It wasn’t.
For purposes of investigation, the handwritten note read, please contact Kevin W. Kimble of the Sawyer County Sheriff’s Department.
Roy took his hand away from the note, and the breeze slid under the paper again, rustling it against the wood. He was afraid now, plain and simple.
For purposes of investigation…
Kimble was the chief deputy, a man who’d taken a bullet in the back a few years ago and still returned to the job. He was, anyone in the county would probably agree, the man you’d want on a difficult case.
But what was Wyatt’s case?
Roy knocked. Nothing. He cupped his hands and shouted Wyatt’s name. The rain was streaming down his neck and under his shirt collar to his spine. He tried the knob, then swore when it turned.
Unlocked. Shit. Why couldn’t it have been locked? Why were the doors you knew you shouldn’t open always the ones that were unlocked?
He pushed the door open and peered into the darkness. The living quarters seemed larger than they should have, but they still weren’t much to speak of. There was a small bed in one corner, a desk beside it, some shelves, a kitchen table in the middle of the room. Refrigerator and range and sink. A bathroom blocked off by an old-fashioned accordion-style door.
“Wyatt? Mr. French? It’s Roy Darmus.”
By now he’d given up on getting an answer. He stepped into the room, and in the nickel-colored light of the rainy afternoon he could see that the walls were lined with maps. Topographic maps of Sawyer County. As he walked farther in, he saw that each map had a different year written on it in bold black marker: 1966, 1958, 1984…
Across the room was another door, also closed. This would lead to the lighthouse steps. Maybe this one would be locked. That would be nice.
It wasn’t. Opened outward and revealed the base of the spiral stairs that curled up and away. Roy began to climb, one hand on the railing.
“Wyatt?” he called.
There were more steps than he’d have thought. He climbed for a long time, into progressive darkness, and then finally the top showed itself in a gray glare of daylight.
By then Roy didn’t need to go any farther. The smell assured him of that—warm, fresh copper tinged the air.
He steadied himself and climbed on and at the top step his head finally broke the surface and he found himself staring at the light itself. There was one oversized bulb surrounded by a series of strange, mirror-like lenses, the light within flashing, and arranged beneath it were four odd fixtures with red lenses angled toward the cardinal directions. Roy could see no light coming from those, though.
Electrocuted himself, Roy thought. He was doing something to the light, trying to repair it or change it, and he electrocuted himself.
That thought lasted only until he pushed all the way up onto the lighthouse platform, turned to the right, and looked directly into Wyatt French’s dead face.
He’d shot himself in the mouth, and if Roy had made a full circle around the lighthouse he would have been able to see the blood and brain tissue that was still wet on the glass. There was a gaping, grotesque hole in the center of French’s face, and his long gray hair was clotted with blood. A handgun lay on his lap.
All of this Roy saw in a half-second flash, and then he turned away, turned too fast. His feet were still on the top step, and one of them slid off and his balance was gone. He fell sideways and put out a hand to steady himself, but he was dropping too fast, and knew before he hit it that he was going directly into the light. He heard a pop and felt immediate, scorching pain just before the blood began to flow. He’d landed with his palm out and his weight driving down and that was all it took for the glass lenses to shatter and bite.
“Son of a bitch,” he said, lifting his hand free, blood dripping onto the floor and splattering his jeans. He’d punctured not only the lenses but the bulb; the light had given a frightening spark at the moment of impact and then gone dark. Everything had; the lighthouse was soaked in shadow now.
He turned and stumbled down the stairs, grabbing at the railing with his good hand.
5
OF COURSE IT RAINED. Fate wouldn’t have it any other way.
Audrey Clark was moving massive, uneasy cats and it poured rain. Absolutely ideal.
She’d had a vision of this day, and it wasn’t rain that spoiled that. No, rain would have been fine—she could picture David leaning down to kiss her, laughing, his wet blond hair plastered to his skull, water drops on his glasses, all of it still a pleasure to him, in charge of everything and enjoying every moment. They’d spent their first afternoon together in these Kentucky hills, when Audrey’s law firm was tasked with drawing up the endowment that would fund the cat rescue center and David had capitalized on her interest—ostensibly in the rescue center, but also in him—to show her exactly what he intended to build in Sawyer County. At the time it had been fascinating, admirable, and romantic.