Chapter 8
By late afternoon, the team was clearly flagging.
Cara had insisted they take breaks, walks, naps, anything to get them out of the basement for even half an hour.
Gabe had done his best to back her up. He knew only too well the diminished brain power they were all running on twelve plus hours into this new situation.
Or case. Or whatever this thing Skye Reeves had dragged them into became.
Gabe had been at the window in under a second, but the car was already gone. Vega's cruiser had come past twice before ten.
Whether the fixers had spotted her vehicle in the alley, or the chief's uniform, or both, something had made them reconsider the timing. They hadn't gone. They'd just decided to wait for a cleaner window. That was, in its own way, worse.
“That’s not a real nonprofit,” Tom announced. “That’s a money-laundering scheme wearing sensible shoes.”
“You’ve said that about three nonprofits today,” Reagan replied from the whiteboard.
“Hello?” Tom snorted. “Because three nonprofits today deserve prison.”
Wade sat at the conference table reassembling a Glock with the calm concentration of a man solving stress through mechanical precision.
Across the room, Skye watched the monitor wall with a legal pad balanced on one knee, her attention tracking every new connection Tom uncovered between the Coastal Heritage Trust and Neptune courier routes.
Cara leaned over Tom’s shoulder studying transaction chains while loose strands of dark hair escaped the knot at the back of her neck.
“Okay,” Tom announced suddenly, “either Coastal Heritage exists exclusively to move Neptune money through elderly people and church roof grants, or I’ve developed late-onset paranoia.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” Reagan said.
“Thank you for supporting my journey.” Tom clicked to another spreadsheet while Reagan continued marking courier routes across the whiteboard.
By Thursday afternoon, the basement had settled into the strange operational rhythm Sweet & Sawyer seemed to fall into whenever a real case finally caught hold.
Coffee cups multiplied. Whiteboards filled.
Somebody forgot meals existed for six-hour stretches.
Tom drifted into increasingly hostile relationships with databases.
Honestly, Gabe preferred everybody this way.
Focused. Moving.
The team had spent nearly the entire day pulling at the threads Skye brought into the bakery wrapped inside a USB drive and thirty years’ worth of survival instincts. Every hour seemed to uncover another hidden overlap between Neptune logistics and the Coastal Heritage Trust.
Nothing fully actionable yet, but they’d uncovered enough to feel movement underneath the surface.
“Okay,” Tom said again, narrowing his eyes at the monitor. “Either these grant recipients are fake, dead, or laundering money through church restoration projects.”
“Can’t rule out all three,” Wade said.
“That’s the spirit.”
Skye sat near the far corner of the room with one foot tucked beneath her chair. She looked steadier today than she had at four in the morning, though Gabe still noticed how her attention tracked every sound overhead whenever footsteps crossed the bakery floor.
Cara, he was certain, could clock them all.
As if she’d read his thoughts, Cara straightened from beside Tom’s workstation and rubbed the back of her neck. “Snacks are calling.”
“I’ll grab food,” Gabe offered. He was the least occupied person in the room at the moment. If he couldn’t get Tom to unstick his rear end from the chair, he could at least top up the man’s glucose stores.
Reagan pointed her marker toward him. “Pastries. Not those terrible protein bars you keep pretending count as lunch.”
“They have nutrients.”
“They have despair.”
Wade nodded solemnly. “The last kind tasted like drywall.”
Gabe ignored all of them and headed upstairs.
The bakery had quieted into the soft lull between late lunch and after-school traffic. Rain misted against the front windows while Diane boxed muffins behind the counter with the focused efficiency of somebody who had been dealing with humanity continuously since sunrise.
“You people alive down there?” she asked without looking up.
“Debatable.”
“Tom still talking to spreadsheets?”
“He’s escalated into open arguments.”
“Good. Means he’s happy.”
Gabe crossed behind the counter and reached for the pastry trays.
The bell over the front door rang before he could start loading them. Marisa Vega stepped inside carrying rain on the shoulders of her dark uniform coat.
Gabe felt his entire nervous system sharpen immediately.
Not because Vega herself was a threat. Because Skye sat downstairs, one accidental noise or badly timed glimpse away from becoming a very active problem for Haven Cove PD. He couldn’t know if Vega had found any connection between Skye and Harney, but he didn’t want to find out.
Vega spotted him immediately.
Gabe tossed her an offhand salute. “Chief.”
“Retired chief,” Vega responded.
Diane stepped forward. “Hello, Chief. What can I get you?”
“Coffee’ll do, thanks.”
While Diane poured, Vega rested one hand lightly against the counter and eyed Gabe. “Thanks for checking out the scene yesterday. A second set of eyes never hurts.”
“Happy to help. I’m only sorry I couldn’t contribute much.”
“That’s a contribution in itself.”
The woman was smart. And careful. And she paid attention to details.
Gabe kept his expression neutral while balancing the pastry tray against his hip. “How’s the investigation going?”
“Slowly.” Vega accepted the coffee from Diane.
“Not a lot to go on until you get an ID,” he said carefully.
“Exactly.” Her tone was neutral, but the look she shot him was not.
Noted. They were going to have to keep Skye, and their investigation, far away from Haven Cove’s new chief.
Gabe suddenly became extremely aware of how thin the old building’s floors actually were. Downstairs, directly beneath their feet, Tom was currently dismantling a dead marshal’s hidden ledger while Skye Reeves sat drinking Diane’s coffee in borrowed clothes.
Vega studied him for half a second too long. “You look tired.”
“Didn’t sleep much.”
“That makes two of us.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out.
David: Confirmed — Sophie and I arrive Friday. Looking forward to it. We've got things to discuss.
Gabe looked at the text for a moment, then put the phone away.
Right. He’d forgotten. David and Sophie’s skills, and David’s extensive backgrounding on Neptune, would be invaluable. But Gabe didn’t want his little brother here, in the middle of things. At. All.
Not that he could do anything about it now. Cancelling would only ensure David showed up early, notebook in hand.
Vega drained her mug and headed for the door before he had to make any further conversation, thankfully.
As the chief exited, a shortish man slipped inside.
Tourist, Gabe decided immediately. He looked exactly like the kind of travelers who bought local jam and asked whether whales could be seen from shore this time of year.
The guy was mid-thirties, maybe, wearing a rumpled canvas jacket, wire-rimmed glasses.
The rounded shoulders and poorly cut hair along with the manila envelope in his hand and the vague, lost look pegged him as an academic type.
Gabe assessed all of that automatically before the man even reached the counter.
“Quick question.” He included both Gabe and Diane in his query. “The yoga studio down by the marina’s been closed a couple days, I guess.” He adjusted the envelope in his grip. “Do you happen to know if the instructor’s still in town?”
Every instinct Gabe had settled quietly into place. Danger didn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes it walked into bakeries wearing tweed.
Diane glanced toward Gabe automatically.
Interesting. The team was training each other without realizing it now.
“Depends who’s asking,” Gabe said easily.
The man hesitated, as if he didn’t have the rest of the script. “My name’s Owen Harney.” He offered a nervous half-smile. “I’m trying to find Skye Reeves.”
Harney.
There it was. The connection. And maybe a way forward.
Gabe made sure his expression remained perfectly neutral. Inside, though, pieces started moving fast. “She a friend of yours?”
“Never met her. She rented from my uncle for a while.” The man shifted the envelope awkwardly. “He passed away recently and asked me to deliver something if I ever found her, but I’m only here for a couple days at the most.”
Gabe smiled mildly. “You mind if Diane gets you some tea? I’ve got something in storage I need to check before I can help you.”
The man blinked. “Uh. Sure?”
“Chamomile?” Diane asked smoothly.
“Okay.”
“Excellent choice.” Diane immediately guided him toward a corner table with the calm authority of a woman who had absolutely helped conceal operational conversations before.
Gabe grabbed the pastry tray and headed downstairs fast. “Tom,” Gabe said. “Run Owen Harney.”
Tom’s fingers were already moving.
“Who’s Owen Harney?” Reagan asked.
“Guy upstairs looking for Skye.”
Skye untangled herself from the lotus position, setting her feet flat on the floor. Ready to run.
Tom scanned rapidly through search returns.
“Okay. Owen Harney, thirty-six. Assistant professor of medieval history at St. Alwyn University, a private, liberal arts university in Southern California. It’s pretty swanky, according to the images.
Think Hogwarts only with a zillion-dollar ocean view.
Harney has published three papers on monastic trade routes, which honestly feels aggressively on brand somehow. ”
“Connection to Ray?” Gabe asked.
Tom clicked again. “There.”
A family photo appeared on-screen.
Ray Harney, younger by maybe fifteen years, stood beside a teenage boy wearing oversized glasses and the deeply wounded expression of somebody being forced to attend a family reunion against his will.
“Nephew,” Tom confirmed.
Lips parted, Skye stared at the screen without moving.
Gabe watched something complicated flicker briefly across her face.
Grief maybe.
Or recognition.
He met Cara’s gaze. She nodded.
“He brought an envelope,” Gabe said.
That got everybody’s attention.
Wade leaned back slightly in his chair. “Could be a setup.”
“Could be,” Gabe agreed.
“But probably isn’t,” Cara said quietly.
Everybody looked toward her.
Cara folded her arms. “If Neptune already had Skye’s alias files and dead-drop intel, they wouldn’t send a nervous history professor into a bakery announcing he was looking for their next target.”
“An excellent point,” Reagan admitted.
“Stupidly bad tradecraft,” Wade added.
Tom still looked uneasy. “He could still be compromised.”
Skye finally spoke. “Ray wouldn’t use family accidentally.”
The room quieted.
She looked down briefly at the legal pad resting on her knee before continuing.
“He kept his real life separate from operations unless something mattered.”
“Do you want to see this guy?” Gabe asked.
That was the real question underneath all of it.
Skye brushed one toe across the floor. Finally she exhaled. “Yes.”
Tom made a sound in his throat. “That feels strategically unwise.”
“Most human relationships are,” Reagan said.
He rolled his eyes. “I hate it when you say emotionally correct things during operational discussions.”
“You hate it all the time.” Reagan shot back, but they were both grinning.
Cara moved a little closer to Skye. “You don’t have to decide because everybody’s staring at you.”
“If Ray sent him,” she said quietly, “then whatever’s in that envelope matters enough to risk it.”
At the conference table, Wade nodded.
Decision made.
Gabe tossed his pastry aside. “Let’s go see what Owen Harney brought.”