Chapter Two: The Detective Pt. 2
1097 Words
“Alone?”
Jonas hesitated. “Looked like it.”
“Time?”
“Late. After ten. I was coming back from settin’ lines.”
“Did you see him get out?”
“No.”
“You see anyone else?”
“No.”
“You said he looked alone.”
“That’s what I said. Don’t mean he was.”
Samuel studied him. “You know something, Mr. Pike?”
Jonas’ lip curled. “I know the sea don’t take what it don’t want. Gideon was a bastard. Lotta folks wanted him gone.”
“Anyone in particular?”
Jonas raised his glass. “Maybe ask your lady widow.”
A beat.
Then Samuel pulled out a folded twenty and left it on the counter. Jonas ignored it.
As Rourke rose to leave, Jonas said, “He screamed, you know.”
Samuel stopped.
“That night. I heard it. Real faint. Car was still up there. Fog swallowed the sound, but I heard it. Man screamin’. One of them screams that starts in the soul. The kind you don’t fake.”
Samuel turned. “And you waited two days to mention this?”
Jonas shrugged. “Ain’t nobody ever come asking before.”
The door had three locks. Evelyn opened them without comment.
She held the final key a moment longer than needed before twisting it in the old brass plate. The sound was clean and mechanical, but the moment felt ceremonial like unsealing a tomb.
“I haven’t stepped inside since the night before,” she said. “It still smells like him.”
Samuel stepped in first.
The room was dim, the curtains drawn, and the scent hit immediately old paper, cigar ash, cologne, something chemical and bitter beneath it all. Like varnish and secrets.
Everything was arranged with the obsessive symmetry of a man who didn’t trust the world to behave. The books on the shelves were color-coded. The desk was immaculate. But something felt off. Too perfect.
“You never entered after his death?”
“No. The door stayed locked.”
He turned toward her. “Yet you had the key.”
“I always had it,” she said. “I never used it. I didn’t want to see what he left behind.”
He believed her. For now.
The room was more than tidy it was curated. Every object felt placed for someone else to find, like Gideon had known someone would come snooping. But who?
He opened the desk drawers first.
Top left: Stationery, blank. Monogrammed.
Top right: Fountain pens, refills, sealing wax.
Bottom drawer: A ledger.
He paused.
“Do you mind?”
“I already said I don’t want to see,” Evelyn replied, already backing toward the door.
He nodded, grateful. As she left, he heard the soft click of her heels fade down the hall like a heartbeat slowing.
Alone, he flipped the ledger open.
The first few pages were harmless: shipments, invoices, dates and signatures all in Gideon’s crisp, mechanical handwriting.
Then came a second set of entries. Looser. Unlabeled.
A list of names. No context. Just:
C.W.
M.F.
J.P.
K
Rourke.
His pulse jumped.
His own name. No initials. Just the full surname, as if Gideon had known who would be reading this.
The entry beside it read:
“Reassigned. Quiet but not clean. Watch if returns.”
Samuel stared at it long. The ink was barely dried. This was recent. This was intentional.
Someone had known he’d come back to this town. Someone had written it down like a threat in waiting.
Then a noise soft, metallic.
He turned.
The curtain rod above the window shifted no, swayed. Like something had been there. Watching.
He crossed the room in two strides, yanked the curtain back.
Nothing but the ocean mist.
Still, he locked the study behind him when he left.
He found her standing by the window, gazing out across the bluffs. The sea churned far below, wind picking up in sharp, unpredictable gusts. Shadows shifted against the pane.
“I locked the study,” Samuel said, voice low.
She didn’t turn. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Not exactly. But I found enough.”
That made her glance over her shoulder. “Enough for what?”
He stepped closer. Not threatening something softer, heavier. “Why was my name in his ledger, Evelyn?”
That made her go still.
“I don’t know.”
“He wrote it recently. Right before he died.”
“I haven’t read anything of his. I told you”
“I believe you.”
That surprised her. “You do?”
“I also believe he was preparing for something. Watching people. Me. Maybe you. He kept records.”
She closed her eyes.
Then said, “There’s something… you might want to see.”
She moved to the armoire in the far corner, opened a drawer behind the neatly folded silks. From beneath a false bottom, she pulled a small, leather-bound journal. Red. Worn at the edges, but well-kept.
She didn’t open it.
“He never let it out of his sight,” she said. “He kept it in the drawer by the bed. Sometimes he’d write in the middle of the night. I never looked, not even after he died. Until this morning.”
She handed it over like it burned her fingers.
Samuel opened to the middle.
The pages were dense, hand-written, ink blotted from heavy pressure. But not business notes. These were personal. Frantic.
“She knows. Or she pretends she doesn’t. Either way, I feel her watching. I built this empire. She’ll bury it with my name.”
“The man by the docks I think he followed me. The detective won’t stay away. It’s all closing in. The house listens.”
“Evelyn dreams with her eyes open. She talks in her sleep. Who is she speaking to?”
Samuel looked up.
“This wasn’t paranoia,” he said. “This was obsession.”
“I told you,” Evelyn whispered. “He wasn’t the man people believed he was.”
He turned a few more pages. Some blank. One torn out violently. Just fibers left.
He handed it back. “If someone else wants this journal, they’ll come looking.”
“They already have,” she said, voice hollow. “The locks were scratched this morning. I thought it was rust.”
They stood in silence, the wind pushing against the glass as if to warn them: it’s starting again.
- Writer
