Page 56 of Colton's Secret Weapon
Whaler was the only one who ever did that, and whoever was out to get them would know that her dad was out of commission. They would have lost one of the boats upon which all of their future hopes were based.
“But I did stop by.” Mitchell’s words were truth. His tone so completely practical that it jolted through the storm raging inside her.
He did stop by. Disaster had been averted.
Halting midstride, she spun to face him. Staring. As her mind slowed and she regained a semblance of her sense of self. Mitchell had said something the night before about having a security system installed at St. James Boats. “Did the security cameras catch anything?” she asked, the question that should have come from her several minutes before. The second he’d told her about the vandalism. No way two ropes, two sailor’sknots, tied by an experienced boatman, just unraveled and disappeared on their own.
Missing ropes, no evidence. Except for…
Mitchell was shaking his head. “The camera was angled to cover the entire fleet on that side of the marina. It catchesLadybird, all but a couple of feet, including the mooring.”
“What about people? Surely whoever did this was seen coming or going.”
“Peter Welding has the recordings. They’re going over them now. Wes, Kirk and I have already watched them and didn’t see anything, or anyone, who looked suspicious. Everyone on tape had cause to be there. And no one is seen after Wes and Kirk left for the day, until I arrived.”
“He had to have swum up to the dock!” The answer was obvious to Dove. Maybe because… “I did that once, to trick my dad. There’s a cement base under it that forms a platform with a place to stand. Something there from before Shelby was a real town. Anyway, I stood on it, hiding, until he got on his boat. That was back when only his personal boat was tied up there. Before St. James Boats.” She stopped, a smile forming but fading before she remembered the rest. “I was banned from reading books for a week.” The memory of Whaler’s very real anger engulfed her. The danger she’d put herself in, swimming in those waters alone, with no one aware she’d even gone in…
“Banned you from reading for a week?” Mitchell’s tone drew her gaze up to his confused looking frown.
“It was the worst punishment they could give me,” she said, shrugging. “From prekindergarten, I was always drawn to books. Spent most days after school reading. That was the loneliest, longest week of my life.”
Nodding, eyes wide with something…positive, Mitchell asked, “Did it happen often, this punishment?”
Oddly distracted by his interest in a younger her, Dove said, “Just that once.” Pursing her lips she nodded. Then seeing his smile, felt a lightening in her heart and said, “I was a quick learner.”
“A smart girl who grew into an intelligent woman.”
Dove stared at the man who’d just uttered words that changed her world in the space of the second it took him to say them. A minimal change, perhaps, but there.
“Most people just think I’m a kook,” she said, knowing that he’d been one of them. And maybe still was.
“I’m guessing you don’t give many people the chance to really know you.”
Feeling as though she’d always been open to others, she couldn’t answer to that. But found his take on the situation curious.
And not nearly as important as, “You want to call Peter Welding, or should I? Someone needs to be checking shoreline, looking for any sign of entry…and do a thorough search of the water around that platform.”
The sun had already set. “Best wait until morning,” she revised her thought. Glad to have had it though. To be back in a right mode.
Finding herself.
And saw Mitchell pull out his phone. “It won’t hurt to give him a heads-up so he can have someone out there at sunrise.”
Before the small St. James Boats marina was open for business.
The dawn of a new day. Shining light on what she’d taken as bad news:Ladybirdhaving been left to float until she crashed. When, instead, she should have focused her thoughts on the positive that could come from the way the situation had turned out.
One of her father’s biggest assets had been saved—with absolutely no harm done to it—and the police had a chance to find evidence to bring in the man who was hell-bent on ruining the St. Jameses’ lives.
A new day, filled with possibility, would be arriving in hours. There was every chance her father would wake up. Their stalker would be caught. And with the start of Whaler’s drying out already happening and the new outlook for St. James Boats, she and her father could finally start to live again, to find true happiness—carrying her mother’s memory with them into a new future.
Feeling a full-out smile inside her for the first time in many, many hours, Dove looked over at Mitchell. “You ready for bed?” she asked.
When what she’d wanted to do was tell him he was good for her. His practical way of viewing the world, while not her way at all, had a place and a time. And the ability, apparently, to pull her out of negative energy, too.
Something to ponder.
In the new future.
