Read The Light Keeper's Legacy (A Chloe Ellefson Mystery) for Free Online

jumble of emotions she usually sensed in old buildings.
    Since childhood, Chloe had occasionally perceived the resonance of strong emotions in old places. She never discussed those incidents, and she’d pretty much learned to live with them. Every once in a while an impression became so overwhelming that she couldn’t bear to be in a building—a potential liability for a curator—but usually the impressions faded into the background like chatter in a coffeehouse … as they did here in Pottawatomie Lighthouse.
    “Thank goodness for that,” she muttered. She wanted a peaceful week on Rock Island. A chance to work on a project that had nothing to do with Ralph Petty. A chance to discover how she felt about the possibility of a romantic relationship with Roelke Mc-Kenna. A chance to collect her thoughts and consider what the heck she truly wanted to do with her life.
    She had only five days to accomplish all that, so … time to focus. First up: meeting the RISC committee. She wanted to be ready.
    The kitchen held a round table and four chairs. Someone had piled files and notebooks and reference books on the built-in sink’s drainboard. Chloe smiled, grabbed some of the files, and settled down at the table. This was the good stuff.
    Sometime later, when the sound of raised voices drifted through the summer kitchen’s screened door, Chloe got up to greet her guests. No one was in sight, which meant that somebody was talking way too loudly. No tours for you unless you pipe down, she silently told the offenders.
    Assuming, of course, that the noisemakers were not the RISC committee. RISC members who had invested years of their life into Pottawatomie Lighthouse, raising money and volunteering time and overseeing the restoration, would quite understandably not appreciate any whiff of possessiveness or censure from her.
    Three people emerged from the trees. One of the two women walked briskly ahead, hands in the pockets of her jacket, looking down. The man was speaking in strident tones and gesticulating wildly. The second woman walked with arms crossed across her chest—awkward to do, Chloe mused. She must be pretty annoyed.
    Chloe stepped outside, letting the screen door bang behind her. “Hello!” she called, with her biggest, brightest, most professional smile.
    The woman leading the trio looked up. “Chloe?”
    Lovely. This was the RISC committee, apparently in high dudgeon before they even sat down with her. “That’s me.”
    “I’m Lorna Whitby,” she said, clasping Chloe’s outstretched hand in both of her own. Lorna was forty-something. Her expensive pink blouse didn’t hide the rigid set of her shoulders. “We’re glad you’re here,” she added. “It’s exciting to see the lighthouse project reach this stage.”
    “I’m delighted to be here,” Chloe said honestly.
    Lorna turned to her companions. “This is my husband, Herb, and Sylvie Torgrimsson.”
    Herb still looked miffed, but he made an effort. “Welcome to Pottawatomie Lighthouse, Chloe.” He was a soft-looking man wearing a plaid sports jacket and button-down shirt—way too formal for the setting. His gaze was direct and assessing.
    The third member of the RISC welcoming committee was perhaps ten or fifteen years older than the Whitbys. She’d captured long gray hair in two careless braids. Her skin was weathered as a piece of driftwood, and she was lean and lithe. “We expect a lot from you,” she warned Chloe, but she tempered her words with a genuine smile.
    “It’s an honor to be involved,” Chloe assured her. “The lighthouse is spectacular.”
    “Many of the old lighthouses around the Great Lakes are past salvation,” Lorna told her. “But the DNR stabilized Pottawatomie years ago. It was a safety issue.”
    “The state doesn’t have money to pay for internal restoration work, or for guides,” Sylvie said. “So that’s where RISC comes in. We have big plans.”
    “Which need to be undertaken one step at a time,”