Page 37 of Crosscurrent

Which, increasingly, felt like a lie.

Cara had finally come upstairs around five after the alley sweep. She’d disappeared into her bedroom sometime after six. Owen, Wade, and Skye had stayed downstairs with the monitors and the maps and the ugly little pile of evidence that kept growing by the hour.

Gabe crossed to the kitchen in sock feet and reached for the kettle.

The kitchen window overlooked the alley.

Daylight transformed it. No shadows. No movement. Just dented trash bins, damp asphalt, and the faded brick wall behind the seafood place next door.

An alley pretending not to be the same alley where somebody had run a probe twelve hours earlier.

The kettle had barely started to hiss when Cara rushed into the room barefoot, hair twisted up messily, phone clenched in one hand.

“Diane just texted.”

Something in her voice tightened every nerve in Gabe’s body.

She shoved the phone toward him while still typing with her thumb. “She says there’s a man outside the bakery.”

Diane: Man at the front window just now. He stood in front of the alcove for a minute, then walked away.

Cara: How long?

Diane: A minute maybe more. Customers didn’t notice.

Cara: Stay inside. We’re coming down.

Three dots appeared almost immediately.

Diane: No need. Wade’s here.

Gabe looked up sharply.

Cara was already moving.

“Front camera?” he asked.

Cara opened the clip and handed him her phone. “Pulled it before I came in.”

Saturday morning sunlight spilled across the bakery entrance hard enough to wash the edges pale. Hanging flower baskets swayed slightly in the harbor wind. A couple walked past laughing, coffee cups in hand.

Then the man entered frame.

Dark fleece zipped to the throat despite the warming morning. Ball cap low. Hands in pockets.

He stopped directly outside Sugar & Salt’s front alcove. And stayed there.

Stillness like that was never accidental.

The man never checked his phone. Never looked at the street. Never shifted weight like a bored tourist. He studied the bakery windows.

Diane appeared inside the doorway carrying a dish towel over one shoulder.

Even through grainy footage, Gabe recognized the exact moment she realized something was wrong.

She opened the door halfway and said something polite.

The man tipped his head once. Not an apology. Acknowledgment.