The word together sat in the gold-lit room between them, warm and unfinished, a sentence still looking for its period.
“It’s going to be a good night,” she said.
He looked around the room. Then back at her. “It already is.”
But the compass rode in his pocket, and underneath everything, low and persistent as a far-off weather system, the wrongness was still there. Caleb sat in a holding cell. The fireworks were certified. The gala was ready, and the room was glowing, and the woman beside him was smiling at a tree they’d lit together.
And something, somewhere, was still moving in the dark.
Chapter forty-one
A Napkin and A Plan
Margotwasinthekitchen when Harker’s call came at six thirty. She answered and put it on speaker. Evan was leaning against the counter across from her. There was no way he didn’t want to hear this.
“Caleb’s not talking. Lawyered up before I finished the paperwork.” Harker’s voice was flat and tired, a man running on gas station coffee and stubbornness. “But his phone records came back. Seventeen calls to a burner number over the past five days. And we found keys in his van. A boat slip in Manteo. Slip 47.”
“The ornaments,” Margot said.
“That’s my bet. I’m sending a team.” A pause. “Here’s the problem, Ms. Pine. The marina office logged activity at that slip this afternoon. Caleb’s been in my holding cell since two o’clock.”
The kitchen went very quiet. The walk-in compressor hummed. Somewhere down the corridor, a tray of glasses rang faintly against a cart.
“Someone else moved the ornaments there,” Harker said. “There’s an accomplice.”
The word sat in the kitchen like a third person at the table.
She gripped the counter edge. An accomplice. Someone was still at the resort. Someone she’d been smiling at, scheduling around, trusting with vendor logistics, had been working with Caleb the whole time.
The old David feeling started up her throat, the one that whispered you trusted the wrong person again. She pushed it back down. This wasn’t David. This was a puzzle, and puzzles had solutions. And she was standing in a kitchen with a man who solved things for a living.
Evan had straightened off the counter. His expression had gone sharp the moment Harker said accomplice, all the ballroom warmth packed away in a single second. “Who is it?”
“If I had that, I wouldn’t be calling you.” Through the phone, papers shuffled. “Look. Two weeks ago, I’d have told you both to stay home and lock your doors. I’m not going to waste my breath. So, I’ll say this instead. Watch your backs tonight.”
It was the closest thing to respect Harker had ever handed them. She ended the call and looked across the counter at Evan. “The gala. If there’s an accomplice, they’re still here, and they don’t know we know. The gala is the last event before everyone packs up and scatters. If they’re going to move, they move tonight.”
“You want to use the gala.”
“I want to use it as a stage. Which is what I’ve been doing all week anyway.” She pulled a cocktail napkin off a stack and clicked her pen. “Except this time, we write the ending.”
He studied her across the counter. “How many exits does this building have?”
“Seven. I counted on my first day.”
The corner of his mouth moved. “Of course you did.”
Her team showed up at six forty-five. Five people around a stainless-steel counter in a kitchen that smelled like buttercream and dish steam.
Margot. Evan. Jolene. Ray. Tessa.
A dock worker, a housekeeper, a ship’s captain, an influencer, and an event planner who’d been suspended and reactivated inside the same week. If a better team existed anywhere on the Outer Banks, Margot hadn’t met it.
“Caleb is in custody,” she said. “The ornaments are in a boat slip in Manteo. Harker’s sending a team for them. But someone moved them to that slip this afternoon, while Caleb was already in a cell. Someone who’s still at this resort.”
“Who?” Tessa sat on the counter with both phones holstered on her hip like sidearms.
“We don’t know. That’s the problem, but that’s also the plan.” Margot spread the napkin flat on the steel.
