Page 285 of Hidden Depths

A woman was waiting for him to keep that promise.

We cleared the marina and headed toward open water.

Ward came to stand beside me.

“Storm.”

I kept my eyes on the channel markers.

“Shouldn’t you call Tonya back?”

His silence lasted too long.

“The call was finished.”

“It didn’t sound finished.”

“It was.” I finally looked at him.

Something painful flickered in his eyes.

“Is she angry?”

“No.”

That answer surprised me.

“Then what’s wrong?”

Ward stared toward the horizon.

“I don’t know.”

The words were quiet.

But I understood them.

Something had changed.

He could feel it.

Maybe Tonya could too. Before I could ask anything else, Nathan called from the stern.

“We’ve got company.”

Ward turned.

A boat had emerged from behind the rocky point outside the marina.

White hull.

Dark windows.

Moving fast.

The same fishing boat that had watched us from outside Thomas’s harbor.

Only this time...