The Second Cup
Chapter thirty-three
Evan was awake long before dawn. Not because of the investigation.
The investigation had finally started making sense. The evidence wall in the dock shed looked the way an engine looked after you found the broken part. Not fixed yet. But understandable.
Caleb. Everything pointed to Caleb.
For the first time since the blackout, Evan believed they were close. That wasn’t what kept him awake.
Tomorrow. Dawn. Dock shed.
Four words.
He’d read them often enough to memorize the spacing.
The coffee pot was already on the camp stove when the first gray light appeared over the harbor. Mist floated above the water. The slips sat quiet. A gull landed on a piling and watched the world wake up.
Evan poured coffee into two cups. One for him. One for her. Then he told himself not to be ridiculous. The second cup remained on the shelf anyway.
A minute later he heard footsteps on the boardwalk. His pulse betrayed him.
Margot appeared in the doorway wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie that was too large to be hers. No clipboard. No headset. No badge. No pen. Just Margot.
The knot he’d carried all night let go. “Good morning. Got your text.”
A smile touched her mouth. “And here I am.”
He handed her the coffee. Their fingers brushed. Neither seemed in a hurry to move. Eventually they remembered the coffee.
She wrapped both hands around the cup.
The dock shed fell quiet again.
Outside, the harbor drifted in and out of the mist.
Inside, the butcher paper wall covered half the room.
The evidence sat between them. The future sat between them too. Neither seemed eager to address either one first.
Finally, she looked toward the water. “What happens after?”
There it was. The question from the bookstore. The one they’d carried back to the resort and never answered.
He leaned against the workbench. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
“I know.”
“I still don’t have a great answer.”
A laugh escaped her. “Neither do I.”
The honesty helped. No promises. No declarations. Just the truth.
The expo ended tonight. The investigation would end eventually. The question waiting underneath both facts remained stubbornly unresolved.
She stared into her coffee. “I go back to Raleigh.”
Evan nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you stay here.”
“Probably.”
A gull cried outside. The mist shifted. Neither of them seemed interested in looking away.
Five years ago, he would have hidden behind the investigation.
Five years ago, he would have found a broken engine, a damaged dock, a loose piling. Anything but this.
Lauren had once hidden his tools because she was tired of competing with them.
At the time he’d thought she was exaggerating. In hindsight, she had not.
He set his coffee down. “I don’t know what happens after.”
Margot waited.
“But I know I don’t want tonight to be the last time I see you.”
Simple.
Honest.
Terrifying.
For a second he wondered whether he’d said too much. Then relief crossed her face so quickly she didn’t quite manage to hide it.
“Good.”
One word.
Enough.
Because it answered the question he’d been carrying since the bookstore. Good. His shoulders came down.
She set her coffee on the workbench. Then she stepped forward.
He barely had time to process the movement before her arms went around him. No kiss. No crossing that line. Steadier than that. Better.
His arms wrapped around her automatically. Her forehead settled against his shoulder. The top of her head fit beneath his chin.
He closed his eyes. Just for a second.
The harbor woke around them. A boat engine started somewhere across the marina. Water tapped against the pilings. The mist thinned.
Neither hurried.
For the first time in a very long time, he wasn’t thinking about evidence. Or suspects. Or boats.
He was simply standing in the middle of his dock shed holding a woman he cared about.
When she finally stepped back, his hands remained on her arms for a second longer than necessary. Neither commented on it.
She smiled. “Okay.”
He smiled back. “Okay?”
“If we keep standing here, the ornaments aren’t going to recover themselves.”
That sounded more like the Margot he knew. “Probably not.”
“Show me what you found.”
Now they turned toward the butcher paper wall. The investigation reclaimed the room. At least temporarily.
He walked her through everything. The shell company. The marina gate code. The rental agreement. The handwriting match. The growing timeline.
She studied each addition carefully. She didn’t interrupt. Didn’t speculate. Just absorbed information.
Then she opened her laptop. “I brought something.”
“Please tell me it’s Caleb’s confession.”
“Not exactly.”
“Disappointing.”
She ignored him. “The display case lighting.”
“What about it?”
“Caleb billed the resort twelve thousand dollars.”
Evan frowned. “The lighting was donated.”
“Exactly.”
She turned the screen toward him. “No matching expense. No supplier invoice. No payment record.”
He stared at the numbers. Then looked again. A phantom charge. The piece clicked into place. “The ornaments weren’t his first theft.”
“No.”
She closed the laptop. “He’d already been skimming money.”
That fit the pattern. Debt. Desperation. Escalation.
People rarely woke up one morning and stole a six-figure collection. They practiced first. Usually on smaller things.
“There’s something else,” Evan said. “On the way back from Harker’s office last night, I checked the storage room behind the service corridor.”
“Without me?”
“You were sleeping.”
“Suspicious behavior.”
“I found three collapsed Coastal Freight cartons. Packing slips still attached. Six custom padded crates delivered to Evergreen Tide two days before the showcase.”
“The crates themselves?”
“Gone. But the packing slips list custom foam inserts molded to Lila’s ornament dimensions.”
She took the photo from him. “So, the ornaments were packed here.”
“And moved out in crates made before anyone outside the planning circle should have known what was coming.”
“Premeditation,” Margot said.
“And a shipping trail.”
Weeks of it. Maybe months. The room fell quiet.
Then she smiled. Not because any of this was good. Because it finally made sense. “We’re close.”
“We are.”
Sunlight spilled through the open doorway. The harbor had shed most of its mist. Guests would start appearing soon, then vendors, then staff.
The final day of the expo was waking up.
She picked up her coffee. Made a face. “It’s cold.”
“You took too long.”
“You hugged me.”
“You started it.”
She laughed. One of the real ones.
He smiled back.
Then she set down the cup and opened a spreadsheet. Business mode. Comfortingly familiar. “We have a shell company, phantom invoices, custom crates, a boat rental, and a detective finally looking in the right direction.”
“That’s a decent morning.”
“The next step seems obvious.”
“Which is?”
“We find where Coastal Freight delivered the ornaments.”
He nodded.
Outside, the sun cleared the horizon.
Inside, for the first time since the blackout, the path forward looked clear. For the investigation.
And maybe for everything else.
“Let’s make some calls,” Margot said.