Chapter 2: The Man at Her Table

Elias went to East Point before sunrise.

The marina opened onto a working harbor, with fishing boats along one pier and small pleasure craft along the other. He had bought it when most investors saw only cracked pavement and a repair shed that needed a new roof. Standing there still helped him think.

Beth met him in the shed with a folder.

“The sale agreement hasn’t closed,” she said. “I notified our counsel that the signature is disputed. No one is to treat it as authorized until we sort it out.”

“Who requested the certified copy?”

“A courier account billed to Vale Advisory.”

Elias opened the folder. The request carried Adrian’s business address.

“That ties him to the document,” Beth said. “It doesn’t tell us how he got into your account.”

“No.”

Beth leaned against the workbench. “You think Selene let him in.”

“I think his laptop was in my house.”

“That’s more than a guess. Have you asked her?”

“If I ask before I know what they’re doing, I lose the chance to find out.”

“You may also lose the chance to stay safe.”

Elias looked at the harbor. Beth had seen the yacht route. She knew why waypoint four disturbed him.

“I’m taking it seriously,” he said.

“Then let me help you do that.”

He asked her to preserve the account logs and share copies with their lawyer. He also asked her to keep looking for any other access Adrian still held. Beth agreed, on the condition that Elias would call her if Selene changed the trip again.

At nine, Elias drove to Adrian’s office. He parked across the street instead of going inside.

The building had a café on the ground floor. Adrian arrived at ten past nine and took a table by the window. He wore a pale linen jacket and kept checking his phone.

Selene came in twelve minutes later.

Elias gripped the steering wheel. He had suspected it. Seeing her settle across from Adrian still hurt.

They talked over coffee. Adrian slid a slim folder toward her. Selene read one page, closed it, and pushed it back. When Adrian reached across the table, she covered his hand with hers.

Elias took two photographs through the windshield. They showed where they had met and when. They could not tell him what was in the folder.

He watched Selene leave first. Adrian stayed behind long enough to make a call, then drove away in the opposite direction.

Elias waited until both cars were gone before entering the café. He ordered coffee from a barista who had cleared their table.

“Did the man at the window leave a folder here?” Elias asked.

“No, sir. He took everything.”

Elias thanked her and left. He could feel how close he had come to asking a stranger to solve what he had been afraid to face at home.

At Ward Coastal, he searched Adrian’s old projects with Beth. Before Elias terminated the contract, Adrian had advised on a refinancing proposal. He had seen the marina’s accounts and the company’s debt. He also had copies of reports Elias had commissioned during an exhausted winter, when he was sleeping three hours a night and arguing with everyone around him.

“What is this?” Elias asked.

Beth moved closer. On the screen was a draft statement Adrian had prepared but never sent. It described Elias as increasingly erratic and unable to make sound decisions.

“I told him to delete it,” Elias said.

“Was there a reason he wrote it?”

“We had a fight over the refinancing. He said I’d regret refusing him.”

The draft included real details: Elias had missed two meetings, snapped at a lender, and left a dinner early. It gave each one a false explanation.

“If Selene repeats this,” Beth said, “some people will listen.”

Elias thought of her hand covering Adrian’s in the café.

He called Daniel Reed that afternoon.

Daniel had overseen security on the

Meridian

during several high-profile trips, including one on which an uninvited investor tried to board at a foreign port. Elias trusted him because Daniel had handled the incident without turning it into a spectacle.

Daniel answered from a job two towns away.

“I need you to look at a private sailing plan,” Elias said.

“Send it over.”

“I’d rather show you in person.”

They met after dark in an empty parking lot near the harbor. Daniel sat in Elias’s passenger seat and studied the route on a tablet.

“Who planned this?”

“My wife.”

Daniel zoomed in on waypoint four. “Why stop here?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Have you talked to Owen?”

“He says Selene requested privacy.”

Daniel handed the tablet back. “I can walk the boat with Owen. Check the equipment and who’s due aboard. You should tell someone outside the crew what’s happening.”

“I’ve told Beth enough to know where I’m going.”

“Enough to know you’re frightened?”

Elias did not answer immediately.

“I found a forged sale agreement,” he said. “Adrian Vale’s firm requested a copy. His laptop was connected to our home network.”

Daniel’s expression sharpened. “Does your wife know you found it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then keep it that way until we understand the route.”

Elias drove home later than usual. Selene was in the living room, watching a film with the sound low. She looked up when he came in.

“Long day?”

“Yes.”

She held out her hand. “Sit with me.”

He sat. For half an hour, she rested against his shoulder as if Sunday were simply a holiday she had planned for them.

When the film ended, she said, “I know things have been difficult lately.”

He turned toward her. “What things?”

“You hardly sleep. You don’t trust anyone at work.” Her eyes filled. “I worry about you.”

“Who told you I don’t trust anyone?”

“You do. I live with you.”

He thought of Adrian’s draft statement.

“I’m tired,” he said. “That’s all.”

Selene touched his face. “Then let me take care of Sunday. No phone, no business. Just us.”

Upstairs, after she fell asleep, Elias checked the security notifications on his phone. A new device had connected to the guest network that evening.

It was Adrian’s laptop.

Elias lay still beside his sleeping wife. Adrian had been in the house while Elias met Daniel. Somewhere downstairs, Selene had let him in.

The visit lasted twenty-three minutes. Elias sent Beth the log before he closed his eyes.