"Yep. You can be my assistant, at least until you get bored with the job, which probably won't take long."
"I won't get bored."
"Sure you will," Nick said. "Heck, I already know that I'm going to get bored."
"Look, if you don't think that you can keep your attention focused on this problem—" Octavia began.
"I'm a Harte, I can focus. Even when I'm bored." Nick turned on his heel and headed for the door. "Let's go, kid. We'll start at Rumor Central."
"Where's that?" Octavia called after him.
Nick glanced back over his shoulder. "The post office, naturally."
"I heard the Upsall disappeared sometime late yesterday or last night." Jeremy lounged back in his desk chair, cocked one tasseled loafer-shod foot on his knee, and tapped the tip of a pen against the armrest. "True?"
"I'm afraid so," Octavia said.
She sank down into the only other chair in the small office and admired the view through the window. The town, with its marina and pier, was spread out before her in a picture-perfect landscape that would have looked good hanging in her gallery.
The tide was out again. Eclipse Arch, the massive stone monolith that dominated the long sweep of beach framed by the arc of Bayview Drive, was fully exposed. Sunlight sparkled on the water. The air had been scrubbed so clean by last night's storm that she could make out Hidden Cove and Sundown Point, the two rocky outcroppings that marked the southern and northern boundaries of the bay. She could even see the elegant old mansion that Rafe and Hannah had transformed into Dreamscape.
She had gotten into the habit of taking a sandwich in to work with her, but she had neglected to bring one today. Feeling badly in need of a short break, she did something she almost never did: she closed up for the noon hour. She drove up the hillside above town with some vague notion of getting a salad at Snow's Cafe. Instead she'd steered straight on past to the institute. Luckily Jeremy had been in his office and had invited her to eat with him in the cafeteria. Now they were back, drinking coffee together.
"I assume our noble chief of police is on the case?" Jeremy said.
"Yes. Sean is looking into matters." She decided not to mention that Nick was also investigating.
She was almost certain that Nick hadn't been serious when he had named Jeremy as a likely suspect, but there was so much bad blood between the two men that she did not want to risk pouring gasoline on the fire.
"Got any theories?" Jeremy asked.
"No." She frowned. "I think Sean feels it might be one of the Heralds."
"A real possibility. No one knows much about that crowd down at the bakery. My grandmother still thinks they're some kind of cult. Not that the theory keeps her from buying her favorite lemon squares there, of course."
"When it comes to good lemon squares, you have to do what you have to do."
"Speaking of doing what you have to do, I think I've worked my nerve up at last. Can I persuade you to come up and view my etchings some evening this week?"
"Any time."
"Are you free this evening?"
She thought about how she had hoped that she would not be free tonight. But things had changed.
"As it happens, I am, indeed, entirely free this evening," she said.
Late that afternoon Nick balanced, feet slightly apart, on the gently bobbing dock and looked down at the short, wiry man standing in the back of a boat. Young Boone was dressed in a pair of stained and faded coveralls that appeared to be at least thirty years old. He wore a blue peaked cap emblazoned with the logo of a marine supply firm.
Even on his best days, Young Boone was not what anyone would call chatty. He had inherited the marina decades earlier from his father, Old Boone. Young Boone was somewhere in his seventies and his father had died twenty years ago, but he would probably go to his grave known as Young Boone. If either of the Boones had had first names, they had long since been forgotten in the misty past of Eclipse Bay history.
For two generations the Boones, Old and Young, had made their home in the seriously weathered two-story structure at the edge of the marina. The lower floor housed a bait, tackle, and boating supply shop. The upstairs served as the Boones' living quarters.
"Heard you had a little damage down here last night." Nick surveyed the marina through his sunglasses.
"Some." Young Boone did not look up from the rope he was coiling in the back of the boat. "Nothin' that can't be fixed."
"Glad to hear it. Storm woke you up, I'll bet."
"Couldn't hardly sleep through that racket. Came out here to check on the boats."
"That's what I figured." Nick studied the view of the shops across the street. The front of Bright Visions was clearly visible. "Happen to notice anyone hanging around the art gallery during the storm? Maybe see a car parked in the lot? Should have been empty at that time of night."
"Nope." Young Boone straightened and peered at Nick from beneath the peaked brim of his cap. "Only vehicle I saw was yours. Figured you was headin' back out to your family's place after spendin' time with Miss Brightwell."
Nick kept all expression from his face. This wasn't the first time today that he had been obliged to listen to observations about his late-night drive home.
"Uh-huh," he said. Noncommittal.
Young Boone screwed up his haggard features into a frown that may or may not have been genuine curiosity. "This have anything to do with that picture they say went missin' from the art gallery last night?"
"Yeah. I'd really like to find it for A.Z. and Virgil."
Young Boone nodded. "Wish I could help you but I didn't see a damn thing last night. Course, I was real busy here securing the boats and such like. Might have missed something goin' on across the street."
"You didn't miss my car when I drove past the marina," Nick reminded him dryly.
"No, I didn't and that's a fact. But I finished up down here right after that and went back to bed."
Which meant that there had been long stretches of time during the night when no one would have noticed a car in the parking lot across the street, Nick thought.
Young Boone gave him a knowing wink. "Miss Brightwell's nice, ain't she?"
"Yeah."
"A man like you could do a lot worse."
"A man like me?"
"Raising that boy of yours alone. No wife or mother around. Reckon it's time you settled down and got married again, don't you?"
"I don't think about it much," Nick said.