The harbor woke around them. A boat engine started somewhere across the marina. Water tapped against the pilings. The mist thinned.
Neither hurried.
For the first time in a very long time, he wasn’t thinking about evidence. Or suspects. Or boats.
He was simply standing in the middle of his dock shed holding a woman he cared about.
When she finally stepped back, his hands remained on her arms for a second longer than necessary. Neither commented on it.
She smiled. “Okay.”
He smiled back. “Okay?”
“If we keep standing here, the ornaments aren’t going to recover themselves.”
That sounded more like the Margot he knew. “Probably not.”
“Show me what you found.”
Now they turned toward the butcher paper wall. The investigation reclaimed the room. At least temporarily.
He walked her through everything. The shell company. The marina gate code. The rental agreement. The handwriting match. The growing timeline.
She studied each addition carefully. She didn’t interrupt. Didn’t speculate. Just absorbed information.
Then she opened her laptop. “I brought something.”
“Please tell me it’s Caleb’s confession.”
“Not exactly.”
“Disappointing.”
She ignored him. “The display case lighting.”
“What about it?”
“Caleb billed the resort twelve thousand dollars.”
Evan frowned. “The lighting was donated.”
“Exactly.”
She turned the screen toward him. “No matching expense. No supplier invoice. No payment record.”
He stared at the numbers. Then looked again. A phantom charge. The piece clicked into place. “The ornaments weren’t his first theft.”
“No.”
She closed the laptop. “He’d already been skimming money.”
That fit the pattern. Debt. Desperation. Escalation.
People rarely woke up one morning and stole a six-figure collection. They practiced first. Usually on smaller things.
“There’s something else,” Evan said. “On the way back from Harker’s office last night, I checked the storage room behind the service corridor.”
“Without me?”
