Page 51 of Hidden Tide

Nathan studies Mom. “Elanore, think. Did James ever mention the lighthouse?”

“Not to me.”

“What about your husband?” Keating asks. “Did he ever talk about it?”

Mom’s face changes.

“My father died a week after a terrible argument with Grandpa. We still don’t know what the argument was about. For years, Mom believed it was nothing more than two stubborn Sinclair men refusing to back down,” I said.

Now I’m not so sure.

“The last time my husband came home from seeing Dad, he was furious,” she says quietly. “He said Dad was risking everything over something that should have stayed buried.”

A chill moves over my skin.

“Did he say what it was?” Storm asks.

“No. I asked, but he told me it didn’t concern me or the girls.”

Mom closes her eyes for a moment.

“He left the room. I followed him and heard him on the phone. He said, ‘If you found the eye, destroy it.’”

No one speaks.

The words seem to settle over the photographs.

Keating breaks the silence. “Who was he talking to?”

“I don’t know. When he realized I was behind him, he ended the call.”

“Could it have been Thomas?” Ward asks.

“Possibly.”

Nathan’s expression has gone pale. “Or my father.”

Mom turns toward him.

The betrayal connected to Nathan’s father still hangs between them. Whatever happened years ago tied his family to Grandpa’s secrets, but Nathan isn’t responsible for what his father did.

I know Mom believes that.

I also know believing it doesn’t make the pain disappear.

Keating’s phone rings.

He answers, listens and writes something on a blank evidence form.

When the call ends, he looks at us.

“The Blackwater lighthouse was decommissioned in 1989. According to the official record, the original Fresnel lens was removed and transported to a maritime storage facility.”

“So the eye is gone,” Storm says.

Keating doesn’t answer immediately.

“That facility has no record of receiving it.”