Return of the Wild Son

“I have to take care of some things, but I’ll be flying out on Tuesday. Can you meet me in Finnegan Cove on Wednesday morning?”

“I’ll meet you at the light station at ten o’clock,” Mike said. “Before then, I’ll make a couple of calls, see what I can find out about the old place.” He paused. “And Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“This is it. Don’t ask me to get involved any more than this one visit.”

“Okay. Deal.”

CHAPTER TWO

Finnegan Cove, Michigan

April

J ENNA RACED DOWN the narrow coast route. She didn’t have to worry about cars approaching on the other side of the road. Few drivers were out at six o’clock on a Wednesday morning. If she hurried, she’d just make it to the bakery in time to help with the first tray of doughnuts.

She stretched her back muscles and stuck her arm out her open window. Maybe staying at the college library until eleven and then grabbing a few hours sleep at a friend’s place near campus hadn’t been such a good idea. She wasn’t exactly the fresh young age of a college kid, who could jump up from an air bed and jog into the start of her day. At thirty-three, she found her muscles were protesting.

She rounded a bend and kept her eyes straight ahead, determined not to look at the lighthouse. But as always, she couldn’t resist the haunting pull it had over her. In fact, she slowed her Jeep to a crawl.

The abandoned building rose like a specter in the dawn. Even through the grove of great oak trees, Jenna could see the peeling paint on the tower’s exterior walls, the crumbling stairs to the front door of the keeper’s cottage. The Fresnel lens at the top of the tower had been removed years before, after some kids had destroyed it with buckshot.

Jenna’s grandmother hated to see the building this way. She’d been raised in the small cottage, where her father had been the last light keeper of the Finnegan Cove Station. Hester had fond memories of her childhood along the lake, and the man who’d protected the shoreline. Jenna used to feel the same, but that was before the murder.

The For Sale sign that had been sitting in the yard in front of the lighthouse for over six months creaked in the early morning breeze. To Jenna’s knowledge, no one had made an offer or even looked at the place. But that would change if she had her way.

She stepped on the accelerator and sped by. Ten minutes later she swept through the louvered doors that separated the public area of Cove Bakery from the kitchen. Her mother had left the front door unlocked, probably unwise so early in the morning. Everyone, and especially Marion Malloy, knew that crime visited even this normally peaceful town.

Her mother was stacking loaves of fresh-baked bread onto the chrome rack. “Sorry I’m late,” Jenna said.

“It’s okay. I’ve got the croissants baking, and three dozen pastries are ready.” Marion wiped her hands on her apron. “Have you heard the news?”

News? Jenna had only been gone since yesterday, when she’d left for night class. “Guess not. Something going on?”

“I’ll say. Bill Hastings called last night to tell me someone had inquired about buying the lighthouse.”

Jenna froze, her hands wrapped around a stainless-steel bowl of dough. “What? Who?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say. He just told me that a guy asked the Realtor a lot of questions about the building’s condition.”

Jenna grabbed a rolling pin and began pushing it furiously over the mound of dough she’d just slapped onto a floured cutting board. “What time is it?”

Marion glanced at her watch. “Twenty minutes after six. Why?”

“I’ve got somewhere to be at eight-thirty when Shirley gets here.”

“Where?”

“Just out.”

Marion frowned. “I know what you’re doing. You’re going to the mayor’s office to see what Bill knows about the potential buyer.”

Three Bronx cheers for a mother’s radar. “Maybe I can get him to tell me who’s interested.”

“Let it go, Jenna. That old building isn’t worth your time or worry.”

“I know that, Mom. Nobody knows that better than you and me. But I have plans for that place.”

Jenna had to strain to hear her what her mother said next, but she thought she could make out “obsession.”

“I’m aware of your plans, honey,” Marion said, “but I just don’t want you drawing attention to our family by pressuring Bill Hastings. People will talk.”

Jenna couldn’t believe her mother’s bland reaction to this possible sale. “I want them to talk, Mom. It will take more money and more people on my side before I can buy that place and tear it down.” She stopped rolling out the dough, and stared at her mother. “That lighthouse represents a very sad period of this town’s history, not just our own past.”

“And how close are you to having a down payment on that eighty thousand?”

Jenna frowned, picked up a cookie cutter and layered perfectly round biscuit dough on a baking sheet. “I just need a few more months, maybe a year.”

“I wish you’d forget about this, Jenna,” Marion said. “A young woman like you should be looking to the future, thinking about marriage, a family.”

“I am thinking about those things. All the time.”

Marion sprinkled a row of crullers with cinnamon sugar. “If you’re talking about George, then I have to point out that you’ve been planning this so-called future with him for the past three years, and there’s still no ring on your finger.”

Jenna gave her a sharp glance. “Do you really want to go there, Mom? Because if we discuss the subject of who’s living in the past, I’ll point out that you haven’t had a date since Daddy died twenty years ago.” She immediately regretted she’d said it when she saw the familiar veil of sadness creep over her mother’s eyes. Jenna stopped working and reached for her hand. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

Marion shrugged. “Don’t apologize. You’re right. I just don’t want to see you follow the path I’ve taken. You’re only thirty-three. You can still make a life outside of this bakery. You’ve made a good start by taking nursing classes at the college, but you’ve got to get over this… thing you have about the lighthouse.”

Jenna stepped back. “I won’t rest until it’s torn down and something positive stands in its place. Something that serves Daddy’s memory.”

Jenna shoved a baking sheet into the oven. “And I am making a life, Mom. I’m going to graduate soon. I’ll have my nursing degree. And I have George. Once I see a beautiful green park in place of that lighthouse, my life will be just about perfect!”

Marion sighed. Jenna walked by her, picked up a waxed bag and stuffed a half-dozen chocolate-covered doughnuts into it.

“Who are those for?” her mother asked.

“Who else? Bill Hastings.” Jenna rattled the bag in the air. “If I can’t reach him with gentle persuasion, I know he’ll accept a bribe.”

“What are you going to do if he does tell you who the interested party is? Are you going to accost the guy?”

Jenna closed the sack and set it aside. “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’ll make a friend of him. I’ll tell him if he tears down the lighthouse, I’ll suggest my plan for something in its place and he can name it the Joseph Malloy—John Doe Park.”

T WO HOURS LATER , Jenna entered the reception area of the mayor’s office and nodded to Bill Hastings’s secretary.

“Morning, Jenna,” Lucinda said.

“Hi. Is he in?”