“You have five.”
I leaned down until my forehead touched my father’s.
“I’m going to finish it,” I whispered. “Whatever you started. I promise.”
He let go.
Tamsin met my eyes from the hallway and gave the smallest nod toward the stairwell. The guard followed me as far as the lobby. Then his radio crackled, and he turned away to answer it.
I walked out the side door and didn’t stop until I reached Ruthie’s Buick.
“Pruitt’s Landing,” I said. “Now.”
The marina sat at the north end of Cutter Lake, a cluster of weathered docks and a bait shop with a sun-bleached Coca-Cola sign. Hank Pruitt was hosing down the fish-cleaning station when we pulled in.
He squinted at me for a long moment.
“Grady Holcomb,” he said. “Your daddy’s been paying slip fees on that boat every month. By mail. Never once came to take her out.”
“He hasn’t been able to.”
Hank turned off the hose.
“Figured it was something like that.” He jerked his chin toward the far dock. “Thirty-one. End of the row.”
The Second Wind was a twenty-two-foot cabin cruiser Dad bought the summer I turned twelve. Mom picked the name. She said everybody deserved one.
The canvas cover was green with pollen. The brass key slid into the cabin lock and turned on the first try.
Inside, it smelled like lake water and old vinyl. I lifted the cushion on the starboard bench.
A gray fireproof box sat bolted to the hull.
The same key opened it.
Inside was a thick manila folder, a thumb drive in a plastic bag marked STORE CAM – OCT 9, a small digital voice recorder, and a single envelope sealed with packing tape.
Ruthie sat on the bench across from me, her hand over her mouth.
I opened the folder first.
Bank statements. Forty-one transfers from the store’s operating account over eight months. Every single one went to an online sportsbook called BetVantage.
Dad had circled the account holder’s email address in red ink.
trentgulley88@…
“He found it,” Ruthie breathed. “Lord, he found all of it.”
The envelope held a letter on Merrow Falls Savings letterhead, notarized and dated March 20 of last year. Two days before the stroke.
I, Walter James Holcomb, being of sound mind, revoke any authority previously granted to Lorraine Gulley Holcomb over my finances, property, or medical care. Should I become incapacitated, I name my son, Grady Holcomb, as my agent. If he remains incarcerated, I name Ruth Ann Pell.
My hands were shaking. I set the letter down and pressed play on the recorder.
My father’s voice filled the little cabin. Strong. Clear. The voice I hadn’t heard in fourteen months.
“Grady. If you’re hearing this, I couldn’t tell you myself. I found the old DVR backup from the store in the attic in February. Lorraine told the police the cameras were down that week. They weren’t. It’s Trent on that footage, son. Trent at my desk, logged into my account, the night the biggest transfer went out.”
A long breath on the recording.
“I’m telling Lorraine tomorrow night that I know. Then I’m taking this to Sheriff Dunbar on Monday. I should’ve trusted you from the start. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, kid.”
The recording clicked off.
Nobody spoke.
Then the boat rocked.
Hard.
Someone had stepped onto the swim platform.
Trent ducked through the cabin door, breathing like he’d run the whole dock. His eyes went straight to the open box.
“Mom said you’d come here,” he said. “Hand it over.”
“Get off my father’s boat.”
“That’s not his anymore.” He lunged.
He got two fingers on the folder before I yanked it back. He swung at me. His fist caught my cheekbone and slammed my head against the cabin wall.
White light burst behind my eyes.
Ruthie screamed and grabbed her phone.
Trent went for the recorder. I wrapped both arms around the box and drove my shoulder into his chest. We crashed through the cabin door onto the deck.
He threw another p*nch. It glanced off my ear. I didn’t swing back. I just held the box against my body like it was breathing.
“Let go!” he shouted.
He planted his foot and pulled. The fiberglass was slick with pollen. His sneaker slid out from under him, and he went over the rail into the lake.
He came up sputtering, ten feet from the dock.
“You’re dead!” he yelled, hauling himself onto the ladder. “You hear me? You’re going back inside! I’m calling your parole officer right now!”
He ran down the dock, dripping, and peeled out of the lot in my father’s truck.
My cheek throbbed. Something warm trickled from my eyebrow.
Ruthie’s phone rang in her hand. She stared at the screen, then held it out to me.
“It’s a Marisol Vance,” she said. “She says she knows you’re with me.”
I took it.
“Mr. Holcomb.” My parole officer’s voice was flat. “Lorraine Holcomb just reported that you @ssaulted her son at Pruitt’s Landing. Where are you?”
I looked at the box in my lap.
“Slip 31,” I said.
“Stay there,” she said. “I’m coming to bring you in.”
Chapter 4: What the Footage Showed
I didn’t run.
I’d spent three years learning what running looks like to people with badges. So I sat on the end of the dock with my feet over the water and the fireproof box beside me, and I waited.
Ruthie sat next to me, pressing a bag of frozen minnows from the bait shop against my face.
“You could leave,” she said quietly. “I’d drive.”
“Then I’m a parole violator with a box of stolen papers,” I said. “No. She comes to me.”
Marisol Vance pulled in twenty-two minutes later in a white county sedan. She was in her forties, hair pulled back tight, with the tired eyes of someone who’d heard every excuse twice.
She looked at my cheek, then at the box.
“Stand up, Mr. Holcomb. Hands where I can see them.”
I stood.
“Before you cuff me,” I said, “can I show you two things? Five minutes. Then do whatever you have to do.”
“You’re asking a lot for a man with a fresh assault complaint.”
