26. Rafe
RAFE
Dex was at the gangway holding a stack of papers in one hand, his yellow-green eyes sharp, his body angled like a fox that had just dug up something dead. He didn't say good morning to Rafe. He just held out the papers.
"These were on the notice board in the square," he said. "I pulled them down an hour ago. There were copies at the tavern too. Petch had already taken those, but not before the morning freight crews saw them."
Rafe took the papers and read them. The noise in his head went very quiet.
"Where did you find these?" His voice came out low. Controlled. The kind of controlled that Dex had learned to treat as a warning over seven years.
"Square board and dock tavern, like I said. Pinned up overnight. Nobody saw who posted them." Dex paused. "The first two are real documents. Municipal filings, coastal archives. The third one is a forgery."
"I know it's a forgery. I never requested anything from the consortium records office."
"I know that. You know that. But the people who read it this morning don't."
Rafe read the third letter again. The captain of the Ashvane requested copies of these documents three weeks before his arrival in Hollow Oak.
He knew who she was before his ship ever docked.
The handwriting was the same neat script from the forged manifest. The same hand that had written the note left at Isla's door.
Malrick's man, whoever held the pen, was consistent.
"Isla," Rafe said.
"The square copies are gone. I got them. But if she walked through town this morning before I did and there were others..."
Rafe just knew. "She saw them."
The sky had gone gray, clouds building from the north ridge, the water picking up chop from a wind that felt natural but heavier than it should be.
On top of the mate bond revelation last night, on top of the anger she'd been carrying when he left her kitchen.
She'd seen letters claiming he'd tracked her before he ever arrived.
She'd seen her history from Ardenmere pinned to a public board.
And now, it could look like nothing but straight manipulation by a woman who had earned the right to be suspicious.
The fury that moved through him wasn't the cold, strategic kind he'd used at the tavern with Malrick.
This was hotter. His wolf was pressing against his skin so hard his vision narrowed and his hands shook, and it took everything he had to keep standing on the dock instead of going straight to the western path.
He wanted to go to her. Every instinct screamed it.
Find her, explain, put his hands on her face and tell her the letter was a lie.
But he knew what she'd see if he showed up right now.
An alpha wolf chasing down a woman who'd just been given every reason to run from him.
Cornering her with more words when the last set of words he'd given her had already cracked the ground she was standing on.
She needed space. He hated it. His wolf hated it more. But charging into her cottage while she was processing forged evidence that he'd been hunting her since before he docked would confirm every fear Malrick had planted.
So instead of going west, he went hunting east.
"The courier," Rafe said. "I sent him packing. But Malrick's still got someone doing his paperwork with the same skilled hand. Someone local enough to access the notice board and the dock tavern between midnight and dawn."
"I've been thinking about that." Dex fell into step beside him as they walked the dock road.
"Garren. The freight runner from Ardenmere you confronted at the tavern.
He didn't leave after that conversation.
He moved his barge to the north mooring, out of the main traffic pattern, but he's still here. "
"You think Malrick turned him."
"I think Malrick offered him something better than what he had.
Garren runs a marginal operation. Old barge, thin margins, no standing contracts.
A man like that is one bad season from bankruptcy.
Malrick offers him reliable work, a cut of whatever routes he takes from you, and suddenly Garren has a reason to stay in Hollow Oak doing what he's told. "
The north mooring was a ten-minute walk past the main dock, around the curve of the eastern bank where the tree line came close to the water. Three vessels were tied there, two small fishing craft and Garren's heavy barge, its deck cluttered with loose equipment and coiled line.
Garren was on the barge and saw Rafe coming. His face went through three expressions in under two seconds ending with something that might have been fear if he'd had time to finish it.
Rafe stepped onto the barge without invitation. Garren backed up a step, then stopped because there was nowhere to go that didn't involve the water.
"Who posted the letters?" Rafe said.
"What letters?"
"The ones on the notice board in the square. The ones at the tavern. The ones with the same handwriting as every other piece of forged paperwork that's surfaced in this town since Malrick arrived." He stepped closer. "I'll ask once more and then I'll ask differently."
Garren's eyes darted to the dock. To Dex, who was standing at the mooring post with his arms crossed, blocking the gangway, then back to Rafe.
"It wasn't me," Garren said. "I didn't post anything."
"But you know who did."
"I don't know his name. Malrick has a man. Thin, dark hair, keeps his head down. Stays at the Hargrove place. He does the writing, the deliveries, the late-night errands. I've seen him twice."
"When?"
"Last night. He came to my barge around eleven. Told me to keep my head down today and stay away from the square until noon. He had a satchel with him, papers."
"And you didn't think to mention this to anyone."
"He also told me what would happen to my mooring contracts if I talked to you." Garren's voice had gone thin. "Sloane has three captains in his pocket on the Ardenmere run. If he wants me blacklisted, I'm done."
"So you let him use you."
"I let him scare me. The result looks the same either way."
Rafe grabbed the front of Garren's jacket and pulled him close twisting his shirt tight enough to choke him.
"What else do you know?" Rafe said, tightening his collar even more. "Everything. Right now."
"He's planning something. Something bigger than the letters.
" Garren's words came fast, tripping over themselves.
"The thin man talked about timing. About the storms. About provoking a big one, big enough to cause real damage.
He said Sloane wanted one more storm over the lake before the Ashvane left.
Something dramatic. Something that would prove the stormcaller was a danger to every vessel on the river. "
"Provoke how?"
"I don't know how. He didn't give me details. But he said Sloane had something from her past. Objects. Artifacts. Things connected to stormcaller magic that could trigger a reaction. He said if you push the right buttons on a fae like her, the weather does the rest."
Rafe let go of the jacket. Garren stumbled back against the barge rail.
"What artifacts?" Rafe asked.
"I told you, I don't know. Something from the coast. From the night those boats went down. He said Sloane had been collecting them for weeks."
Rafe stood on the barge and felt the shape of Malrick's plan come into focus with a clarity that made his stomach turn.
Malrick wasn't just trying to ruin his reputation.
He wasn't just trying to steal his routes.
He was planning to weaponize Isla's trauma.
Find artifacts connected to the worst night of her life, use them to trigger an uncontrolled storm, and let the destruction speak for itself.
One catastrophic weather event over Moonmirror Lake while the Ashvane sat in her mooring, freshly repaired, fully loaded.
The ship would be wrecked. The stormcaller would be exposed as exactly the danger the rumors had been building toward.
And Malrick would be standing by with clean hands, ready contracts, and the sympathetic smile of a man who'd tried to warn everyone.
"Dex," Rafe said without turning around. "Get to Emmett. Now. Tell him what Garren just said. Every word."
"What about you?"
"I'm going to the Hargrove farmstead."
"Rafe." Dex's voice carried an edge. "If Malrick's there with a man and artifacts designed to trigger a stormcaller, walking in alone is exactly the kind of thing that ends with someone getting hurt."
"Then it ends with someone getting hurt."
"That's not a plan."
"I don't have a plan. I have a woman sitting alone somewhere in a storm that's getting worse by the hour because a man I should have dealt with years ago is pulling her apart piece by piece." He stepped off the barge. "Get to Emmett. Tell Rowan. Tell whoever else matters. I'll handle Malrick."
"Handle him how?"
Dex’s yellow-green eyes showed the fox reading the wolf, and whatever he saw made him nod once and step off the mooring post.
"Emmett first," Dex said. "Then Rowan. I'll find you at the farmstead."
"Bring backup."
"I always do." He was already moving up the bank road, fast, his slight frame disappearing around the bend in under thirty seconds.
Rafe stood on the dock. The storm from the north ridge had moved over the valley now, the rain starting, the lake going dark under the cloud cover.
He could feel the weather changing, the way anyone who'd spent fifteen years on water could feel it, and underneath the natural pressure system there was something else.
A frequency. A vibration in the air that he recognized because he'd felt it the night his ship came in, the night the lightning rose from the the lake in columns too precise to be natural.
Isla was out there somewhere, her power bleeding into the storm, and Malrick was counting on exactly that.
Rafe turned north toward the ridge road and started walking.