Page 6 of Silent Watch
Harper closed her eyes.The truth was too dangerous to put in a text.The lie was too cruel to keep repeating.
She shoved the phone back in her bag and opened her laptop instead.
The file she pulled up was not the one she had given Caleb.His tablet contained the verified research, the evidence she could prove.This file was different.This file was the map she had been building in her head for fourteen months, the one that connected shell companies, property transfers, and dead sources into something that looked like a spiderweb with a monster at its center.
Isak Thorne had found that monster.He had called her the night before he died, his voice tight with something between excitement and fear.
"I found him.The one at the top.The one who built all of this."
"Who?"
"I can't say on the phone.Tomorrow.I'll bring you everything."
Tomorrow never came.Two bullets in a parking garage, and Isak died with the name locked in his head.
Harper stared at her screen.Three names glowed back at her.Three possibilities.Business owners with the right connections, the right access, the right public face.
One of them had ordered Isak killed.One of them was running an operation that stretched across the Gulf Coast.One of them had probably already noticed she was here, asking questions, poking at wounds that were supposed to stay buried.
The question was which one.
Outside, footsteps crunched on the shell path.
Harper closed the laptop.Moved to the window.Pressed herself against the wall and angled her head just enough to see.
A maintenance worker in a faded blue shirt, pushing a wheelbarrow toward the bungalow next door.He didn't look up.Didn't glance at her window.Just kept walking, slow and steady, until he disappeared around the corner.
She let out a breath.Her pulse thudded in her ears.
Settle down.Not every footstep is a threat.
But shadows were how they came for Isak.Quiet and professional.The kind of death that looked like bad luck if you didn't know what to look for.
Her phone buzzed again.The burner she had given Caleb.
Your research checks out.We should talk.
Harper read it twice.Then typed back.
When?
Tonight.Nine.There's a path behind The Sandbar that leads to the beach.I'll find you.
A private beach.At night.With a man she barely knew.
She typed her response before she could talk herself out of it.
I'll be there.
At half past four,Harper walked into town.
Holly Warren needed to be seen.The freelance writer working on a book about small-town Florida needed to make small talk, order drinks, and ask the kind of harmless questions that would make people forget her face five minutes after she left.
The supper club on Second Street was quiet.A few drinkers at the bar, a couple sharing a basket of fried shrimp by the window.Harper chose a stool near the end and ordered a club soda with lime.
The bartender was a woman in her fifties with silver rings on every finger and a voice like gravel.
"You're new."
