Chapter 2 #2
Scout wasn’t sure that Chief Ranger Rivers, despite his vast experience and Frankie’s confidence in him, knew how to handle this situation.
As they’d explained what they’d found, he had looked at them blankly and had them repeat everything, word for word.
He’d mentioned a couple of times that he’d never run across anything like this.
Shipwrecks, he said, didn’t happen in the national parks out west. Finally, he told them to give him a little time while he made some inquiries, warning them not to say a word about this, so they went out in the hallway and waited.
This whole thing unsettled Scout more than she let on to the chief.
She’d always romanticized lighthouses—their steady, unwavering beams cutting through the darkness, guiding ships safely home.
Light had always meant welcome, anticipation, safe harbor.
How could someone entrusted with that purpose just .
. . snuff it out? To turn a beacon of safety into a tool for destruction—it felt like a betrayal, not just of duty, but of something deeper.
What kind of man could do such a thing? And what had driven him to it?
Thirty minutes later, Scout, Ranger Rivers, and Frankie were in an NPS jeep to meet someone who, Tim hoped, could be trusted to make sense of the whole thing. “This fellow knows the history of Maine from all different angles. The park too. He spent his childhood roaming it like a backyard.”
Sitting in the back seat, Frankie said, “If you ask me, we don’t need any outside help. We could figure this out ourselves. Once we give a piece of the action to others, they’re gonna want some of the gold.”
Scout turned in her seat to face Frankie, who was scrolling through his phone. “You’re not gettin’ any gold.”
He looked up, shocked.
As Frankie started to object, the chief shut him down. “It’s highly unlikely that there is any hidden gold. You really have nothing other than a newspaper and a lighthouse keeper’s ramblings.”
Frankie leaned over the front seat. “But there could be gold hidden all around the park.”
“Very low chance of that. But we’ll find out more when we speak to Wabanaki Dana.”
A laugh burst out of Frankie. “Waba who?”
“Wabanaki Dana. He’s a policymaker for the Penobscot Nation.”
“Aww, cool! So he’s a real Indian?”
“Native American,” Tim said.
Now it was Scout’s turn to frown at Frankie. He was so clueless. And he didn’t even have the good sense to catch her frown—his eyes were glued to his phone.
“I still don’t get why we need to loop in this guy,” Frankie said. “You don’t even think there is any gold. Maybe we should go looking for it first, then figure out who needs to know.”
Scout gave Tim a side-glance. “Frankie might actually have a point. If there even was gold, it seems pretty logical to think the lighthouse keeper collected it all.”
Frankie poked his head up front. “Maybe the treasure is still on the ship. Buried down in the water.”
“That’s a possibility,” Tim said. “Another reason why we need to get Wabanaki Dana in on this. He knows all the shipwrecks along the coast of Maine. And he also knows this area, its history. Those clues in the envelope were written long before Acadia was a national park.”
“Aww, man. If you gave me a little time, I could crack ’em.”
Tim and Scout exchanged a look. “Scout, can you remember any of those clues? Let’s see if our sleuth back there can decipher one.”
She closed her eyes and squinted, trying to remember. Useless. Chasing a thought was like bird-watching with binoculars—the harder you focused, the quicker the bird flitted away into the trees. Wait . . . she might recall an easy one. “Here’s one for you, Frankie. ‘The owl knows at dusk.’”
Silence. “Huh.” Frankie cleared his throat. “Maybe . . . try another.”
She hesitated, sifting through her memories as she’d sat on the boulder on Baker Island, reading the clues.
There was one clue—different from the rest—that left her with a feeling.
What was it? Sadness, sorrow, grief. Weeping.
Then bits and pieces of it surfaced. “Somethin’ like ‘where the ocean weeps’ .
. . somethin’ somethin’ . . . and he couldn’t carry it. ”
Silence from the back seat. Then a throat clearing. “Okay, okay. I get it. I get that I don’t get it.” Frankie let out a sigh. “So if you’re hoping that this Ind—uh, Native American can figure them out, then why didn’t you bring the envelope?”
“The safest place for it is locked up in my desk, in Acadia NP,” Tim said. “I’m not even sure Naki has time to spare to help us with this project. If so, I’d prefer to have him come down to the park to see it.”
While stationed at the Petrified Forest, Scout had worked with Native Americans from the Navajo Nation.
But as she pulled into the library’s parking lot and Tim pointed toward the figure waiting on the sidewalk, she felt an unexpected jolt.
This man—taller than anyone she’d ever met—shattered any preconceived notions that she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying.
Tim was already out of the car, shaking hands with him.
“Whoa.” Frankie leaned over the seat to get a better look. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that is one impressive-looking dude.” He scrambled out of the car to go meet Wabanaki Dana.
Scout stayed in her seat, mesmerized. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. Tim noticed she hadn’t moved. He opened the door for her. “Come on, Scout. Meet Naki.”
Still gripping her ranger hat, Scout stepped out of the jeep and joined Frankie, who was practically drooling.
Wabanaki Dana turned to face her, and their eyes locked.
His head cocked at an angle, and his entire body stilled, as if he recognized her.
He stared at her for a long moment until Scout grew uncomfortable and turned her eyes to the ground.
“Hello, Mr. Dana, sir,” she said.
“Call me Naki,” he said, his voice smooth, deep, and effortlessly commanding as he reached out to take her hand.
His large brown hand enveloped her small pasty white hand. “I’m, uh . . .” Scout’s mind hit a blank wall, and her tongue stalled.
Awkward silence.
“She’s Scout,” Frankie cut in, at her side. “Like a Boy Scout. Except, you know . . . she’s not a boy.”
Naki’s eyes flicked toward her. “No,” he said after a beat, his voice low and measured. “She’s not.” While there wasn’t even a hint of a smile on his face, something in his expression—just the slightest crinkle at the edges of those dark eyes—hinted at amusement.
More awkward silence.
Scout had spent four years as a park ranger, steady in the face of backcountry emergencies, wild animals, and more than a few reckless hikers.
She knew how to keep her cool. But standing in front of Wabanaki Dana, her mind went completely, utterly blank.
She had never been the type to lose her footing over a man’s looks.
It wasn’t about handsomeness—he was something else entirely.
Different. Commanding. Like a man who’d stepped out of another century.
She’d never understood how her sorority sisters could get starstruck over some guy. Now she did. She was powerless to snap herself out of it.
Almost powerless. She was a ranger, for goodness’ sake.
But wow, was he ever tall. The kind of tall that had to duck under doorways. His shoulders and arms looked strong enough to chop down trees in a single swing, and his glossy black hair, neatly trimmed, the hiking boots that had clearly been places—all added to his quiet intensity.
But it was his face that kept her mesmerized.
The angles were striking—cheekbones sharply defined, the kind that could cut glass.
And his eyes—startlingly dark, almost black, yet conveyed calm.
Peace. Like deep pools of still water, utterly steady and unwavering.
She found herself almost holding her breath, simply absorbing the intensity of his gaze.
There was a weight to it, an undeniable presence that made her forget, for a moment, everything else.
This bear of a man was captivating.
Chase Fletcher waited a few minutes after Scout and the others went into the library before following them in. He looked around but didn’t see where they’d gone.
“Can I help you, Chase?”
He turned to see a librarian whom he’d known for as long as he could remember. “Hi, Melissa. I was, uh, just stopping by to see if the library might want to run an ad in next week’s Gazette. We’ve got a special going.”
A look of pity filled her face, making him want to cringe. “Oh, I’m sorry, Chase. Our Facebook ads have swallowed up the budget. Say, have you ever considered taking the Gazette into the digital world?”
Seriously? An ironic comment from someone whose main job was to care for books. And by the way, the Gazette was available online. He’d told her that many times. Now wasn’t the time to tell her again. “Melissa . . . did you happen to see some rangers come into the library?”
“Oh yeah. They’re meeting with Naki in a conference room.”
“Naki . . . so he’s that super tall guy?”
“Yeah. Wabanaki Dana.”
“I just . . . haven’t seen a guy that tall off the basketball court.”
She leaned in. “He’s giving a talk at the library tonight. Are you covering it?” Her eyes went round. “The library is always grateful for the exposure.”
Right. Free exposure without having to cough up a buck. “I’ll pass that on to my features editor.” He started backing up. “If you reconsider running an ad, you know where to find me.”
Back in his car, Chase wasted no time pulling up info about Wabanaki Dana on his phone.
The basics were impressive: Harvard-educated lawyer, a policy advisor for the Penobscot Nation, quoted in news articles, a strong advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental preservation.
He’d rejected lucrative offers in order to stay rooted in his community, running workshops, advising on land deals, and even guest speaking on federal-tribal relations.