43.
STORM
Grandpa used to tell me,
“Sometimes the safest harbor is the one only your family remembers.”
— James Sinclair
Thomas lifted the lid of the steel box.
The hinges groaned as though they hadn't moved in years.
Inside were several leather journals, their covers faded and cracked with age. Beneath them lay nautical charts, envelopes sealed in plastic, and stacks of photographs bound together with twine.
Everything had been carefully protected from the salt air.
Everything had been waiting for us.
I reached toward the top journal, but Thomas placed his hand over it.
“Before you read any of this, there’s something you need to understand.”
I looked into his weathered face.
“What?”
“Your grandfather didn’t hide this because he was afraid for himself.” Thomas glanced at Calle, Willow, and Ivy. “James hid it because he was afraid for all of you.”
My chest tightened.
Grandpa had spent his entire life protecting our family.
Apparently, he’d continued doing it even after he was gone.
“What did he find?” Ben asked.
Thomas looked toward the open boathouse doors, checking the quiet cove beyond them.
“Proof of a criminal operation that has been using luxury vessels along the Gulf for decades.”
Ivy moved closer.
“What kind of operation?”
“Smuggling at first. Stolen antiquities, weapons, anything wealthy men were willing to pay to move without questions.” Thomas’s mouth tightened. “Then it became something worse.”
Calle’s voice dropped.
“People?”
Thomas nodded.
“Men and women who disappeared between ports. Witnesses who were never seen again. Captains who discovered too much and died in accidents, no one bothered to investigate.”
I thought about the elegant Mariner’s Crown.
The polished decks.
The expensive parties.
The silver-haired captain standing above it all as if the sea belonged to him.
“How long did Grandpa know?” I asked.
“Not everything. Not at first.” Thomas rested a hand on the journals. “James began noticing vessels arriving at ports where they had no legitimate business. Names changed. Registration numbers changed. Crews changed.”
“But the same people remained,” Ivy said.
Thomas gave her an approving look.
“Exactly.”
Ward stood near the doorway, his attention divided between Thomas and the water outside.
“The captain knew James had been watching him for years.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why he killed him, and my Dad?”
Thomas’s face filled with grief.
“He tried to frighten James first. When that didn’t work, he made certain your grandfather couldn’t talk.” He killed his son, and James was so afraid he would kill one of you. So he stayed away for a long time. He was gathering information in secret.”
Pain tore through me.
We had always known Grandpa’s death didn’t make sense. His final voyage had been ruled an accident, but none of us had truly believed it. Grandpa had a strong heart.
Now the truth was standing in front of me.
“He murdered Grandpa,” I whispered.
Thomas lowered his head.
“Yes.”
Calle reached for my arm.
I covered her hand with mine, holding on to my sister as the room seemed to tilt around me.
Ward moved closer.
His fingers closed around my hand before I realized what he was doing.
Warm.
Strong.
Steady.
For one brief second, I let myself lean into that strength.
Then Ward looked down at our joined hands.
Something changed in his eyes.
Regret.
Not because he didn’t want to hold my hand.
Because he did.
He released me gently and stepped away.
I understood.
He was engaged.
There was a woman waiting for him in Hawaii.
Whatever had begun growing between us couldn’t be acknowledged until he had faced the life he’d already promised someone else.
I turned back to the box before he could see how much letting go had hurt.
Footsteps struck the dock outside.
Ward immediately drew his pistol.
Ben moved in front of Ivy and Calle.
“It’s me,” Nathan called.
Ward lowered the weapon.
Nathan appeared in the doorway, slightly out of breath.
“The Coast Guard has the attack boats running south. Two cutters are holding the Mariner’s Crown while they search her.”
He stepped into the shaft of sunlight cutting across the boathouse.
Thomas looked up.
The brass key slipped from his hand.
It struck the floor with a sharp metallic clang.
Nathan stopped.
Thomas stared at him, his face draining of color.
“No.”
Nathan frowned.
“Do I know you?”
Thomas backed into the workbench.
For a moment, he looked as though the years had fallen away and he was seeing something that had haunted him for decades.
“You have his face.”
Nathan’s confusion deepened.
“Whose face?”
Thomas’s hand trembled as he pointed at him.
“Your father’s.”
The room went silent.
Nathan didn’t move.
“You knew my father?”
Thomas bent slowly and retrieved the key.
“I wish I hadn’t.”
Nathan flinched as if the words had struck him.
“My father was James Sinclair’s friend.”
“He was,” Thomas said quietly. “Once.”
Nathan looked at me, then back at Thomas.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“Your father sailed with James. Fished with him. Ate at his table. He watched James’s son grow up.”
My father.
Thomas was talking about the years before we were born, when Dad was still young and Grandpa believed his friends were as loyal as family.
Nathan stepped closer.
“My father spoke about James until the day he died.”
“I believe he cared for him.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
Thomas’s gaze shifted to the steel box.
“Because your father betrayed him.”
Nathan’s face went blank.
“No.”
“He passed information to the man James was investigating.”
“No.”
“He told them where James sailed. Who he spoke to. What evidence he had collected.”
Nathan shook his head.
“You’re wrong.”
“I was there.”
“My father would never—”
“He did.”
Thomas’s voice cracked through the room.
“He may have convinced himself he had no choice. Perhaps they threatened him. Perhaps they paid him. I never learned the reason. I assumed he was threatened.
Nathan’s eyes shone with disbelief and pain.
“But he made the choice.”
Nathan turned away from us.
He braced both hands on the edge of the workbench, his shoulders rigid.
For once, he had no joke.
No dry comment to soften the moment.
Only silence.
I moved toward him.
“Nathan—”
He shook his head.
“Don’t.”
His voice was rough.
“Not yet.”
I stopped.
He stared down at the dusty wood.
“I came on this trip because James was my friend. Because I thought I owed it to him to watch over his granddaughters. I told him I would watch over all of you.”
Thomas’s expression softened.
“Then you’re already a better man than your father became.”
Nathan looked at him.
“If what you’re saying is true, I’ll help finish what James started.”
“You don’t owe us for your father’s sins,” I said.
His eyes met mine.
“No.”
He glanced toward the journals.
“But I owe James.”
Thomas studied him for a long moment before nodding.
Then he reached into the box and lifted out a thick envelope sealed inside a waterproof sleeve.
Written across the front in Grandpa’s familiar handwriting were the words:
FOR MY GIRLS—ONLY IF HE FINDS YOU.
My breath caught.
I had seen Grandpa’s handwriting on birthday cards, fishing notes, and the labels he used to put on everything in the galley.
But I’d never expected to see it again.
I carefully opened the sleeve and removed the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph.
A younger Grandpa stood beside Thomas on a marina dock. Several other men surrounded them, smiling as though they were lifelong friends.
One face had been circled in red ink.
The man was younger, but there was no mistaking the silver hair or the cold arrogance in his eyes.
I turned the photograph over.
Grandpa had written only three lines.
His name is Charles Ashford.
He commands the Mariner’s Crown.
Never believe anything he tells you.
Ward moved closer to study the photograph.
“At least we know who we’re hunting.”
Thomas shook his head.
“Charles Ashford isn’t the man you should fear most.”
A chill slid down my spine.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas reached into the bottom of the box and removed another photograph.
This one showed Charles Ashford standing beside a man whose face had been scratched away with something sharp.
Only the words beneath it remained.
ASHFORD ANSWERS TO HIM.
I stared at the ruined photograph.
“The silver-haired captain isn’t in charge?”
“No,” Thomas said.
Outside, the Coast Guard sirens faded into the distance.
Thomas looked toward the water.
“Charles Ashford is only the man they allow you to see.”