ELEANOR PRENTISS's Arc

Chapter 3 of 1

The cart rolled to a stop at the water's edge. The mill dock stretched out before them, gray boards sagging over the tide. No one had worked here in years. Dara stayed on the seat, hands tight on the reins. Eleanor climbed down. "This is where they loaded the crate," Dara said. "Right there. The long one." She pointed to the far end, where a stone warehouse leaned against the harbor wall. Then she looked away, toward the road behind them. Mara dropped down beside Eleanor. She pulled the lens from her brow and scanned the dock. "Been years," she said. "Rain, salt. Could be nothing left." Mara did not waste words. In ten years she had learned to read a scene cold and move on. But she had also learned to let Eleanor work. She stepped back and watched. Eleanor crouched where Dara pointed. The boards were split and rotted. She took out her brass glass and bent close. Salt had eaten most of it. But a crate that heavy leaves marks wood remembers. She found two deep dents in the plank, a hand apart. Below them, a scrape ran toward the warehouse door. Something had been dragged. "Here," Eleanor said. She followed the scrape on her knees. It ended at the stone threshold. In the gap between dock and door, mud had dried hard. She brought the lens down. One print pressed into it. A narrow sole, fine stitching along the edge. Not a work boot. A boot made by a maker who cared. "Fine leather," Eleanor said. She looked up at Dara. "The man you saw." Dara's jaw went tight. "That's him." Mara knelt and looked where Eleanor pointed. "He stood here," Eleanor said. "Faced the water. Waited." She measured the print with her thumb, then swept the glass along the threshold. A second scrape cut across the first. "Two crates," she said. "Not one. He unloaded here more than once." The trail did not rot after all. It had waited for someone to read it. Mara stood. "So he used this dock steady," she said. "His own route." "His, and whoever sent him," Eleanor said. The fourth man was not passing through. He had a place. He had moved cargo through this harbor for years, under no name, behind three men who took the fall. A sound came from the road. A cart creaked somewhere out of sight, then stopped. Dara stiffened on her seat. "That's not a hauler," she said low. "Nobody hauls this stretch but me." She gathered the reins. "He watches faces at the market. Now somebody's watching this road." Eleanor stood, the glass still warm in her glove. She had the dock. She had the boot. But the fourth man had found them first.