He paid the check and got to his feet. “I’m all yours.”
Corolla wasn’t that far from Duck, but everyone seemed to like the idea of a drive that afternoon. Maybe it was the brilliant blue skies and glimpses of curling surf topped with windblown white caps. The sun was warm, and we all knew less beautiful winter weather was coming. It looked as though a lot of people were putting off things they should have been doing—which left us all bumper to bumper, moving toward Corolla like a parade.
“If the chief is saying Sam has disappeared, he must’ve checked his house and the museum already.” I tried to think of the next most obvious place to look for him. “There’s a little diner he liked to hang out at. I went there a few times with Max and Sam. Maybe we should check there first.”
“I think we should scout out the obvious places too,” Kevin said. “You have unique abilities Chief Michaels doesn’t have, even with your gloves on.”
“You mean I should try to find someone who might think of Sam as being lost? I’ve never tried that before. I suppose there could be a first time.” I looked at my telltale gloved hands. “It would have to be someone close to him who’s wondering where he is. Otherwise, maybe I could grab something Sam owns and it would tell me something.”
“No!” The command in his voice surprised me. “I don’t think I can go through seeing you that way again, Dae. I agree that you aren’t ready yet.”
That was an unexpected tack. “I thought you said I should practice.”
“With safe, familiar objects first. We don’t know what’s happened to Sam yet. Trying to use your new abilities to find him from something he owns might be a mistake. I meant that you have an unusual way of looking at things and seeing things that other people miss. Just don’t touch any of them.”
“Maybe,” I halfheartedly agreed. “If I saw the chief and could convince him to hold my hand, I could probably pick something up from him. That’s not likely to happen.”
“Chief Michaels believes in your gift,” he said. “He might be willing.”
“He might be if he didn’t think I was trying to figure out his case for him. The chief is kind of funny about that. And Corolla’s police chief is even worse. Gramps said he’s got a mind like a steel trap that’s permanently closed.”
Kevin laughed. “Sounds like a lot of people I used to work with.”
I thought about his partner, Ann, but didn’t say anything. There might be a time for us to talk about her and their relationship, but this wasn’t it. What we had together was too new. It would be like taking someone to meet your parents right after flirting with them for the first time.
Corolla was bigger than Duck, with many more businesses, homes and, of course, the lighthouse. Max always felt cheated that Duck didn’t have a historic lighthouse. On the other hand, Duck had a pirate curse, so that kind of made up for it.
The lighthouse sat in the middle of historic Corolla Village. Since 1875, it had warned sailors of dangerous waters. Kevin and I got out of the truck and looked at it. Unfortunately, it didn’t warn unwary investigators of possible dangers coming from behind.
The unmistakable sound of a shotgun getting ready to fire was followed by a gruff voice. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”
Chapter 9
I put up my hands in the air in what might’ve been a comical fashion had there not been a shotgun pointed at me, and turned to face the man holding the weapon. It was Mr. Artiz, the Corolla lighthouse keeper. “Hi there. Remember me? Dae O’Donnell? I’ve been here lots of times with Sam and Max.”
He squinted one eye and looked me up and down. “So you are.” He pointed the gun at Kevin, who didn’t have his hands held high. “Who’s he?”
“Kevin Brickman, sir.” He put out his hand toward Mr. Artiz. “I’m here with Dae. We’re looking for Sam.”
Mr. Artiz put down the gun. He wore a red cap on his grizzled head. “Join the crowd. So’s everyone else.”
“You mean the police?” I asked, calmer now that a gun wasn’t pointed at me.
“I guess. One or two of them said who they were with. The others didn’t. That’s why I brought old Betsy out here with me.”
“I understand,” I said, although I didn’t. “Would you mind if we have a look around?”
“You might as well. There can’t be much in there that they haven’t looked at.”
Each lighthouse in the Outer Banks is painted a different color or pattern. The Currituck Beach lighthouse, as it’s known, is the only red brick lighthouse on the East Coast. It still flashes at twenty-second intervals to warn of shallow water.
The lighthouse and the keeper’s home at its base aren’t technically a part of the museum, but both are open to the public. I knew Sam and Mr. Artiz had been friends forever. I wasn’t surprised when he followed us into the museum.
“I haven’t seen Sam since the day after your museum blew up,” the old caretaker told us. “What a terrible thing that was. I hope you find out what happened.” He walked us back to Sam’s office at the side of the Corolla museum, which was much larger than Duck’s had been. “The place looks like a hurricane hit it, I’ll tell you that much, Dae.”
He was right. There were papers, boxes and photos scattered everywhere from the desk to the dusty file cabinets and the floor. But no sign of Sam.
“Do the police think something like that could happen here?” he asked me. “Is that why they’re making such a fuss?”
I glanced at Kevin, who shrugged. I interpreted that to mean I should go for it. “The police think Sam killed Max by blowing him up in the Duck museum,” I told him. I couldn’t say it any plainer than that.
“That’s crazy talk! Sam and Max were like brothers.”
“Brothers who argued violently all the time,” Kevin reminded him.
“Maybe they argued, but they wouldn’t hurt each other. The police are climbing up the wrong mast.” He looked around the office. “You think Sam left quick once he heard?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I was hoping I could figure that out.”
“Well, you take your time. I don’t know if the police or those other fellas left anything useful behind in this mess. But you’re welcome to it if they did. Say hello to Horace for me.”
“You don’t have any idea who the other fellas were?” Kevin asked. “Were they wearing uniforms? Could they have been with the sheriff’s department?”
Mr. Artiz shrugged his bony shoulders beneath a blue overall. “I never seen them before. They didn’t introduce themselves.”
He left us alone in the maelstrom that was Sam’s office. I didn’t know where to start. Everything was such a mess. How would we ever find something useful that might lead us to Sam?
“What kind of things did Sam do outside the office?” Kevin started sorting through the papers on a chair.
“He liked to fish. I remember hearing him and Gramps talk about that a lot. He chartered Gramps’s boat once. Otherwise I don’t know. Everything I know about him was through seeing him with Max or Max telling me things about him.”
I looked around the room, letting my eyes play on everything without focusing too hard on any of it. I was thinking about the way I’d found the gold coin in Kevin’s cellar last night. Maybe there was something here, however remote, that could lead us to Sam.
It occurred to me as I swept the room that everything seemed to be out of place except for one item—a horse statue on one of the old file cabinets. Once I saw it, I couldn’t look away. My gaze was constantly drawn back to it.