Chapter 3 - The Seaside Inn
The coastal highway unspooled ahead of my headlights like a strip of wet slate, flanked by dense pine forests that gave way to jagged cliffs plunging into the black Atlantic. By five in the morning, the salt spray was thick enough to smear across the windshield, forcing me to lean forward and peer through the arc of the wipers. The GPS pin Marcus had sent me pointed toward a weathered fishing town three counties up, a place where the tourists vanished after Labor Day and the locals kept their doors unlocked out of stubborn habit rather than trust. I pulled the car to a gravel halt beside a faded wooden sign that creaked rhythmically in the ocean wind: The Gull’s Rest Inn.
The building was a rambling Victorian structure with peeling white paint and warm yellow light spilling from a single window on the second floor. I killed the engine, letting the ticking radiator cool in the damp air, and pushed open the heavy oak front door. A small brass bell chimed overhead, echoing through a lobby that smelled of old cedar, woodsmoke, and stale coffee. Behind a high wooden counter sat an elderly man in a moth-eaten cardigan, squinting over a crossword puzzle with the aid of a green-shaded desk lamp.
"Office is closed till six," the old man rasped without looking up. "Rooms are cash only in the off-season."
I crossed the linoleum floor, my boots heavy, and laid a fifty-dollar bill on the wood surface beneath his newspaper. "I'm not looking for a room. I'm looking for a woman who arrived here about three hours ago. Dark hair, wearing a wool overcoat."
The man peered over the rim of his reading glasses, his rheumy eyes sizing up my unbuttoned white shirt, the dangling bow tie, and the dark stubble shadowing my jaw. He didn't look impressed by the city clothes or the tension in my posture. " lots of folks come off the midnight bus looking for a place to dry out. Don't keep track of names."
I reached into my pocket, pulled out a photograph from my wallet—a candid shot of Clara laughing on the terrace of our summer house—and slid it across the counter. "She didn't take the bus, and she didn't come to dry out. She came here. Did she sign in?"
He looked down at the photograph, his thumb tracing the edge of the gloss before he looked back up at me with a slow, knowing tilt of his head. "She signed in under her mother's maiden name. Said she needed a quiet room facing the water. Paid for three days in crisp bills."
A sharp knot twisted in my stomach. "Is she still here?"
"Was," the old man said, picking up his pencil again. "Left about twenty minutes before you pulled up. Walked down to the public pier. Said she wanted to catch the early mail skiff out to the outer barrier islands before the fog rolled in thick enough to ground the motors."
May you like
I cursed under my breath, turning sharply toward the front door. "Which boat?"
"Old man Henderson's tub," the innkeeper called out lazily as I slammed the door behind me and jogged back into the freezing mist. "Good luck catching her. Once that skiff clears the harbor breakwater, there ain't no phone signal out on those rocks for fifty miles."
