Page 98 of Tempest at Annabel's Lighthouse
“Hey.”
“Where on earthwereyou?” Tears pricked Shea’s eyes. She wasn’t angry now. She wasn’t anything other than relieved and desperate to make it up to Pete. Make everything up to Pete. Everything she had stolen from him, she now wanted to give back.
“I drove Captain Gene’s car back to the Dipstick. Holt and his mom—Penny—had been harboring his grandfather in the basement of the Dipstick. The old man has dementia, but he’s always been a local hero of sorts. They’ve taken care of him while letting everyone believe he’s off on his adventures—like a legend. But he’s just an old man who has been battling age and the loss of his memories,” Pete explained. “Penny said her father asked them to do that. He didn’t want people to remember him as anything but Captain Gene, man of the Porkies.”
It made sense, Captain Gene’s actions earlier. His erratic behavior, the fact that no one knew where he was, that he couldn’t tell anyone what he knew. Captain Gene was no longer with them, and all that was left was the shell of an elderly man lost in a maze of dementia-riddled confusion.
Shea felt her heart break a little—for the man’s pride, for Penny’s silent burden, and for her own impetuous insistence to solve the mystery once and for all.
“Why didn’t Penny tell me Holt was her son? Why didn’t Holt call her ‘mom’ for goodness’ sake?” Shea stared past Pete toward the flashing lights, toward Holt’s silhouette as he stood looking lost, his hands behind his head and elbows sticking out.
Pete shook his head. “All I can say is that it’s a pretty dysfunctional family, and Captain Gene’s current condition hasn’t lent toward making it functional.”
Shea tempered her words so that they didn’t sound accusatory. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going back to the Dipstick tonight with Holt?”
Pete gave her a quizzical look. “I did. I asked you to trust me. Of course, I had no idea Marnie was in the lighthouse, not until Holt mentioned that’s why he was here in the first place. He was starting to put things together after I got hit by the car. He’d always wondered if Marnie was ... well, if she was okay. Her sending you to talk to Edna about all the history, it never added up to Holt because Marnie didn’t like anyone being in the lighthouse. Once he told me his concerns, that’s when we called—Icalled—the cops.”
Shea wrapped her arms around his left arm and gave it a hug since she couldn’t exactly assault him with affection due to his other arm. “Marnie has been lurking around here since I first came. Since she hasn’t been able to access the lighthouse the way she wanted, when I came, she thought my finding the map Rebecca supposedly stole way back in the 1800s might be her answer. Then Marnie was going to take it. She tried with Jonathan Marks—swore he knew where they were, but then she accidentally shot him.”
“Accidentally?” Pete’s eyebrow raised.
“That’s what she claims.”
They pushed into the lighthouse just as the sky opened up in full torrents. Within a few minutes, Holt burst in and then froze at the sight of them. He hesitated. “Can I ... come in?”
“It’s your lighthouse,” Pete said.
Holt collapsed onto a chair at the table, head in his hands. “I knew it,” he muttered. “I knew it.”
Shea glanced at Pete before easing into a chair across from him. “Holt?”
Holt looked up, eyes red, hair tousled and damp from the rain and the horrific night. “I’m sorry, Shea. I didn’t ... well, Ihopedmy aunt Marnie wasn’t responsible for all of this. And my mom, Penny—I was trying to protect her—and my grandfather—and—I didn’t know—” Holt was legitimately at a loss, and Shea couldn’t help him.
Holt lifted his eyes to hers. “I messed everything up—from the beginning until now. I wasn’t even honest that Penny was my mother. But it’s just how we function. Our family keeps each other at arm’s length. We care, but we don’t trust—not even each other, really.”
Shea grimaced. She couldn’t really say anything. In a lesser and more familiar way as far as society was concerned, she’d done the same with Pete. Cared, but kept him at arm’s length.
Shea noted Pete at the stove, pushing more firewood into it to generate enough heat to boil water for tea. His back was to her and Holt. He managed as though nothing major had happened. She looked back to Holt. “Your aunt Marnie admitted to the hit-and-run with Pete.”
Holt dipped his head. “I’d hoped that there was a different explanation.” He let out a growl of frustration and guilt.
Shea reached across the table as if to take Holt’s hand, but then she pulled back. “I won’t say it’s okay, Holt, but it’s not your fault. What Marnie did.”
Holt leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. “She and my mom have always been on the outs. But I got along with Marnie in our own way. It’s my grandfather, Captain Gene, that’s a tough nut to crack. And now he’s just gone, even though he’s still here.”
“He sounds like he made life rough on Marnie and your mom,” Shea said.
Holt snorted. “Rough? Yeah, I guess that’s true. I’m so deeply entrenched in it, between Marnie and Captain Gene and Penny—my mom—I can’t even see the water for the land at this point.”
Pete gave a short laugh of understanding. “It’s not about any of that, Holt. It’s about wanting to be a part of something. It’s about family. It’s about the ties that bind—or don’t bind.” Pete’s gaze fell on Shea. “The fact is, when you let yourself get in the way, you cheat not only yourself but those around you of the chance to love you.”
Shea’s cheeks warmed, both out of guilt and in realization that Pete was staring deep into her eyes in a way she’d long wished for but had rarely seen, if ever.
He finished, “We get our priorities messed up. We forget that the ones we love are what’s most important, no matter the cost.”
Holt had left to head back to his place. The lighthouse was a quiet refuge from the wind and rain as dawn split the sky. The gray clouds kept the sun at bay, yet the light still stretched over the lake, over the woods, and across the lighthouse.
The tea had finally been made.
