Chapter 5 - Smoke at South Harbor
Arthur reached the door first.
“Back.”
He kicked near the lock.
Nothing.
Smoke thickened beneath the gap.
Evelyn coughed.
Lena looked around the locker room.
No windows.
Nathan grabbed a metal bench and rammed it against the door.
Once.
Twice.
On the third impact, the old frame cracked.
Arthur and Nathan struck together.
The door burst outward.
There was no fire.
A smoke canister rolled across the corridor.
Someone had used it to frighten them and buy time.
Sally Dwyer lay near the administration doorway, conscious but disoriented.
“My phone,” she gasped. “He took my phone.”
“Who?” Nathan asked.
“Couldn’t see his face.”
Arthur looked outside.
A dark SUV was speeding toward the highway.
“Malcolm?”
Nathan shook his head.
“Too far.”
They called police this time.
No debate.
Arthur slipped out through a side gate before officers arrived.
Lena hated the decision but understood it. Explaining Arthur Whitmore’s sudden resurrection to local patrol officers would consume the entire investigation before they knew whom to trust.
The smoke canister was collected.
So were tire impressions.
Sally reported the assault.
The voice recorder became harder.
Its existence potentially connected to an old death investigation, but turning it over meant explaining how they had found it and why Arthur was looking for it.
Nathan wanted to give it to police immediately.
Arthur did not.
Lena surprised both of them.
“We copy it first.”
Arthur looked at her.
She added, “Then we give them the original through a lawyer.”
Evelyn nodded.
“That’s sensible.”
Lena turned on her.
“Don’t sound proud. I learned this because none of you tell the truth unless evidence is sitting on the table.”
They returned to Greyhaven separately.
Arthur used the concealed passage.
Lena insisted on seeing it.
A panel behind the second-floor linen closet opened onto a narrow staircase between the walls.
The passage smelled of old plaster.
It ran toward the study and then upward into a forgotten servants’ corridor beneath the roof.
Arthur had been sleeping in a small room containing a narrow bed, two suitcases and stacks of handwritten notes.
Lena stopped at the doorway.
“You really stayed here.”
“For one night.”
“Grandma brought food?”
“Yes.”
The absurd domestic detail hurt more than she expected.
Arthur sat on the edge of the bed.
“I imagined seeing you many times.”
“You had eleven years to make it happen.”
“I know.”
“Did you ever come back before?”
His hesitation was tiny.
But Lena saw it.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Your mother.”
Lena stopped.
Rachel Whitmore had died three years earlier after a long battle with ovarian cancer.
“What about Mom?”
“She contacted me.”
Lena stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“My mother knew you were alive?”
“For one week.”
Lena sat down because her knees felt weak.
Arthur explained that Rachel had noticed inconsistencies in Nathan’s stories about the explosion. She found an old bank receipt connecting Evelyn to a rental property in Nova Scotia.
Rachel confronted Evelyn.
Eventually Evelyn gave her Arthur’s number.
“Why didn’t Mom tell me?”
“I asked her not to.”
Lena laughed bitterly.
“Of course you did.”
“She was furious.”
“Good.”
“She threatened to tell everyone.”
“What stopped her?”
Arthur looked toward the small window.
“You.”
Lena’s expression hardened.
“Don’t use me as an excuse.”
“I’m not. Rachel believed there was still a danger. Someone had broken into her car two nights after she began asking questions.”
Lena remembered that.
Her mother had blamed teenagers.
Arthur continued.
“Rachel agreed to wait until we could prove what happened.”
“And then she got sick.”
“Yes.”
“What did she find?”
Arthur reached into his suitcase.
He removed a blue notebook.
Lena recognized it immediately.
Her mother’s handwriting covered the first page.
She could barely breathe.
Arthur handed it to her.
Rachel had written dates, questions and names.
One phrase appeared several times.
HARBOR 17.
Below it:
Ask Nathan why Peter called him at 11:42.
Lena lifted her eyes.
Nathan stood in the passage doorway.
He had heard.
Arthur looked at him.
“So.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“So what?”
“Peter called you the night he died.”
Nathan walked into the room.
“Yes.”
Arthur stood.
“You told police you were asleep.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because Malcolm told me to.”
Evelyn whispered, “Nathan…”
He turned toward them.
“You want the truth? Fine.”
His voice shook.
“Peter called me because he was terrified. He said Malcolm knew about the copies.”
Arthur stepped closer.
“And what did you do?”
Nathan stared at his father.
“I went to the marina.”
Silence.
Lena looked down at Rachel’s notebook.
Arthur’s voice was nearly inaudible.
“You were there.”
Nathan nodded.
May you like
“I saw what happened before the explosion.”
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