Page 61 of Jonah’s Lure

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Holt Marine appeared at the end of Harbor Road—the dock office first, then the main processing building, and finally the vessels at their moorings. Frank’s truck was in the lot, with Clara’s car beside it. Frank was standing outside the dock office. He looked older than the last time Angus had seen him, standing hunched forward, as though life itself was heavier now.

Miguel parked and they got out.

Frank hurried toward them, and then his eyes went past them, toward the North Annex.

It sat lower than the rest of the property—dark against the water, walls showing their age, the door facing away from the dock. The kind of building you stop seeing after a while. The kind of building that was always going to be addressed next season.

Clara came to stand beside her father.

“Dad,” she said quietly. “He told you.”

Frank didn’t look away from the annex.

“I thought he wanted to prove a point,” he said.

Clara’s voice was quiet. “He did. He wanted you to listen.”

Frank said nothing. His jaw was tight. Angus recognized the stillness of a man who could not defend himself and knew it—and was not going to try.

Miguel was already moving toward the annex, bolt cutters in hand, with two deputies flanking him. Angus walked with Frank.

“The manual release,” Angus said. “Where is it?”

Frank turned from the annex. “North wall, lower level. Old iron wheel. I’ll have to show you.” He looked at Angus. “I know the building.”

Angus looked at Miguel.

Miguel looked Frank in the eye. “Behind me. You do what I say.”

Frank nodded once.

Miguel reached the annex door. He raised the bolt cutters, then stopped.

From somewhere beneath the building came a thin, metallic sound.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Frank Holt stopped breathing.

“That’s him,” he said.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The bolt cutters cut through the padlock in one motion.

Miguel pushed the door open, and the smell hit him first. Stale air, wet metal, and something older beneath them, the cold-storage smell of a building that had been sealed for a long time and was now letting the sea back in.

Inside, the darkness was thick. As Miguel’s flashlight cut through it with Rawlings’s behind him, the annex took shape in the beams: old freezer panels lining the walls, rusted hooks, stacked crates pushed to one side, a dead compressor housing against the east wall. Dust covered every surface except the floor, where something had moved recently—scuff marks in the grime, a line of disturbance leading toward the back of the building.

The sound came again.

Faint. Uneven. Metal on metal, carrying through the floor.