Chapter 14: The Dock

Elias held out the coffee can the next morning, and I put both my hands behind my back.

"It's yours," he said. "It's twenty thousand dollars of what he owes you, and then some."

"It isn't mine."

"Willa."

"Gavin gave it to you to buy a silence, and you're going to hand it back to him, out loud, where people can hear."

He looked at the can.

Mustard, asleep on the bed, lifted one ear.

"Where?" Elias said.

"Where he's proudest of himself."

Bradlee Marine had its Saturday sale on the dock that morning, with striped flags on the slips and a table of free donuts.

Forty people were walking the boats.

Gavin stood at the end of the main pier in his pressed quarter-zip, shaking hands with a couple in matching windbreakers.

He saw us coming down the planks, and his smile didn't move.

I was impressed, in a way.

"Babe," he said, loud and warm, for the customers. "You came."

"I'm not here for you."

"Of course." He turned to the couple. "My wife and my brother, everybody. Family business."

Nobody laughed.

Elias walked up beside me with the can in both hands, and a man in a fishing cap near the donut table stopped chewing.

"Gavin," Elias said.

"Eli. Glad you came out. It's been a long time."

"Five years and a month."

"Right." Gavin spread his hands. "Whatever you two think you know, we can sort it out at home."

Elias pried the lid off the can.

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