Page 62 of Hidden Tide
Ben’s arm remains around my waist, holding me steady.
I don’t need him to keep me on my feet.
I need him because someone has taken one of the last gifts Grandpa ever gave me, and I suddenly feel like that girl who sat beside his hospital bed, refusing to believe he wouldn’t open his eyes again.
“I should have known,” I whisper.
Ben turns me toward him. “Known what?”
“That the compass mattered.”
“It was a birthday gift from your grandfather. There was no reason for you to think it contained part of a missing lighthouse lens.”
“But it stopped working.”
“Compasses stop working.”
“Grandpa’s didn’t.”
Ben’s eyes hold mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I want to believe him.
Across the room, Keating speaks into his phone.
“Seal the yacht. No one enters or leaves without my authorization. Pull security footage from every camera at the marina and along the access road. I want the harbor patrol checking all vessels that departed within the last six hours.”
He ends the call and points to the surveillance photographs.
“Get these copied and sent to the sheriff’s department and the federal task force. Include Simon Vail’s photograph and every known employee of Pacific Beacon Recovery.”
One of the officers gathers the evidence.
Thomas stares at the empty place where the brass key had been lying before Keating sealed it in a bag.
“James should have told me what was inside those gifts.”
“Would you have agreed to hide pieces of a government-owned lighthouse lens?” Nathan asks.
“No.”
“Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell you.”
Thomas glares at him.
Nathan doesn’t look away.
Mom steps between them before either man can say more.
“Fighting with each other won’t bring Calle’s compass back.”
“She’s right,” Keating says. “We have to focus on protecting the remaining pieces.”
Hazel’s voice comes through Ward’s phone. “We don’t even know what they are.”
“They’ll be connected to something Grandpa gave each of you,” I say.
“He gave us dozens of things,” Willow replies. “Books. Jewelry. Photographs.”
