a small jazz restaurant near the water.
Rain streaked the windows.
A pianist played softly beside the bar.
Waiters moved between tables carrying wineglasses and plates of roasted seafood.
Evan stood when he saw me.
He wore a dark blue jacket and smiled as though we were two ordinary people beginning an ordinary evening.
“You came.”
“I almost didn’t.”
His expression changed.
“Bellandi recognized my name.”
It wasn’t a question.
I sat down slowly.
“Tell me about Pier Six.”
Evan looked toward the window.
“I didn’t bring you here for romance, Mara.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
He reached beneath the table and placed a small brass key beside my hand.
“Locker forty-two.
Harbor Maritime Museum.”
I didn’t touch it.
“What’s inside?”
“Something your father wanted people to see.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew him?”
Evan looked at his hands.
“He was a decent man.
And I wasn’t.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
“I was working security.
Not officially.
Ronan Vale hired me to monitor the night crews.
There was a shipment coming through that wasn’t listed properly.
Your father discovered it.”
I knew Ronan.
Everyone at Bellandi Shipping knew Ronan Vale.
He was Nico’s closest adviser, a silver-haired man who spoke gently, dressed impeccably, and treated everyone as though he were doing them a favor.
He attended employee weddings.
He remembered birthdays.
He had shaken my mother’s hand at my father’s funeral.
Evan continued.
“Thomas found invoices that didn’t match the cargo.
Luca was helping him preserve copies.
They were planning to bring the records to someone outside the company.”
“Who?”
“An attorney.
They didn’t trust the company security office.”
“Because of Ronan?”
Evan looked up.
“Because Ronan controlled it.”
I glanced at the brass key.
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
His face tightened.
“Because I was frightened.
Because Ronan paid me.
Because once the fire happened, admitting what I knew meant admitting what I’d helped him do.”
Before I could answer, Evan’s gaze shifted over my shoulder.
He became suddenly pale.
A man in a dark overcoat had entered the restaurant and stopped near the host stand.
Evan leaned forward.
“Don’t look at him,” he whispered.
“Ronan sent him.”
My fingers closed around the key.
“Are you sure?”
“I know him.”
The man began scanning the tables.
Evan stood.
“Keep the key.
Don’t let Bellandi’s people take it until you know who you can trust.”
“Wait.
You haven’t told me everything.”
He hesitated.
Then he said something that would haunt me for weeks.
“Your father wasn’t killed by faulty wiring.
The warehouse doors were locked.”
He walked quickly toward a service corridor.
The man in the overcoat followed.
I sat frozen for one terrible second.
Then I took out my phone and sent Inez the message we had agreed upon.
She entered from the side doorway within a minute.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
“No.
But the man I was meeting just left through the kitchen.
Someone followed him.”
Inez looked toward the corridor, then back at me.
“We’re going outside.”
I followed her without arguing.
Through the rear windows, I saw Evan crossing the wet parking area.
He climbed into a gray car and drove away before the man in the overcoat reached him.
The stranger stood beneath a streetlamp, speaking into a phone.
Inez took
