Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Scarlett
The Tidewater Resort looks like a modern art museum that committed a hate crime against good taste.
I stand at the bottom of the sweeping drive, my suitcase dripping onto the manicured gravel, and stare up at the glass-and-concrete monolith Malcolm Merrick apparently calls a hotel.
It perches on the hill above Port Haven like a predator, all sharp angles and gleaming surfaces, the antithesis of everything below it—the weathered storefronts, the buzzing neon diner sign, the salt-stained dock where I left my dignity bobbing in the water.
A valet materializes and takes my suitcase without a flicker when water drips onto his white gloves.
“Ms. Crawford. Welcome to the Tidewater.” He makes my name sound like something he memorized off a briefing sheet. “Mr. Merrick is expecting you.”
I smooth my damp blazer and try not to think about the state of my underwear.
The Prada suitcase proved its waterproof claims; everything inside has the soft, sad texture of clothes that were submerged and then dried in transit.
I’m wearing the least wrinkled option, which is still wrinkled enough to signal woman who recently went swimming with her luggage.
The lobby hits me with air-conditioned chill and the scent of money. White marble, floor-to-ceiling windows over the sound, abstract sculptures that cost more than my last year’s rent. The woman behind the front desk gives me the same rehearsed smile the valet used.
They’ve been told I’m coming. They’ve been told to be nice.
Malcolm Merrick’s office is on the top floor.
The elevator gives me thirty seconds with my reflection in the brass doors.
My hair has dried into a haystack and my mascara has migrated south, giving me the faintly tragic look of a woman who cried at a movie.
I finger-comb the worst of it and paste on the camera smile.
The doors open directly into his office. No reception. No assistant. You arrive where he is.
Malcolm rises from behind a desk the size of my first apartment. Tall, fit for a man pushing sixty, salt-and-pepper hair, a jawline that belongs on currency. His handshake is firm. His suit is immaculate.
“Scarlett Crawford.” His voice is deep and unhurried, a voice built for quieting rooms. “A genuine pleasure. Thank you for coming all this way.”
“Thank you for the invitation. And the accommodations.”
“Please.” He gestures to the low leather chairs by the windows. Then, as I sit: “Though I confess you’ve caught us out. We had you arriving tomorrow.”
“I moved my flight. I wanted a day to walk around before the work started.”
“Initiative.” He says it warmly. He doesn’t sit down for another second and a half. “We’d have sent a car. We’d have arranged your afternoon.”
“I managed.”
“So I hear.” He settles across from me at last. “Sit. Something to drink? Coffee, tea, something stronger?”
“Water’s fine.”
He pours it himself, from a crystal carafe, without calling anyone.
“I’ve followed your career,” he says, settling across from me. Spine straight, ankles crossed, hands on his knees. A man who has rehearsed this. “The move from print to broadcast was impressive. You have a gift for making complicated things accessible.”
“Thank you.” The water is filtered, probably imported, definitely not from any tap on this island. “I’m excited about the project. Treasure hunts don’t come along every day.”
“Not one with this history.” He leans in slightly, and the window light catches the gray at his temples. “Port Haven was founded on a betrayal, Ms. Crawford. The Merricks have carried it for a century.”
And there’s the opening pitch.
He lays it out like a prosecutor. Evangeline Merrick, engaged to a wealthy mainlander named Charles Winthrop Fairchild.
The night before the wedding she runs, with Thomas Haven, and with something valuable—her dowry, or Fairchild’s gold, depending on which version you’re told.
She drowns that same night under circumstances nobody has ever satisfactorily explained.
Her body is never recovered. The Merricks have always believed Thomas killed her and kept what they carried.
Within a few years the Havens had money they’d never had before.
They bought the north shore. They built an empire.
And when the town chose a name, it chose theirs.
“The evidence is circumstantial but compelling,” he says. “Land records. Family journals. The timing of certain Haven acquisitions.”
“Journals,” I repeat. “Plural?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“Various family papers. My grandmother kept meticulous records.”
“I’d love to see them.”
“You will.” He smiles. “In due course. Some of it is fragile. Some of it needs context before it makes sense to an outsider.”
“What I find most compelling about your involvement,” he continues, “is your platform. Eight million followers. That reach is unprecedented for a story like this. It deserves that kind of audience.”
Platform. Not journalism.
“The documentary’s the spine of it,” I say. “Social’s just distribution. Historical research, interviews with both families, maybe underwater survey work if the weather cooperates. That’s where the real story is.”
“Of course. Of course.” He waves a hand. “The investigative work is essential. But the initial exposure—that’s where your following creates impact. Tourism numbers. Public interest. The conversation around the legend.” He pauses. “That’s what changes the narrative.”
Changes the narrative. Not uncovers the truth.
I could correct him again.
I don’t.
Because I have a decade of real reporting behind me, and a two-minute video of the worst moment of my life that eighteen million people have watched for entertainment.
I have eight million people who follow me for hotel recommendations and want to know where I got my sunglasses, and a man with money who wants to make a documentary.
If this works—if it’s good, if it’s real, if it’s the kind of thing that gets taken seriously—it’s a door. Maybe the only one left.
Nobody has offered me real work in eighteen months.
So I keep my mouth shut, and I smile, and I hate myself a little, and I ask the next question.
“The treasure. Do you believe it’s still on the island?”
His face tightens.
“I believe the evidence suggests it never left.” He rises and moves to the window, hands clasped behind his back.
“The north shore. That’s where the records say Thomas and Evangeline were headed the night she died.
Haven land. They bought it after, and they’ve refused access for three generations.
Ask yourself what a family keeps locked up for a hundred years. ”
“Have you asked them directly?”
“I have asked them for access to that shoreline eleven times in twenty years.” His reflection in the glass isn’t smiling. “The Havens are not a family that gives things back, Ms. Crawford. Ask anyone in this town who’s crossed them. Ask what happened to my—”
He stops.
“—to my family’s standing here,” he finishes. “Over the years.”
“Your what?” I say.
“Nothing that bears on your work.” He turns from the window, warm again. “Old grievances. Every family has them.”
I write ask what happened to my in my notebook, exactly as he said it, and I circle it.
“I’d like to speak with members of both families,” I say. “Get their perspectives.”
“Absolutely. The Merricks are an open book.” The smile is back at full strength. “Several of them are joining us for lunch. I’d like you to meet them.”
Perfect. Exactly what I need.
Lunch is in a private dining room on the resort’s lower level, floor-to-ceiling windows turning the sound into a living painting. The table is set for six, crystal and china catching the light off a chandelier that could kill a man if it fell.
Three people are already seated. Nobody stands when we come in.
There’s a card at my place with my name on it in calligraphy. There’s a card at every place. This is a family that has eaten together their whole lives, and someone has made a seating chart.
My mother did that. Twice a year, Thanksgiving and the Christmas party, place cards in her own hand, and a rehearsal the night before about what I’d be asked and what I’d say back. I was nine before I understood that the guests were work.
I pick up the card. My name spelled right.
“Scarlett, this is my brother Theodore. He runs our marina operations.”
Theodore Merrick stands from his chair with a warm, slightly awkward smile. He’s softer than his brother—rounder in the middle, gentler in the eyes, wire-rimmed glasses perched on a nose that’s seen more sun than boardrooms.
His handshake is careful, almost apologetic. “It’s a real pleasure. I enjoyed your series on the wildfire recovery in Northern California. The piece about the ex-Marine who threw a woman in a river to save her from the fire—that was extraordinary work.”
I blink.
That was the last thing I reported before my life imploded. Eighteen months, and nobody has said a word about it to me since, because eighteen months ago is also when I became something else entirely.
“Thank you.” It comes out less composed than I want it to. “That means a lot.”
“It should. It was the best thing in that whole series.” He sits, adjusting his glasses. “I’ve a boy about the age hers was. It stayed with me.”
Down the table, Malcolm is already turning away.
“And this is Cordelia. My daughter.”
Cordelia Merrick raises her glass from where she’s slouched in her chair, boots propped on the rung, and gives me a grin that could power a small town. She’s pretty in a way that has nothing to do with effort—dark wavy hair in a messy braid, sun-kissed skin, bright hazel eyes.
“Hey. Everyone calls me Corey. Try not to hold the last name against me. I didn’t pick it.”
I like her instantly.
“She runs our marine tour operations,” Malcolm says, with the faintest edge in his voice. “She’s our resident expert on the water.”
“Dad’s being generous. I drive boats and point out whales.”