Page 7 of Presumed Dead

“It is not a ghost slip.”

“Honey, it has had a dead man’s boat in it for a year. It is the dictionary definition of a ghost slip.”

“Don is not haunting the boat, Margo.”

“I never said Don was haunting the boat. Don was a sweetheart. Don is, if anything, hovering tastefully a few feet off the boat with a glass of bourbon and his opinions about my husband, which I am sure are sound, and which I would like to hear if there were a way.”

“Margo.”

“What?”

“Drink your coffee.”

Margo drank her coffee. She let the silence run a beat longer than she usually let silences run, which meant a question was coming. Sloane had been on the receiving end of Margo’s questions for thirty years. She knew the rhythm.

“The new tenant,” Margo said.

“Coming today.”

“Today today?”

“Sometime today. He's driving from Jacksonville. I don’t know when.”

“What’s his name again?”

“Ethan Vale.”

Margo let that sit. Margo could let a name sit longer than most people could let a name sit. She was looking at the rock holding the front door open, and not at Sloane, which was Margo’s way of being kind about a thing she was about to ask.

“Sloane.”

“Mm.”

“You ran the lease.”

“I ran the lease.”

“Clean?”

“Clean.”

“License good?”

“License is good.”

“Money cleared?”

“Yesterday afternoon. One o’clock.”

“All right.” Margo took a sip. “Then I have only one more question, and you’re not going to like it.”

“Don’t ask it, then.”

“I’m going to ask it.”

“Then ask it.”

Margo turned and looked at her. Margo had crisp blue eyes that did most of her work for her, which was a thing Margo had figured out at a young age and refined ever since. Right now the eyes were doing the kind of work eyes did when a friend was about to be honest.