Page 143 of Slack Tide Kill

"And dry brown toast."

The coffees came in a few minutes. Sally sipped it but hardly tasted anything.

"OK, say it," Liam said.

Sally looked at him. There was a lot to say, and she wasn't really sure what should come first.

"You didn't like it," Liam went on. "The way I went at him."

"You actually went at his hot tub," Sally said. "Took it apart."

"Right. Well, you don't need to worry. Those things I ripped off, they were just safety caps. Like, totally unnecessary. If I actually ripped out the spark plugs, the whole kit would have just packed up working, and I would've had the electric shock. I just said all that to spook him."

Sally sipped her coffee, considering that. It helped. It didn't feel great to be on the outside without that knowledge, but at the same time, it didn't bother her too much. "You spooked me. And the arcing?"

Liam waved a hand. "It's real, but the current's never going to make that jump, especially with the tarp overhead. You'd need exposed wiring getting directly hit by a whole mess of rain, neither of which was true."

Sally grunted.

"So, is that it?" he asked. "Or is there more?"

Sally put her coffee down. That was a starting point. "I guess you're giving me a lesson, now? What it's like to be in the passenger seat when someone's acting crazy?"

Liam tilted his head to the side slightly. "I don't know. Is it a lesson for you, or for me?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It worked, didn't it? We got what we wanted from him. Like you always do."

"We can't do that again," she said, firmer now. "It's not OK."

Now Liam laughed. "Really? So when you do it, I've got to cover for you. But when it's me, it's totally no-go?"

"No! It's nothing like that. It's just…" She stopped. She didn't know what it was just.

"Figured," Liam said, and sipped his coffee. Sally sipped hers too. There had to be a way to navigate this, but she couldn't see it.

"How about this," she began. "Just, give me a little warning, next time? It can be a mutual thing. I'll play good cop and it'll work better. You won't have to go as far."

Liam eyed her. "Give you notice, like you gave me notice in the car?"

"Noted. We're both meeting in the middle." She held out her hand.

"Fine. Deal."

They shook.

Her egg whites came. Liam turned up his nose. "That looks disgusting. What happened to Full Englishes?"

"I'm really not hungry." She dug in with her fork and forced the first bite down. Lightly salted. Mostly flavorless. Just the way she wanted it.

Liam let her eat, looking out at the rain. Minutes passed.

"So, the seal thing," he said at last. "You believe any of that?"

Sally chewed and swallowed. "I don't know. If it's true, and Bledd saw Richter doing that? I buy that he would have killed him. I even buy that he'd leave him on display, right in front of the reactor, as a warning." She sighed. "So maybe we've been sidetracked this whole time? The reactor, the lighthouse, Heraclitus. Maybe all that's just a coincidence. Maybe that spot's just where Richter tortured his seal, or where Bledd thought the body would most easily be found."

Liam frowned. "What about the B107 carving, though? That's got to be the Heraclitus fragment."