Chapter 1
The lighthouse looked exactly the same at 5:47 AM as it had yesterday. And the day before. And the one hundred and twenty-something days before that. Melissa raised her camera anyway.
Light pooled along the eastern horizon in soft bands of coral and gold while the Gulf remained dark and restless beneath. The Lockhart Lighthouse stood sharp against the watercolor sky, its white cylindrical tower catching the first warmth of morning. Melissa adjusted her aperture and waited for the precise moment when dawn would paint the keeper’s quarters in that particular shade of rose that happened only in the few minutes before full sunrise.
She’d learned this light. Memorized its rhythms the way she’d once memorized the cadence of breaking news stories and the exact second to press the shutter during chaos. The lighthouse stood still, and it certainly didn’t look at her with betrayal in its eyes.
Click.
The image appeared on her viewscreen. Clean lines and perfect exposure. The weathered wood of the lightkeeper’s house provided texture against the smooth tower. A composition any architectural magazine would accept without revision.
She felt nothing.
She shifted her tripod three feet to the left and reframed. The semicircle of cottages came into view beyond the lighthouse. Starfish Cottage at the far end, its windows still dark at this hour. Heron Cottage next to it, then Captain’s Watch, where she lived, then Sea Glass, Compass Rose, and finally Driftwood Cottage, where Clint Lockhart was probably already awake and finding something to fix.
Click.
She picked up her tripod and moved to the courtyard to catch the lighthouse from a different angle. A slight movement caught her peripheral vision.
She didn’t turn, and didn’t acknowledge the figure emerging from Driftwood Cottage with his usual thermos and tool belt. Instead, she made a minute adjustment to her focus and held her breath as he crossed behind her frame.
She heard the scuff of work boots on stone and the clink of tools. The smell of coffee drifted past her, cutting through the salt air.
She kept her finger away from the shutter and waited. People ruined photography. They wanted to see themselves. They wanted context. Buildings just stood there and let the light hit them.
Clint’s footsteps paused somewhere to her right.
“You’re in my shot.” She didn’t look away from her viewscreen.
“I’m twenty feet behind you.”
“Wide angle.”
A beat of silence. Then the footsteps resumed, and she heard him veer toward the maintenance shed at the edge of the property. Only when the shed door creaked open did she allow herself a slow exhale.
Click. Click. Click.
Three more versions of the same lighthouse in the same light with the same careful framing that left exactly zero room for anything unexpected. She checked the results. The photos were technically excellent but emotionally vacant. They looked exactly like the ones she had taken yesterday, the day before, and all the days stretching back to when she’d first arrived at Starlight Shores looking for a place to disappear.
The sky brightened another shade, and she decided she was done.
Collapsing her tripod, she gathered her equipment and started toward Captain’s Watch Cottage. The courtyard garden was coming alive with early morning sounds. Birds called from the palm trees. The distant rhythm of waves splashed against the shoreline. Somewhere in Starfish Cottage, Emily Shaw was probably already awake and painting in that north-facing studio.
Melissa walked past without looking at the windows.
The cottage community had grown closer over the past months. She’d watched it happen from a careful distance. Emily and Grant finding each other. Cassidy Wren arriving and somehow ending up tangled with Bryan Lucas despite their obvious incompatibility. Winnie presided over it all from the keeper’s quarters, dispensing tea and the kind of gentle meddling that forced people together.
She attended the weekly sunset gatherings because Winnie expected it. She answered questions about her work with vague references to architectural clients and magazine assignments. She smiled at the right moments and then returned to her cottage.
The screen door of Captain’s Watch swung shut behind her, and she stood for a moment in the dim interior. The cottage smelled like coffee from yesterday’s pot and the faint chemical undertone of her portable printer. Equipment cases lined one wall. Camera bodies and lenses were carefully organized. A stack of architecture magazines sat on the kitchen counter next to an unopened box of granola bars.
She’d lived here for a few months now. She stopped and thought for a moment. Okay, closer to four months. The space still looked temporary.
The laptop on her desk had gone to sleep. She touched the trackpad and watched the screen brighten, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
Her calendar application displayed today’s date in a small, neat square.
She’d known. Of course, she’d known. She’d woken at 4:30 a.m. already tight with tension. She’d pulled on yesterday’s clothes, grabbed her camera gear, and fled to the lighthouse like she did every morning. But standing here in the gray light of her cottage with the date staring back at her, she couldn’t pretend anymore.
