Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(7)

Thunder rattled the building.

“You all need to get to the center of the hotel,” I said. “Alex, safest place for storm shelter?”

“Parlor,” he said. “Right in the middle of the building, no windows.”

I looked at the old man, who seemed pretty calm. “You are—”

“Benjamin Lindy,” he told me. “From Kingsville.”

“All right, Mr. Lindy from Kingsville. Would you mind rounding everyone up, getting them into the parlor? We need to make sure everyone is safe. Then we need to have a group talk.”

He nodded.

“Dude!” the redheaded kid said. “A guy got shot? That is freaking awesome!”

Mr. Lindy turned on him and the college guys all took a step back. The old man’s expression was hard and cold as a blue norther.

“I hope,” Lindy said calmly, “that you are using the word ‘awesome’ in some fashion I do not understand. I would hate to think you were treating a man’s murder as entertainment. Now, why don’t you all help me notify the other guests?”

He held out his arms, and without touching the college guys, swept them toward the parlor.

I watched Lindy walk away and wondered what he would’ve been like forty years ago, before his hair turned white and his hands began to shake. I imagined he rarely needed his Colt .45 to make his point.

“Lighthouse,” I told Alex. “Let’s go.”

In the lobby, the tearful blond lady was standing by the sofa, looking lost. As soon as she saw us, she slipped out of the room.

“Who’s La Llorona?” I asked Alex.

He stared at me blankly.

“That lady,” I said. “She looks like the weeping ghost in the legend…the one who drowned her kids.”

Alex looked like he was about to cry himself. “She drowned her kids? I got a guest who drowned her kids?”

“Never mind.”

We got to the front door and I made the mistake of opening it. That’s when I realized we were going to die before we ever reached the radio.

The lighthouse door was only fifty feet from the hotel entrance, but it might as well have been a mile. The air was a blender of sand and rain and swirling flotsam—oyster shells and chunks of wood that looked suspiciously like planks from the island’s boat dock.

I swung back to Alex and yelled “Forget it!” but he must’ve thought I said something else because he forged ahead into the storm. Like a fool, I decided I’d better follow.

We skittered around like a silent movie comedy, my feet slipping on the wet path. I should’ve fallen several times, but the wind kept pushing me upright and propelling me forward, like I was being shoved through a mob of linebackers. Sand needled my exposed skin, but by some miracle I didn’t get smashed by anything larger.

Alex shouldered open the lighthouse door. We collapsed inside, soaking wet, and Alex forced the door shut.

“Christ,” he gasped. “Feel like I just ran a marathon.”

He rummaged through his coat pockets, found a flashlight and clicked it on.

His face, already cut up and bruised, was now plastered with wet cordgrass. He had twigs sticking out of his curly hair. He looked like a scarecrow that had just gotten mugged. I doubted I looked much better.

Alex swept his flashlight around the room. We were at the bottom of a hexagonal well of unpainted limestone. Just as I remembered, metal stairs spiraled around the walls toward the lantern gallery far above. I’d only been inside the tower once before. My memories of the place were not good.

Here, the roar of the storm was muted, but there was another sound—a grinding in the walls, as if the limestone blocks were moving.

I reminded myself that the tower had stood for over a century. No way would it pick this moment to collapse. The chances were better of getting struck by lightning.

Thunder boomed outside.

Okay. Bad comparison.

“Where’s the radio?” I asked Alex.

He pointed to the platform seven stories above us.

Great.

I knew the beacon hadn’t worked in decades. I wasn’t sure why Alex would keep the radio up there, but I didn’t ask.

We began to climb.

The first time I’d ventured inside this lighthouse, I’d been trespassing.

I was twelve years old and running from my dad.

I thought I’d escape to the northern end of the island. That’s where I usually went to be alone. But as I passed the lighthouse, I remembered my dad’s stern warning that the place was much too dangerous. I should never go in there.

What angry twelve-year-old boy could resist a challenge like that?

I ran to the door and was surprised that it creaked open easily. Inside, the air was cool and damp. I shut the door and put my back against it.

I tried to steady my breathing. I wanted to forget the scene I’d just witnessed in our hotel room. I probably would’ve started sobbing, but a faint noise from above made me freeze.

Scrape. Scrape. Scrape, like an animal clawing at wood—a large animal.

At the top of the stairs, in a crescent of daylight, a shadow rippled, as if someone or something was up there.

My instincts told me to leave, but then I heard my father’s voice outside.

“Tres!” he yelled. “Come on, now. I’m sorry, goddamn it! Where are you?”