Devlin's Light Read Online Free

that.
    “’Ghost.’” Spoken softly, in her lilting voice, the word held no menace.
    “Or something that sounded like it. I could have been wrong, it could have been something else …”
    “Do you believe in ghosts, Nick?”
    “Never had a reason to.” He shrugged.
    “You know, there’s a legend in the family that before a Devlin dies, he sees old Eli Devlin swinging his lantern at the very top of the lighthouse tower.”
    “Who was Eli?” Nick leaned against the side of the swingand turned slightly to face her more directly. He wondered if she knew just how devastating her eyes were to a man’s heart.
    Ry had spoken often about his sister. Bragged about her. About how tough a prosecutor she was. About what a great swimmer she was. About how well she knew the marshes and the bay. Nick had seen photographs, here and there throughout the house, and once he had even caught a glimpse of her through a shop window. But Ry had never told Nick that India’s hair spun like a soft golden cloud around her face, or that her eyes were the very color of spring violets. Given the sad circumstances of their meeting, Nick felt almost embarrassed at having noticed. Almost.
    “Eli Devlin was the one who built the lighthouse. Ry didn’t tell you the story?”
    He had, but Nick shook his head. It was a long story, and the telling of it would take a while. A little while to sit and watch her face. A little while when neither of them would be thinking about Ry, and the fact that he now lay beneath the sandy soil in a bronze box.
    “There were three Devlin brothers who were part of the whaling community that settled around New London, Connecticut. They were all single, all pretty lively fellows, so the story goes. Jonathan, Samuel and Eli. All very ambitious. When the opportunity arose to become part of a new whaling venture down in the South River area—which is what the Delaware River was called back in the 1600s— they jumped at the chance.”
    “Whaling? Here? On the Delaware Bay?”
    “Well, it probably sounded like a good idea at the time, and whales do show up occasionally. Just not often enough for it to have grown into a lucrative endeavor. Eli stayed ashore and ran the lighthouse to guide his brothers home safely through the storms. The first lighthouse was not much more than a shack. But over the years he added to it … made it bigger. Taller. Then taller again, until it reached its present height.”
    “But the lighthouse doesn’t appear to be that old.”
    “It isn’t. The one Eli built burned down in the 1700s andwas rebuilt on the same spot. It burned again in 1876 and was repaired.”
    “It’s a wonderful structure. It’s obvious why Ry had been so proud of it.”
    “Ry considered the lighthouse almost a member of the family. Restoring it had been his life’s work. His goal was for it to be a working lighthouse again. He wanted to give it back to the bay. He wanted it to be a place where people could come …”
    Her voice broke and he took her hand, a gesture meant to comfort. Her skin was soft though a bit cool, her fingers long and slender. Her nails, streaked with remnants of pale pink polish, were bitten to the quick.
    “Why would anyone want to hurt Ry?” she whispered fervently. “Why?”
    “Well now, you know that the police investigation was inconclusive, India. It hasn’t been proven that Ry was murdered or that there was, in fact, anyone else around the lighthouse that night.”
    “But everything points to there having been someone there, Nick. My brother would not have gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to go out to the lighthouse for no reason at all. Someone did something that gave him a reason. I just can’t imagine who—or why.”
    “Have you discussed this with Chief Carpenter?”
    “Yes. He agrees that there most likely was someone there, waiting for Ry. But there is absolutely no evidence to support a theory of murder.”
    “What did the coroner’s report say?”