The river smelled like wet stone and old secrets.
Harper stood at the edge of River Street, just beyond the cluster of mourners drifting away from her father’s funeral, and tried to steady her breathing. The tide rolled in slowly, licking the wooden posts of the old pier, and the sky hung low and gray—too calm for the storm tearing through her chest.
Claire squeezed Harper’s shoulder gently before stepping toward Mason and Isla, who waited a few feet away. “Honey, take a moment. We’ll be in the car.”
Harper nodded, forcing a weak smile. She needed air. Space. Anything that didn’t smell like lilies and condolences.
But as she turned toward the deeper stretch of the pier, movement caught her eye.
A silhouette stood behind the abandoned bait shack—tall, broad-shouldered, unmistakable.
Mason.
Her newly minted stepbrother, polished like a Southern gentleman, tie loosened and sleeves rolled to the elbows. Except the refined charm he showed the world wasn’t on his face now. Instead, he crouched low beside a rusted metal bin.
And flames flickered inside it.
Harper’s stomach tightened. She stepped closer, her footsteps muffled by the wind. Mason didn’t notice her; he was too focused on the stack of small ledgers he held—old, worn, familiar.
Her father’s ledgers.
A soft crackle burst upward as Mason tossed another one into the fire. He watched it curl and blacken, expression almost satisfied.
“We all have to clean up his messes eventually,” he murmured to the flames, voice low and chilling. “Dead men shouldn’t leave burdens behind.”
Harper froze.
Her pulse hammered in her ears.
He didn’t say it with grief. Or frustration. Or even anger.
He said it like a man relieved.
A gust of river wind hit, carrying the smoky scent straight toward her. Panic crawled up her spine. She stepped back—too quickly—her heel skidding on gravel.
The sound broke the moment.
Mason turned sharply.
Their eyes met across the pier.
A heartbeat of silence. His expression smoothed instantly, becoming the polite, composed version of himself again—but a shadow lingered there, dark and sharp-edged.
“Harper,” he said, voice mild but wrong. “Didn’t see you.”
She swallowed. “What are you burning?”
He smiled, slow and patient. “Just old paperwork. Nothing important.” Then, with a tilt of his head that didn’t quite reach his eyes: “Funerals bring out emotions in everyone. Maybe go rest.”
She forced herself to nod, to move, to breathe. But inside, something cold unfurled.
Her father never threw away ledgers. Never.
And Mason wasn’t just discarding them.
He was destroying them.
Harper didn’t calm down until the car ride home, where the moss-covered oaks blurred past the window. Claire sat beside her, exhausted from grief, leaning into Mason as he drove with steady hands and a too-pleasant smile.
Harper pressed a palm to her ribs, trying to quiet the dread gnawing there.
Was she imagining things? Reading too much into a strange moment on an already heavy day?
Or was it something darker?
When the car stopped in front of the Quinn house, Isla tugged Harper aside before they reached the porch.
Isla—Mason’s younger sister, soft-featured, nervous, always observing more than she spoke. Her hands trembled as she dug into her coat pocket.
“Harper,” she whispered, eyes wide with fear, “I… I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t let you be blindsided.”
Harper frowned. “Isla? What’s wrong?”
Isla glanced toward the house where Mason and Claire had gone inside. Then she pressed a folded piece of paper into Harper’s palm—old, creased, and unmistakably written in her father’s hurried handwriting.
“It was in his study,” Isla whispered. “Hidden in a book spine. I found it before the estate cleaners came.”
Harper’s throat tightened as she unfolded it.
Only half a page remained—torn from something larger. Ink smudged at the edges. But the words were unmistakable.
Don’t trust Mason.
Her breath left her in a single, raw exhale.
“What is this?” she whispered, voice shaking.
“I don’t know everything,” Isla said, tears gathering in her eyes. “But I know Mason was meeting people late at night. And your father… he was scared. He said someone was pressuring him. I think Mason was involved.”
Harper stared at the note, her world tilting.
Her father—always steady, always careful—had left a warning. One meant for her.
“Why are you giving this to me?” she choked out. “He’s your brother.”
Isla swallowed hard. “Because he’s not the man he pretends to be. And if he knew I helped you…” She shivered. “Just be careful, Harper. Please.”
Lightning split the clouds somewhere over the marsh, and Harper closed her hand around the note, feeling her pulse throb beneath her fingers.
Her father was gone.
Mason was burning his ledgers.
And Isla—terrified, trembling—was risking everything to warn her.
Harper lifted her gaze toward the darkened windows of the Quinn house.
Something was very, very wrong.
And she was done pretending not to see it.