Caroline plopped onto a stool, the fight draining out of her. “I’d give anything to believe it might be true, even though it doesn’t sound like Luke. I’ll track down Philip Ransom. If he knows anything, I’ll wring it out of him.”

Gray nodded, grateful for her help but equally skeptical that Philip would have useful insight. The only thing he knew for sure was that Luke was far more adept at covering his tracks than any of them had given him credit for.

“Where did you hear about this?” Caroline asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” she said. “If I can pin this rumor on a reliable source, Philip is less likely to wriggle off the hook if there’s any truth to it.”

Gray shifted uncomfortably. Annabelle was the last person he wanted to bring into this conversation, but the daisy chain of connections that ultimately led to the War Department was a detail that might help.

“A secretary at the War Department saw the diploma and was charged with getting it delivered to Luke.”

“The secretary’s name?” Caroline queried.

There was no avoiding it. He confessed he didn’t know and that the secretary was the wife of Annabelle’s coworker at the Department of Agriculture. “Annabelle tracked me down at the vanilla distillery to pass it on,” he admitted.

Caroline bristled, but the other two men looked amused.

“And how is the other half of our ‘thoroughly modern couple’?” Captain Haig asked, holding back his laughter.

“Still sharpening her knives to stab more people in the back?” Caroline asked tightly.

Gray ignored the comment. “She’s fine. Still working at Ag. She heard the rumor and thought I needed to know.” He skewered Caroline with a pointed glare. “That’s all. I don’t want you nagging me over this.”

There was little else to be said. He and Caroline left the Pelican and headed toward the dock. Twilight was beginning to fall. Artists called this time “the blue hour,” that transcendent time of evening just after the sun slipped below the horizon but night hadn’t quite arrived. It had always been Gray’s favorite time of day. He paused beside the rope line to admire the harbor. Most of the ships in port were steamships, but an old-fashioned, two-masted schooner was heading toward port, its white sail gently billowing in the wind.

“What a pretty ship,” Caroline said as it drew closer.

Gray leaned forward, squinting for a better look, and could just make out the elegant lettering on the side of the ship. “It’s the Eastern Wind,” he said quietly.

“The what?”