Page 34 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
“I can’t. I won’t lie to you. I’ll keep information, drive you to the airport, throw my body in the line of fire, but I won’t tell you what you want to hear when it isn’t honest.”
The words cracked something inside her.
The laptop’s blue glow made her father’s image dance in her mind—his grin, his voice, his calloused hands guiding hers on the tiller. Her chest burned. She wanted to smash the screen, to erase those letters, that name.
Instead, she folded her arms and said, “There’s a password. That means something. If he didn’t want anyone in, it’s because what’s inside couldclear him.”
Rone rubbed his hand over his face. “Or it’ll reveal the kind of information that gets people killed.”
“Then you don’t have to look,” she said, chin lifting. “But I do.”
For twenty minutes, Rone typed, erased, guessed, and muttered half-codes under his breath. Names, dates, coordinates. Each failed attempt brought a harder line to his shoulders.
Isobel stood by the table, arms wrapped around herself. She watched the light crawl across the pilot house floorand thought about her father’s laugh, how it used to fill every inch of space around him. She thought about the phone call she’d overheard to her mother the day he disappeared, the static on the line, and the words she hadn’t understood until now:“Don’t come looking.”
Rone finally exhaled, a long, slow sound that deflated the room. He closed the laptop like a coffin lid. “Nothing,” he said. “Whoever made this didn’t want it opened. Maybe I was wrong and he didn’t mean this for you.”
He rose, the chair legs scraping against the floor, and crossed to the galley sink to pour himself a glass of water. His movements were steady, but there was something brittle under them. He looked tired. Older. The kind of man who’d seen too much and couldn’t scrub it clean.
Isobel watched the way his hand trembled as he drank, and her anger thinned into something else—something sharp and aching. “You really think he was one of them?”
“I think,” Rone said, but then took another swallow of his drink as if buying an extra few seconds before he continued, “that you can’t afford not to consider it.”
The words hurt more than she’d admit. She turned away, looking out through the fractured window at the sea.
“He told me once… people only believe the part of the truth that fits the story they’ve already written.”
Rone looked over his shoulder. “What’s your story, Isobel?”
“That he loved me,” she said, voice barely there. “That he was trying to come home.”
Rone didn’t argue. He set the glass down, the faint clink sounding final somehow, and walked out the back door to the dock, muttering something about checking the lines before dark.
She stayed where she was, hands braced on the edge of the table. The laptop sat in front of her, screen gone black, reflection faint. It was still plugged in—waiting.
Password required.
Her mind wandered back through the years. Christmas mornings on the boat, the scent of engine oil and cinnamon rolls, her father humming “Silent Night” off-key while hanging lights along the rails. He’d always named things after tides and time.
A memory surfaced: him showing her his password journal once, half-joking. “If I ever forget, it’s always something worth remembering.”
Worth remembering.
Her gaze fell to the name of the folder.TideLedger.
“Christmas Tide. Our boat on the lake.” Then, before she could second-guess herself, she reached out and typed ChristmasTide.
Nothing.
Then, she added the boat model year. He’d always been so proud of her, so she typed ChristmasTide1979.
Then clicked the enter key.
She held her breath.
For a moment, nothing.
Then the cursor blinked twice and the folder opened like a secret spilling into daylight.
