Page 85 of Code Name: Harbor

Bill looks at me. “Help me out here.”

I hope my expression is as pained as my heart. “I’ve tried, Bill. I really have.”

I get a look of disappointment from the man whose approval really means everything.

Shit.

Bill turns back to Josie. “Honey—”

“No,” she says again. She sets her coffee down and takes her dad’s hand. “I’m going to say this exactly once and then we’re going to talk about something else or I’m going home.” Her eyes land on mine briefly so I understand I’m involved in this as well. “To my house. By myself.”

“Josie—” her dad chides.

“I’m not leaving Seattle. I’m not going to Santa Fe. I’m not going to Maui. I’m not running. There are women being trafficked through the Sound and I’m going to help put this man away. Are we clear?”

Bill stares at his daughter with a mixture of frustration and pride. “All right.” He picks his coffee back up. “I had to try. I’m your father and that’s the job.”

“Thank you,” Josie says, offering him a forgiving smile.

“For the record, I think you’re being stubborn.”

She rolls her eyes. “For the record, I learned it from you.”

I can’t help but laugh.

“For the record,” her dad drawls, “that is also true. Now, are we eating breakfast or are we just going to sit here and look at the cutting board?”

I get the omelets going and Josie pulls plates down from the cabinet. Bill, without being asked, finds the silverware drawer on the first try, and the father-daughter duo joke with each other as they set the table by the window.

Josie pours juice and I plate the omelets and the three of us sit down like a family to eat.

It’s surreal… the familial experience, but I realize that I’d hand over every painting I’ve ever moved to keep this.

I’d hand over the gallery.

I’d hand over the boat.

My priorities have changed over the course of cooking omelets.

I just need to figure out how to change things.

CHAPTER 20

Josie

There’s a chicken roasting in the oven and a pot of boiling potatoes on the stove. The lemon’s been zested and the zest has been pressed into butter that’s softening in a ramekin. The potatoes are on a baking sheet, coated in olive oil and sea salt, and the green beans are blanched and waiting in an ice bath.

I’m putting my entire attention into this dinner because if I don’t, I’ll start thinking about the meeting that’s going to occur before Finn and I sit down to eat.

I cut a few sprigs of rosemary from the little terra-cotta pot on the windowsill and wash them at the sink.

“Thirty minutes, tops” is how long Finn said the meeting would last.

And that’s the extent of my knowledge.

I know Connie and Marcus are coming by any moment now, and Finn said he needed thirty minutes alone with them to “go over things.” It’s for a run the crew is going to do. He admitted that much to me when we were in Occidental Park.

I don’t know the details, and I don’t want to know them. I’m going to stay in the kitchen and pretend they’re just having a meeting about an art shipment coming into the gallery.