Page 57 of Innocent Until Proven Witch

"And how they're planting evidence."

He nods. "That's my guess."

Silence settles briefly between us. Not uncomfortable—focused. Both of us staring at the same problem, trying to see the shape of it.

Then hurried footsteps pound up the lighthouse stairs. My head snaps toward the door, and Finn is already standing when it bursts open.

Lisa rushes inside, breathless and alarmed. The sight alone sends unease through me.

"Lisa?"

She looks from me to Finn, then back again. Something about her expression immediately tightens my stomach.

"What happened?" Finn asks.

Lisa takes a breath, then another, as though searching for the right words. "They found something."

The room goes still. I rise slowly. "What?"

She hesitates. The pause lasts barely a heartbeat, but it's long enough. "A cloak."

My pulse stumbles, not because of the cloak, but because of the way she said it. Lisa looks directly at me, her voice softening.

"Your cloak."

The words hit like a wave. I stare at her, certain I misheard. "My what?"

"The blue one."

My stomach drops..

Lisa continues carefully. "It was recovered from debris near the latest wreck site."

Finn immediately shakes his head. "That's impossible."

I can't seem to find my voice. The cloak. My grandmother's cloak. The one that disappeared. The one I searched for. The one I never found.

"The initials are still inside." she swallows.

The room becomes distant—the lighthouse, the maps, the investigation, everything fading, leaving only those words. The initials. My initials.

Finn's expression hardens. "When was this found?"

"This morning." Lisa's gaze remains fixed on me. "People have already seen it."

That answer is somehow worse, because I know exactly what comes next. The town finally has something tangible. Something they can point at, something they can hold. Evidence. Whether it means anything no longer matters.

When we reach town, the rumors have spread ahead of us. Conversations stop as we pass. People stare openly, others whisper behind raised hands. The atmosphere feels different. The uncertainty is gone, and in its place stands certainty. The dangerous kind.

A fisherman spots me first, his expression twisting immediately. "There she is."

The words travel through the crowd. Heads turn, voices rise. A woman steps away from a market stall. "My husband was aboard one of those ships."

Another joins her. "My brother never came home."

The crowd begins gathering, growing, feeding itself. I stop walking, not because I want to, but because there is nowhere else to go.

The accusations come quickly. Too quickly.