Chapter 5 · The Anonymous Note (Megan)

Megan didn’t dare turn the light off all night.

Reed had drawn every curtain in the cabin and checked the doors and windows again. He dragged a waterproof duffel out of the trunk, and from it—she squinted—a handgun.

“You’re carrying?”

“Retired agents can lawfully own them.” Reed checked the magazine. “Don’t worry. I won’t fire in here. Too close to the spruces. Bullets bounce.”

He didn’t tell her the other thing: in the garage, he’d found a magnetic GPS tracker bolted to the undercarriage of his own car. He’d pried it off and smashed it into a reef crevice. Too late—they already knew the place.

Megan didn’t reply. She sat on the floor by the fireplace, hugging her knees, watching the fire die down.

The next morning, Reed drove into town—he circled three blocks, confirmed he wasn’t being followed, then parked outside the small-town diner. Megan stayed at the cabin, locked the door.

She was alone until noon.

At 12:47 p.m., she heard the mailbox outside click.

She waited five minutes before opening it. No envelope. Just a sheet of white paper folded in four, weighted at the bottom of the mailbox by a stone.

She unfolded it. Printed text, no signature:

Hand over the letters. Your grandfather knew how to behave back in his day. Don’t be stupid. The shop fire was a warning. Next time, it won’t be a building that burns.

Megan’s fingers went cold.

Her grandfather. Her grandfather had run this antique shop in town his whole life. He’d died three years ago. The meaning of the letter was—her grandfather had known about this all along.

She took the paper back inside and sat at the table a long time. She remembered how her grandfather in his later years would sit alone in the rocking chair behind the shop, facing the ocean, for whole afternoons. When she was little and asked what he was looking at, he always said: “Waiting for someone who’s supposed to come.”

He wasn’t waiting for a person. He was waiting for evidence.

At four in the afternoon, Reed came back. He brought coffee, bread, and a newspaper.

“The fire at your shop,” he spread the paper out, “the local paper doesn’t mention a word. I went to see it—back warehouse is gone, front shop stands. Fire department’s initial call is ‘electrical aging.’”

“Electrical aging?”

“The scene was cleaned.”

She pushed the anonymous note across to him. He glanced at it, and his face darkened.

“They mention your grandfather.”

“You knew my grandfather?”

“I looked up the town genealogy.” Reed said. “The Harpers have lived in Blackharbor for five generations. Your grandfather was one of the only people in town who never sat down to dinner with a Blackwood.”

Megan stared.

She’d always thought her grandfather was just eccentric. He’d been hiding.

“One more thing.” Reed pulled out his phone and showed her a photo. It was a reprint from an old newspaper at the library—a 1999 local news story, headline: “Blackwood Shipping Seizes Undeclared Cargo.”

“I remembered last night,” Reed said. “The Blackwoods aren’t just rich. Three generations of them have been in shipping. When those five girls disappeared twenty years ago, they had a boat permanently docked at their private pier.”

“You mean—”

“They’re smuggling.” Reed said. “The girls probably saw something they shouldn’t have.”

Outside, a car rolled past again. This time it didn’t stop—just slowed down.

Megan walked to the window and peeked through the curtain gap.

She recognized that car. It was the current Blackwood patriarch—old Thomas Blackwood’s personal vehicle. Driving it was Cole, shoulders as wide as a door.

The car passed. But Megan noticed something.

As Cole passed the cabin, he looked up, straight at the curtain gap.

He knew they were there.