The breaker panel was open. Three switches flipped to off. The electrical tape he’d put on the panel door as a tamper tell was torn clean through.
He flipped them back. The lights came on. Five minutes. That was all it had taken.
He walked back to the pavilion knowing what he was going to find.
The display case was open. The velvet cradles were empty. Every single one.
The crowd was pressing forward, phones out, voices overlapping. Elaine crossed the floor with a face like cut stone. Lila stood motionless beside the open case, staring at the empty cradles.
But Evan wasn’t looking at the case or the crowd or Elaine.
He was looking at Margot.
She stood at the edge of the pavilion with her phone flashlight still on, aimed at the empty case, her face white. The look of someone watching the thing they’d built collapse in real time, the same look he’d seen on his own face in the bathroom mirror the morning after the boat parade.
Elaine reached her first. “What happened to the collection?” Her voice was low and controlled, but every person within ten feet could hear it.
“Someone tripped the breaker.” Margot’s voice was steady. Her hands were not. “The keycard system lost power and the lock defaulted to open.”
“You told me the case was secure.”
Evan watched Margot take the hit. Watched her chin stay up and her shoulders stay square and her voice stay level while the ground was falling out from under her. He’d seen people break under less. He’d broken under less.
“I trusted you with my work.” Lila’s voice was flat. Airless.
Margot didn’t flinch. But Evan saw her fingers tighten around the pen that he hadn’t noticed earlier, and he recognized the gesture. The one where you hold on to the thing in your hands because everything else is falling.
He crossed the pavilion. Didn’t think about it. Just moved.
He stopped beside her. Not touching. Just there. The same way he’d stood on the boardwalk. His thumb worked the worn brass edge of the compass in his pocket. Giving her something solid to stand next to.
“The breaker panel was forced.” He said it loud enough for Elaine to hear. “Padlock ripped out of the wall. This was deliberate. Someone planned it.”
Elaine’s gaze shifted to him. “Who are you?”
“Evan Cole. Marina maintenance. I did the security walk-through yesterday with Ms. Pine.” He kept his voice even. “She flagged the power vulnerability. I installed the padlock myself. Whoever did this came prepared.”
Margot looked at him. The look of someone who hadn’t expected to be believed.
“Call the police,” Elaine said. “My office in twenty minutes. Both of you.”
Elaine walked away. Lila walked away. The crowd pressed and murmured. Pete appeared, out of breath, radio crackling.
Margot stood still. Her pen was trembling in her hand.
“This isn’t your fault,” Evan said quietly.
She shook her head. “It is. You told me about the power, and I didn’t fix it fast enough.”
“You padlocked the closet. You scheduled the walk-through. You did the work.” He paused. “Somebody else did this.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Her eyes were bright and her jaw was tight and she was holding herself together the way she always did, by force of will and the clipboard in her hands. “Will you come to Elaine’s office with me?”
It was the first time she’d asked him for anything.
“Of course. She asked for both of us.”
They walked across the pavilion together. Not touching. But close enough that their shoulders almost brushed, and neither one of them moved away. The crowd parted around them without being asked, the way crowds do when two people are moving with purpose.
