Page 22 of The Captain
“Maybe,” I said. “Let me talk to my father first.”
The office door stuck like it always had. I leaned my shoulder into it, and the wood sighed for me the way certain men did when I walked into a room I wasn’t supposed to own. Inside: a desk that had been his in Paris and then here, lamplight warm,fans battling the heat in that hopeless Southern way, a wall of framed photos—ships, a French child with missing front teeth hugging a coil of rope as if it were a stuffed bear, my mother in a white sundress laughing into wind.
“Ma fille,” Papa said, rising before I could knock. “You found me.”
He came around the desk and I went into him like I always did. His arms were big as the beams he loved, his beard softer than it looked, his shirt smelling like diesel and cedar. He was getting older. I pretended not to notice except when I did. He held me a second longer than usual and let go like a man who had taught himself not to squeeze.
“You are salt and sun and trouble,” he said, looking me over. “This shirt is not dry. How many animals did you lift before breakfast?”
“One,” I said.
He gestured to a chair. “You have time to drink water you did not get from a creek?”
“No,” I said, automatic, and then “Yes,” because my mother would scold me if I didn’t.
I sat. He poured. I drank. The water went down like truth.
“How long is this assignment?” he asked, neutral, which was how he asked if I was staying without daring to say the word. “Three months? Six?”
“Three on paper,” I said. “Maybe six, if I play it right.” I centered the glass. “NOAA seconded me to launch a grant pilot—deploy the nearshore hydrophone array and train the rehab crew on the new ‘quiet skiff’ procedures. I was in Charleston weeks before any animals washed up.”
He nodded, cautious delight tucked under worry. “Your mother is very happy you’re back in Charleston. She keeps finding excuses to drive past your bungalow—says the porch swing suits you—and pretends it’s on her way.”
“I know.” It came out softer than I meant. “I’m glad to be close. For now.”
“And Miami?” he asked, tentative.Do you miss it?was what he meant.Do you miss the life you made there?
“I miss it every day,” I said, honestly. “But the work is here for now.” I slid my phone onto his desk. “I didn’t come to talk about Miami.”
“I know.” He leaned against the desk, palms braced, eyes on me with that particular Allard patience I’d inherited and turned into a weapon. “You came because you are angry. I know you, Camille.”
“And because I need your help.” I flipped the phone, the PDF already waiting. He bent, the hair on his forearms catching the light like wire.
Typhon. Arcturus. Allard Atlantic.
I watched the words land.
He inhaled once, slow. “That is the Navy list,” he said, not a question.
“An ‘interim authorization list,’” I said, because accuracy kept me from throwing things. “Somebody redacted it in a hurry. Not well enough.”
He tapped the screen over Arcturus. “This one I know. They placed three orders in the last quarter. Housings, mounts, and a fairing. Typhon is not familiar.”
“You’re on a Navy authorization list as a vendor connected to Typhon,” I said. “If you tell me Allard Atlantic has nothing to do with whatever they’re testing in our shelf, I’ll put that in my pocket and carry it like a prayer. But I need you to be sure.”
Papa straightened. He crossed to the filing cabinet that creaked like a ship in a swell and pulled the top drawer, thumbing through manila as if pages were ribs he could count. Eli had once joked Lucas Allard could find a paper trail in a hurricane. It was true. He had learned, somewhere between LeHavre and Charleston, that trust was something you backed up with carbon copy.
“Arcturus,” he murmured. “Arcturus … Voilà.”
He carried two thin folders to the desk. “You will not photograph,” he said, gently but in that voice that had made dock managers fold.
“I won’t,” I said.
He laid out the invoices.
Purchase Order 8746: custom stainless housings, marine-grade, “instrumentation” as the purpose. Purchase Order 8759: quick-release deck mounts, removable. Purchase Order 8771: fairing—an ugly word for something meant to make water behave.
None of it illegal. All of it the kind of work that let a small yard pay health insurance for men with bad backs who kept showing up, anyway.
