Chapter 5 - Dawn on Miller's LaneThe sun rose over Port Haven like a bruised peach—streaks of violent orange and bruised purple bleeding through the low-hanging Atlantic fog.
The black Maybach sat parked in front of the small, weathered cottage on Miller's Lane. The front door had already been temporarily repaired with a sheet of marine plywood and screws by a local carpenter Eli had routed out of bed at four in the morning.
Inside, the kitchen smelled of fresh coffee and toasted brioche.
Mara sat at the pine table wearing a brand-new green sweater that was slightly less oversized than her previous one—a stop-and-shop emergency purchase from a twenty-four-hour mercantile in Belfast. She was carefully arranging three clam shells in a straight line while her grandmother poured hot water over fresh mint leaves.
Roman stood by the window, holding a heavy ceramic mug in both hands. He watched the gulls wheeling over the gray flats outside, dipping and banking against the wind.
The front door clicked open.
Eli stepped inside, shaking the dampness from his shoulders, holding a fresh batch of morning papers from the press trucks down at the depot. He didn't look at Roman; he walked straight to the table and laid the top section down next to Evelyn’s teapot.
The bold black headline across the front page of the Maine Gazette read:
PORT HAVEN HARBOR COMMISSIONER ARRESTED IN MIDNIGHT FEDERAL RAID; SYNDICATE TIES UNCOVERED.
Evelyn picked up the paper, adjusted her reading glasses, and scanned the first two paragraphs without changing expression. She folded it neatly and set it back on the wood.
"Well," Evelyn said quietly, looking at Roman over the rim of her glasses. "Looks like you finally cleaned up your backyard, Mr. Bellamy."
Roman turned away from the window. He looked at the old woman who had guarded his daughter's secret for nine years, and then down at Mara, who was currently trying to balance a sugar cube on top of her seashell formation.
"It's not clean yet," Roman said.
He walked over to the table, pulled out the small ladder-back chair, and sat down. The wood didn't groan this time; it held his weight easily.
"What do you mean?" Mara asked, looking up from her shells, her smudged glasses sliding halfway down her nose. "Everything's fixed. The door's screwed on, the bad man on the floor went away in a police car with flashing lights, and grandmother has more tea."
Roman reached across the table, his large, scarred fingers gently touching the edge of the second charm on Clara’s bracelet—the small, polished gold letter M that rested against Evelyn’s wrist.
"It means," Roman said, a faint, rare ghost of a smile touching the corners of his mouth, "that we have a lot of lost time to make up for. Starting with breakfast."
Mara considered this, tilting her head. "Can we have pancakes? Real ones? With maple syrup that doesn't come out of a plastic bottle shaped like a lady?"
Roman looked up at Eli, who was leaning against the repaired doorway with a faint, amused smirk.
May you like
"Eli," Roman said. "Find the best bakery between here and Portland. Bring back pancakes."
"Already on it, Boss," Eli said, turning toward the door. "And the gulls are waiting outside."
