"He's gone." Wade's tone was flat. Certain. "Been gone for hours."
"But shouldn't we?—"
"Disturbing the body destroys evidence." He said it matter-of-factly, then seemed to catch himself. "I mean... the police will want everything exactly as we found it. For the investigation."
"That makes sense," she said. Then, because a normal person would ask: "How do you know he's... that there's no chance?"
Wade's eyes stayed on the body. "Color. Position. Water temperature." A pause. "Alaska fishing boats. You learn to recognize it."
Right. Alaska. Where he'd allegedly spent twenty years catching salmon.
"We should call someone." She pulled out her phone with deliberately shaking hands.
"Already did." Wade shifted his weight, and she caught how his eyes tracked the beach in both directions. Checking exits. Checking approaches. Just like she did. "Hale's on his way."
"Poor man," Cara breathed, wrapping her arms around herself. "Do you think he... fell? Hit his head?" She eyed the breakwater a quarter mile east.
Wade made a noncommittal sound. "Tide's tricky around here. Catches people off guard."
Except the tide was going out, not in. And had been for the last two hours. The body's position was all wrong for someone who’d gone in at the marina or the breakwater. Wade knew that. He was watching her to see if she knew it too.
"Those marks on his wrists," she said, then caught herself. "Are those... is that from seaweed?"
Wade's eyes sharpened for just a fraction of a second. "Could be. Ocean's full of things that can leave marks."
They stood there, two people pretending to be disturbed civilians, both carefully not mentioning that seaweed didn't leave contusions with that kind of uniformity. Or that the sand leading from the beach was disturbed in a drag pattern.
"You okay?" Wade asked. "If you need to head back inside..."
Testing her. Seeing if she'd take the out.
"I'm fine," she said, adding a small tremor to her voice. "Just... I've never seen anything like this before."
"Lucky you." His tone was dry enough to cure meat. "Some of us aren't that fortunate."
There it was. A tiny admission. A crack in the "simple fisherman" facade.
She looked at him more carefully. Early forties, according to local gossip. Twenty years fishing in Alaska, allegedly. But his stance was too perfect, too ready. And that thousand-yard stare wasn't from watching nets.
"You've seen this before." She made it half question, half statement.
"Different water." He shrugged, the movement controlled and economical. "Alaska can be rough. Boats go down. People go overboard. You learn not to look too close."
Except he was looking closely. He'd probably already estimated time of death, analyzed the pattern of injuries, and drawn the same conclusions she had.
"Must have been hard," she offered softly.
Wade's mouth quirked in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Everything's hard until it isn't."
The sound of engines interrupted them. Chief Hale's squad car crunched onto the beach access road, followed by the ancient ambulance that served as Haven Cove's emergency services.
"Here comes the cavalry," Wade muttered. "All two and a half of them."
Cara bit back an inappropriate laugh. Even finding bodies, Wade Patterson had a sense of humor drier than her worst batch of overbaked sourdough.
"I should stay," she said. "In case they need a witness statement."
"Witness to what? We found him like this." Wade's tone was carefully neutral, but she caught the emphasis.We found him.Establishing their story. Creating alignment.
