Page 2 of Jonah’s Lure

Monday arrived gray and cold, as most mornings did this late in March, with a wind off the water that cut through whatever you wore and made you aware of every gap.

Scout was at the bedroom door before Angus’s feet hit the floor, weight shifting between his front paws, as he worked the gap at the bottom with his nose. Angus pulled on yesterday’s jeans, a thermal, and his jacket, then followed him to the back door. Scout was off the step before it swung fully open, covering the yard in quick passes, nose to the ground.

Angus stood on the step. The sky was lightening over the rooftops—pale gray becoming a slightly less pale gray, the dawn of a coastal town in early spring when the sun hadn’t committed to anything yet. The ocean smell was strong on the wind. Salty and fresh, the scent of cold, deep water. A gull called from somewhere nearby, invisible in the gray. Another answered from farther out.

He went back inside, filled Scout’s bowl, and started the coffee. He sat at the kitchen table and properly pulled on his boots while Scout ate his breakfast. The kitchen held the quiet of a house before the day got its hands on it—the coffee machine cycling, the wind against the window, and nothing else. He’d learned not to fill that quiet with anything. Ten minutes of nothing was worth more than he used to think.

He drank one cup at the counter, put the second in a travel mug, and clipped Scout’s leash on.

* * *

The house sat three blocks from the waterfront. Close enough that the harbor smell was a constant on the east wind, close enough that the fleet heading out could be heard from the bedroom window on still mornings. He walked the dock front most days when the caseload allowed, not out of routine so much as preference—he liked knowing the town was already working before he got to it.

Late March meant winter was tired but not finished. Ice still edged the pilings at the south dock, thin enough to see through. The lobster boats were moving—two already clear of the harbor mouth and heading northeast, their running lights still on. A third idled at the fuel dock. On the pier, a pair of crew members in heavy slickers worked a tangle of rope and traps without speaking. The season was gearing up, and the waterfront showed it, carrying the focused energy of people who work by weather and tide and don’t waste effort on anything else.

Scout moved at his side, alert to every smell the dock had to offer, pulling briefly toward the bait shed before Angus steered him past it. The cold was sharp enough that Angus kept his free hand in his jacket pocket and let the travel mug do its job. A delivery truck backed slowly into the loading dock at the far end of the waterfront, the driver stepping out without urgency—someone’s ordinary Monday already underway.

He turned at the harbor end and walked back the way he’d come. The town was waking up around him—a light on in the diner, a car moving up the hill toward the school, woodsmoke from a chimney on the ridge standing straight up before the wind took it sideways. The kind of morning that looked like every other Monday in Weyport and mostly was.

* * *

Back at the house, he changed into his uniform, checked his weapon, and locked up. The drive to the office took a few minutes. The parking lot indicated what kind of Monday it was going to be before he was out of the truck.

Miguel’s truck sat in its spot, but the time was wrong. Miguel Garcia kept a schedule that didn’t vary. 7:55 a.m. through the door, eight o’clock on the dot at his desk. His truck being there at 7:25 a.m. meant something had come in before the day officially started.

Angus came through the front door and shook off the cold.

Tammy was at the front desk, working through the morning evidence log with the camera system open on the second monitor. The upgrade had been installed years ago, but she was still the only one who knew how to make it behave when it acted up. A photo of her son in a basketball uniform sat beside her monitor, half-hidden behind a stack of intake forms. Kyle had inherited her smile. The photo clearly captured a young man who believed the world was arranged in his favor.

Miguel was at his desk with a folder open and his coffee untouched. He looked up when Angus came in, and his expression conveyed what the truck had pointed to in the parking lot.

“Missing persons report,” Miguel said. “Father called it in this morning. His son didn’t show up to work Saturday, didn’t come home Saturday night. No contact since. That’s two days.”

Angus hung his jacket on the hook behind the door and crossed to the coffee machine. “Age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

He poured a cup. “Name?”

“Jonah Holt.”

He set the coffee pot down and looked at Miguel. “Frank Holt’s son.”

“Yes.”

He took the folder Miguel slid across the desk and read it while standing. A single intake form, time-stamped 6:51 a.m., with Frank Holt’s handwriting at the top—blocky, compressed, the pen pressed hard enough to leave an impression on the page beneath.

Son did not report for work Saturday March 21. Did not return home Saturday night. Not responding to calls or messages. This is not like him.

That last line. Angus had read hundreds of missing persons reports and the ones filed by parents always carried some version of it—an insistence that the person in question was not the kind of person this happened to. Sometimes it was denial. Sometimes it was the truest thing in the whole report.

He read the rest. Jonah Holt, twenty-eight years old, lived alone in a second-floor apartment on Birch Street, three blocks from the waterfront. Occupation: dock supervisor, Holt Marine and Cold Storage. No prior incidents, no history of disappearances. Last seen by his father Friday evening at the end of the work shift.

“Did Frank say anything else when he came in?”

“Said he’d already been to the apartment. Knocked, no response. He told me he was going to kick the door down himself if we didn’t get there first.” Miguel picked up his coffee and looked at it. “I told him to wait.”

“Good.” Angus set the form on the desk. “What do you know about the son?”