The water in the harbor was so calm that every boat left a wake like a knife-edge, and the ocean beyond rose and fell in a lazy swell. The damp, still air seemed dense, and Molly’s hair was a heavy curtain on the back of her neck. She and Michael grabbed the last two parking places behind the old train station—he’d driven his own car to town so he could go back to the house for his tunnel gear, if necessary—and they walked up Dockside Avenue. Below the seawall lay the abbreviated beach, a strip of wet sand and pebbles striped by ridges of rock and dotted by blotches of seaweed. Human figures poked into every crevice and waved metal detectors over the ground. But Molly doubted that Willie had found his coins beach-combing. Rohan met up with the Grahams outside the Blackpool Café, a paper cup in his huge, calloused hand. “Good morning,” he said with a grin. “You two are slow off the mark today.” His grin faded as Michael told him about the early morning alarm, concluding, “It was just harassment, I expect.”
