Chapter 2
The lunch rush hit like a wave, and Carly rode it the way she'd been riding waves her whole life—one order at a time, one smile at a time, one stab of pain shooting up her broken arm at a time.
"Two crab cake platters, extra slaw on both!
" She called the order back to Miguel in the kitchen, already turning to the next customer with her register smile firmly in place.
The Blue Claw was packed, every booth and table full of locals and tourists drawn in by the hand-painted signs promising the best seafood on the waterfront.
Her father had made that promise forty years ago, and Carly would be damned if she broke it now.
Even if every movement of her left arm made her want to scream.
The cast was heavy, awkward, wrapped in a plastic sleeve to keep it dry in the kitchen steam. She'd told the regulars she'd slipped on a wet floor—clumsy, embarrassing, nothing to worry about. Most of them believed her. The ones who didn't had the decency not to ask follow-up questions.
"Carly, hon, you sure you shouldn't be resting that arm?" Betty Marsh, who'd been eating lunch at The Blue Claw since before Carly was born, peered at her over a basket of hush puppies. "You look pale."
"I'm fine, Miss Betty. Just busy." Carly topped off her sweet tea without being asked. "You need anything else?"
"Just for you to take care of yourself. Your daddy would have a fit, seeing you work like this."
Carly's smile didn't waver. "Daddy worked with worse. I'll be fine."
She moved on before Betty could argue, because arguing took time she didn't have, and because thinking about her father right now would crack something she couldn't afford to let break.
The front door opened, letting in a blast of humid air and two men who didn't belong.
Carly knew it instantly—the same way she knew when a health inspector was about to walk in, when a customer was about to cause trouble, when the fryer oil needed changing.
Twenty years in this restaurant had given her instincts she trusted more than anything.
And right now, those instincts were screaming.
The men were big, both of them. The first one had a face like a clenched fist, small eyes scanning the room with the lazy assessment of someone who'd done violence before and would do it again.
The second was leaner, quieter, with a military haircut and the kind of stillness that made Carly's broken arm throb in remembered pain.
They took the booth by the front window. Best view of the register. Best view of her.
"Help you gentlemen?" Tina, her afternoon waitress, approached with a menu and her customer service voice.
"Just coffee." The big one didn't look at her. His eyes stayed on Carly. "We'll be here a while."
Carly turned back to the register, her heart pounding against her ribs. Seven days. That's what Wilcox had given her. Seven days to sign over the deed to The Blue Claw, or things would get worse.
Worse than a broken arm. Worse than the late-night phone calls. Worse than the two men who'd shown up at closing last week and explained, in patient detail, exactly what happened to people who didn't pay their debts.
She rang up a check for table six, made change, smiled at a compliment about the she-crab soup. Normal. Everything normal. Just another lunch rush at The Blue Claw.
The men in the booth didn't order food. Didn't look at menus. Just sat there with their coffee, watching her like she was already dead and they were waiting for her body to realize it.
The rush thinned out around two o'clock, the way it always did. Tourists wandered back to their rental cottages. Locals headed back to work. The dining room emptied until it was just the regulars lingering over pie and the two men who hadn't moved from their booth.
Tina sidled up to her at the register, voice low. "Those guys are creeping me out. They've been staring at you for two hours."
"I noticed."
"Should I call someone? The cops, maybe, or—"
"No." The word came out sharper than Carly intended. She softened it with a tired smile. "It's fine, Tina. They're just... it's a business thing. I'm handling it."
"You sure? Because that big one looks like he eats kittens for breakfast."
Despite everything, Carly almost laughed. "I'm sure. Why don't you head out early? I can handle closing."
Tina hesitated, clearly wanting to argue, but the prospect of an early Friday afternoon won out. She grabbed her purse from under the counter and headed for the back door, casting one last nervous glance at the booth by the window.
Carly wiped down the counter. Restocked the napkin dispensers. Ran the last few credit card receipts. Normal closing tasks, performed with hands that wanted to shake but didn't, because she wouldn't give these bastards the satisfaction.
At four o'clock, the big one slid out of the booth and walked toward her. Carly's hand found the paring knife she kept under the register—not much of a weapon, but better than nothing.
He stopped on the other side of the counter, close enough that she could smell his cigarette smoke and cheap cologne. "Mr. Wilcox wanted us to remind you about your deadline. Seven days." He smiled, showing teeth that needed a dentist. "Well. Six now."
"I remember."
"Good." His eyes dropped to her cast, and his smile widened. "Shame about that arm. Accidents happen, though. Especially to pretty girls who don't know when to sign on the dotted line."
Carly's grip tightened on the knife. "Get out of my restaurant."
"Careful." He leaned closer, and she could see the violence swimming behind his eyes, patient and eager. "That mouth's gonna get you in trouble. Dale liked breaking your arm. He'd love to break something else."
"I said get out."
For a long moment, he just looked at her—memorizing her face, her fear, the defiance she refused to let die. Then he straightened up, dropped a five-dollar bill on the counter for the coffee, and walked out. The other man followed without a word.
The door swung shut behind them. Through the window, Carly watched them climb into a black SUV and pull away, unhurried, like they had all the time in the world.
Because they did. She was the one running out of time.
Her legs gave out somewhere between the counter and the nearest booth. She sat down hard, the paring knife still clutched in her good hand, and let herself shake for exactly thirty seconds. Then she stood up, put the knife away, and finished closing the restaurant.
By six o'clock, The Blue Claw was dark and empty.
The chairs were stacked on the tables. The floor was mopped.
The fryers were cleaned and the register was balanced and everything was ready for tomorrow's breakfast rush, assuming there was a tomorrow, assuming Wilcox didn't decide that examples needed to be made.
Carly sat at the bar with a glass of her father's bourbon and the photo she kept in the office—him standing in front of the restaurant on opening day, forty years ago, grinning like a man who'd just grabbed hold of his dream and refused to let go.
"I'm sorry, Daddy," she whispered.
He didn't answer. He'd been dead two years now, and the debt he'd left behind was about to kill everything he'd built.
Sixty thousand dollars.
She'd gone through the books a hundred times, looking for money that didn't exist. The restaurant was profitable—barely—but every spare cent went to suppliers, utilities, payroll.
She'd already sold her car, cashed out her savings, taken on extra shifts until she was working sixteen-hour days six days a week.
There was nothing left to sell except the restaurant itself.
Which was exactly what Martin Wilcox wanted.
Her father had borrowed money from Wilcox three years ago, when the economy tanked and tourists stopped coming and The Blue Claw was bleeding red ink. A short-term loan, he'd said. Just enough to get through the slow season. He'd pay it back when things picked up.
Except things didn't pick up fast enough. And the interest kept compounding. And the debt kept growing. And by the time her father died of a heart attack in this very kitchen, the thirty thousand he'd borrowed had become sixty, and the "short-term loan" had become a noose around Carly's neck.
She could go to the police. That's what normal people did when loan sharks threatened them.
But Wilcox had connections—everyone in Harborview knew it.
Local cops looked the other way. The one business owner who'd tried to fight back had watched his place burn to the ground, and the fire marshal had ruled it "electrical. "
She could run. Pack a bag, drive north, start over somewhere Wilcox's reach didn't extend. But that meant abandoning The Blue Claw. Abandoning her father's legacy. Abandoning forty years of history and the regulars who depended on her and the community that had raised her.
She couldn't do it. She couldn't let them win.
But she couldn't fight them either. Not alone. Not with a broken arm and an empty bank account and six days until Wilcox's men came back to finish what they'd started.
Carly drained the bourbon and stared at her father's photo. He'd always said the waterfront looked after its own. That the people who worked these docks and these boats and these kitchens had each other's backs, no matter what.
But who was left? The fishermen were dying out, squeezed by regulations and corporate competition. The small business owners were struggling just like she was. Everyone was too busy drowning to throw anyone else a rope.
She was alone.
The thought settled into her chest like an anchor, cold and heavy. Six days. Sixty thousand dollars. And nobody to call.
She put the photo back in its place on the shelf, turned off the last light, and locked the door behind her. The waterfront was quiet, just the sound of the bay lapping against the docks and the distant rumble of traffic on the highway.
Somewhere out there, Wilcox was waiting. Patient. Certain.
Carly walked to her truck with her keys between her fingers like weapons, scanning every shadow, jumping at every sound. This was her life now. Fear and math that didn't add up and a deadline she couldn't meet.
But she wasn't going to cry. Crying didn't pay bills.
And it sure as hell wouldn't save The Blue Claw.