what appear to be protective symbols carved into the tunnel walls. We need you to interpret them.”
She clicked a remote. Images appeared on the screen—the same symbols Mathilde had drawn, the same protective marks Vivienne had seen in her visions. But these photographs showed them as they existed in the physical world, carved into stone a century ago.
“My great-great-grandmother designed those protections when she helped build the tunnels during Prohibition. They were meant to guard against misuse of the passages, to mark safe routes and dangerous ones.”
“And they work?” Porter asked.
“They create unease. Discomfort. Most people who encounter them feel a strong urge to turn back without understanding why.” Vivienne studied the photographs on screen. “But Lily didn’t find the central chamber because she could sense the protections. She found references to the symbols in old construction records and maintenance logs. She mapped their locations from historical documents, then followed that map through the tunnels.”
Porter nodded, making notes. “So she used the symbols as navigation markers, not supernatural guides.”
“Exactly. She was a researcher, not a psychic. She pieced together where the symbols were located, and that led her to the hidden chambers.”
“And Melissa Clarkson?” Porter asked. “How did she find the central chamber?”
“The same way Lily did—through research. Melissa was investigating the lighthouse’s history, following the same documentary trails. Old construction records, maintenance logs, historical society archives. The symbols marked specific structural locations. Anyone doing thorough historical research would eventually piece together the pattern.”
Porter clicked to the next image—one of the shipping manifests Lily had photographed. “These coded entries. Can you interpret them?”
Vivienne leaned forward, studying the document. The codes were complex, layered, designed to look like legitimate business transactions to anyone who didn’t know what to search for.
“May I?” She gestured to a blank notepad on the table.
Porter slid it toward her. Vivienne began writing, translating the codes into plain language. Origins, destinations, types of artifacts, estimated values, buyers. Information Lily had died protecting, information her family had preserved for twenty-five years.
“My grandmother taught me to read these. She’d studied the Aldrich operation for decades, learned their systems, their patterns. She passed that knowledge to my mother, who passed it to me.” Vivienne looked up from her notes. “We’ve been preparing for this moment across generations. Waiting for someone brave enough to bring these criminals to justice.”
The room absorbed that statement. Sullivan shifted uncomfortably. Brooks remained silent, but she felt his attention on her, steady and grounding.
“The artifacts themselves,” Porter continued. “Do you know their current locations?”
“The FBI seized items from the warehouse. But there are more—pieces the Aldriches sold years ago, scattered in private collections across the world. Lily photographed records of everytransaction. With her documentation, you can trace them, begin the process of repatriation.”
Porter’s expression suggested she’d already begun that process. “We’ll need your continued consultation as we work through the evidence. Your family’s knowledge of the Aldrich operation is proving invaluable.”
