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My heartbeat pounds against my ribs.
Keating’s expression gives nothing away.
“What do you see?”
A voice speaks through the phone, too low for me to understand.
Keating picks up a pen.
“List each item.”
He begins writing.
“One navigation log. Two sealed envelopes. A maritime survey dated nineteen eighty-eight. An old photograph of the Blackwater lighthouse.”
His pen stops.
“And a small velvet pouch.”
Storm steps closer. “What’s in the pouch?”
Keating repeats the question.
The answer comes through the phone.
He slowly lowers the pen.
“A piece of blue glass.”
Mom shakes her head. “Why would Dad hide a piece of glass?”
Thomas rises so quickly his chair scrapes across the floor.
“What shape is it?”
Keating asks the person on the phone.
“Triangular,” he tells us. “About three inches long. Curved on one side.”
Thomas grips his cane with both hands.
“That isn’t ordinary glass.”
“What is it?” I ask.
His eyes move to the lighthouse symbol.
“It’s part of the missing Fresnel lens.”
Silence fills the room.
Five granddaughters.
Five pieces.
One truth.
My hand closes around Ben’s.
