Page 44 of The SEAL and the Sheriff

The wind came straight off the water, throwing cold spray over the bow until Sarah tasted salt every time she licked her lips. The crossing was rougher than the last time. She kept one hand light on the wheel and let the boat rise and fall with the chop. Fighting usually ended with the ocean winning.

Hudson stood on the forward deck, one hand resting on the rail. He barely seemed to move with the boat, his balance adjusting so naturally to the swell that he looked less like a passenger than someone the ocean had failed to throw off.

His gaze moved constantly—shoreline, water, headland, back again—as if he’d decided there wasn’t a stretch of open water worth trusting.

You two always finish each other’s interviews? Petey’s bruised face surfaced in her mind with irritating clarity. No. The two of them had answered so quickly they’d sounded rehearsed. She stared at the water ahead. What exactly had they been denying?

Another wave slapped hard against the hull, spraying them both.

“You okay?” she called.

Hudson glanced back. “Fine.”

Morrow Point emerged slowly, revealing itself piece by piece. The dark shoulder of rock, and finally the cannery itself, balanced on its forest of pilings, too stubborn to admit it should have fallen into the water years ago.

The tide had dropped since their last visit, exposing another few feet of weed-darkened timber beneath the building. Gulls picked methodically through the shallows.

Before the hull nudged against the dock, Hudson was scanning the cannery. Not just the building, but everything around it. The loading platform. The gaps beneath. The tree line beyond the shoreline. The upper windows. The roof.

By the time Sarah looped the line around the cleat, he’d looked everywhere except at her.

She finished the knot and straightened. “You’re doing the thing.”

His attention remained on the weathered buildings. “What thing?”

“The one where you stop seeing a place and start cataloging threats.”

A corner of his mouth moved. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed.”

“Not likely.”

He looked at her then, any humor gone. “Until I tell you otherwise, assume we’re walking into someone’s plan.”

She studied him. Four days ago she’d probably have argued. Today she just nodded. Together they climbed onto the dock.

The cannery enveloped them as completely as it had the first time.

Inside the main processing hall, the wind disappeared, leaving only the slow drip of water somewhere beneath the boards and the hollow echo of their boots on decades-old timber.

Salt. Rust. Old fish. The smell lived so deep in the wood the building would remember it long after the sea reclaimed everything else.

Hudson studied the floor.

“You expecting to find something?” she asked.

“I’d be disappointed if we didn’t.”

She glanced sideways at him. “That’s an optimistic way of looking at attempted murder.”

“It means they made mistakes.”

“And if they didn’t?”

His eyes swept the maze of machinery. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Even professionals?”

“Especially professionals.” His mouth was a taut line.