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Connie hung up the phone and sat silently for a long time, Duncan’s doubts echoing in her ears, and the two beautiful paintings on the desk compelling her eyes to them.
Logic said Duncan was right, but in Connie’s heart she felt something more – some inner truth about these canvases. She made her decision.
When she came out of the office, Warren Ryan was waiting at the top of the steps. He looked at her hopefully. “What did you decide?” he asked.
“I’ll buy them,” Connie set her jaw. “Keep the thousand as a deposit. I’ll bring back the rest of the money within the hour.”
Ryan’s face lit up in a smile of relief. Connie went out through the front door of the grocery store and stood, lost, on the sidewalk. She needed two thousand dollars, and she didn’t have the money.
4.
The town had only one bank and Connie stood in line for almost twenty minutes as the harried tellers did their best to cope with the influx of demanding tourists. By the time Connie reached the plexiglass window, she had reconciled her decision and dealt with her guilt. She handed her cards across the counter.
“I’d like to withdraw two thousand dollars from this account,” she smiled.
The young woman behind the glass thumped keys on her computer and then looked at Connie sharply.
“This is a joint account, right?”
“Yes,” Connie said with a qualm in her voice. “My sister and I contribute money every week… and my employer makes additional deposits when required.”
The cashier turned her attention to the computer screen for several moments, frowning. She set Connie’s card down on the counter and spoke to another bank employee in quiet whispers. Both women came back to the counter and the older woman turned her attention to the display. She glanced at Connie.
“The bank has instructions to release a monthly payment from this account to a nursing home facility outside of Exeter,” the woman said. “There have been no other withdrawals…”
Connie nodded her head. “Yes, that’s right,” she said. Connie and her older sister, Jean, had been struggling to both contribute to their mother’s care since she had fallen at Jean’s home three years ago. The money each daughter deposited was enough to cover the care facility’s payments with little left over.
The older woman wrenched her mouth into a pout. “There is another monthly payment due to be withdrawn in a week,” she explained in a veiled warning. “You should be aware that if there are insufficient funds in the account at that time, the bank will be forced to deduct charges. Do you understand that?”
“I do,” Connie nodded her head. “I only need the money for a few days. There will be plenty in the account to meet the withdrawal when it is due, I assure you.”
The woman shrugged. She nodded to the young teller, and Connie felt a giddy lift of relief as the money was handed across to her. She would have to phone Jean, but by then she prayed, it wouldn’t matter.
5.
When Connie went back to the grocery store, Warren Ryan was waiting for her in his tiny office. Connie laid the money out on the table and the man counted it, stacking the cash into neat bundles with miser-like precision.
He slid the two paintings across the desk and Connie carefully re-wrapped them. “I also need directions to Mr. Mason’s home,” she reminded Ryan sweetly.
The grocery store owner nodded absently. The money, and what it meant for his business, distracted him. He glanced across at Connie and then reached for the phone. He thumbed a button and held the mouthpiece out like a microphone. “Thad Ryan, come to the office please. Thad Ryan.” Connie heard the voice over speakers beyond the office door, the sound tinny and disconnected.
Ryan dropped the phone back into its cradle and scooped up the money. He locked it in the cash box and slid the filing cabinet closed just as there was a faint, respectful knock on the door.
“Come.”
A young man stepped into the crowded space. He looked about twenty years old. He had a lantern jaw and blonde sandy hair, bleached platinum by sun and surf. He was broad shouldered, his skin the tanned color of toffee. The young man’s face glistened with sweat.
“You wanted me?”
Ryan nodded. He clapped the young man on the shoulder and introduced him to Connie. “This is my boy, Thad,” he smiled fondly. “He makes the weekly deliveries to Mr. Mason.”
Connie stood and shook the boy’s hand.
“Miss Dixon needs to know how to find her way to the Mason home,” Ryan explained dismissively. “I want you to answer any questions she has, okay?”
Thad nodded. Connie and Ryan shook hands goodbye. She tucked the precious package of paintings carefully under her arm and followed Thad down the stairs and out through a dark corridor to the store’s loading dock at the rear of the building.
There was a large truck reversed up against an open roller door. Thad went down a nearby set of concrete stairs while two uniformed men with transport trolleys wheeled cardboard boxes off the vehicle and into the storage area. Connie followed the young man until they were standing under the shade of a tree. There was a cool breeze blowing off the ocean, and a scar of dark boiling cloud on the distant skyline.
“I’m not so sure Mr. Mason is going to welcome a visitor,” Thad began with a warning.
Connie smiled. “That’s okay,” she said. “I was planning on phoning him first.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“No phone,” Thad shook his head.
Connie raised an eyebrow. “Oh,” she said, and after a moment she shrugged and smiled blithely. “Well, I’ll just have to take my chances then.”
Thad stared at her but said nothing for many seconds. Connie could see the glint of doubtful speculation in his eyes. He bent and plucked at a long piece of grass and began tearing it into small shreds.
“How far down the coast does Mr. Mason live?”
“About an hour,” Thad offered. “You follow the road out of town and head south until you see a turnoff onto Jellicat Road.”
“Jellicat?” Connie repeated the unusual name.
Thad nodded. “Once you see that turnoff, you drive for another ten minutes until you come across an old mailbox. It’s green. That’s the track through the pine trees to where he lives.”
Connie paid close attention. Her brow furrowed into little crinkles. “Once I find the turnoff – the one with the green mailbox – how far down the trail do I drive?”
“All the way to a gate,” Thad said. “That’s the start of his property. It runs right down to the coast.”
Connie looked surprised. “The man lives on a beach?”
Thad nodded. “He owns some land. But his house is on a hill overlooking the beach. Suppose that’s one of the reasons people around here call the place what they do.”
Connie was paying close attention, giving every word importance. Suddenly she became intrigued and held up her hand for pause. “His house has a name?”
Thad smiled ruefully. “Nothing official,” he explained. “It’s just that all the locals call the place the light house.”
Connie flinched. “Mr. Mason lives in a lighthouse?”
“No,” Thad said. “We just call the place the light house because every light in the house is always on – night or day, it don’t matter. Local fishermen say they can see the Mason house for miles out to sea… so we started calling it the light house.”
