Page 17 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
Rone grabbed a fresh extinguisher off a piling and ran. A spark, caught by the draft, curled back like a comet and landed on the crest of his hand—sharp, mean. He didn’t break stride. He didn’t swear. He shoved the pain into the same room as the others and locked the door.
“Isobel,” he shouted.
Her head snapped, and for a second, he saw her eyes through the exhaust haze—steady, stubborn, ready. The man beside her half-turned, keeping his face away. That told Rone as much as a name.
“Echo,” Rone called, expecting the bark that said I’ve arrived, or the low growl that said not one step closer. Nothing. Smoke swallowed sound like wool. The space where the dog should’ve tugged at the edge of the world and then refused to fall off was empty.
Rone’s lungs didn’t like that. He hammered the nozzle at the base of the flame at Isobel’s feet until the hiss folded, then swung what powder he had left at a tongue of fire climbing the back of the pedestal two feet away. It died hard. His hand screamed a bright little star, and he clamped the extinguisher in the other and finished what needed finishing.
Barking erupted but farther away. Echo claimed another threat, not the one standing in front of them. The man glanced to where Echo called out in the darkness with warning, telling Rone there was another predator who had been a bigger threat nearby.
“Where is he?” Isobel’s voice scraped at him. Not panicked. Determined.
“Finding.” Rone’s eyes cut every shadow, every heap ofcoiled line where a smart dog might go low and watch the problem’s ankles. “Back.” His voice dropped to that grip-steel tone that brooked no argument. “Behind me.”
Isobel didn’t argue. She stepped where he told her to step, close enough that he could feel the shake she was hiding when her arm brushed his. The man who wasn’t Lucky drifted three paces back—too calm for a stranger, too present for a neighbor. He had what Rone thought of as messenger energy—carry the threat, don’t get messy.
Rone took one forward step to test it. The man retreated exactly one. Not fight, then. Delivery.
“Say your piece,” Rone told him.
Echo barked like rapid fire. A man screamed from the area near the parking lot.
The man in front of them glanced toward the eruption as if to run over to save his friend, but his gaze snapped back to Rone, to Isobel. “Your father died for something he had,” he said, voice even, words meant to drop like stones. “It’s time to turn it over to them.”
A lazy little wind nosed the smoke aside and let Rone see the man’s eyes. Not drunk. Not unhinged. Paid.
“Who’s ‘them’?” Rone asked.
The man ignored him. “Give it back,” he told Isobel, “and this ends. You drag your feet—” He let the sentence stop like that was more effective than finishing it.
“Back up,” Rone said.
The man did, gloved hands loose at his sides, the kind of gloves that weren’t for warmth or work but for not leaving a story behind. He looked at Isobel like he knew she wasn’t going to run. He possibly liked that. Messengers often did.
“Echo!” Rone called again, and the night gave him only the slap of small waves and a far-off siren that belongedto some other emergency. A hollow opened under his ribs. He didn’t feed it. He couldn’t.
The man tipped his chin toward the water. “If you ever want to see your father again,” he said, “you’ll give it back.” Then he smiled without pleasure, turned, and walked into the smoke like a door had opened for him there.
Isobel shot faster than Echo by his side to chase the man. Rone bolted after her, wrapped his arms around her middle, and held her back to his chest. “No.”
She struggled to free herself, but he pressed her tighter against him. “We’ll lose him.”
He hated thewein that sentence because he liked it. “He’s got no say and probably knows less about your father, but doesn’t mean he won’t take you to who does.”
“Good.” She pushed away but he wouldn’t release her to her death.
Rone’s jaw worked. “Stop. I know you're smarter than this.”
She stopped fighting and breathed in several shallow breaths until she managed one deep one.
“I’m going to let you go, but you promise me you won’t run.”
“I won’t,” she breathed out, making him realize how close they were and how long it had been since a woman was in his arms, especially one as beautiful and feisty as Isobel. And when he remembered she was in a thin nightgown, he forced himself to release her and take a giant step away. It was his turn to catch his breath. He counted the things he could control—power cut, flames out, dock wet, neighbors accounted for. One thing he could not count: the dog who should’ve been at his heel.
“Echo!” He put more gravel in it, more command than hope.
Silence answered.
