Chapter 22
MEGHAN
W hen we stepped back into the dining room, the warmth and candlelight felt almost foreign.
Like we’d walked into a photograph of the evening, but I couldn’t quite convince myself I belonged in it.
My heart was still thudding from the note, from the way Caleb’s jaw had gone hard enough to cut glass when he saw it.
Dean was mid-story when we returned, his voice rumbling over the clink of silverware and the soft murmur of other tables. Trish was laughing—really laughing, head tilted back—at something about a boat trip gone wrong.
But when his eyes found mine, Dean stopped mid-sentence. It was like a switch flipped. The warmth in his expression cooled, sharpening into the look I’d seen my whole life when he knew something was off.
“You okay, Meggie?” he asked, voice low but direct.
I gave the easy answer, the one I’d practiced a hundred times in kitchens and dining rooms. “Fine. Just work stuff.”
His brow arched. “During dinner?”
Trish glanced between us, her smile fading into quiet concern. Caleb pulled out my chair for me like nothing was wrong, but I could feel the way his body was angled—between me and the rest of the room, protective without looking like it.
Dean leaned forward, elbows braced on the table. “What kind of work stuff takes you both away from the table in the middle of dessert?”
“Dean—” I started, but his gaze pinned me.
“You’ve got that look, Meggie. The same one I’ve seen on your face many times over the years. So, go ahead. What’s going on?”
I set my spoon down, fingers tight around the handle before I let it go. If it were anyone else, I could dodge. But this was Dean. He’d been reading me since I was six years old and sullen in a black apron.
Caleb’s hand brushed my knee under the table, steady and silent.
I exhaled slowly. “It’s not work exactly. It’s … something else.”
Dean didn’t blink. “Define something else.”
I glanced at Caleb, then back at my uncle. “I’ve been getting notes. Anonymous ones. Short, weird. First one showed up at the restaurant last week. At first, I thought it was some critic thing. Pretentious but harmless. But now …”
Trish’s brow furrowed. “How many?”
“Three,” I said. “Counting tonight.”
Dean’s gaze darkened. “And you didn’t think to mention this?”
I bristled. “I told Finn. And Caleb.”
His eyes cut to Caleb, hard. “So, you tell him but not me?”
“It wasn’t—” I stopped, choosing my words carefully. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of something that might’ve been nothing. And I thought I was imagining things at first.”
Trish reached for my hand. “What happened?”
The image flashed in my head—streetlights pooling on empty pavement, the salt in the air from the harbor, the faint smell of fried shrimp drifting from somewhere down the block. And the man.
“I was leaving here late. It was quiet, the street was empty. But I saw someone—” My voice thinned a little. “A man. Standing near the benches out front by the harbor. Just … watching.”
Dean’s knuckles tightened around his wine glass. “Did he approach you?”
“No. But it didn’t feel right. This morning, Caleb started installing cameras.”
Dean’s gaze swung to him. “Cameras.”
Caleb didn’t flinch. “Perimeter coverage. Multiple angles outside, motion alerts tied to my phone. Anything moves, I know about it.”
Dean’s tone went cold. “And what are you, exactly? A chef whisperer who moonlights as private security?”
“Dean—” I warned.
“No,” Caleb said, his voice level but firm. “I’m not a chef whisperer. And I’m not moonlighting. Security and logistics are my work. I’m good at it.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’re telling me my niece is mixed up with someone whose line of work puts him in contact with people who leave anonymous notes and lurk by harbors?”
“I’m telling you,” Caleb said, leaning forward slightly, “that your niece was already dealing with this before I came into the picture. The only thing I’ve done is make sure she’s not dealing with it alone.”
The tension at the table was a live wire, humming under the clink of silverware from the other diners.
Dean’s jaw worked. “That’s noble. But forgive me if I’m not thrilled about the idea of her being connected to anyone who might bring trouble by association.”
My chest tightened. “Dean, this isn’t about Caleb bringing trouble. It’s about him trying to keep me out of it.”
“And how do you know the difference?” he shot back.
The sting of it landed harder than I wanted to admit. But Caleb didn’t react the way I expected—no sharp retort, no puffed-up defense.
“Because I want the same thing you do,” he said quietly. “For her to be safe. Period.”
Something shifted then—small, but I felt it. Dean held his gaze for a long beat, and it wasn’t the icy appraisal from earlier. It was something more measured. Calculating.
Trish’s hand rested lightly on Dean’s arm. “He’s not wrong,” she said. “The way I see it, we’re all on the same side here.”
Dean’s mouth pulled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Maybe.”
I let out a breath.
The server arrived to clear the dessert plates, sensing none of the tension or maybe wisely ignoring it. Dean leaned back in his chair, the set of his shoulders looser than before.
“You’ve got eyes on those cameras now?” he asked Caleb.
“Always,” Caleb said.
Dean nodded once. “Good. Then maybe I’ll sleep tonight.”
It wasn’t a surrender, but it wasn’t a fight either.
Dean didn’t pick up his glass again. He studied Caleb like he was a schematic he could take apart with a thumbnail.
“I’ll ask again. What do you really do,” he said, voice even, “when it isn’t cameras and motion alerts? Plain English.”
Caleb didn’t blink. “Military.”
Dean’s brows lifted a fraction. Respect slipped in, but it didn’t soften him. “Active?”
“Yes and no.”
Dean cocked his head to one side, puzzled, but continued. “What branch?”
“I’d rather not say.”
Dean exhaled through his nose, slow. “Okay.” The word landed like a truce marker on the tablecloth. He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. That tiny recalibration in his posture said enough: I know what that costs . “Then you understand why I’m skeptical.”
“I do,” Caleb said. “And I want the same thing you do—her safe, her world undisturbed.”
Dean tapped the table once, then again, a metronome of worry. “What’s the plan? Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. Because if there’s a plan, I can live with it. If there isn’t?—”
“There was a plan,” Caleb said, cutting himself off with a tight shake of the head. “But since we just found another note while we were all sitting here, the plan needs to change.” His jaw bunched.
Trish went still. “Another one? Just now?”
I nodded. “Hostess stand. Same stock. Same penmanship. Like he wanted to be polite about ruining my night.”
Dean’s eyes cut to the front like he could rewind time by staring hard enough. “How are they getting in if you’ve got eyes everywhere?”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Caleb said, low. “No motion alerts. No recorded entry on any angle. Either we’ve got a blind spot I haven’t identified yet, or someone with access is planting them when nobody’s looking.”
“Staff,” Dean said immediately.
The word stung. “My team wouldn’t?—”
“Your team is human,” he said, not unkind. “Humans make mistakes. Humans have friends. People ask for favors. People owe favors. Or,” he added, “someone’s walking in with a key.”
I hated that my stomach flipped. “We track keys. Only managers and me.”
Caleb’s gaze moved through the room—door, windows, the corridor to my office. “What about deliveries? Linen service, produce. Do they pull the door open with a shoulder while they sign and someone slips past? Side gate? Trash run with a wedge in the jamb?”
Finn appeared like I’d summoned him, wiping his hands on a bar towel he’d somehow already dirtied again. “Trash door’s spring-hinged,” he said. “No wedge. Short swing and a mean slam. And I watched linens this afternoon—guy didn’t sneeze without me noticing.”
Dean’s mouth twitched. “That a professional courtesy or a kink?”
“Only on Tuesdays,” Finn shot back, then sobered when he clocked our faces. “What happened?”
“Another note,” I said.
He didn’t swear. He didn’t breathe for a beat.
Then he nodded once, business sliding over him like a coat.
“Okay. So, we start with the obvious. Who had eyes on the hostess stand in the last thirty minutes? Me, Alba, and Michael. Carly did a water run. Michael dropped the check on two. I grabbed a bottle from the back. You were here the whole time.” He looked at Caleb. “You?”
“In the room,” Caleb said. “I would’ve seen an unknown get close.”
“Unless they didn’t read as unknown,” Dean said. “Guest who wandered. ‘Just looking,’ hand on the card stock.”
“It’s possible,” Finn admitted. “Dining room’s not Fort Knox. People drift.”
My tongue felt thick. “I don’t want Fort Knox. I want a restaurant.”
“Then we make people the fortress,” Caleb said. “Eyes. Habits. Traps we can set without anyone noticing.”
Trish interlaced her fingers like she was knitting calm out of thin air. “Start at the beginning. Who would want to spook you, sweetheart? Competitor? Jilted someone? A critic with a sense of humor and no taste?”
“If it were a critic, they’d have sent the nastiest adjective in the English language already,” I said. “Pretentious. They live for it.”
Finn snorted. “Or ‘derivative.’ I’ll throw myself into the harbor if I ever hear that in here.”
Dean’s tone was blunt. “Enemies, Meggie. Say it out loud.”