Margo’s fingers tightened around the flashlight until her knuckles hurt.
She didn’t realize Rad had moved closer until she looked up and found him watching her.
He gave her a gentle, knowing smile.
“Thank you for finding me,” Margo said quietly.
His expression changed at once. It softened, but there was something darker there too, something full of feeling he didn’t try to hide fast enough.
“Of course,” Rad said, his voice low and a little rough. “But ultimately, it was Ace and Willa that got both of us out.”
“Yes,” Margo said, holding his gaze. “But you found me first and made sure I survived.”
For a second, neither of them moved.
Her heart started that strange flutter again, the same one it had done too often over the past seven weeks. Ever since the day Rad Dillinger had come to town with his son, taken over the lighthouse cottage, and stepped into Sandpiper Shores as if he had somehow always been meant to be part of it. Margo had noticed him immediately. His quiet steadiness. His protectiveness. His restraint. The way he looked at people made it seem as though he was really seeing them.
Now, standing in her damaged hallway with smoke staining the walls and her nerves still too close to the surface, Margo felt that same pull stronger than ever.
Then they heard June walking back toward them.
“I can’t see anything out of place in the storeroom,” June said.
Margo turned, cleared her throat softly, and forced herself to keep moving. “Let’s go to the kitchen. That’s where the most damage is.”
They walked carefully down the hall and into the kitchen.
The fire had done its worst there.
Margo stood still on the threshold for a moment, her chest tightening as the beam of her flashlight moved over the damage. The walls were scorched black in places. Part of the ceiling had been opened up. The smell was thick and sour. Everything looked wrong. Familiar equipment sat in the middle of ruin, like survivors too stunned to know what had happened around them.
Her throat burned.
Margo stepped farther in, moving slowly, letting herself see it.
The prep station had taken damage. The shelving near the wall would need to be replaced. There was soot on nearly everything. Water had soaked into corners, seams, and anything porous enough to absorb it. One of the big cooker plates sat there like an accusation.
Margo moved toward it automatically.
That plate had been giving her trouble for weeks, not switching off properly every time. She had meant to have it repaired. She had meant to call someone in. She had meant to get to it beforeanything else could pile on top of it. Her stomach twisted. Her flashlight moved over the cooker and down along its side, and something glinted beneath it.
Margo frowned and crouched, lowering the beam. There, wedged beneath the cooker, was something small and bright.
“What is it?” Rad asked at once.
“There’s something shiny under here.” Margo tilted her head and pointed with her flashlight. She was about to reach for it when Rad stopped her.
“Stop,” Rad said, grabbing her arm. “Let me do it.”
Margo leaned back immediately and stood.
Rad was already reaching into his jacket pocket. He took out another pair of gloves, then his phone.
“We need to do this properly,” Rad said.
He crouched where she had been, first taking a few photographs from different angles before pulling on the gloves. Then, with careful precision, he reached beneath the cooker and eased the object free. It was a bracelet.
It was delicate and made of white gold. It also looked fine enough to be expensive, with a faint gleam that caught the flashlight beam and scattered it.
