Authors: Maureen McMahon
I whirled and ran to the window, thrusting my head out, away
from the smoke, gasping desperately for air.
“Suzanna!”
I looked down. Grant was making his way across the rocks
below, while further along I saw Colin sprinting down the beach from the steps.
“Grant,” I cried. “The lighthouse is on fire! I can’t get
out!”
“I’m coming up!” he shouted.
“You can’t,” I began but he’d already disappeared.
It was only a matter of moments before he burst into the
room, slapping frantically at his clothing. He’d doused his shirt in water and
wrapped it around his head. It was steaming and he hastily threw it off.
I stared at him numbly, unable to move, feeling my legs
become weak.
“Oh, Grant!” I whispered. “Thank God!” My knees buckled.
He was across the room in an instant, scooping me into his
arms, holding me close so I could feel his heart beating and smell the singed
hair on his chest. There was no need to speak. All the feelings that I once
tried so desperately to deny broke free. It was as if our spirits met and
merged. The sensation lasted only a few seconds but it was enough to topple all
barriers. We both knew there was no turning back.
It was a guttural yowl that broke us apart. Spinning around,
we stared in mutual surprise at Kong, standing, tail erect, in the center of
the room.
“How did he get up here?” I exclaimed, through fits of
coughing.
“I don’t know,” Grant replied. “But I think he’s trying to
tell us something. Look.”
The cat began to pace in a circle, tail twitching, crying
plaintively, his eyes fixed upward. I followed his gaze, my eyes streaming with
tears from the smoke. I was just able to make out an outline in the ceiling.
“Grant! Look there! I think it’s a way out.”
He looked to where I pointed and hurried over. Sure enough,
it was a trap door. By standing on tiptoe, he was just able to reach the
handle. It took some moments of tugging but finally, in a whoosh of dust and
cobwebs, it came free and a narrow set of steps concertinaed down.
“Get up!” Grant said, giving me a quick shove.
I didn’t need further prompting but climbed the rickety
steps swiftly, squeezing through the small hole above to the very top of the
lighthouse. I crawled away from the hole on my hands and knees, heedless of the
shards of broken glass cutting my flesh, grateful for the wind gusting in from
the lake. Grant was up behind me and pulled the trapdoor shut to keep the smoke
contained below.
I looked around me. In the center of the platform was the
working part of the lighthouse—the beacon, its mirrors shattered, its lamp long
since destroyed. The glass beneath my hands and knees was all that remained.
Our perch was protected by a stone parapet that rose to about three feet. It
was crumbled in parts and I saw huge cracks where stone and mortar were ready
to fall to the sea below. Seagulls had left inordinate amounts of droppings,
which had hardened over time and made the surfaces even rougher.
Grant was inspecting the walls, peering down over the edge.
“What will we do now?” I asked, exhausted from coughing,
wiping my eyes with a piece of cloth I ripped from the skirt of my dress.
But Grant didn’t answer right away. He waved an arm in a
wide arc. I stood up and went to stand beside him. Far down below was Colin. He
was holding a high-powered spear gun we kept in the boathouse for scuba
fishing.
“Go ahead, Colin!” Grant yelled. Then, he turned to me. “Get
down low, Suzie. He’s going to shoot.”
I dropped automatically. Within moments, I heard a pop and a
chink.
Grant cursed. “Not high enough,” he muttered, then yelled, “Hurry,
Colin!”
There was another pop and a zing and I saw the spear clatter
across the floor a few feet beyond me. Grant grabbed the line attached to it
and began to haul it in, hand over hand. I jumped to my feet and watched as he
pulled up a rope that was affixed to the end of the line. I waved an arm at
Colin. At the same time, I saw flames licking out the window of the room where
we’d just been.
“Grant, look!” I gasped.
Grant’s face paled slightly. “We’ll have to hurry.”
The frame around the spotlight was of steel and it was the
only thing safe enough to tie the rope to.
“You’re going down first,” Grant said. “Get out of that
dress. It’s too cumbersome.”
I didn’t argue but pulled the now torn and filthy gown off,
watching, shivering, in my underwear, as he made a harness in the end of the
rope. He held it open and I slipped it over my head and down around the back of
my thighs.
“I’ll lower you down,” he said, “but you’ll have to keep
yourself steady. Just hold your feet out to keep from swinging into the wall.
Are you okay?”
I nodded, trying not to tremble, my teeth chattering with
fright and cold.
He didn’t give me time to think but lifted me over the edge
of the wall, facing the open lake. This was the only unbroken expanse of wall.
We couldn’t take the risk of the fire catching the rope aflame by going too
near the window.
I was petrified. Suddenly, I was dangling in midair, the
rope biting unbearably into the flesh at the back of my legs, the wind icy on
my skin. Far, far below I could see the dark shapes of the huge boulders
surrounding the lighthouse base. The cresting waves were foaming around them,
breaking over the tops. I clung tighter to the rope, feeling suddenly dizzy.
“Don’t look down, Suzie!” Grant’s voice snapped me out of
it. I looked up. He was there, above me, the rope wrapped around one arm and
around his waist, his face tense and flushed with the effort of holding me in
place.
“Use your feet!” he yelled.
I nodded and put my feet out tentatively, feeling the cold,
slimy surface of the wall.
“I’m going to lower you now! Try to walk down the wall using
your feet!”
I did as he said, moving my feet numbly, my heart stopping
each time he let a loop of rope loose with a lurch. Slowly, very slowly, I made
my descent. My hands throbbed with the ferocity of my grip. The bite of the
rope was almost unbearable. Halfway down, I put out a foot and it slid on the
wet surface. The movement overbalanced me and sent me spinning out of control.
I heard Grant curse but all I could do was hang on as the wall came up to meet
me with such force I thought I would black out.
“Use your feet!” Grant bellowed. I heard the strain in his
voice and it was this that made me thrust my legs forward to prevent a second
collision with the wall. If I was struggling, I knew he was struggling more.
“I’m okay now!” I yelled as best I could and was able to
continue the slow descent.
It seemed like hours before I reached the bottom. Here I
encountered more difficulty. The breaking waves made the rocks inaccessible by
land from this side of the lighthouse. I managed to cling to one huge boulder
while I disengaged the rope. The spray and waves doused me instantly, the shock
of the cold water helping to clear my head.
“Stay where you are, Suzie!” Grant called. “I’m coming down!”
He pulled the rope up and I watched, dazed, as he wrapped
remnants of my mother’s wedding dress around his hands, then carefully climbed
over the edge of the parapet. With one arm holding the rope under him, the
other gripping it above, he took one look, then pushed off, abseiling down in
three giant leaps. What took me an eternity, he managed in a matter of seconds!
My relief was tangible. He clambered over to where I clung to the rock, his
face mirroring his concern.
“We’re nearly home, Suzie. Can you bear a short swim?”
“I…I don’t know,” I said truthfully. My teeth chattered
uncontrollably and the numbness in my fingers and toes was spreading. He
crawled over nearer to me and pulled me into his arms. I was shaking fitfully
and it was some moments before the warmth from his body made any impression.
The crashing spume continued to douse us mercilessly Still, I felt safe in his
arms and wished I could stay there forever. His lips touched my forehead, soft,
reassuring.
Then we heard the motor.
“It’s Colin,” Grant said, his voice relieved. “We won’t have
quite so far to swim.”
I looked out over the water and saw Beacon’s fishing boat
chugging in. Colin was standing up at the wheel with a spotlight trained on us.
He cut the engine to an idle some fifty yards off the rocks and hailed us.
“It’s as close as I can get!” he yelled. “You’ll have to
swim out.”
Grant looked down at me, questioning. I nodded. “I’ll make it.”
He gave me a quick squeeze, then raised an arm. “We’re
coming,” he called. Then, to me, “When we get in the water, put your arms
around my neck and just hang on.”
“I can swim,” I insisted.
“Don’t fight me on this, darling,” Grant said. “Please, just
do as I say.”
I frowned but realized I was in no shape to argue. We crept
down to the very edge of the rocks. Grant held my hand tightly and we waited as
a swell broke over us, nearly sending me toppling backward. As the water
whooshed back out, Grant slipped into the black depths, pulling me after him.
Together, we flailed out past the boulders and into deeper water before another
swell could push us back. Once there, Grant trod water while I obediently
wrapped my arms around his neck. Then, he began to swim strongly toward the
boat, towing me like a useless bit of flotsam.
The water was freezing and after a few seconds, I couldn’t
feel my extremities. I was glad, now, that I hadn’t tried to swim myself. As it
was, my muscles weren’t responding to anything I told them to do. My fingers
wouldn’t cling and my legs wouldn’t kick. I felt myself losing my grip and I
gave a strangled cry just as I lost my hold and sank into the inky depths.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the deck of the boat,
coughing water from my lungs, a coarse blanket rough against my skin. Grant too,
was wrapped in a blanket and crouched over me, his wet hair dripping onto my
face. He touched my cheek tenderly when I opened my eyes, then turned to Colin.
“She’ll be okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Colin revved the twin engines and we were off, bouncing
across the waves in the direction of the boathouse. I struggled to sit up and
Grant put an arm around me, pulling me close so I could lean against him,
feeling suddenly too weak to even speak.
As we pulled up to the pier, I looked over at the lighthouse
and gasped. Flames leapt out of the roof now and the walls were ablaze. Great
tongues of fire licked into the night air, illuminating the rocks and the sand
all around. I could see the shadowy figures of people milling on the beach. People
from the party, no doubt. As Colin cut the engine, I heard the roar of the fire
over the crash of the waves.
Then, I heard another sound and I turned my head in time to
see a Coast Guard cutter and a police launch roar past. But they weren’t
heading for the lighthouse, they were heading further out onto the lake. I
watched, fascinated, as their spotlights picked out a large yacht bobbing at
anchor.
“They’re only here to assist,” Grant said.
I looked at him, puzzled. He smiled.
“Darla—or I should say, Pauline—and company bagged them just
as David boarded. They needed to catch them in the act to make it stick.”
“Darla?” I queried through numb lips
“She’s FBI, Suzie. They’ve known about David for some
time—about the drugs, that is—but they wanted to identify his contacts. That
boat out there holds the key to busting a syndicate that has operations in
Colombia, Cuba, Canada and at least six major cities in the US.”
“Darla is a federal agent?” I said weakly.
He laughed. “Yes, darling. Her real name is Pauline
Petrowski. Did you really think I was so infatuated with my secretary that I
had to bring her to Beacon? Don’t feel too bad, it’s what you were supposed to
think. It was the only thing we could come up with to get her into the house.
She was there to keep an eye on things and to make sure nothing happened to
you. Also, she needed to keep close tabs on David—check his movements—do a bit
of, and please excuse the expression, undercover work.”
I smiled at him ruefully. “I was jealous, you know.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I’m glad to hear it. I thought all
this time that you really didn’t care.”
I looked up at him, feeling the warmth of his arm around me
and regretted all those months and years of confusion and denial. Tears of pure
relief filled my eyes. “I love you,” I said simply. “And I think I always have.”
He looked down at me, his own eyes shining conspicuously. “That
makes two of us,” he murmured and lowered his head to kiss me, long and
lingeringly.
* * * * *
Alicia met us at the boathouse and was surprisingly in
control, holding out warm clothing for both Grant and me, then ushering us over
to where paramedics waited to tend our bruises, burns and abrasions. They
suggested we come with them to the hospital for a more thorough examination but
we both refused, our eyes glued in morbid fascination to the flaming
lighthouse.
The rest of the partygoers stood about in groups, also
transfixed. Their Halloween costumes made the beach look like the set of a
horror movie. Someone handed me a hot drink and I sipped it gratefully.
A Coastguard cutter appeared out of the gloom and trained a
hose on the burning building. But, after a few moments, they gave up and shut
off their pump, bobbing at anchor to watch, like the rest of us, the final
death throes.
Suddenly, I remembered. “Grant!” I cried, “Kong! Where is
he?”
Grant grimaced. “I don’t know, Suzie. After you went up the
ladder, I looked around for him and called but he’d disappeared. Perhaps he
knew another way out.”
I stared at the roaring flames and tears filled my eyes. “How
could he get out of that?” I murmured.