CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She found the storeroom door standing open when she came down to unlock the shop the next morning — not broken, not forced, simply ajar in a way that made the hair on her arms rise before she'd fully understood why.
Inside, someone had gone through the boxes of Aunt Jo's old estate papers with careful, deliberate thoroughness — not ransacked, not obviously, but disturbed in the particular way that told an owner, instantly, that things had been moved and not quite put back the way they'd been found.
The local history section on the sales floor had been similarly searched, books pulled slightly forward on their shelves, a few left stacked on the reading chair instead of returned.
The ledger, thankfully, was safe — she'd left it with Reyes days ago, and the small, cold relief of that fact was the only thing that kept her hands from shaking as she called the station.
Reyes arrived within ten minutes, and this time there was no careful neutrality in his expression at all, just a hard, focused anger that Marin found, despite everything, oddly reassuring.
"Nothing's missing that you can tell?"
"Nothing obvious. But someone was looking for something." Marin's voice came out steadier than she felt. "The local history section. My aunt's old estate boxes. Whoever it was knew Walter used to sit in that chair, knew he'd been researching here."
"No forced entry," Reyes said grimly, examining the storeroom's back door.
"Which means either someone had a key, or someone's good enough with a lock that it won't matter whether they did.
" He turned to her, and for a moment the professional distance dropped away entirely.
"Marin. I need you to hear me on this. Somebody is worried enough about what you might know that they broke into your place of business.
That's not a hypothetical anymore. That's a fact, sitting in your storeroom this morning. "
It was the first time he'd used her first name, and neither of them seemed to notice until several seconds after he'd said it, by which point it felt strange to point out.
"I'm not going to stop," Marin said. "I can't. Not after Ruth, not after Walter, not after everything Oswald showed me yesterday."
"I'm not asking you to stop." Reyes ran a hand through his hair, frustrated in a way that seemed aimed more at the situation than at her.
"I'm asking you to let me be part of it properly, from here on out.
No more solo trips to the records office.
You tell me before you go anywhere, you tell me who you're talking to, and God help me, you get a better lock for this door by tonight.
" He looked at her for a long moment, something more than professional concern moving behind his eyes.
"I've lost exactly one witness on this case already. I'm not interested in losing another."
"I'm not a witness. I'm a bookshop owner."
"You're both, apparently, and it's going to get you killed if you're not careful." He said it flatly, without drama, which somehow made it land harder than if he'd shouted it. "Please, Marin. Let me help you do this the right way."
She looked at him — steady, sun-weathered, visibly more rattled by the break-in than he was willing to fully show — and felt something shift in her chest that had nothing to do with the case at all, and everything to do with how long it had been since someone had looked at her like her safety actually mattered to them.
"Okay," she said. "The right way. Together."
Outside, the harbor glittered under a hard blue sky, indifferent as ever, and across the street, through Ruth's diner window, Marin could see Ruth Whitfield watching the police car parked outside the Inkwell & Anchor with an expression that looked, more than anything else, like grim, weary vindication.