A Fresh Scrape
Chapter twenty-two
Evan was heading to the shed for his morning routine when the harbor told him something was wrong.
Coffee, bilge check, weather radio. That was the order, every morning, the way it had been for years. The sun was barely up, the water flat and gray, the air carrying the metallic trace of a storm building somewhere offshore.
Ray’s tackle box sat on Dock One.
That was the first thing. Ray never left his tackle box out. The charter captain would sooner leave his own boots on the dock than that box, which meant he was close by, and early, and that wasn’t like him either.
The second thing was the marina gate. It stood open. At six in the morning, with the storm pushing in, that gate should have been latched and coded shut.
Then Ray’s shout.
“Evan! Over here!”
Ray was crouched beside the gate. Cass sat on the ground beside him, a towel pressed to the side of her head, pale and shaking.
Evan crossed the dock fast and knelt, pulling the first aid kit from the shed. The cut was above her left ear. Two inches long, bleeding freely, but not deep. “What happened?”
“I was walking to the beach. Early. Couldn’t sleep.” Cass’s voice was thin, and she kept stopping. “I heard the gate. The little beep it makes. I figured it was you, or Ray. I didn’t even turn around.”
“Take your time.”
“Then something hit me. From behind. Hard.” Her hand drifted toward the towel and stopped. “I went down. I think I heard footsteps, but they were going away, not coming closer. When I looked up, nobody was there. Just the gate, open.”
“You heard the keypad beep before you were hit.”
She nodded, then winced at the motion. “Whoever it was, they were already inside the gate. Behind me.”
Evan looked at Ray.
Ray’s face was gray under the brim of his cap, shaking his head.
“Gate was open when I got here. She was on the ground. I called your name before I even saw the blood.” His hands were working at nothing, the way they did when there was no line to coil and he wished there were.
“Forty years on this water, Evan. I never had to do that.”
“You did it right, Ray.”
Evan pulled out his phone and called Margot. She arrived four minutes later, in a casual top and pants, her hair pulled back fast and uneven.
She knelt beside Cass and put a hand on her shoulder, the same calm, competent presence she’d brought to Derek in the breakroom. “You’re okay. Help is coming. You don’t have to talk anymore. Just breathe with me.”
Cass breathed with her.
Evan watched her work, and two things hit him at once. Admiration for the way she steadied people in the worst minute of their day. And fear, cold and specific, because Cass had talked to them about Caleb, and now Cass was bleeding on his dock.
If whoever did this knew Cass had talked, they might know Margot was asking questions. The thought settled into his chest and stayed there.
The paramedics came. They checked Cass, asked her name and the date and where she was, and recommended the hospital.
Cass started to argue. Then Lila arrived in her bathrobe, took one look, and overruled her with authority.
Cass let them load her up. The ambulance pulled away without its siren, which somehow made it worse.
Detective Jeff Harker arrived. Evan had called him two days ago about the theft and gotten a callback that went nowhere. Now he walked the scene and made his assessment in about thirty seconds.
“Path’s unlit at that hour. She could have tripped. Hit her head on the railing.”
“But she said she was hit from behind,” Margot said.
“People who fall often think they were hit.” Harker closed his notepad. “I’ll file a report.”
He left. Margot watched the cruiser pull away, scowling. Evan took it all in, flexing his hands. Not what he had expected.
After Harker was gone, he walked her to the spot where Ray had found Cass.
The path was narrow, paved with old asphalt. The marina gate had a keypad. Four-digit code. Staff and vendors got different codes.
He crouched and examined the pavement. Flat. No raised edges, no loose stones. If Cass tripped, she tripped on nothing.
Then he looked at the dock railing. A fresh scrape on the metal, bright and clean against the weathered paint. “That’s new. I repainted this section last week.”
“Somebody hit her.” Margot’s voice was firm.
“I agree. Somebody hit her.” He stood. “And the gate was open, which means somebody used a code to get in before she got here.”
She looked down the path toward the service building. The building where the breaker panel was. The building where Caleb’s stolen keycard had swiped in one minute before the blackout. “Cass talked to us. About Caleb. About the keycard. About the sparkling water.”
“And now Cass is in the hospital.”
The implication hung between them. Evan fisted his hands. “We need to be careful.” He meant her, yet he said “we.”
“How? We’ve been discreet.”
“Small resort. Small town. Discreet has a shelf life.”
He looked at her. The morning light was on her face, and she looked tired, and steady anyway. The kitchen the night before came back to him, the way she’d told him about Rita, the way her voice had cracked on scared crying, and he wanted to tell her something he had no right to tell her.
He decided. “We take everything to Harker. All of it. The keycard log, the footage, Mick’s testimony, the shard, the sand. Enough that he can’t file a report and walk away.”
“And if he still won’t act?”
“Then we go to the state police. Or the insurance investigator. Or the local paper.” His voice was steady, but underneath it the fear was running like a current. Not for himself. For her. “Someone is watching, Margot. And I’m not going to let them get close to you.”
The words sat there between them. He hadn’t meant to say that last part. Or maybe he had.
She looked at him for a long moment. The breeze off the harbor moved her hair across her face, and she didn’t push it back.
They stood on the dock in the early light, the investigation pressing in from all sides, and for one breath the fear and the evidence and the missing ornaments all went quiet, and there was just this.
Two people standing close enough to touch, choosing not to, and understanding that the choice itself was a kind of promise.
The breath held a moment longer than either of them expected. Neither moved to break it.
Then Margot’s phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, and something in her face flattened.
“Harker.” She turned the phone so Evan could see it. A text, two lines, no greeting. Following up on the Whitley incident. Can take a statement day after tomorrow, 2 p.m., if you want to come by.
“Day after tomorrow,” Evan said.
“Day after tomorrow.” She slid the phone into her pocket. “A girl gets attacked at dawn, and he can fit us in day after tomorrow.”
Evan looked out at the water, where the tide was already pulling away from the gate. “Then we give him something he can’t put off.”