“Then three minutes of being seen at the bar,” Margot said. “Establishing presence. Making sure people noticed him.”
She glanced at him. His jaw had set. She understood the anger. Caleb had smiled at both of them. Had brought doughnuts. Had volunteered for everything. And the whole time, he’d been running a countdown in his head.
“Eight forty-seven.” Tessa scrubbed again. Different angle. Caleb moving along the pavilion wall toward the side exit. Faster this time. Purposeful. “Second trip. Five minutes later, the lights went out.”
Tessa scrubbed to 8:57. The pavilion snapped back to fluorescent brightness. Faces blinking. Lila frozen by the empty case. And Caleb at the bar, club soda in hand, expression perfectly calibrated to shocked concern.
“Look at his shoes,” Tessa said.
Margot leaned closer to the screen. The resolution was grainy but visible. Brown leather loafers. And along the edges where the sole met the leather, a pale line.
Sand.
Mick’s observation, confirmed on camera. Sand on a man who’d been inside a pavilion all evening.
Tessa pulled a USB drive from her pocket and set it on the workbench. “Three copies. One for you, one for Harker, one in my hotel safe. I watch enough crime shows to know that evidence disappears.”
Margot picked up the drive. Small, black, lighter than a key. Everything they needed on a piece of plastic.
“Tessa.” Margot looked at the girl with the two million followers and the GoPro that might have just solved a six-figure theft. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Tessa closed her laptop and stood. Then she looked at the two of them, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the butcher paper, coffee cups in hand, and her expression shifted, knowing and warm. “You know, you two are kind of adorable.”
“We’re building a criminal case,” Margot said.
“Adorably,” Tessa tucked her laptop under her arm. “Should I be filming this moment? It feels very cinematic.”
“No,” they said together.
Tessa grinned. “Noted.” She walked out into the morning light, pulling out her phone, narrating to her camera about the ocean breeze.
The shed was quiet. Just the two of them and the coffee and the butcher paper and the flash drive sitting on the workbench like a grenade with the pin still in.
Margot looked at the wall. Every line, every name, every timestamp pointed to the same man.
The man who’d brought doughnuts to the setup crew and made the electricians laugh. The man who’d adjusted LEDs by two degrees because he cared about the difference between good décor and great décor. The man who’d stolen a keycard from a trusting kid and put a girl in the hospital for asking questions.
“This is enough.” She held the drive. “The footage, the keycard, the shard, the sand, Mick’s testimony, Derek’s confirmation. This is enough for Harker.”
“It is.” Evan set his coffee down. “But once we give it to him, it’s out of our hands. Harker moves, Caleb finds out, and everything changes. For us, for Elaine, for the expo.”
“For you. Caleb is connected to Lauren. To the boat parade.”
He looked at her. The morning light came through the shed door and caught the lines around his eyes, the same lines she’d noticed the first day on the boardwalk, when she’d thought they came from squinting at open water.
She knew now they came from something heavier.
He nodded. “No, it’s not just a theft case.”
She reached over and put her hand on his.I’m here.
He turned his hand over. Her palm settled against his. His fingers closed around hers. Warm. Rough. Steady.
“When we sit down with Harker,” she said, “he doesn’t get to file a report this time.”
Evan set down his coffee. “He won’t.”
They stood in the dock shed, holding hands over the workbench, the flash drive between them like a grenade with the pin still in.
