Chapter 4 - Brooks #2
He handed over one of his temporary contact cards. Sullivan had printed him a stack until Brooks made a decision on whether he wanted to stay in Westerly Cove or not. Daniel took it with shaking hands.
“You’ll find her, right? She’s still alive?”
Brooks had learned long ago not to make promises he couldn’t keep. “We’re doing everything we can.”
Outside the hotel, Brooks stood for a moment, processing. Daniel Clarkson’s grief seemed genuine, his confusion about his wife’s research consistent with someone who’d been kept in the dark. But why hadn’t Melissa shared what she was investigating? What had she discovered that required secrecy?
The rest of the morning passed in a blur of witness interviews and coordination with the Coast Guard. By the time Brooks made it to Martha Morgan’s house on Harbor Street, it was nearly two in the afternoon.
The blue house with white trim sat at the end of a quiet street, its small yard meticulously maintained. Martha answered the door before he could knock, as if she’d been watching for him.
“Detective Harrington. Come in.”
The house smelled of lavender and old books. Martha led him to a small sitting room where a box sat waiting on the coffee table.
“Lily’s research,” she said, settling into an armchair. “Everything she collected in those last weeks before she disappeared.”
Brooks opened the box carefully. Inside: notebooks filled with neat handwriting, photocopied documents from the town archives, photographs of the lighthouse from various angles, and a map with locations marked in red ink.
“She was investigating the lighthouse’s history during Prohibition,” Martha said. “She’d found evidence of smuggling operations, tunnels connecting the lighthouse to buildings in town, records that had been deliberately hidden or destroyed.”
Brooks pulled out one of the notebooks and flipped through pages of careful documentation. Dates, names, shipping manifests. Lily Morgan had been thorough.
“Did she tell anyone else what she’d found?”
“She tried to tell her father. He worked maintenance at the lighthouse. He didn’t believe her at first—thought she was being dramatic about her school project.
” Martha’s voice broke. “Then she disappeared. And Robert started asking his own questions. Too many questions. Six months after we lost Lily, he died of a heart attack. Very sudden. Very convenient for the people he’d been pressuring for answers. ”
Brooks made a note. Robert Morgan’s death—another convenient timing. “Did Lily share her research with anyone before she disappeared?”
“Just what’s in this box. Her notebooks, photographs, maps.
I made copies before Chief Morrison took the originals.
” Martha’s hands clenched. “But I know my daughter. She was careful. If she thought she was in danger, she would have made backups, hidden copies somewhere. I’ve searched for twenty-five years and never found them. ”
“What makes you think she made backups?”
“Lily documented everything twice, filed everything in multiple places. She wouldn’t have gone to that lighthouse with all her evidence in one location.” Martha met his eyes. “The last time I saw her, she said she was going to her best friends Sarah’s house. She never came home.”
“Does Sarah live in town?”
Martha shook her head. “She left after graduation and never came back.”
Brooks continued to look through things. “Did anyone ever find Lily’s camera?”
“Never found anything. Not her body, not her camera.” Martha’s voice broke.
Brooks studied the map, noting how the marked locations formed a pattern connecting the lighthouse to several prominent buildings downtown. Including, he noticed, the building that now housed the historical society.
“Mrs. Morgan, I need to take this with me. It might be relevant to Melissa Clarkson’s disappearance.”
“That’s why I called you. These cases are connected, Detective. I’ve felt it from the moment I heard about that poor woman going missing. Someone in this town has been hiding something for a very long time, and they’re willing to kill to keep it hidden.”
Brooks carefully packed Lily’s research back into the box. “I’ll look into this. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll investigate.”
“That’s all I ask.” Martha walked him to the door. “And Detective? Be careful.”
Back at the station after he made two sets of copies, one with his phone and the other with the copier, and locked the copy in the station’s safe, Brooks spread Lily’s research across his desk.
The notebooks detailed an organized investigation into the lighthouse’s role during Prohibition—smuggling routes, corrupt officials, money changing hands.
Lily had been building a case, documenting crimes that had occurred decades before she was born.
But why had it gotten her killed? The people involved in Prohibition-era smuggling would be long dead by 1999. Unless . . .
Unless the smuggling had never stopped.
Brooks pulled up his computer and started cross-referencing Lily’s notes with current town records. The tunnels she’d documented—did they still exist? The buildings she’d identified as connected to the smuggling operation—who owned them now?
The pattern that emerged made his stomach tighten. Several of the buildings were owned by the same family. A family that had been prominent in Westerly Cove for generations.
The Aldrich family.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown
The Mystic Cup closes at 8. Tea helps with difficult cases. V.H.
Brooks stared at the message. Vivienne Hawthorne had obtained his number somehow.
Daniels seemed like the likely culprit, not that it mattered.
For all he knew, Vivienne’s abilities told her everything she needed to know about him.
His thumb hovered over his phone. He had thoughts of telling her no, but instead he added her name to his contacts.
If anything, he now had her number if he ever needed anything.
He checked his watch. Nearly six. He could finish reviewing Lily’s research, or he could take Vivienne up on her offer.
He knew better than to get involved with a civilian who was involved with one of his cases.
But . . . well, he didn’t have an alternative that made sense.
Vivienne Hawthorne piqued his interest in more ways than one.
At seven-forty-five, Brooks locked Lily’s research in his desk drawer and headed for his car.
There was a chill in the air and fog was already rolling in from the harbor.
He stood there for a moment, taking in his new town.
There were people out, walking along the sidewalk.
Some going into the restaurants or pub. Others drove.
Waving at him as they went by, as if they’d known him for years instead of not at all.
Off into the distance, he heard the foghorn, and then the thumping of someone playing their base too loudly. Austin was like this, in a way.
Only in Austin, people waved their middle finger while playing their music at ear piercing decibels.
He reached his vehicle and stopped. Long scratches marred the driver’s side door. Deep gouges that looked deliberate. Brooks knelt to examine them, using his phone’s flashlight.
The marks were precise. Too deep for keys or casual vandalism. Three parallel scratches, each about eight inches long, carved deep enough to reach the metal beneath the paint.
Someone wanted him to know he was being watched. Someone with access to the police station parking lot.
He’d been in Westerly Cove less than forty-eight hours, and already someone felt threatened.
Brooks photographed the damage, then climbed into his car, checking the back seat before starting the engine. As he pulled out of the parking lot, watching his mirrors to see if someone lurked in the shadows.
The drive to The Mystic Cup took less than five minutes. Brooks parked on the street, noting the warm light spilling from the tea shop’s windows.
He may had reservations about Vivienne and the way she found the evidence, but he couldn’t dispute the facts: the scratches on his car door were real, the blood at the lighthouse was real and the same type as Melissa’s, and Lily Morgan had been interested in the same thing Melissa was, and she’d gone missing as well.
Every fiber in his being told him to turn around and drive back to his rental. Instead, he raised his hand and tapped his knuckles against the door.