Chapter 9 #2
"You've been wondering about a lot of things, from what I hear."
"It's a small town. People talk." Sid leaned against the truck's fender. "And you've been giving them plenty to talk about."
"Such as?"
"Such as why a security consultant from Charleston spends more time asking questions about town history than checking sight lines and emergency exits.
Such as why you've been seen with Lila Bennett at all hours.
Such as why someone broke into the town hall the same week you showed up, and the police chief didn't seem all that interested in finding out who did it. "
Ronan kept his expression neutral. "You've been paying attention."
"I always pay attention. It's why I'm good at my job." Sid's eyes narrowed slightly. "Also, why I'm still alive."
That last sentence hung in the air between them. A statement that meant more than its words suggested.
"What did you do before you came to Blossom Springs?"
"I fixed cars. Different garage, different town." Sid's mouth curved slightly. "And before that, I did some other things that I don't talk about much. Let's just say I know what it looks like when someone's running an operation."
"And you think that's what I'm doing?"
"I think there's something wrong in this town, and I think you know what it is. I think Lila Bennett has been asking dangerous questions for a long time, and now she's got someone watching her back." He paused. "I also think you're one of the good guys, or you would have made a move by now."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because if you were working for the other side, Lila would already be gone. And you wouldn't be standing here letting me ask uncomfortable questions."
Ronan studied the mechanic. Sid Hoffman was sharper than he'd expected. More observant. The kind of man who'd learned to read situations and people, probably through experiences he didn't advertise.
"The centennial is less than two weeks away," Ronan said. "Things might get complicated."
"Figured as much."
"If they do—if something happens—Lila might need help that I can't provide. People she can trust."
"And you're asking if I'm one of those people?"
"I'm asking if you'd be willing to help, if it comes to that. No questions asked. No explanations given."
Sid was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded once.
"Lila's good people. From what I hear, her father was, too." He picked up the rag and began wiping his hands again. "Whatever you're doing—whatever you're really here for—if it helps her, my wife, Grace, and I are in."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when it's over, and everyone's still standing."
Ronan turned to leave, then paused.
"Hoffman. Those other things you did before—the ones you don't talk about. Were any of them in the Army?"
Sid's expression flickered. Recognition, or something like it.
"Army. Twenty-four years. But same general idea." He met Ronan's eyes. "Takes one to know one, Cross."
Ronan nodded and walked away. Another ally. Another piece of the puzzle falling into place.
The centennial would begin soon. And by the time it ended, Blossom Springs would never be the same.
He just had to make sure Lila survived to see it.
The library sat at the end of Main Square, a two-story brick building with arched windows and a copper weathervane shaped like a pelican.
Lila had texted him that morning. No case details—they’d agreed to keep those off their phones. Just two words: Library. Noon.
He found her in the local history room on the second floor. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor between two shelving units, a stack of oversized books balanced on her knees, reading glasses perched on her nose. She didn’t look up when he walked in.
“You wear glasses.”
“Only for reading. Don’t make it a thing.”
“I’m not making it a thing.”
“You’re looking at me like you’re making it a thing.” She still hadn’t looked up. She turned a page in the oversized book. “Sit down. I want to show you something.”
He sat on the floor beside her. His knees protested.
The carpet smelled like dust and old paper—the universal scent of libraries, as familiar in Blossom Springs as it had been in every embassy and safe house he’d ever used.
Libraries were good places to meet. Quiet.
Anonymous. Full of people who minded their own business.
Lila turned the book so he could see the page. A black-and-white photograph, slightly blurred, of a group of men standing in front of a building he recognized as the town hall.
“1952. The town council that year.” She pointed to a man in the front row.
Tall, narrow-faced, with the kind of stern expression that suggested he’d never laughed in his life.
“That’s Warren’s grandfather. Edgar Caldwell.
He was the one who drafted the original coastal access laws.
The ones that were supposed to protect the public shoreline forever. ”
“The same laws his grandson has spent fifteen years dismantling.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” She turned another page.
More photographs. In the 1960s, the harbor was crowded with fishing boats three deep at the docks.
The town square during what looked like a Fourth of July celebration, bunting strung between lampposts, and children waving flags.
A woman with dark hair standing at a podium, her expression fierce and focused.
“Who’s that?”
“My grandmother. Marjorie Bennett.”
He looked at her. “Marjorie. As in the Marjorie Bennett who started the historical society?”
“She started it in 1961. Ran it for thirty years.” Lila traced the outline of her grandmother’s face in the photograph. “She was president of the historical society, the women’s club, and the school board. Simultaneously. My grandfather used to say she ran the town.”
Lila closed the book and set it on the stack. “The point is—this town isn’t just a town to me. It’s my family. Four generations of Bennetts, all tangled up in these streets and buildings and stories. When I say Warren stole from Blossom Springs, I don’t mean property. I mean—”
She stopped. Pushed her glasses up on her head.
“History,” Ronan said.
“Yes.” She looked at him, and for a second, the careful composure slipped.
Underneath was something raw and unfinished.
“This is going to sound dramatic. But when I found my father’s files, when I started to understand what Warren had done—it felt like someone had taken a knife to a painting.
Not destroyed it. Just cut pieces out, so carefully that you’d have to look closely to see the damage.
Bits of coastline. Bits of access. Bits of the public trust that my grandmother spent her whole life building. ”
He wanted to touch her. The impulse was so strong it surprised him—not the practiced gestures of reassurance he’d been trained to use, but something real. His hand on her shoulder. His thumb against the back of her neck. The small, meaningless contacts that meant everything.
Instead, he reached for one of the books on the stack. Opened it to a random page. A photograph of the harbor at sunset, taken from the same angle he could see from the cottage on Beach Road.
“This is what we’re protecting,” he said. “Not just evidence. Not just a case. This.”
She was quiet for a moment. Then she leaned sideways, just enough that her shoulder touched his. A small weight. A deliberate choice.
“You’re good at that,” she said.
“At what?”
“Saying the exact right thing at the exact right moment. It’s very annoying.”
“Years of practice.”
“Is that what they teach you at spy school? Emotional precision?”
“They teach you to read people. To figure out what they need to hear.” He looked at her. “But that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Telling you what I actually think. Which is new territory for me.”
She smiled. Not the professional smile or the brave smile or the I’m-fine-don’t-worry smile. A real one. Small and a little crooked and absolutely devastating.
“New territory,” she repeated. “For both of us.”
They sat on the library floor for another hour, going through books she’d been reading since childhood.
She showed him photographs of her parents’ wedding.
The groundbreaking for the hospital. The 1975 centennial, which apparently featured a parade float shaped like a giant shrimp that had caught fire halfway down Main Street.
“No one was hurt,” she said. “But my grandmother never forgave the volunteer fire department for getting foam on her display.”
He laughed. She looked at him like she’d won something.
When they finally left the library, the afternoon light was long and golden. She handed the books back to the librarian—a woman in her sixties who looked at Lila, then at Ronan, with undisguised curiosity.
“New friend, dear?”
“Something like that.”
They walked out into the sunlight together. At the bottom of the steps, she stopped.
“Thank you. For coming. For looking at all those old photographs and pretending to be interested.”
“Who said I was pretending?”
She studied his face. Whatever she found there made her reach out and brush her fingers against his wrist—a touch so light he might have imagined it. Except he didn’t imagine things. He cataloged them.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll be here.”
She walked toward the town hall. He watched her go, the way he always did, and felt the weight of the old photographs still in his mind—the harbor at sunset, the grandmother at the podium, the father with his survey maps.
A family’s worth of history, laid out on a library floor.
Trusted to a man who had never stayed anywhere long enough to become part of anyone’s story.
Until now.