“Miss Mary-Ann,” he said with a respectful nod. “Been hoping I’d see you. There’s something that’s been bothering me.”
She slowed her steps, brow furrowing. “Hamish, is something wrong?”
He glanced over his shoulder, not nervously, but with the wariness of someone careful with what could be overheard. “No, not wrong, exactly,” he said. “Just been thinkin’ on something. You’ve always had a sharp head for things, and you see more than most.”
She tilted her head slightly. “What is it, Hamish?”
He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck with a calloused hand. “It’s about him. He’s not—”
A sharp shout cut through the air. “Move, miss!”
Hamish’s arm shot out, pushing her aside. She stumbled back, the ledger pressed against her chest. Above them, ropes snapped with a sickening twang. A block and tackle, iron and wood, spun free from the hoist and plummeted to the dock.
It struck Hamish with a sound that was more felt than heard.
Time stuttered. The air rushed from her lungs, but her body moved before her mind caught up. She was calling for help, even as everything inside her screamed to undo what had just happened.
Mary-Ann’s scream pierced the air as Hamish dropped to the planks. The ledger slipped from her hands, scattering pages in the wind. Dockworkers shouted, some running, others frozen in place. But she moved. She was at Hamish’s side in seconds, falling to her knees. Blood was already pooling beneath him.
“Fetch Dr. Manning!” she cried. “Quickly!” She glanced overhead. “And get this rigging checked. Now!”
She gave Hamish her full attention, but she knew. From the unnatural stillness. From the way the breath never came.
Hamish’s fingers twitched. He struggled to breathe. “Ink…” he whispered.
Her head dipped close, tears already falling.
“On your nose,” he murmured, his voice no more than a memory. “Always had ink on your nose, little miss…” His lips lifted, barely. And then he stilled.
Hands were already moving, boots pounding across the dock. She scanned the pulley line overhead, and her stomach turned. She crouched beside the rigging, reaching out with a steady hand to inspect the frayed end. It hadn’t come loose. She’d seen ropes wear down before. The fibers unraveled in weather and time, but this break was too abrupt, too clean. Whoever had done this hadn’t meant to miss. The question was, had they meant to kill Hamish… or someone else? She rose slowly, her heart pounding.
Someone stood beside her, Jonas, a younger dockhand with wide eyes and trembling hands. He held out the ledger with the pages reassembled as best he could, the ribbon slightly torn but still wrapped tight. “Miss Mary-Ann… I think this is yours.”
She took it with a numb nod, brushing grit from the cover.
Something inside her had shifted. Not just grief. Resolve. Someone had turned her docks into a hunting ground, and she would not let them take another soul. A dark smear marred one corner, blood or grease, she couldn’t say. She clutched it to her chest again, fingers tight. Not just to protect it. But to steady herself.
One of the crew covered Hamish with a sailcloth. The world hadn’t stopped moving. But inside her, something had gone very, very still.
The cries and footfalls faded around her, distant echoes in a world that had tilted on its axis. She brushed her skirts, her hands trembling, before she forced them still. There was no room for panic now. Grief would come later. For now, there was only action. She turned to a group of stunned dockworkers nearby.
“Check every hoist line on this dock,” she ordered. “Start at the rigging and work your way down. If anything appears to bewrong, frayed, in tension, or with knots, report it to the office immediately.”
Her voice did not waver, and for a heartbeat, no one moved. Three men nodded and took off at a run. And beneath it, something colder still. She had a growing certainty that this was no accident.
Chapter Six
That same afternoon,the wind off the sea was sharper, sweeping through the docks and carrying with it the scent of salt and smoke. Mary-Ann sat stiffly in her father’s carriage, her hands clenched in her lap, her folio with the rumpled pages of the ledger tucked inside. The seat beneath her felt too fine, the carriage too quiet. Her mind wandered to Hamish, not just the man who died but the man she’d known since childhood.
Once, he let her borrow his cap and shout orders to invisible sailors. The crew played along, saluting with mock-serious expressions as Hamish stood behind her, arms crossed, pretending to take notes. She hadn’t thought of that moment in years. But now, it shimmered like a coin on the sea floor. He’d winked when she memorized routes faster than the shipping master. And now… now he was gone, taken not by time or illness but by something darker. Her father had barely looked at the spot where it happened.
Across from her, her father stared straight ahead, silent save for the occasional sigh. He hadn’t spoken much since the accident. Not beyond insisting she leave the scene and return home.
“It was an accident, Mary-Ann,” he said finally, as if rehearsing it aloud might make it true. “Rigging can fail if it’s not properly maintained. Hamish should have had it checked twice, if not three times.”
She turned her face to the window. She’d known Hamish since she was a girl, climbing crates and pretending to command ships. He’d let her balance on the beams of the empty docks, always with a steady hand nearby, always patient. And now his last breath had been spent trying to warn her. About what? Or… about whom? “He was coming to tell me something.”
Her father didn’t reply.
