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Amelia gasped theatrically, nearly dropping her phone. “No freaking way.”
Clara held the page out to her. There was no more to read. Nora hadn’t even signed it. It was her most revealing and raw entry yet. Of course, the letters written directly to the girls were specific and useful, but this was all rage. All Nora.
She had loved their father. And she did not believe he just disappeared. So, if neither of those were true, then only a few—albeit extreme—explanations existed.
“Gene killed Dad?” Megan asked, her mouth agape and her black-tipped fingers pressed over it like a horrible gate.
“No, he didn’t.” It was Michael. Amelia nearly forgot he was still on the phone.
“What do you mean?” she asked him. “How do you know?”
It was his turn to sigh. “I know Gene. Personally. He still lived in town when I first moved here. I rented his house for a few years once he left. Gene didn’t kill anyone.”
“Is that all you know?” Amelia asked pointedly, staring at the phone for a dramatic response.
“Well, yeah. I know he’s a good guy.”
Clara set the page on the counter and shuffled back and forth, her expression strained. “I’ve heard about Gene. I don’t know him, but I hear about him at school sometimes. He was a very popular principal.”
“If I recall, Mom hated him,” Megan offered. “Wasn’t that right, Amelia?”
Amelia shook her head. “I don’t know if she hated him, but she definitely avoided academic events. I mean, I suppose you could deduce a connection there, but... seems farfetched to me.” Amelia wasn’t the sort to be reasonable and rational, but something told her Michael was good at reading people. If he thought Gene Carmichael was a good guy, then she was compelled to believe him.
“Do you know anything else about him?” she asked the phone.
Michael cleared his throat over the line. “I mean, I know he met someone on a dating app.” He chuckled but cleared it away with a small cough. “Sorry, it struck me as funny at the time because he was older. He, um, well, he wasn’t having any success in that department, so he looked up people from out of town, found someone, and he left the harbor to be with her. He didn’t leave for good, though. He comes to town regularly to meet up with friends. I’m not sure if he ever married that woman, but I think he brings his pals and dates on his houseboat. He’s a little cocky acting, and I don’t really know why, but he stays in touch with the community.”
“We know,” Amelia replied. Despite trusting Michael’s opinion, she suddenly felt gross for having been so kind and accommodating towards him. Overeager, really. It was the curse of the extrovert—being too friendly to people who may or may not deserve such friendliness. Then again, maybe he did deserve it. Maybe he was a good guy.
“So, what was Mom’s beef with Gene Carmichael?” Megan asked.
Amelia shrugged and frowned. “He’s in town right now. Why don’t we ask him?”
***
Despite Michael’s claim that Gene was harmless, he insisted on meeting Amelia and her sisters before they started their search. Logically, they’d go to the house on the harbor or the Village. But there were complications. One, Megan wouldn’t be able to join them. She was meeting Brian and Sarah soon, then they planned to go to dinner after the cemetery visit. Amelia asked if she could postpone—that their task was critical.
As they stood together outside the cottage, Megan shrugged. “My future is more important than our past. I’m sorry.” Amelia and Clara agreed to drop her at the house on the harbor before they laid out their investigation plans.
“Let’s tell Michael to meet us at the Village,” Clara suggested. “It’s a short walk for us once we drop Megan, and Kate can easily join.”
“I’ll call her,” Amelia replied as they got ready to leave the cottage, thumbing through her phone until it rang. But their conversation veered off. Yes, Kate was astonished and interested in following the lead. No, she didn’t know anything about Gene Carmichael other than he was their principal. Maybe she could meet them, but she did have plans for later that evening.
“How can she be so disinterested?” Clara asked, once Megan had climbed out from the car and bid them a good night.
“I know. It makes me feel like this whole thing is no big deal. Megan seems to care enough, but she’s more consumed by Brian and Sarah.”
“It makes sense,” Clara reasoned. “I mean, things are weird with them right now. And if Sarah is going to stay here for a while, then she’d better iron everything out, right?”
Amelia sighed. “Yeah, I guess.” There she was, back home in Birch Harbor, bumming a room in Kate’s new house and business enterprise while Kate gallivanted around town with her old flame and Clara, fresh into summer, tagged along like a tourist. Megan had been by her side, also in the throes of a major life overhaul initially. But then, in a span of twenty-four hours it seemed, she was all of a sudden more consumed by the man she claimed to despise than her very own sisters and their crumbling family history.
Feeling more lost than ever, Amelia realized there was just one place she could stand to be. The lighthouse.
Perhaps its deed sat in the dusty filing cabinet of some indifferent stranger, but Liesel Hart wasn’t Wendell Acton’s daughter. Amelia was.
“I know where we can meet,” she said to Clara, striding to her little sister’s car and sliding into the passenger seat.
Once they pulled out from the gravel drive of the house which both sisters grew up in, Clara tugged her sunglasses from her forehead onto her nose and looked over. “All right. Where to?”
“Drive north.”