Chapter 2

Lane

Of all the rooms at the Cloister House, Lane’s favorite was her writing room in the northeast turret. She loved the smoothly curved walls and high, curtainless windows, how the light played over the smoothly worn floorboards and turned the jars of sea glass along the sills into chalices of pastel jewels. But most of all, she loved the view, nothing short of spectacular when the day was clear and bright but even more breathtaking at night, when stars filled the sky and the moon turned the sea to quicksilver.

But tonight, as she peered over the rim of her cold cup of tea and listened to the wind gusting in off the Atlantic, there was nothing to see: no moon, no stars, nothing but the rhythmic sweep of Starry Point Light and her own reflection in the wavy panes.

They didn’t have tropical storms in Chicago. Penny would be her first. There had been scares, of course, close calls that caught the attention of the locals and even sent a few scurrying to prepare, but they’d been incredibly lucky, something to do with El Niño. Now it seemed their luck had run out. Not that she was worried. She’d been through plenty of firsts in her life, plenty of lasts, too, and had managed to survive them all. More than five years had passed since she landed in Starry Point, the last in a sandy string of islands along North Carolina’s Outer Banks. At the time it seemed an unlikely place for a Chicago girl to end up, a small spit of land tethered to the world by a series of narrow, sand-swept bridges. But something had whispered as she crossed that last bridge, something that said this spit of land, with its charming old lighthouse, pastel-washed bungalows, and sleepy Victorian village, this place at the end of the world, might be the perfect place to begin again. And begin again she had.

Running a bed-and-breakfast had never been her dream. In fact, until she laid eyes on the Cloister, the idea had never crossed her mind. She’d had no idea where to start, but with a failed marriage, a failed pregnancy, and a failed novel to her credit, one more failure wasn’t likely to make much difference one way or another.

She liked to pretend it was the view that captured her heart—powder white dunes and teal blue seas, Starry Point Light standing tall and formidable in the distance—but that wasn’t the absolute truth. Those things kept her guest register full during the season, but for Lane the Cloister’s appeal had to do with its twin Romanesque towers and rough-faced gray stone, wholly unexpected and starkly at odds with Starry Point’s wooden shingles and white picket fences.

I’m all wrong, it seemed to say. I don’t belong here.

Yet here it stood, proud, indomitable—a survivor. And now it belonged to her. For the first time in years, perhaps in her life, she was in charge of her own life, with no one peering over her shoulder, ready to pounce on her slightest mistake. And if running it took most of her waking hours, so what? For now, that was enough. And when the season ended—three weeks early this year, thanks to tropical storm Penny—there was time to pursue her freelance work: scribbling articles about things she’d never done and places she’d never been.

Lane’s teacup came down with a clatter as a fresh gust of wind slapped at the windows, rattling the old panes in their frames. Everyone said that waiting was the worst. Everyone was right. Snapping off the lamp, she rose from her desk and headed downstairs.

In the kitchen she rinsed her cup and saucer, then decided to make one last round to check the locks. She had already checked once, right after the Burtons went up for the night, but these days it didn’t pay to take chances. As if a late-season storm weren’t excitement enough for one small town, a recent rash of break-ins on the normally sleepy island had the good people of Starry Point bolting their doors and demanding answers.

Nine break-ins reported so far: all petty, and all unsolved. But in a town where sand-sculpture contests and chowder cook-offs qualified as excitement, they might as well have been armed home invasions. And now, with her last guests fleeing inland tomorrow morning, she would soon find herself alone for the entire winter.

The thought was vaguely unsettling as she took one final peer through the curtains. Across the street, the Rourke place stood grave and forlorn. The once-fine house was empty now, and had been for years, its rear windows boarded after a fire ravaged the upper floors and took the life of five-year-old Peter Rourke. In the dark the place looked grand enough, when you couldn’t see the overgrown shrubs and shabby lawn, or the faintly scorched brick above the third-story windows. She stifled a shiver, as she always did when her eyes lingered on the Victorian-style greenhouse hunkered against the north side of the house.

She had ventured inside once, not long after moving to Starry Point, had stood in the center of the ruined conservatory, choked with weeds and saplings, more than half its small square panes in shards on the packed earth floor. It had given her the creeps then, and it still did. But it made her a little sad, too.

It was a shame that a home that once belonged to one of Starry Point’s most beloved mayors had been allowed to go to ruin. For years, the Preservation Society had been vowing to restore the place and open it to the public, but as far as she could tell, little progress had been made in that direction. In the meantime, years of neglect had taken their toll, until all that remained was the hollow echo of the home’s former grandeur. And yet it remained a favorite on Starry Point’s seasonal walking tours—mostly because locals insisted the place was haunted. Lane didn’t believe it, of course, but it had become clear that owning a bed-and-breakfast across from the local haunted house wasn’t exactly bad for business.

She was surprised when the banjo clock in the hall sounded a single, throaty peal. How was it already one a.m.? The Burtons would be up in five hours, ready for breakfast and anxious to stay ahead of the weather. She didn’t blame them. According to the news, Highway 12 was bumper-to-bumper all the way to the mainland. She only had one more window to check.

Lane went still when she saw the light, a wide, milky beam floating past the first-floor windows of the Rourke House. She’d heard people use the expression frozen to the spot but had never experienced it firsthand—until now. Her heart thumped heavily in her ears as she squinted through the curtains, following the beam’s steady progress and trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light was gone.

The police cruiser pulled up along the curb and cut its lights. Lane watched from the window as the officers emerged from the car, relieved that Donny Breester hadn’t decided to answer the call. But then, Starry Point’s chief of police wasn’t one to put himself out when there was nothing to be gained, and after five years of trying—and failing—maybe he’d finally grasped that when it came to Lane Kramer, there was absolutely nothing to be gained.

She watched as the pair split up, then melted into the shadows at the back of the abandoned house. When they reappeared an impossibly short time later, she hurried out to meet them. The night air was thick and hazy with salt and chillier than she’d expected. She shivered as she made her way to the street, wishing she’d put more on her feet than a pair of flip-flops. Rick Warren and Gary Mickles were waiting for her at the base of the drive. Rick holstered his flashlight and tipped his hat. Gary spat, hooked his thumb between his paunch and his duty belt, and said nothing. Neither looked especially happy that they’d been called.

“Did you find anything?” Lane aimed the question at Rick, the less annoyed-looking of the two. “The light disappeared, but I never saw anyone moving away from the house. I’ve been watching since I hung up with dispatch.”

Rick was scribbling in a small notebook. “No sign of anyone around back,” he muttered without looking up. “No signs of forced entry. All the windows are still boarded. So unless somebody had a key—”

“There was a light,” Lane said again, shivering now, and painfully aware that she was standing outside in a bathrobe. “It moved past the front windows, right to left, then back again.”

Gary craned his neck in the direction of Starry Point Light and waited for the beam to sweep back around. “There’s your intruder right there,” he snorted.

Lane stared at him, incredulous. “You think I saw the beam from the lighthouse?”

Mickles spat again and hitched up his drooping belt. “Moves past those windows just like you said. Mystery solved.”

Lane bit back the remark on the tip of her tongue and turned to Rick. “The light I saw moved slowly. And it moved from right to left, not left to right. It wasn’t the lighthouse. It was . . . something else.”

Rick jotted a final note in his book, then flipped the cover closed before stuffing it back into his pocket. “Light can do tricky things, Mrs. Kramer, especially late at night.”

Especially late at night? What was that supposed to mean? Were there special laws of physics that kicked in after dark?

“Rick, I’ve lived here for five years now, and I can promise you that if the beam from Starry Point Light came anywhere near those windows I would have seen it before tonight. If you don’t believe me, stand here and watch it for yourself. The beam’s too high, and it moves in the wrong direction.”

Mickles snorted again, clearly impatient. “Maybe the light looks different from over at your place. I read somewhere that light can bend.”

Even Rick thought it was a stupid answer. He shot Mickles a look that told him to be quiet. “I don’t know what you saw, Mrs. Kramer, but I can tell you there’s nothing there now. We’ve checked the place out top to bottom and there’s no way anyone was in that house tonight.”

“So you’re saying I imagined it?”

Mickles let his breath out through his teeth, heavily scented with the onions he’d obviously had for dinner. “Don’t feel bad. Every time the wind blows these days, some woman’s picking up the phone and dialing 911. You haven’t got anything to worry about over here, though. So far all the incidents have been on the sound side. Hey, maybe you saw one of them ghosts that’s supposed to live there—the boy, or the old man.”

Lane stifled a groan. It was clear that nothing she said was going to make these two take her seriously.

Warren must have sensed her frustration. “How about I arrange for a car to drive by from time to time and keep an eye out? I’d be happy to do that if it’ll make you feel better, but in all honesty, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to get inside that old house. Everyone knows it’s been empty for years. I’ll send that cruiser around, though.” He tipped his hat. “You have yourself a good rest of the night.”

Lane fumed as she watched the cruiser’s taillights disappear down Old Point Road. They thought she was a hysterical female, a woman living alone, given to bouts of paranoia. But they had agreed to send a patrol around. That was something, at least. She turned to look again at the Rourke House—not a sign of life or light now—and wondered if Mickles might not be right. Maybe her imagination had been working overtime, conjuring things that weren’t there. But no, in her mind she could still see the light. Someone had been in that house.