She opened a new browser tab.Her corporate research skills, honed through years of competitive analysis and market intelligence gathering, kicked in automatically.She started with the basic public records she’d noted before.The lighthouse had officially been privately funded in the 1940s.
The shell company name was buried in a footnote: Coastal Heritage Properties, LLC.
She ran it through the business registry databases she still had access to.The initial search came back with minimal information.Dissolved in 1947.Original incorporation in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts.Not Florida.
That was odd.Why would a Massachusetts company fund a Gulf Coast lighthouse during wartime?
She dug deeper, following the corporate trail through archived documents and historical business filings.The kind of research that used to make her feel competent and in control when client projects spiraled into chaos.
Coastal Heritage Properties had exactly three listed officers.Two names she didn’t recognize.The third made her stop scrolling.
James S.Copeland.Secretary-Treasurer.
Copeland.She’d heard that name recently.Where?
Cassidy pulled up her festival notes, searching through the historical documentation she’d gathered.There.In Marty Fuller’s account of the lighthouse’s history, mentioned in passing:The Copeland family of Cambridge maintained a summer residence in Starlight Shores.
A wealthy Massachusetts family with local connections, funding the lighthouse’s private operation.What was their connection?
And that photograph she’d found in the archives.The one that had made Winnie go still and careful.The caption had said academic consultants.Men in suits surrounding radio equipment that had nothing to do with standard lighthouse operations.
Her phone buzzed.A text from Bryan:One of the bands dropped out but the Harbor Ladies found a barbershop quartet to fill in.I think that will work great.
The festival.Right.That’s what she should be focused on.Not decades-old mysteries about lighthouse funding and mysterious radio equipment.
Her phone buzzed again.An email from David:Need to know your decision ASAP.
Right.Her decision.Her career.Her entire future waiting for a response.
She closed the laptop and walked to the window.Forty-eight hours to choose between everything she’d worked for and everything she was just beginning to discover.
