Page 15 of The Glass Dolphin

“There’s a man throwing buckets through the windows.”

Maddy’s fingers began to fly over the keyboard and track pad, so she could see what was happening too. “The alarm woke me.”

“He’s not even trying to conceal his face,” Teresa said. “Surely he’s going to run away…” She trailed off, and Maddy clicked and typed in her username. Her password generated, and Maddy tapped to login. The cameras came up, and she scanned back and forth, trying to find the culprit. The cause of her three-thirty wake-up call.

Her eyes shook, scrambled, the way leaves trembled in the gusts of an approaching storm.

She found the man as he entered the screen from the bottom, and she hurried to enlarge the video. Sure enough, he only wore jeans and a black sweatshirt. No mask. No gloves. Not even high-top sneakers, but flat shoes, like Vans maybe. Converse.

He launched the steely gray bucket toward the only remaining window that hadn’t been smashed, and her mouth dropped open as the glass shattered right before her eyes. The cameras didn’t have any sound, and that only made the images playing out before her eve more eerie.

Surreal. Unreal.

“I can’t—” she started, but she didn’t know how to finish. Teresa likewise sat silently on the line. “I’m going to be on the five-thirty express ferry to Diamond Island,” Maddy said. “I’ll get this sorted out.”

She wasn’t even supposed to go into the restaurant today, as she’d arranged with her assistant manager to be gone for the holidays. She’d just gotten engaged, and she had several days of travel ahead of her.

Maybe she didn’t. Not now.

Helplessness filled her at the same time flashing lights she imagined in red and blue illuminated the screen. She watched as a pair of police officers entered a different camera zone, then another pair from the opposite direction. They walked close to one another, only one of them with a weapon drawn.

Their bright, bright lights flooded the front of the restaurant with light, and Maddy saw everything in black and white.

The man turned toward them, and she didn’t recognize him. Not that she would. She was a transplant to the cove. She saw hundreds of faces per day; they blurred by the end of the first rush. Sure, she’d made some friends here, but she certainly didn’t know every citizen of Five Island Cove.

He surrendered to the police without a fight, and Maddy’s breath eased out of her body as the handcuffs went around the man’s wrists. He was led off-camera by the cops, and Maddy sank fully in the back of the chair.

“It’s done,” Teresa said, but Maddy had the distinct feeling this incident had just begun.

* * *

She rosefrom the RideShare three hours later, freshly showered and dressed the same way she’d be if she was showing up to open The Glass Dolphin. Maddy pulled her dark jacket closed across her stomach and marched past the yellow police tape in her low heels.

At the line where the glass had flown back toward the sidewalk and parking lot, she stopped. The police officer she could see lifted his head, and she put up her hand. He frowned and came toward her, but Maddy didn’t care what he said.

“Ma’am,” he said. “You can’t be here. We’re still determining if the building is structurally sound. It’s not safe.”

“I’m Madeline Lancaster,” she said. “I manage this restaurant. Chief Sherman told me you’d have a complete report for me?” She’d never been happier to know someone—the right person—in her community until today.

Her call to Eloise had been answered promptly, and she’d given the phone to her husband after only a few questions. The officer wore a badge with the last name of Harmon on it, and Maddy catalogued it.

“Let me call in,” Officer Harmon said. “Please don’t come closer, okay?”

Maddy nodded, then returned her gaze to the damage of the building. Surely the windows didn’t hold up the roof, but she didn’t know much about architecture and load-bearing walls. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but she turned when someone stepped beside her.

“This is unbelievable.”

Maddy turned toward Alice, not sure how to move her feet or vocalize her thoughts. She had no thoughts. Perhaps that was the problem. “What are you doing here?” she finally asked.

Alice glanced over to her too. “Eloise called me. She said you might need some help, but she has a family anniversary at the inn and can’t be here.” She turned her face back to the restaurant and hunkered down into her collar. “Robin’s on her way.”

“I didn’t need you to come,” Maddy said, but her voice sounded tinny and pinched as it left her mouth.

Alice didn’t say anything as she put her arm around Maddy’s shoulders and folded her into an embrace. Maddy wasn’t sure why that simple gesture meant so much, or why it broke her down so easily.

Tears pricked her eyes and then streamed so fast she couldn’t call them back. She’d hitched smiles into place in the past at important political events. Maddy had been a professional at tucking away all emotion until the doors had closed.

But today, the simple act of a woman she’d become friends with recently showing up undid her composure. Maybe it was the early-morning alarm that had woken her. Or the multiple phone calls. The videos she’d seen. The waiting for the ferry to open and get running.

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