I wait.
Her voice softens just slightly. “Be careful with Lark.”
The warning catches me wrong. “From me?”
“No,” Hadley says. “From thinking you don’t deserve the good thing when it shows up.”
The screen door bangs shut behind her before I can answer. Long after Mom knocks once and opens the door a minute later with a bowl of cut fruit because apparently she and Hadley formed a tag team overnight, and I’m the unsuspecting victim.
She stands in my kitchen, taking in my face with one calm sweep, and says, “You’re going to forget oranges exist if I let you.”
I take the bowl because it’s easier than fighting.
Mom sets an envelope beside it. “And this was slipped under your front door mat.”
I look down. No return address. Just my name. Everything in me stills. Mom sees that too. Her brows draw together, but she doesn’t touch it. Doesn’t ask first. Just waits.
I slide one finger under the flap and open it carefully. Inside is a single photograph of the back side of my house, taken from the tree line, dated yesterday.
No note.
No message.
No threat.
Nothing except proof that someone has been close enough to watch.
Mom’s silence sharpens into something protective and dangerous. “Holt.”
I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. Because this is no longer weird. This is a line crossed so far past normal I don’t even know where to start counting it back. And the first thing I think of is not myself. Not the house. Not the family land.
It’s Lark.
If Kenzie has been watching the property, then she has watched Lark here too. Watched her step out of my truck. Watched her come and go from my house. Watched enough to build her own ugly version of the story. Unless it’s not Kenzie and it’s someone closer to Lark—Nolan.
“I need to go,” I say.
Mom doesn’t argue, not once.
She just nods and says, “Then go.”
I call Mac on the drive, explain as much as I can without driving into a ditch, and he gives me exactly what I expect: a curse, a warning not to touch anything else if more turns up, and the promise that he’s notifying the deputy and the marshal before I even finish the sentence.
Then I call Lark. She answers on the second ring, voice tight from effort or work or both. “Hey.”
I skip hello entirely. “I’m coming to the inn.”
The line goes quiet.
“What happened?”
“Not over the phone.”
She sighs. “Holt.”
I grip the wheel tighter. “Just wait for me.”
The inn is damp with heat and sunlight by the time I get there, every open window pulling in the smell of the sea and wet wood and renovation dust. Nolan’s truck is in the drive. So is Lark’s. Bailey’s SUV too, which means Hadley wasn’t subtle after all, and Bailey is almost definitely playing backup under the excuse of a coffee drop or bookstore errand or something equally transparent.
