The Man Stalking Me Said Stop Working Alone, and the Kind Vet Was the One Who Let My Tire Down novel · Chapter 6 of 24
Chapter 6: The Ore Dock
Maija's POV
I took the binder to the Ravnik ore dock at noon, because I could not think of anyone else to ask.
I had slept four hours and read the last page a half-dozen times.
The dock sat on the St. Louis Bay shore at the end of a plowed gravel road, a long concrete wharf with a steel loading arm and a mountain of rust-red taconite pellets under snow.
A freighter lay against the pier with its stern to the lake, huge and quiet.
There was a gate with a guard shack.
The man in the shack was thick-set and bald, in a canvas coat, with reading glasses on a cord against his chest.
He looked at the binder under my arm, and then at my face, and his own went hard.
"You're Kallio," he said.
"Yes."
"I'm Pavel Ravnik," he said.
"Matt's cousin.
"I keep the books and I keep the gate."
"I want to see him."
"No," said Pavel.
I blinked at him.
"I'll say it to your face," he said.
"I don't trust you.
"You called the sheriff on a man who has done nothing to you but stand in a parking lot, and the sheriff is the Haugens'.
"You walked a family's name straight into their hands.
"You may be a sweet girl, and I don't care."
"I'm twenty-seven," I said.
"I'm not a girl.
"And I came here because this binder was in your warehouse."
He looked at it.
His thick jaw moved.
"Give me that," he said.
"No."
"Pavel."
The voice came from behind me, low and even.
Pavel's mouth shut.
I turned.
Matt Ravnik stood ten feet away on the gravel, in the dark wool coat, in daylight.
It was strange to see him in daylight.
He was older than I'd thought, with gray at the temples and lines at the corners of his eyes, and the pale eyes were gray.
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