Grave Phantoms (Roaring Twenties #3)(64)

After Bo detached mooring lines from the pier, she felt the boat dip lower into the water with his added weight as he slid into the other side. His leg was warm and solid against hers. A turn of a key, a flip of a switch, and a pressed button started the rumbling motor. He turned on a bright fog light that shone out over the bow and cut over the dark water. Then he handed her his hat to hold on to, and just like that, they were gliding away from the pier.

A terrible exhilaration came over her as the runabout shot forward, whipping her hair around. The pungent scent of salt water filled her nostrils. Her stomach dropped. Lights of the Embarcadero blurred as Bo accelerated, steering them around the curved coastline, past piers stretching out like spokes of a wheel. Normal conversation wasn’t possible over the roar of the engine, but Bo glanced at her every so often. He looked like the boy she’d fallen for years ago—sharp cheekbones, intensely eager eyes, and a tireless enthusiasm that was infectious.

The runabout zipped through the water with its nose tilted upward as they sped north of the coast, away from the city. A quarter hour passed, maybe more, and San Francisco’s twinkling lights began fading while distant coastal cliffs to the north stood black against a purpled sky. They crossed from the Bay waters into the Pacific proper and made their way toward those cliffs, around the western side of the Marin County peninsula, and that’s when Astrid knew exactly where he was taking her.

The Marin County docks.

Ten miles or so up the coast, the Magnussons owned a few acres of land surrounding a small cove. The entrance to the cove was hard to find in the day, and nearly impossible at night. It was once a military camp, and supposedly a smuggling spot for pirates. Astrid now hoped those pirates didn’t include Max and his ilk at the Pieces of Eight Society; it wasn’t far from here that Mr. Haig said the Plumed Serpent had disappeared.

Bo slowed the runabout when they spotted the cove entrance, a narrow channel between two rocky cliffs. It felt a little ominous when they entered. The boat’s headlight shone into shifting fog, and the motor’s sputter echoed off jagged rock, where gulls and murres nested in the crags. But it wasn’t long before the cliffs parted to reveal a circle of private waters a quarter mile in diameter, ringed by beach in the middle and rising cliffs on the sides. A long warehouse stood along the beach behind a wide dock, where four stubby piers stretched into the cove.

Bo pulled up to the farthest pier, cut the engine, and threw a mooring line, then helped Astrid onto the dock while he anchored the runabout. It was strange to be there so late at night, when everything was dark and deserted.

“Do you remember the last time I brought you out here?” He glanced up the cliff overlooking the cove, where a long set of stone stairs led upward.

Her heart thudded inside her chest. “That afternoon . . . the redwoods.”

He nodded. “Too cold and wet out there now, but there’s someplace warmer.”

They ascended the dizzying cliff stairs in the darkness. When they crested the top of the cliff, a strong coastal wind whipped strands of hair into her eyes. She held them back and stared at the lone building in the distance.

The lighthouse.

Ringed in fog, it stood black against the night sky, in disuse since the turn of the century. Connected to the side of the tower was a small cottage, where, at one time, a lighthouse keeper lived, ensuring the beacon light stayed lit. Her father had used the cottage for an office when he’d worked out here for the fishing business. Now Bo and the Marin County warehouse foreman used it a couple of times a month when they unloaded big shipments of liquor from Canada and needed to guard the warehouse overnight.

After fiddling with the lock, Bo entered the cottage and switched on a lamp. Astrid stepped inside, and he bolted the door behind them. It had been years since she’d been here. The furniture in the living area was sparse but tidy, and they’d recently added an electric icebox in the kitchenette. Bays of low windows ringed the outer wall, providing a clear view of the coast from multiple angles. The Pacific was a dark blanket that stretched out and met the stars at the horizon. No city lights, no boats. Nothing at all but the two of them.

She shivered. Bo mistook it for the temperature.

“Hold on and I’ll get the wood-burning stove going,” he said, and went outside to fetch wood. While he was gone, she rushed into the cottage’s spartan bathroom and rummaged inside her handbag for the small cervical cap case. It didn’t take long to wash her hands and get the thing inserted correctly, but Bo was already back by the time she flung open the door.

“Everything okay?” he said, striking a match to light the balled-up newspaper he’d stuffed under logs and kindling inside a squat cast-iron heater.

“Hunky-dory.”

He looked up at her and smiled, and that made her feel less anxious. Neither of them said anything while the fire slowly worked its way from the kindling to the logs. After a time, during which Bo fiddled with the damper, heat began to radiate from the old grates. “I am suitably impressed with your masculine ability to provide fire,” Astrid said, warming her hands near the potbellied heater.

“Is that so?” he said, leaning a shoulder against hers. “I can also head out into the woods and hunt down something with fur if you’d like.”

“I was just hankering for a nice piece of . . . bear?” She grinned. “I don’t know what’s out in those woods this time of night, and I don’t think I want to know.”