Page 16 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

“Why not tell me yesterday?”

“I didn’t know he’d been here.” His eyes drifted briefly toward the broken floor. “Now I’ve got something I can stand on.”

She couldn’t help it. She smiled and shook her head. “Poor choice of words.”

“Yeah.” His mouth twitched. “Walked into that one.”

A laugh escaped her.

Walter’s voice echoed from inside the cannery, arguing with Petey about drainage gradients.

The moment passed. Her attention returned to Hudson. “If this man’s moving illegal weapons through my town⁠—”

“He won’t be for much longer.”

There wasn’t an ounce of bravado in the sentence. Only calm certainty.

“Then let’s find some answers instead of standing here speculating.” She moved past him.

Hudson fell into step behind her. He’d been doing that all morning. Staying just off her shoulder. Close enough to reach her. Far enough away not to crowd her. On anyone else, it would’ve annoyed her.

On Hudson, it was⁠—

Stop it. Focus.

Sarah led him through the personnel door beside the nearest loading gate and onto the exterior walkway. The loading platform extended from the building on heavy pilings. Most were slick with old creosote and green with something that had been growing undisturbed since before either of them was born.

Sarah crouched at the edge where the boards met the open water, running her palm along a support post that had clearly taken a recent impact. Scuff marks. A clean gouge through the grime at the base. Something had been dragged against it. “Here.”

Hudson took a knee beside her. He ran a thumb along the same scuff mark, head tilted, reading methodically.

“Recent,” he said. “Within the last month, maybe less. The creosote’s worn through clean here, not weathered.”

“Crates could fit through that gap in the wall.” She pointed toward a section of corrugated siding that had buckled outward, wide enough for a good-sized crate if it was maneuvered carefully. “Bring it in by water, up onto this platform, through the gap, and you’re inside the building without ever crossing the main dock where Petey could see you from his office.”

“And out the other side to what?”

“There’s a track, eventually.” She’d driven it herself, years ago, checking on a poacher complaint that had turned out to be nothing. “Rough as hell and overgrown. But a truck might make it if you didn’t mind the scratches.”

“That’s a viable route. Quiet. Remote. Deniable. If people were moving anything through Aurora Cove, this is exactly the kind of place they’d use.” His expression was deliberately neutral, and she guessed it cost him something to keep it that way. “Good spot.”

“That’s my job.”

“I know.”

She eyed him. “You sound surprised.”

The ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “I’m not.” He looked away first this time, back toward the cannery. His eyes narrowed.

Sarah followed the direction of his gaze. Something shifted inside the loading bay, between the storage racks where the daylight didn’t reach.

Hudson’s hand drifted towards his hip.

But whatever it was had gone, leaving discarded cardboard boxes disappearing into shadow and dust hanging motionless in the thin strips of light.

Still.

She flicked the catch on her holster. “Sheriff’s Department,” she called, adjusting her stance. Hudson shifted with her. The sound carried the length of the building and died there.