Chapter 9 · The Library (Megan)

The library was at the end of Main Street, a 1920s stone building with a flagpole out front.

Megan and Reed split up—Reed stayed in the car across the street, and Megan pushed the door in alone. She needed to look like a regular resident coming in to borrow a cookbook.

Effie Coleman was seventy-two, had run this library for forty years. Her hair was all white. She wore round glasses. When she saw Megan, her eyes flashed behind the lenses.

“The Harper girl,” she said softly. “How’s your grandfather?”

Megan’s throat tightened. “He passed three years ago.”

Effie nodded quietly. “I know. I went to the cemetery for him.”

Megan froze. “The flowers—”

“Those weren’t from me.” Effie cut her off. “I wrap my own flowers. That black-ribbon arrangement? Thomas. He goes to your grandfather’s grave once a month.”

“Why?”

Effie came out from behind the desk, closed the library door, and hung a “Temporarily Closed” sign. Then she led Megan to the back shelf—the law section.

“Samantha,” Effie said, “was my girl.”

Megan held her breath.

“She started working here at seventeen. She was smart, loved to read, wanted to apply to college in Portland.” Effie’s voice trembled. “A week before she disappeared, she came to see me. She said she and some friends had found something—the Blackwoods were unloading at their private pier. It wasn’t fish.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know exactly. Samantha didn’t say. She just said Henry Blackwood had asked the girls to help ‘watch the guests.’ She thought it was guiding visitors to town. Later she found out those ‘guests’ had been brought there against their will.”

Megan’s hand went cold.

“She was going to go to the police.” Effie said. “I told her not to. I said, what good is it, a town girl going to the cops? She said, Auntie Effie, you’re too scared.”

Tears ran down the old woman’s face.

“After she disappeared,” Effie said, “I hid what she left me for twenty years.”

She crouched and pulled a thick Oregon State Local History book from the bottom shelf. The back cover was hollowed out—a hidden compartment. From it she took a small sealed plastic bag.

Inside the bag: a key. And a note.

The handwriting on the note was Samantha’s—the same as in the shipwreck crate:

Auntie Effie: If I don’t come back, give this key to the Harpers. He knows what it opens.

Megan closed her hand around the key.

Her grandfather had known.