Page 11 of Fated to the Fang

"What's the notch?"

"Old drain mouth. Cannery storm outfall. Capped years ago, supposedly. Nothing runs through it now. That's the version people like."

I ask for a copy of the photographs and he sends them to me. I return to Harbor House and lay them out. The boat's position drops onto my survey grid like it was placed there—a stone's throw from the cove gate I photographed yesterday, the iron one with the waterline standing a foot too high. I dig out the oldest harbor chart in the other files, and there it is: a storm outfall at the headland, a dotted line running back under the bluff and off the paper. Sealed, the legend says. Decades ago.

A capped drain doesn't fill a cove on a schedule the moon never set. Someone is running water through ground the town swears is closed, and every name on my missing list sits a short walk from a door.

Dorian is on the lane when I come out, and he doesn't pretend he wandered by.

"You went to Greer."

"News travels quick."

"Here it sprints." He falls into step without invitation. "Let the report go."

"You were on that water last night. Wet to the collar at my door an hour after two men died." I stop. "How did you know to go out there?"

"I survey the closures."

"At three in the morning."

"When they're failing, yes."

"The nets. The damage. Two dead from a gearbox." I wait for a look like the one he gave my photographs, and lied anyway. "You already know none of it fits. You knew before I did."

He doesn't deny it. "Come have coffee," he says.

The café is half empty, Nora behind the counter. She sets down my coffee, glances at Dorian, then at me.

"I'm not saying anything," she says.

"That sounded like something."

"It was the restraint talking." She looks at Dorian. "Black coffee?"

He inclines his head.

"Of course." She goes to the urn. "The handsome local who keeps appearing near disasters would drink coffee like a court sentence."

"You're not going to stop, are you?" he asks.

"No."

"Then bring your findings to me before anyone else. I know this coastline. I can be truthful with you about which closures are simply old and which are old for a reason."

"That's not help. That's a filter."

"It's both."

"Why would I route my work through you? You lie to me about walls?"

"Because I'm the only one in this harbor not pretending they aren't there." He turns the cup again. For a moment there's something worn beneath all that control—the kind a person carries from watching the same thing far longer than anyone should—and then he folds it away. "Greer will manage you. The fishermen won't talk. I'll at least argue with you."

"Argue, or steer me."

"Both. You'll know the difference. You notice."

It isn't built to flatter, and I set it down before it can do any work on me. "Here's my offer. You see what I find when I decide you see it, not before. And you give me the real closure list—the one Greer won't read me—dates and codes they're filed under."