Slip Fourteen
Chapter six
The guest log didn’t match.
Evan stood in the marina office with the binder open on the counter. The office was small and warm, barely big enough for the counter and the filing cabinet, and the ancient radio that crackled with weather reports every hour. It smelled like sunscreen and old paper.
The marina was his territory. He knew every boat, every slip, every tide pattern between the channel markers and the open water. When something was off, it rubbed at the back of his mind the way a bad bearing announces itself to a mechanic.
And something was off.
Every guest slip had a name, a registration number, and a check-in date. Every single one except Slip Fourteen.
Slip Fourteen was blank.
He’d noticed the center console three days ago. No registration number, no name, no home port. The driver had tied off with a knot he didn’t recognize and walked toward the resort without looking back. Ray had mentioned it, too.
Now the boat was still there, and nobody had signed in.
He closed the binder and stepped outside. The morning was already warm.
Evan walked down to Slip Fourteen and crouched at the edge of the dock.
The boat was a twenty-foot Robalo. Clean hull, no barnacles, which meant it hadn’t been in salt water long.
The scrape along the starboard gunwale was fresh, gel coat still white underneath.
Inside the console, a coil of heavy-gauge cable sat on the passenger seat next to a portable battery pack. Not fishing gear. Not diving equipment.
The duffel bag from a couple of days ago was gone, but whoever owned this boat had left the cable and battery pack behind, pushed under the console.
The knot on the cleat was wrong. Not sloppy. Unfamiliar. He’d been tying boats to docks since he was twelve, and he knew every standard hitch used on the Carolina coast. This one looked like something from a different ocean.
He straightened up and looked toward the resort. The terrace was busy with expo setup. Caleb directing a crew. Vendors hauling boxes.
And the event planner. Margot. Standing at the edge of the pavilion with her clipboard, talking to the glass artist who looked like she was about to fire someone.
Margot’s posture was different from yesterday.
Chin higher. Shoulders set. Whatever had happened in that meeting, she’d come out swinging.
He watched her for a second longer than was useful.
How she stood with her weight forward. The way she held her pen between two fingers, clicking it without looking, a nervous habit she probably didn’t know she had.
The way the morning light caught the curve of her jaw when she turned to point at something.
He caught himself cataloging details. That was new. He hadn’t cataloged details about anyone in a very long time.
He put the compass back in his pocket and went to find the front desk manager.
Patty Oakes had been at the front desk for nine years and had the memory that made computers feel inadequate.
“Slip Fourteen?” She frowned at her screen. “No reservation. Could be a walk-in that didn’t check in properly. Happens during event weeks.”
“This person didn’t look like a tourist.”
“What did they look like?”
“Like someone who didn’t want to be remembered.”
Patty raised an eyebrow. “That’s a little dramatic, Evan.”
“Maybe. Can you check if any guest in the last two days matches a boat arrival?”
“Give me an hour. I’ve got early check-ins at ten.”
“Appreciate it.”
“You want me to call security?”
An unregistered boat the same week a hundred and seventy thousand dollars in glass was arriving. Could be coincidence. Could be something else. “You hear about the ornament collection?”
“Everybody’s heard about it. Elaine sent a memo.” Patty made air quotes. “‘Highest-value exhibition in resort history.’ Why?”
“Just thinking.”
“You think the boat is connected?”
“I think the timing is interesting. Don’t call security yet. Let me see what you find first.”
Patty gave him a look that said she thought he was overthinking it. He probably was.
The boardwalk was busy now. Vendors hauling carts, a photographer scouting angles near the pavilion, the faint hum of a generator being tested somewhere behind the stage.
He was walking back toward the dock when he saw her standing at the boardwalk railing.
Margot. Phone pressed to her ear, shoulders tight. The wind was pulling strands of hair across her face, but she didn’t push them away. She wasn’t talking. Just listening. Her free hand was curled into a fist against her thigh.
Then she pulled the phone away, stared at the screen, and shoved it into her back pocket. She gripped the railing with both hands and stood there, face tilted toward the water.
He knew that posture. The one where you’re holding yourself together by holding on to something solid.
He almost kept on walking.
Instead, he stopped ten feet away and leaned against the railing, facing the marina. Gave her space without leaving her alone. The boardwalk creaked under his weight, and she shifted, just enough to notice him. He expected her to look annoyed, or guarded, or polite. She simply looked tired.
“Wind’s shifting.” He checked the cleats. “Coming out of the northeast. Might get some chop in the harbor by this afternoon.”
Whatever she’d just heard on that phone was still sitting close to the surface, but her voice came out steady. “Is that going to affect the expo setup on the pier?”
“Nothing that can’t be tied down.”
She almost smiled. “That’s my philosophy on most things.”
“Seems to be working.”
She looked at him like she was deciding whether that was a compliment or a diagnosis. The wind caught her hair again, and this time she pushed it back. Her fingers still trembled. He noticed. He wished he hadn’t.
“You’ve got an unregistered boat in Slip Fourteen.” He didn’t look up from the cleats. Talking about boats was safer than whatever else was happening. “No name, no numbers. Came in through the south channel three days ago. Might want to mention it to your security team.”
The almost-smile disappeared. “How unregistered?”
“Completely.”
She pulled out her clipboard and wrote something down. Fast, hard strokes. He could hear the pen from six feet away.
“Thank you for telling me.”
She looked up from the clipboard. Her eyes were dark brown, which he hadn’t noticed before, or maybe he had and hadn’t let himself register it. She held his gaze, direct and unguarded for just a moment, before the professional mask clicked back into place.
He nodded and pushed off the railing. Halfway down the boardwalk, he realized he’d told her about the boat before he’d told security. He’d come to the boardwalk to cut through to the dock, and instead he’d stopped because she looked like she needed someone to stand next to.
He wasn’t sure what to do with that. He hadn’t stood next to anyone in five years.
The compass pressed against his thigh with every step, heavy and familiar. For years it had been nothing more than weight. Now it pointed somewhere.