Page 54 of Light of Day
Heather unzipped the suitcase and felt for the pocket. Sure enough, Gabby had left a flash drive in there. Was it current, or leftover from one of her international trips?
A shiver of excitement went through her as she saw DRB written on the case of the drive. Dirty Rotten Bastards.
One down, Gabby, she thought.
She ran back upstairs, hoping the cleaner would be gone by now. The door stood ajar, with one suitcase holding it open, and the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. Did she have time for the quickest search ever?
She did her best—peeked under the bed, in the nightstand drawers, in the closet—then faked an “oops, wrong room” when the guest emerged from the bathroom with her wallet ready to tip the person she’d assumed was the bellhop.
When she’d recovered from that scare, she decided to go back to her mother’s house and look through the flash drive from the suitcase. She could no doubt learn a lot from it, even if it didn’t contain everything Gabby had found.
Luke had left her bike propped near the service entrance. Amazingly, he’d apparently found a moment to fix the kickstand, among all his other duties. He probably knew where the inn kept their WD-40.
“Best constable ever,” she murmured as she hopped onto it.
A few moments later, she was coasting down the paved road that curved through the Lightkeeper grounds. The ocean was an especially sparkling blue today, reflecting a cloudless sky, with barely a breeze ruffling the surface. She thought about the laborers who had camped out here for months to build that hotel.
And the coffins.
Who was inside those coffins? Workers? Abenaki? Smugglers? Buried treasure?
After an invigorating four-mile bike ride across the island, she found her mother’s house empty. Of course—her mom was at work right now. She took a quick shower, put on some coffee, then settled in at the kitchen table with her iPad and the flash drive.
She opened the drive to find a list of image files. She clicked on a random JPEG and flinched.Islanders’ Deviant Behavior Alarms Authorities, read the screaming headline.
She expanded the image so she could read the text.
Suspicions of lawlessness and incest could threaten Maine’s future. Just as authorities hope to lure summer visitors to the northern climes, new reports are emerging of illicit behavior that would shock any right-living man’s sensibilities. While some island inhabitants are God-fearing fishermen attempting to scratch out a living in difficult conditions, others spend their time drunk on liquor and abusing the children they so prolifically produce.
“It’s no wonder, seeing as how some of them islands got settled,” explains one local sea captain. “Bloody pirates used to leave their mistresses out there. It attracts a bad element. You try to talk to those folks and they don’t barely speak the language. There’s crossbreeding, even incest. The children coming out of there hardly even act human, that’s how wild they are. What kind of society is this, if we’re just going to let those folks do whatever they want? We’re God-fearing folks here, and I get a shiver up my spine if I even sail past some of those islands.”
Now discussions are being had in the highest seats of government about the best way to clean out those dens of iniquity.
“This cannot be allowed to stand,” proclaimed State Assemblyman John J. Carmichael. “Those who cannot successfully function in our society must be separated from it. Just like a diseased limb, it needs to be severed. Let them have their own place, but let it be under tight control so the bad element doesn’t infect the bloodstream of regular society.”
Wow. From her time working in media, she recognized emotionally manipulative writing when she saw it. Fear-mongering, check. Evidence-free accusations, check. It seemed the opinion writers were trying to get people riled up over something.
It was working, too.
Another file on the thumb drive held dozens of letters to the editor. They said horrible nasty things like, “Something must be done. If you have a nest of roaches, you don’t let them settle in. You call the exterminator.” Or, “It’s getting so bad out there that some of us fishermen would rather face the currents than let our boats anywhere near those outer islands.”
Those outer islands…were they talking about Sea Smoke Island? It was one of the most prominent of the outer ring of islands in Lightkeeper Bay.
On the other hand, hadn’t one of the newspaper articles said that Sea Smoke was uninhabited?
Confusing.
She clicked through the rest of the images, which all showed screenshots of fear-mongering opinion articles along the same lines. They were from the same era as those displayed in the Lightkeeper’s library, but so much more sensationalized. It was almost enough to make her scared to step outside into the “den of iniquity” that was Sea Smoke—except that all of those things had happened over a century ago.
When she’d thoroughly perused the thumb drive, she shot an email to Luke, attaching one JPEG as a sample of the rest. He sent her an “eye-popping” emoji in return.
Smiling—she liked Luke’s sense of humor—she packed up her iPad and rode her bike to the village center. An SUV was parked outside the historical society’s office, so she took a chance and knocked on the door.
Amy Lou opened it as if she was expecting someone else, but grudgingly let her in. “How is your search going?”
“It’s over.”
A flash of what looked like horror came over her face. Her pink lipstick suddenly looked garish against her pale skin. “Oh no.”
