Ray Guidry stood at the end of Dock Two with a thermos and a tackle box, silhouetted against the first gray light of dawn.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Heard about the ornaments.” Ray poured coffee into a metal cup and offered it. “Whole town’s buzzing. Half the businesses in Harbor’s Hope depend on that resort.”
Evan took the cup. Black and strong enough to strip varnish.
“You’re about to do something stupid,” Ray said.
“Define stupid.”
“Getting involved.” Ray’s voice was careful now. “You’ve got that look. Same one you had the night of the parade.”
Evan drank the coffee and didn’t answer.
“Is this about the ornaments?” Ray asked. “Or is this about the event planner?”
The question hung between them.
“It’s about both.”
“At least you’re honest.” Ray took a sip from his thermos. “She seems like good people. The way she handled that showcase, the setup, the vendors, all of it. Reminds me of someone.”
Evan didn’t take the bait.
“I’m talking about Lauren, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t wondering.”
“Liar.” Ray studied him over the rim of his thermos. Then he nodded. “Just be careful. Last time you jumped into something at this resort, it cost you everything.”
“I remember.”
“Do you?” Ray’s voice was gentle. “Because the way I see it, you’ve been tied up at the dock for five years, and now you’re pulling anchor. That’s either the best thing that’s happened to you since Lauren, or it’s the thing that’s going to finish the job.”
Evan looked out at the harbor. The first light was turning the water from black to gray to pale gold. Somewhere on the far side of the channel, a pelican dove and came up empty.
“Maybe it’s both,” he said.
Ray almost smiled. “Now that sounds like something Lauren would have said.”
He walked the waterline at first light. The beach below the pavilion was littered with the usual debris from a resort event. Cocktail napkins, a plastic cup, a string of fairy lights blown off the terrace. The tide was going out, pulling the sand smooth in long, wet strokes.
He almost missed it. Would have, if the sun hadn’t been at exactly the right angle, low and sharp off the water.
Twenty yards south of the dock. A shard of glass at the tide line. Small, no bigger than a thumbnail. Curved, with a surface that threw back a ripple of iridescent blue. The edge was sharp, freshly broken, not tumbled smooth by the surf.
He knew that glass. He’d seen it glowing in the display case under Caleb’s carefully angled LEDs. A piece of one of Lila Sloane’s ornaments, chipped or broken during the theft and dropped here at the waterline, where someone had carried the collection toward the water.
Toward a boat.
He crouched and studied the sand. Footprints, softened by the tide into vague impressions. A drag mark where something heavy had been pulled. And at the edge of the water, two shallow grooves, parallel, about eighteen inches apart.
The width of a small boat’s keel.
He picked up the shard carefully and looked out at the harbor. The guest slip where the Robalo had been moored was empty. The boat was gone.
But whoever had taken it knew this marina. They knew the tides, the dock layout, and the fastest route from the pavilion to the waterline. They knew things only someone who’d spent time here would know.
