Chapter 4 #2
She checked her phone. Almost eleven. She'd been in this room for nearly two hours. Long enough for the wrong person to notice a writer spending her morning in the archives instead of photographing storefronts for her book.
She was reaching for the next folder when footsteps approached the door. Heavy. Deliberate. Not Geri's soft shuffle.
Harper's hand stilled on the folder. Her pulse kicked up.
"Ms. Warren?"
A man's voice. Deep, pleasant, with the easy confidence of someone used to being listened to.
Harper looked up.
He filled the doorway. Tall, broad-shouldered, maybe fifty, with dark hair going silver at the temples and a tan that spoke of golf courses or boat decks. Khakis, a polo shirt, and a Rolex that caught the light when he moved. The uniform of coastal Florida wealth.
"I'm sorry to interrupt." He didn't sound sorry. "Geri mentioned we had a writer visiting. I'm on the library board—I like to welcome people who take an interest in our history."
He stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. The room felt smaller with him in it.
"Douglas Sattler." He extended his hand.
Harper stood. Her pulse spiked, but she'd trained herself years ago to keep her hands steady when her body wanted to shake. She shook his hand—firm grip, just short of too tight. A grip that said: I want you to know I'm strong.
"Holly Warren. Nice to meet you."
"The pleasure's mine." His smile was practiced, warm without being genuine. His eyes dropped to the papers spread across the table—his property records, his deeds, his corporate filings—and lingered there a beat too long before coming back to her face.
"Unusual angle for a book about small-town life."
"Real estate tells you a lot about a community. Who's invested, who's leaving, how the economy's changing."
"Very insightful." He pulled out a chair and sat without asking, crossing one ankle over his knee. The posture was casual, but his eyes weren't. "Most writers who come through want to talk about the beach, the restaurants, the charming downtown. You're interested in something different."
"I'm interested in the truth."
Too sharp. She heard it as soon as it left her mouth. His eyes narrowed—a fraction, for half a second—before the pleasant mask resettled.
"The truth about what?"
"About how places like this actually work." She forced a laugh, trying to soften it. "Sorry. I used to be a journalist. Old habits."
"A journalist." He leaned back, studying her. "For which outlet?"
"Freelance. Travel and lifestyle pieces, mostly. Nothing you would have read."
"Try me. I read widely."
"Regional tourism boards. Gulf Coast bed-and-breakfasts. Nothing exciting."
"And now a book."
"Trying to. It's harder than I expected."
"Most things worth doing are." The smile again, empty and practiced. "What brings you to Blossom Springs specifically? There are a lot of small towns on this coast."
"A friend recommended it. Said the people were friendly."
"Which friend?"
"Someone I met at a conference. I don't remember her name, honestly."
The lie sat between them. Harper held his gaze, refusing to blink first. His eyes were the pale gray of old concrete, and just as hard.
"Well." Sattler uncrossed his legs and stood, the chair scraping against the floor.
"I won't keep you from your research. But if you want the business perspective on Blossom Springs, I'd be happy to give you an interview sometime.
Fifteen years of development here. I know where all the bodies are buried, as they say. "
He smiled when he said it. Just a figure of speech. Just a joke.
The back of Harper's neck prickled.
"I might take you up on that," she said.
"Please do. Geri has my contact information." He moved toward the door, then paused, one hand on the frame. "One piece of advice, Ms. Warren. Free of charge."
"What's that?"
"Blossom Springs is a small town. People talk. Word gets around." His eyes held hers. "If you're digging through old records, asking questions about who owns what and why—people will notice. They'll wonder about your motives."
"Is that a problem?"
"Not for me. I'm an open book." The smile again, pleasant and empty. "But some people in this town are very private. They don't appreciate outsiders poking around in their business. They might take it personally."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"I'm sure you will."
He left. His footsteps echoed down the hallway, unhurried, confident. A man who owned things and knew it.
Harper sat down and pressed her palms flat against the table. Her hands were shaking. She counted to ten, forcing her heartbeat to slow, then gathered the papers and returned them to the filing cabinet exactly as she'd found them.
Time to go.
Mae's Bakery was crowded with the late-morning rush.
Harper pushed through the door and scanned the room until she found Caleb at a corner table, his back to the wall. She crossed the bakery on legs that felt unsteady and dropped into the seat across from him.
He'd ordered her a coffee. She wrapped her hands around it even though it was too hot, needing something solid to hold onto.
"You're pale," he said.
"Sattler came to the library." She kept her voice low.
A mother with a stroller sat two tables away, cooing at her baby.
A group of retirees argued cheerfully about something near the window.
Normal people having a normal morning. "Sat down across from me and started asking questions about my book.
About which friend recommended Blossom Springs. "
Caleb's hand flattened on the table. The only visible reaction, but she was learning to read him. That flat hand meant the same thing a raised voice would mean from anyone else.
"He came himself."
"In person. Charming. Friendly." She took a breath that didn't quite steady her. "Then he told me people here don't appreciate outsiders poking around. That they might take it personally."
"Direct quote?"
"Close enough."
A woman at the next table laughed suddenly, loud and sharp. Harper flinched before she could stop herself. Caleb noticed. He didn't comment.
"What else?"
"He said he knows where all the bodies are buried.
Smiled like it was a joke." She finally risked a sip of coffee.
It burned her tongue, but she welcomed the distraction.
"The librarian warned me, too. Geri Crane.
Said she's seen what happens to people who ask the wrong questions. Nothing she can prove—her words."
Caleb was quiet. His thumb traced a line across the table—back and forth, back and forth—the only movement in his otherwise still body.
"The property records," Harper continued, pulling out her phone to show him the photographs.
"Sattler's been buying up the town piece by piece since 2008.
Shell companies, below-market sales, families who'd owned land for generations suddenly selling.
One woman died six months after. Nova Boone. Heart attack at seventy-three."
"Could be a coincidence."
"Could be."
Neither of them touched that.
A barista called out an order. Chairs scraped. The espresso machine hissed. Harper's coffee grew cold in her hands while her stomach stayed too knotted to drink it.
"Your cover's thin now," Caleb said. "Maybe not blown, but thin."
"I know."
"You need to stay visible. Keep being Holly Warren. Don't change your routine, don't act scared, don't suddenly leave town." He leaned forward slightly, dropping his voice. "If you run, you confirm whatever he's thinking. But if you stay boring, stay harmless—"
"He might decide he was wrong about me."
"It's a chance."
"And if he doesn't decide that?"
"Then we deal with it."
She studied his face. He meant it. Not as a platitude—as a plan. As something he'd already started working through in his head while she was still shaking at the library table.
Harper stared at her untouched coffee. Her hands had finally stopped trembling, but she could feel the adrenaline still humming beneath her skin, waiting to spike again.
"Ronan's back in three days," Caleb said. "More options then. More backup. Until then, we're careful. You see anything strange—anyone watching you, following you, anything that feels wrong—you tell me immediately."
"And you?"
"I'll dig into Sattler's shell companies from my end. Cross-reference with what we have on the larger syndicate." He met her eyes. "If he's connected, I'll find the proof."
"There's still Montgomery."
"Could be either of them. Could be working together. Or—" Caleb paused. "Could be neither, and we're chasing the wrong threads entirely."
"You don't believe that."
"No. But I've been wrong before." He looked out the window at Main Street, at the people walking past with shopping bags and coffee cups, oblivious to the conversation happening ten feet away.
"The syndicate Isak was tracking—it's been operating for decades.
That doesn't happen without serious local infrastructure.
Someone in Blossom Springs is connected.
Sattler fits the profile. So does Montgomery. "
"So we keep digging."
"Carefully. Very carefully." He turned back to her. "You've stirred something up today. Sattler didn't come to the library by accident. Someone told him you were there, and what you were looking at. That means he has eyes in places we don't know about."
"The librarian. Geri Crane."
"Maybe. Or someone else entirely. Could be a network—people who report to him, knowingly or not. Secretaries, clerks, anyone with access to public records requests."
His thumb stopped its tracing. "We need to assume everything you do in this town is being observed. Every question you ask, every place you go."
Harper nodded. She should eat something—she'd had nothing but coffee since yesterday—but the thought of food made her stomach twist.
"I should get back to the bungalow," she said. "Work on looking harmless."
"Harper."