He wondered if that ever worked for her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean––”

“I have to go.” He heard her pull on the door handle. Bitter air blew in.

“Wait!” The plea came out more forceful than he’d meant for it to. He hadn’t realized he’d shot his arm out and had her by the elbow. The door closed softly, didn’t connect with the frame.

She raised an eyebrow and Hudson realized he’d been better off before when she’d avoided looking directly at him. Her irises were the shade of sea glass, but her pupils were infinitely dark, like the hollow of a tree. Her stare froze him from the inside out. He let her go. “I’m sorry. It’s just––”

“I don’t see how me shooting an event at the Reynolds place has anything to do with…” She paused, a question suddenly entering her mind. “What’s your deal? Don’t cops die all the time?”

The verbal slap made Hudson flinch. “Yes and no.” In Black Harbor, criminals outnumbered cops twenty to one; and yet, the police department hadn’t suffered a line of duty death since 1985. This was uncharted territory for everyone. “He was my best friend,” he said after a breath.

Morgan bit the inside of her cheek. “I have to take my grandpa.” She pushed the door open again.

“Sixty-two thousand dollars,” he blurted.

Morgan paused. She sat so still and it was suddenly so quiet, he half expected her head to spin completely around, the rest of her body facing away. But she just looked so her chin was parallel with her shoulder. She had a pretty profile, perfect as a doll’s. “What?”

“The reward for information leading to the arrest of Garrison’s killer is at sixty-two thousand dollars—and climbing. It’s yours if you can help me identify the man who shot him.” He pulled up the photo of Kai Steele on his phone and held it in front of her.

“Why don’t you just claim it?” she wondered.

“Cops are exempt. It’s our job to solve crimes.” Except not this one. He was way beyond his parameters here. He hoped she didn’t notice the beat of his pulse quickening in his neck.

Her fingers grazed his as she took the phone. She was cold, like a corpse. But there was a buzz of electricity beneath her skin. He felt charged as he watched her study the screen. Her eyes shook as she scanned the details of the photograph. Finally, after a moment of deafening silence, she handed it back to him. “I said treads, not dreads.” She opened the car door and stepped out. “The soles of his shoes were red.”

9 MORGAN

Waves tumbled and crashed against the crags. Sharp silhouettes against the horizon. Teeth jutting upward, spearing the clouds’ underbellies. Her grandfather’s Oldsmobile groaned in the wind. Morgan stared at the windshield as she had twenty minutes ago in Investigator Hudson’s vehicle, tripping over the tumult of thoughts that raced and roiled in her mind, no different from the waves she watched now.