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Across the busy road, the gray-blue harbor water was choppy with whitecaps. He could feel that chill, salty breeze whispering down the back of his neck. Wet fell in whispery, sparkling drips from the wooden eaves and fake garland, plopping on the wooden walkway.

The lock turned, but the door was sticking. He struggled with it for a second or two, then jumped as someone spoke from right behind him.

“As you see, I decided to prolong my stay and visit your charming store once more.”

Andy jumped, glanced over his shoulder, and met the shrewd, black gaze of the man in the green fedora.

Chapter Eighteen

“I see that.” Andy’s reply was automatic.

He was thinkingwhat the hell? But also, he was still trying to get the front door open. The problem didn’t seem to be the lock so much as the door itself.

Most of his time in Safehaven had been spent during the warm summer months, but he did vaguely recall from the one year he’d lived there that the doorframe swelled in the winter and that the door could sometimes stick. That did seem to be the case—the frame clutched at the door—but it also felt like there might be a weight leaning against the door.

An obstruction of some kind.

As alarming as the reappearance of Cyril Sirius was, Andy was more afraid that, for the third night in a row, someone had broken into Time in a Bottle, and this time, they’d ransacked the place. Keeping one eye on the peculiar Mr. Sirius (was it a coincidence that his name sounded like that of a supervillain?) Andy tried to peer through the square glass panes into the dim interior of the shop.

“Is there a problem?” Mr. Sirius inquired. “Does your key not work?”

It was really difficult to see at that angle. But yes, there did seem to be a bulky, dark something at the base of the door.

“It’s not the key…” Andy put his shoulder against the door and pushed.

The door resisted and then popped out of its frame—only to be stopped again. There was definitely something weighing against it. What the hellwasthat? A piece of furniture?

No, because the door wasn’t banging into anything hard. It was more of a soft, heavy something, like sliding a sack of…

Horrible realization flooded Andy. He stopped the slow, inexorable shove of the door and took a step back. Themustiness of the shop mingled with something ominous that the salty breeze couldn’t quite disguise.

He stared at Mr. Sirius, who stared back at him in sudden unease.

Is this really happening?

Andy was pretty sure there was a dead body on the other side of the door.

He was also pretty sure that Mr. Sirius had somehow made the same unthinkable deduction.

“It’s the damp.” Mrs. Dubonnet put down her broom and bustled over to join them. “The door sticks sometimes. You have to push hard.”

She moved to demonstrate.

“Wait,” Andy began at the same time Mr. Sirius gulped out, “Madame—”

Mrs. Dubonnet rammed her sturdy shoulder against the door and slowly,slowlythe door began to inch inward. There was a ghastly scuffling sound.

Mrs. Dubonnet hmphed. “You’d think there was a dead body lying there.” She glanced at Andy, glanced at the back of the now quickly retreating Mr. Sirius, and her expression changed. “Oh my Lord. My Lord in heaven…” She stumbled away from the door.

“Call the police,” Andy told her, and to his relief, she turned without a word and went inside her shop. The door bounced behind her in ghostly knocks.

He looked to see what had become of Mr. Sirius and spotted him disappearing inside a gold Lincoln sedan parked down the street. A moment later the car roared into life, pulled a U-turn, and departed in a spray of slush and mud.

Weirdly, no one else on the street seemed to notice what was happening. People swaddled head-to-toe in scarves andknit hats and boots continued to go in and out of the nearby bakery and coffeehouse, exchanging cheery greetings.

Andy let out a long, shaky breath, gripped the edge of the door with his gloved hands and gave it a good, hard shove. He had lived with a cop for almost three years; he knew this was not okay, but hehadto know.

The door moved forward a couple more inches, wide enough for Andy to poke his head inside.