Keeper of the Light. Diane Chamberlain

got problems, hon.”

      “Thought you got lost, Alec.” Walter Liscott stood up and pulled out the chair at the head of the table for him.

      “Sorry I’m late.” He took the seat Walter offered him.

      The entire Save the Lighthouse Committee was assembled in front of him. Two men in addition to himself and two women, already well into their coffee and doughnuts. They had undoubtedly grown accustomed to his tardiness by now. Sondra Carter, the second woman on the committee and the owner of a small boutique in Duck, had suggested it was his little tribute to Annie, who had never been on time for anything in her life.

      The waitress appeared in the room and poured Alec a cup of coffee. “Help yourself to a doughnut, Dr. O’Neill,” she said.

      Alec nodded and set his notebook on the table. He looked at Nola, wondering what she had been trying to tell him.

      “Okay,” he said. “This morning we’re brainstorming fund-raising ideas.”

      Walter ran his hand over his thinning gray hair. He cleared his throat and began speaking in a deep, syrupy voice. “We were talking before you came in, Alec. And the truth is, we’re not altogether in agreement on something.”

      Alec tensed. “What are you saying, Walter?” he asked. He would have to come on time from now on. Didn’t want to invite a mutiny.

      “Well …” Walter cleared his throat again and glanced at the others. He’d obviously been selected as their spokesperson. “While we’re all in agreement on the goal of this committee—raising funds to save the lighthouse—we’re not in agreement on how the lighthouse ought to be saved. Me for one, I don’t want to bust my tail raising money and then have them screw the whole thing up by trying to move the damn thing and topple it over in the process.”

      “I agree,” Sondra said. “Either our money goes to building a sea wall around the lighthouse, or they get none of it.”

      “Hold it.” Alec raised his hand. “You all know the choice on how the lighthouse is saved is not ours to make.”

      “That’s right,” Nola said. Her white-blond hair was pinned up as usual and she wore her gray power suit this morning, a blue Dorsett Realty pin attached to the lapel. She pointed a long red fingernail at Walter. “The Park Service wants to save the lighthouse as much as we do, Walter. They won’t agree to something they’re not absolutely certain will work. Come on, folks,” she pleaded. “We’ve worked so hard and the money’s starting to come in. Now that it’s getting close, y’all are chickening out.”

      “I’m just afraid they’ll make the wrong choice.”

      Walter sounded close to tears, and Alec understood his concern. Everyone in this room loved the Kiss River Lighthouse and understood its fragility. Up until a few weeks ago, the plan had been to build a sea wall around it. Within a few years, the lighthouse would be on its own small island in the sea. An aesthetically appealing solution. Now, quite suddenly, the Park Service had changed its mind and was speaking very seriously about moving it—building a track, lifting it up, and sliding it 600 yards inland, all at the cost of several million dollars. It was a frightening and impossible concept to comprehend. Not only did he understand Walter’s fears; he shared them.

      “Nola’s right,” Alec said. “We have to trust the engineers to come up with the best solution. We can’t second-guess them.”

      Nola winked at him. “I move we get on with the meeting.”

      “I second the motion,” Brian said.

      There was some grumbling, but no one left the table, and Alec led them through an hour of ideas. A silent auction. An educational brochure to generate interest. More talk shows and speaking engagements. It wasn’t until he was driving home that he let his own fears surface. Engineers were human. Fallible. What if they destroyed the lighthouse by trying to save it?

      He was at his desk in the den when Lacey got home from school. He spotted her through the window. She was out on the sidewalk talking to Jessica Dillard, Nola’s daughter and Lacey’s best friend. Jessica was grinning, but there was a meanness in the grin, an ugly superior quality that surprised him and made his heart ache for his daughter. Jessica stood with one hand on her hip. Her sleek blond hair rested on her shoulders and she had a cigarette elegantly balanced between her fingers. She looked very much like her mother.

      Alec leaned closer to the open window.

      “You should try it, Lacey,” Jessica was saying. “You’re so lame this year. You’ve forgotten how to have fun.”

      Lacey said something he couldn’t hear before turning toward the house. Try what, he wondered? Alcohol? Marijuana? Sex? He shuddered and turned to face the door, his chair creaking. “Lacey?”

      She stepped into the den, folding her arms across her chest.

      “Things okay with you and Jessica?”

      “Yes.” Lacey let a wall of red hair fall over her left eye, cutting him out. He wouldn’t push her. Not now.

      “I signed you up for summer school. Biology and Algebra.”

      “Only losers go to summer school.”

      “I’m afraid you don’t have much choice.”

      She looked up at him with her one exposed eye. “Are you going to ground me?”

      “Ground you? Of course not.” He’d never grounded his kids. “But I want you to promise me that if you start having that much trouble with school again, you’ll let me know.”

      “Okay.” She swept her hair back over her shoulder and turned to leave the room. In the doorway, she hesitated and looked back at him. “I’m sorry, Dad. I just haven’t been able to do my work this year.”

      “I know what you mean, Lacey,” he said. “I haven’t been able to do mine, either.”

      CHAPTER SIX

      Paul was still in bed when he heard the interview on the radio. They were talking about the Kiss River Lighthouse. At first he thought he was dreaming, but the voice began to make sense, to clear his head. He opened his eyes to the blue and gold light streaming through the stained glass panel hanging in his bedroom window. He lay very still, listening.

      The woman’s name was Nola Dillard and she was talking about the Save the Lighthouse Committee. “We’re going to lose the Kiss River Lighthouse within three years if erosion continues at its current rate,” she said.

      Paul rolled onto his side and turned up the sound as Nola Dillard continued to speak of the disaster facing the tallest lighthouse in the country. When she was finished, Paul pulled his phone book out of the nightstand and dialed the number of the radio station.

      “How can I reach the woman who was just interviewed about the lighthouse?” he asked, propping himself up against the headboard of his bed.

      “She’s still here,” the male voice on the other end of the phone told him. “Hold on.”

      There was a thirty-second wait. He could hear voices in the background. Laughter.

      “This is Nola Dillard,” a woman said.

      “Yes, Ms. Dillard. My name is Paul Macelli and I just heard you talk about the Kiss River Lighthouse. I’d like to help.”

      “Great!” she said. “The bottom line is money, Mr….?”

      “Macelli. I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for you financially, but I have some spare time and energy. I’d be happy to help in some other way. I didn’t realize the lighthouse was in jeopardy.”

      There was a silence. He had somehow stumbled, said something wrong.

      When she spoke again, her voice had developed a barely perceptible chill. “Are you a new resident of the Outer Banks, Mr. Macelli?”