One Last Gift, page 24
Sam, on the other hand, was bright-eyed and looked like he was fizzing with energy, just about bouncing on the spot. He had his jeans and shirt on again, but it was buttoned up wrongly, like he’d thrown clothes on impatiently at the last minute. “I figured it out!”
“What?”
“I figured it out,” he repeated. “The clue!” He looked so young then, face all alight, and so damn cute. No, she corrected herself immediately. Not cute. Annoying. It was annoying to be woken at six a.m.; there was nothing cute about it.
She shook her head, trying to keep up with him. Then it dawned on her and she dropped her arms, momentarily forgetting to be embarrassed about what she looked like. “You know where it is.”
“You do too,” he said, smiling. “Surfing. He won’t make you surf this time. Do you remember?”
Cassie only frowned at him.
“We went on holiday,” Sam continued. “You, me, Tom, Claire, Mum.”
And she remembered then—they’d gone to Cornwall, all together. They’d gone, and Tom and Sam had gone surfing and forced her to come too and she’d hated it, coughed up water and gotten hit over the head with her surfboard.
“Cornwall,” she breathed and he nodded, actually did bounce this time. But Cassie shook her head, pulled a hand through her hair. She was right—it was matted at the back. “He wants me to go to a bloody lighthouse in Cornwall?” There was a pit in her stomach at the thought of it—Cornwall was miles away—but Sam was looking positively delighted.
“Yes! And I looked it up, and I think it must be Pendeen lighthouse, because we were in Penzance and that’s the closest one there. And I’ve been on trainline and there’s a train in an hour.” He clapped his hands in front of him.
Cassie took a step back, feeling like she wanted to back away completely, at speed. “Wait, hang on, you want us to go today? Now?”
“Yeah, why not? You’ve been trying to work it out for ages, right? So why not now?”
“Because…” Because it was last-minute and spontaneous and so many things could go wrong, and she hadn’t packed for Cornwall. Because Cornwall was bloody miles away and would surely take hours to get to. But Sam was smiling at her, so excited, and something tugged at her heart, looking at him like that. She thought of Tom, and how he’d be grinning at her right now, trying to get her to just do it. Stop overthinking and just roll with it. She took a slow breath, let it out, and tried to quiet the gnawing in her stomach. “OK. I’ll go today.” She’d look up the return journey on the way—surely she’d be able to figure something out, get back in time for work tomorrow. As long as she found the clue quickly, that was. She hesitated. “Does this mean you’re coming with me?”
“Sure, if you want me to.” His voice was casual—almost, Cassie thought, a little careful. Putting the ball firmly in her court.
This time, she did not hesitate, but squared her shoulders. If she was doing this, then she might as well go all the way. “Yes. I want you to come.” She tried, very hard, to match his easy, casual tone. It was natural, wasn’t it, that she’d want company? “Give me twenty minutes to pack and I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The taxi pulled up outside the lighthouse, the midafternoon sun shining down on it, and Cassie stared, unable to believe that they were really here. It was a tall white building, contained within a little wall, with a couple of smaller buildings next to it, also white, all with a turquoise stripe running around the bottom. Cassie noticed that Sam had already gotten out of the car and was paying the taxi driver and she made herself open the door and get out too. She turned away from the lighthouse to the sea and felt her heart stutter.
It was stunningly beautiful, the type of place that was impossible ever to capture on camera. Green grass gave way to epic cliffs, where waves crashed underneath, foaming white hands clawing at the rock. Beyond it was wide, vast ocean, all the way out to the horizon. A white boat bobbed in the distance, but apart from that there was nothing but blue. She took a breath, enjoying the feel of being outside after so long on a train. The air was warm, though there was a hint of humidity, like a storm might be brewing.
“Come on a nice holiday, have you?” the taxi driver was asking. Cassie turned, saw that he’d been addressing her directly as he handed her the little overnight suitcase she’d taken to the manor. Sam already had his big suitcase, the one which, he’d told her, he’d brought directly from New York.
“I, err…” Cassie glanced at the lighthouse, though it took no notice of her, its attention firmly on the ocean. “Sort of,” she said eventually, deciding that would be easier than explaining. She felt the urgency pressing down on her, struggled not to bounce from foot to foot. She’d looked it up and she could get a five p.m. train back from Penzance to London, arriving after midnight but still back in time for work the next day. That meant they had to get on it though, and find the clue as soon as possible. “Do you know if we can get into the lighthouse?” she asked.
The driver’s eyebrows pulled together. “You’re not allowed to go in,” he said bluntly, as if she should already know this. “It’s a working lighthouse.” He peered at her suspiciously, like there was something untoward going on here. “You’re not staying in one of the cottages, then?”
Cassie felt Sam come alongside her, and jumped a little when he slung an arm around her shoulders. It made her feel small, pressed against him, though the weight of his arm settled her a little. “It was a surprise holiday,” Sam said, and winked at the taxi driver, whose look of suspicion was immediately replaced by a grin.
He smiled at Cassie. “Ah, you’re a lucky one then, aren’t you?” And, after giving them his card in case they needed another ride, he waved them away. Cassie watched the car disappear down the winding cliff road with a mounting pressure in her chest. She pulled away from Sam.
“Why did you send him away?” she squeaked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere and we need to get back!”
Sam’s lips curved, like he wanted to smile, but he didn’t give in to it, and ran a hand up and down her arm soothingly instead. “We’ll be able to call another taxi, don’t worry.”
They fell silent, and standing there, close enough to touch, with him smiling down at her, felt suddenly intimate. More intimate than on the train journeys—which had taken forever, given they’d had to connect in London—where they’d been surrounded by other people and other conversations.
Cassie shifted, staring up at the lighthouse. “So what, do you think a clue is stuck on it somewhere?” That was what Tom had done when they were younger after all, stuck the clues on objects or doors, before he’d gotten more ambitious. Very ambitious this time, apparently.
Sam looked at it too. “There was nothing else? On the clue?”
“Greg,” Cassie said. “He said he had a friend called Greg.”
Sam clapped, rubbed his hands together. “Right. Well, we best find Greg then.” They both looked around, as if a Greg might immediately materialize, but there was only someone walking their dog, a little way in the distance. “OK,” Sam said, “well, we’ll have to ask.” And with that he marched into the little complex, heading for one of the smaller buildings on the side of the lighthouse. Feeling incredibly conspicuous, like there might be someone peering down at her from the top of the lighthouse, Cassie followed him.
There was no answer at the first door, so Sam immediately proceeded to the second, which opened almost immediately. A man stood in the doorway, with scruffy gray hair and gray stubble that was on the verge of becoming a beard. He was also very short. Cassie only noticed that because he wasn’t much taller than she was—and she was only five foot.
The man frowned. “You the curtain people? You’re a day early.”
“We’re, ah…”
Sam glanced at Cassie, who shook her head, wondering what, exactly, “curtain people” were. People who made curtains, presumably? Or installed them? Though that wasn’t the right word, was it? Hung curtains? Was there a job for that?
Sam changed tactic. “Are you Greg?”
“Yessss,” the man said, drawing out the word. He raised his eyebrows—also gray—but didn’t offer anything more.
Cassie stepped forward. “I’m Cassie. Tom Rivers’ sister. He said to ask for you when I got here—I think you might have an envelope for me?”
Greg stared at her, then frowned. “He didn’t warn me. He was supposed to warn me when you would be coming, so I could get prepared.”
“He was going to warn you?” It made sense, she supposed—he’d have been following her progress, keeping tabs on where she was with it.
“That’s right.”
“He…” Cassie swallowed. “He couldn’t.”
His eyes turned shrewd. “Why not? Something happen?”
Sam glanced at Cassie and she knew he was wondering if he should step in. She nodded, unwilling to be the one to say it out loud.
“Tom died,” Sam said quietly. The words cut into her, like always, but Sam’s pain, the way it simmered in his voice, cut into her too. Would either of them get used to it? It must get easier, surely? But every time she thought it would, something happened to remind her that the pain of it was still there.
Greg paled, looked between them. “I…I didn’t know. I’m…” He shook his head. “That’s terrible.” He stepped aside, ushered them into what turned out was a charming little cottage, all light and airy. It was messy though, with big pots of paint out, and when he led them into the living room, Cassie saw plastic on the floor around the edges. The wall on one side was half painted, light blue over the white that had been there previously.
“I’m doing it up,” Greg explained unnecessarily.
Cassie walked over to the window, which was next to a white bookcase, mostly empty except the bottom shelf, which was filled with books that weirdly all had blue covers. She looked out—you could see the ocean from here.
“I usually just manage the bookings but, well, I got roped in.” Cassie turned back to see Greg looking at her quite intently. “Your brother…”
Why was he looking at her like that? What was he going to tell her? Cassie hugged her arms around herself as Sam came to stand next to her, not touching, just offering silent reassurance.
“He saved my life.”
Cassie’s arms dropped to her sides. “What?”
Greg gestured to the one sofa, light blue and apparently unaffected by the redecorating, and Cassie obeyed, going to sit down, Sam following her. The two of them looked up at Greg, who pulled a hand through his gray hair, shook his head ruefully. “I met him at a bar in Penzance—that’s where I live usually, you see. We were both on our own, both down.”
“Down?” Cassie asked, leaning toward Greg as she spoke. “What do you mean, down?”
Greg shrugged. “Well, I don’t know the details, I could just tell he was upset, you know? Had the signs you get when you’re drinking alone, something getting you down.” Cassie bit her lip. It didn’t sound like Tom. To her, he’d mostly seemed happy and content, seemed like he had things figured out, with a long-term girlfriend whom he loved, a job that excited him, always off on adventure holidays. She looked at Sam, but he was frowning, like it was news to him, too. Some things, it seemed, Tom had told neither of them.
“Anyway,” Greg continued, “we were both a bit drunk and a bit sad—my wife had left me, you see, though it turned out it was only temporary. She’s back with me now, we were separated for a total of two days.” He smiled at Cassie faintly, and Cassie did her best to return it, though she just wanted him to carry on with the story. “So, me and Tom, we got chatting and had a few drinks. He mentioned your parents,” he added, giving Cassie a little look.
Cassie’s heart gave a painful thud. Their parents? Tom had been talking about their parents? Is that why he was down? But whenever he talked about them with her, it was always fondly, trying to get her to remember the good things about them—things he could remember, by virtue of being those few years older than her.
“We left together when the place shut. And well, outside on the road…Well, like I said, we’d been drinking, and to cut a long story short, I nearly stepped out in front of a car and Tom, he pulled me back.” Cassie waited, but he said nothing more.
“That’s it?” She had been expecting something grander, like Tom climbing a building to save him or something. Not something that could just be a drunken memory, one embellished by alcohol.
“I’m telling you, that car would’ve hit me if it hadn’t been for your brother.”
Why hadn’t Tom told her? Maybe he’d not thought anything of it, pulling a stranger out of the way. It had clearly stuck with Greg, though. And it was a horrible, wrong thing to think but there was a moment—a tiny, fleeting moment—where Cassie felt bitter about the fact that Tom had saved Greg’s life, but his own had not been saved. That Greg should have been lucky, when Tom was not.
“Anyway, look, I’m working on the cottage, but you’re welcome to stay here.” It took Cassie a moment to register the change of subject, so she didn’t get the chance to decline the offer before Greg carried on. “I’ll go to my place in town for the night. One of the bedrooms is out of action at the moment, though,” he added with a frown, glancing between Cassie and Sam as if trying to figure out whether that would be a problem.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa,” Sam said quickly. Unable to look at Sam, because of the suggestion implied there, Cassie opened her mouth to say it wouldn’t be necessary because they wouldn’t be staying, but Greg talked over her again.
“All right, good, and there’s food in the fridge, some anyway, and you help yourself to anything. Some nice wine there too, OK? Not the cheap stuff either—Tesco Finest.”
“But we can’t kick you out of your house!” Cassie said, louder than was perhaps necessary. “I mean, sorry, it’s so incredibly kind of you, but really, all we need is the clue—the envelope, I mean—and then we’ll be out of your way.” She wanted to check her phone, see if she was still on track to make it back to London, but knew that would seem rude. “He did give you an envelope, right?”
“He did, but, well…” He got up, left the room.
Cassie looked at Sam. “Is that it?” she whispered.
“I think he’ll—”
Greg reappeared and Sam stopped talking. “Here,” he said, and thrust an envelope into her hands. There was no number in the corner of this one and Cassie found her stomach lurch. Had she gone wrong somewhere? “He told me to give this to you first.”
Cassie felt both Greg’s and Sam’s eyes on her as she opened it.
Whoop! You made it this far!
There was a doodle of a lighthouse in the middle of the page, a speech bubble coming out of the top of the lighthouse, with the words Welcome, Chipmunk inside.
I wondered if you’d do it…Just kidding (sort of). So, now you’re here, I’m setting you one more task…Oh, the power. Here it is: stay the night. Yes, that’s right, I can practically hear you scowling from here. But be a good little sister—stay the night, and you’ll get the next clue in the morning. I know you won’t want to. I know it’ll freak you out, staying somewhere unplanned, far away from home, on your own—but if you do it then it will prove you can do something spontaneous like this, and the world will not come crashing down around you.
Good luck! (Try and have fun?)
Cassie gripped the note tighter. She could hear his voice, playful, teasing. It gave her those same conflicting feelings she always had, each time she opened the next clue. The pressure on her chest, her heart, as she thought of her brother, and the fact that she’d lost him. And that spark, the flutter almost, as she read words that connected her to him. Words that made her feel his presence lingering around her.
She read the note one more time, then looked up at Greg and blinked. “He wanted me to stay overnight?”
“Yes, that’s what he told me.”
“But I can’t,” she said flatly. “I’ve got work tomorrow.” As she said it, she realized how stupid this all was, how reckless. She should never have just taken off with Sam—the seven-hour trip down here had been exhausting, and now she had to do it all back again, and Greg wasn’t even going to give her the damned clue. She should have planned this more properly, and then she’d have been prepared. She took a breath, tried to stay calm. “And you’re clearly not in a position to put us up in any case.” She gestured around the room, but he shrugged.
“I’ve got a place in town, like I said. It’s no bother. Besides, if it’s what Tom wanted, I’ll make it happen.”
“But…” Cassie stared at him helplessly. “I’ve got work,” she repeated. “I can’t stay in the middle of nowhere without planning, without telling people, without—” She looked at Sam, sitting next to her. “Why are you grinning?” she demanded.
His grin just got bigger. “Because you’re cute when you’re flustered.” She narrowed her eyes at him and he held up his hands. But he didn’t push. He wasn’t going to make her do it, she realized. The decision had to be hers. He’d let her turn around and leave, without the clue, if she wanted to. She looked to the window, to where the ocean was waiting. If it’s what Tom wanted.
This was probably exactly the reaction he’d have expected from her, too—to freak out, refuse to do it. But he must’ve thought she would go through with it, because otherwise she’d never get to the gift at the end.
Sam took her hand, squeezed it. She looked down to where their fingers laced, so easily, together. “He’s trying to show you something, I think,” he said. “Why don’t you let him?”
