Kiss River - Diane Chamberlain

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was in the cool air of a circular room. The floor was covered with octagonal black and white tiles, and on the white brick wall across from her, the steel stairs rose at a diagonal. Walking across the room, she dropped her sandals on the floor near the first step and began to climb.

      The stairs had a woven texture and she could see straight through them to the purply-gray sky high above her and, as she climbed higher, to the dimly lit floor below. The spiral of stairs gradually narrowed and she quickly grew breathless. She’d never been great with heights, and she hugged the cold, white brick wall as she rested on the landings. Through the wavy glass of the tall, narrow windows at each landing, she could see the keeper’s house. Then she’d return to the stairs, clutching the railing, no longer daring to look down as she climbed higher.

      The stairs rose several yards above the opening of the lighthouse, right up into the evening sky. Gina leaned against the brick wall, her heart beating more from fear than from exertion as she contemplated climbing those last few unprotected steps. She could sit on that top step, she thought, and look out at the ocean. Maybe she’d discover the lens was directly below her in the shallow water near the base of the lighthouse.

      She forced herself up another step, then another, holding on to the railing with both hands, and when she reached the top step, she turned and gingerly sat down on it. She was above the world here. The ocean was spread out in front of her like a huge, deep-purple rug fringed with white. The thick wall of the lighthouse looked as if it had been chewed off by some huge monster, leaving the jagged edges of the brick behind.

       What was she going to do now?

      Afraid of losing her balance, she carefully leaned a bit to the left and pulled the small photograph from the rear pocket of her shorts. Pressing it against her knee, she studied the image. A little girl. Much smaller than she should have been for being one year old, her age when the picture was taken. Skin the color of wheat. Very short, jet-black hair. The hugest, darkest eyes. Sad, hopeful eyes.

      Gina shut her own eyes, feeling the sting of tears behind the lids. “I’ll find a way, sweetheart,” she said out loud. “I promise.”

      She sat very still for a long time, watching the last traces of daylight disappear in the sky, her mind only on the child in the picture. She did not think about how she would manage to climb down the spiral staircase in the dusky light, or walk back to her car through those darkening woods, or find a room on a Friday night in a place overrun by tourists.

      She must have moved her head just a fraction of an inch to the left, because something caught her eye and made her turn around. And what she saw then stopped her breath in her throat. Every window of the keeper’s house glowed with stained glass.

      Chapter Two

      CLAY O’NEILL STOPPED HIS JEEP DIRECTLY IN front of the chain. Removing the key he kept attached to his visor, he got out of the car, unlocked the padlock, then dragged the chain to one side of the road. He tried to remember if his sister would be home yet. It was Friday, and Lacey usually attended an Al-Anon meeting on Friday evenings. He would leave the chain open, then. Save her the effort of unlocking it.

      Once back in the Jeep, he noticed a car parked on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac. Strange. Someone must have left it there, then hiked through the woods to the beach. He forgot about the car as he turned onto the gravel road, avoiding the familiar ruts and driving very slowly, since he had nearly broken an axle on one of the tree roots a few weeks earlier. He would need to trim some of the branches back one day soon; they scraped the roof of the Jeep as he drove through the tunnel they formed above him.

      Emerging from the woods, he could see the keeper’s house, its windows aglow with stained glass. Seeing the house so alive with color in the gray dusk of evening, he understood why Lacey insisted on setting the lights on a timer. She usually beat him home after work and she’d told him she hated coming home to a dark house, but he knew her real reasoning: she loved to see her handiwork glowing from all the windows. He’d argued that it was a huge waste of electricity, but he didn’t argue hard or long. Lacey had done too much for him. He would let her have her lights. He supposed the stained glass comforted her in a way, and although he would never admit it to her, it comforted him as well. Their mother had also been a stained-glass artist. Coming home to those windows was like hearing an old lullaby.

      He parked in the inch of sand that covered the corner of the parking lot nearest the house, then got out and opened the rear of the Jeep to retrieve the groceries. It had been his turn to do the shopping, and he had bought thick, mauve-colored tuna steaks to grill for a late dinner, along with a week’s worth of milk and cereal and fruit and some cleaning supplies. The grocery bags were heavy, but he managed to carry all four of them as he made his way across the sand to the house.

      Setting the groceries down on the new wooden countertop in the kitchen, he heard Sasha bounding down the stairs. The black Lab ran into the room to greet him, and Clay leaned over to give him a hug.

      “Hi, boy,” he said, scratching the dog’s broad chest. “Bet you’d like to go for a walk, huh?”

      Sasha took two steps toward the door and looked back at his master. Poor neglected dog, Clay thought as he opened the refrigerator door. “Just let me get this stuff put away and I’ll be right with you,” he said.

      The small kitchen was the first room he and Lacey had helped refurbish when they moved into the house six months earlier, right after the first of the year. The room was a small square, with pine cabinets and wood flooring. The original porcelain-topped table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by four oak chairs. The room was inelegant but functional. Elegance was not their goal in this house. Historical accuracy was far more important.

      He had finished putting away the groceries and was nearly to the door with Sasha when he happened to look through the kitchen’s rear window. Beneath the wide panel of stained glass hanging from the sash, he could see the lighthouse. The sun was down, the sky a milky gray, but he could still make out the silhouette of the tower, and he looked hard at it. Something was different. Squinting, he leaned closer to the glass. He knew how the tower should look from here. He knew the ragged shape of the rim and the way the spiral staircase rose above it. The line of that staircase was blurred now, and it took him a moment to realize that someone was sitting up there, on the top step, the place he thought of as his own private roost.

      Was it Lacey? But no, her car was not in the parking lot. It was a stranger, then. It was so rare to see anyone out here. Tourists had long ago forgotten Kiss River, and the road had been chained off ever since the storm destroyed the lighthouse ten years ago. It was possible to get to the lighthouse by the beach, but difficult, since the water had eroded so much of the sand. By boat, perhaps? His eyes scanned the area in front of the lighthouse for a boat. He didn’t see one, but it was too dark to be sure. Then he remembered the car parked in the cul-de-sac.

      “Come on, boy,” he said, opening the door and stepping onto the porch. He kicked off his sandals, picked up the flashlight from the seat of one of the Adirondack chairs and headed toward the tower. Sasha ran full speed toward the trees at the side of the yard, where he liked to do his business.

      It was a woman sitting on the lighthouse stairs, that much he knew for certain. Her long hair rose and fell with the breeze, and she was facing the sea. And looking to break her neck, he thought. Those stairs could be treacherous in the dark if you weren’t used to them. The waves swirling around the base of the lighthouse shone white with froth, and Clay stepped into the chill water, keeping enough distance between himself and the tower that he could still see the woman when he craned his neck to look up.

      “Hello!” he shouted, just as a wave crashed onto the beach.

      The woman didn’t turn her head, and he guessed she could not hear him over the sound of the sea.

      He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo!” he hollered. “Hello!”

      Sasha came running at the sound of his call, and this time the woman peered over the edge of the tower at him. So high above him, she was very small, her features invisible. If she answered him, he didn’t hear

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