Chapter 14: Noon at the Yard

"You're not going in there alone," Lachlan said.

He stood dripping in my kitchen in my father's work pants, and the hum was coming faster.

"The note says alone."

"The note is a trap."

"Everything he does is a trap. The question is which part of it I can use." I tied my boots. "Aggie is in that yard."

"Then I will come through the water."

I stopped.

"The yard tanks drain to the cove," he said. "The intake pipe by tank twelve is wide enough for my shoulders."

"That's what I was going to ask you."

"Then ask."

I looked at him.

"Lachlan, will you go in through the pipe and wait under the tank room, in case I need you?"

"Yes," he said, and it was the happiest I had seen him all morning.

I walked up the dock road at noon with the scale in my fist.

Moss Tide Yard was shut.

The gate stood open, and there was no coffee table and no clipboards, only the tanks in their long row with the pumps humming.

The hooded man stood at the office door.

His pant cuff was still crusted with salt from my slip.

"Hello again," I said.

He pointed his chin at the door.

Garrick sat behind his desk with his boots up and his thermos by his hand, eating a sandwich.

"Honey," he said. "Sit down. Have you eaten?"

"Where is she?"

"Cold room. Don't worry, she has a blanket."

The hooded man walked me down a concrete hall that smelled of bleach.

He unlocked a steel door, and cold air rolled out over my boots.

Aggie sat on an upturned bait bucket under a bare bulb, her yellow slicker around her shoulders.

One ankle was chained to a drain pipe in the floor.

There was a purple bruise down the left side of her face.

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