Micah and his crew, I think, except...

I lean into the glass and squint. Pointy bow, beefy hull, deadrise sharper than usual—a boat made for water sports. Even from here, even in the dim morning light, I can see there’s no one at the helm or hanging over the sides.

It’s Paul’s boat. Unmanned and adrift—or at least it was, until its draft got caught in the rocky shore. It’s sitting all wrong in the water, pitched at a sharp angle.

“Shit.”

I think back to yesterday, when I slid the boat up to Micah’s dock. By the time I climbed out, Chet had already tied two lines, but since I didn’t know how long the boat would be there, I made him tie up two more. The spring lines were good and tight, the slipknots solid. I checked. There’s no way that boat could have gotten loose, not without someone helping it.

Shit shit shit.

I grab the keys from the mudroom hook and run down the stairs, flipping on lights as I go. “Chet? Chet, wake up.” I rap a knuckle on the guest room door, open it a crack. “Somebody untied the boat and set it adrift.”

His groan comes from the larger room behind me, from a lump on the far end of the couch. “Go away. It’s not morning.”

“Did you hear me? I said the boat’s loose. It’s caught in the rocks on the other side of the lake.”

The lump moves, and he lifts his head. “For real?”

“For real. Get dressed. I need you to hike around the lake and bring it back.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now.” I toss him a sweatshirt hanging inside out over the back of the couch. “And hurry, before it gets really stuck.”

His grumbling is muffled as he pulls the hoodie over his face. “You do know it’s not actually my boat, right? If anything, you’re the one who should be traipsing through a freezing lake to bring it back, not me. I’m just the houseguest.” He shoves his feet in his jeans and hauls himself off the couch. He steps into his boots with a sigh. “You owe me for this.”

I hand him the keys, disarm the system and shove him out the door. “I love you. I’ll make it up to you. Now go.”

I head up the stairs, ticking off the incidents in my mind. The opossum. The boat. The snapped branches and planted footprints Paul told me about last night. None are exactly life-threatening, unless you happen to be an opossum. Still, it was a targeted threat, and Micah agreed. If he peeks out his back window and sees the boat, I already know what he’ll say: Batty Jax, at it again.