Page 6 of Accidental Bodyguard Summer

“I eat what’s available.”

“That’s not an answer, that’s a survival strategy. Three.” She hops up to sit on the counter, heels drumming the cabinet, and points at me with half a muffin. “How dangerous is this, actually? Scale of one to ten. Because Rafi was very soothing on the phone, and in my experience people are only soothing when the real number is higher than the number they’re saying.”

That one, she means. Under the chatter her eyes have gone steady, and I revise the file’s assessment upward. Observant. Faster than she plays.

“Six,” I say. “Today.”

“And what makes it a seven?”

“Them finding out you’re the only living person who’s seen that boat’s crew topside.” I let that sit for exactly as long as it needs to. “Which is why we do this my way.”

“Hm.” She takes a bite, chews, swings her heels. Recalibrating, I think. Good.

“Counteroffer,” she says. “We do it mostly your way, except for the turtles, which we do the turtles’ way, because they were here first and they don’t know about the smugglers.”

“That’s not how protection works.”

“It’s how nesting season works. I have permits with dates on them.” She smiles at me, bright as a flare, and slides off the counter. “You’ll see. It’s all on the whiteboard.”

I look at the whiteboard. Nest 41 has its own color.

I don’t take the muffin.

I mean not to take the muffin.

The muffin is outstanding, and I eat it standing at parade rest with my back to a wall of sea turtle nesting charts, and Abby Marlowe watches me with unconcealed delight, like I’m a wild animal that finally took food from her hand.

“Okay,” she says. “This is going to be great.”

That makes one of us.

The neighbor ambushes me at the fence line at 1745, while I’m walking the perimeter and cataloging everything wrong with it.

“You,” she says. Blue housedress, garden hose, the bearing of a woman who has outlived every threat this coast produced for eight decades. “Who are you and why were you photographing Abby’s roofline?”

“Noah Vance, ma’am. Sunbreak Harbor Security. I’ll be staying with Dr. Marlowe for a while.”

“Staying.” The hose lowers a degree. “Staying how?”

“Professionally.”

“Hmph.” She looks me over the way harbormasters look over hulls. “Is she in trouble?”

“Some. It’s being handled.”

“Well.” The hose comes all the way down. “Good. That girl brought me chicken soup in June, in Florida, because I sneezed twice on a Tuesday. Somebody ought to be looking after her for a change.” She turns back to her tomatoes, then fires over her shoulder, “I keep Harold’s shotgun cleaned, if it comes to that.”

“Hope it won’t, ma’am.”

“Mrs. Pruitt. And square your corners on that porch, the second board creaks.”

She’s right. It does.

The couch is six inches too short. Minimum.

I confirm this at 2310, lying in the dark with my feet on the armrest and my sidearm holstered on the floor within reach, listening to the cottage settle. Every structure has a soundsignature. This one ticks in the roof when the wind shifts, hums in the refrigerator, and, I now know, carries voice straight through the bedroom wall like the drywall’s made of paper towels.

“—and the thing nobody appreciates about loggerheads,” the wall says, “is the site fidelity. Same beach, Carl. They come back to the same beach across thousands of miles. You can’t teach that. You don’t get to be smug about it either, you can barely land.”