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There was no fear at this revelation. Instead a burning rage came from out of nowhere. “Oh, really?” I asked. “Let’s go see who it is.”

I walked past gaping Silver Sleuths and Dash and slammed open my front door. The old me would’ve winced. I wasn’t a door slammer. And then I marched down the front walk and down the middle of the street.

The black sedan was parked half a block away, partially obscured by a live oak draped in Spanish moss that swayed gently in the afternoon breeze. As I approached, I could see a figure hunched behind the wheel, watching my house through the windshield.

The driver looked startled when I rapped sharply on the window, his weathered face going slack with shock. For a moment, I thought he might speed away, but then he slowly rolled down the window, the electric motor whining in protest.

“Why are you following me?” I demanded, hands on my hips.

The man behind the wheel was older than I expected, probably in his late sixties, with the leathery skin and sun-spotted hands of someone who’d spent decades outdoors.

His white hair was sparse and wispy, like dandelion fluff, and deep grooves lined his face, telling a story of hard years and harder decisions.

He blinked up at me in surprise, then cleared his throat nervously.

“You’re Mabel McCoy?” he asked, his voice gravelly with age or cigarettes or both.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “And you are?”

“Frank Donovan,” he said, offering a calloused hand through the window. “I used to work security at the marina. Back in ’96.”

The marina. Where Elizabeth had been found. My interest immediately sharpened, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.

“That doesn’t explain why you’ve been following me,” I said.

Frank sighed, looking suddenly exhausted. The scent of peppermints and Old Spice wafted from the car.

“I saw on the news about that deputy getting arrested. Reynolds.” Frank’s gaze flickered past me to where Dash now stood a few feet away, watching carefully.

“Heard rumors around town that the Elizabeth Calvert case was being reopened.” He paused, his weathered hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened.

“I was there that night. The night she died. I saw something.”

My pulse quickened, sending a rush of blood to my head that made me momentarily dizzy. “Why didn’t you come forward before?”

“I tried,” Frank said, his expression hardening like cement setting. “Went to Sheriff Milton the very next day. He told me to keep my mouth shut if I wanted to keep my job.” His hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel. “I had young kids back then. Couldn’t afford to lose that paycheck.”

I exchanged a look with Dash, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

“Would you like to come inside, Mr. Donovan?” I asked. “You look like you could use some tea.”

Frank hesitated, then nodded. “Been trying to work up the nerve to come talk to you for days,” he admitted. “Figured following you was the easiest way to get a chance to do it without being seen.”

Ten minutes later, Frank was settled in my living room, a steaming cup of Earl Grey in his weathered hands. He didn’t seem too shocked to be surrounded by the Silver Sleuths. I had to give him props for that.

“Start from the beginning,” Dash encouraged, his voice gentle but firm. “What did you see the night Elizabeth died?”

Frank took a sip of tea, his hands steadier now. The scent of bergamot filled the room, calming my nerves like it always did. “I was working the night shift at the marina. Security guard, walking the perimeter every hour or so. It was quiet that night—Tuesday, not many boats coming or going.”

He set the cup down carefully on its saucer, the porcelain clinking softly. “Around nine, I saw a young woman by the docks. Pretty girl, blond hair. She seemed agitated, kept checking her watch. Then a man showed up—not who she was expecting, I could tell that right away from her body language.”

“How so?” Hank asked.

“They immediately started arguing,” Frank explained. “You could tell they knew each other. I couldn’t hear everything, but their voices carried across the water.”

“What were they arguing about?” I asked, leaning forward despite myself.

Frank frowned, concentration furrowing his brow even deeper.

“She kept saying something about telling the truth and going public. He was trying to convince her not to, said she didn’t understand what she was getting into.

” Frank’s voice darkened. “When she turned to leave, he grabbed her by the wrists.” He demonstrated, his hands closing around invisible arms with enough force that I could almost feel the bruising pressure.

A chill ran through me, raising goose bumps on my bare arms as I remembered the autopsy report that mentioned bruising on Elizabeth’s wrists. Beside me, Dottie’s sharp intake of breath told me she’d made the same connection.

“I was about to intervene,” Frank continued, “But then my supervisor radioed. There was a boat emergency on the other side of the marina—a guy had been drinking and went overboard. Hit his head and knocked himself out. By the time I got back, maybe an hour later, they were both gone.” His voice dropped. “Never saw her alive again.”

“Can you describe the man?” Dash asked.

Frank nodded slowly, his eyes distant as if seeing the scene replay before him.

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Dash asked.

“Maybe,” Frank said. “It’s been thirty years, and it was dark. But I’ll never forget the way he grabbed her wrists, or how she looked at him. She was angry. Looked like she might throw a punch.”

“Would you be willing to come in tomorrow and give a formal statement and look at some photographs?” Dash asked.

Frank nodded firmly. “That’s why I’m here.

Should’ve done it thirty years ago, no matter what Milton said.

” He looked at me directly, his faded blue eyes suddenly intense.

“When I heard what happened to you last night—that Reynolds tried to kidnap you—I knew I couldn’t stay silent anymore. History repeating itself, you know?”

Once Frank left, Dash spread out the timeline we’d constructed, his fingers tracing the connections we’d drawn.

“Let’s look at what we know for certain.

Elizabeth was researching corruption related to the Harbor Development.

She stumbled across financial impropriety and documented dates and amounts in her ledger, along with the names of Roy Milton, Paul Cromwell, and Clinton Harrington Sr. Plus about half a dozen or so others.

The information she had was enough to send a lot of people to prison for a long time. So there’s motive there.

“We already know from what Clint Harrington told us that he’d made plans to meet Elizabeth at the docks at ten o’clock the night she was murdered. His alibi is shaky since he can’t be accounted for from the time he left the Charleston Symphony fundraiser with the parents to when he returned.”

“We know from Frank that she was at the docks around nine and that she was arguing with a man there,” Hank said.

“Which means we can’t rule out that it was Clint Harrington,” Dash said, “because he doesn’t have an alibi for that time, even though he said he’d left Charleston around nine.”

“Except,” I said, looking at Dash. “The description the jeweler gave of the man who bought the watch does not match Clint Harrington or Reynolds.”

“That’s all the past,” Deidre said. “What about the present? Vanessa Garfield is dead, strangled just like Elizabeth.”

“And we know from her bank account that she made a large deposit in cash the day before her murder,” Walt said. “Someone paid her for something. The reason people get paid in cash or in an amount like that is if they have information to sell, or if they’re blackmailing someone.”

“And the reason she’s dead could be because of either of those things,” Dash said.

“What about her phone records?” I asked. “Did we ever get those?”

“Harris was supposed to get them and bring them by,” Dash said, pulling out his phone and dialing. His conversation was short before he hung up.

“He’s on the way over with them,” Dash said. “He said the woman at the phone company kept asking him questions about the case so she took forever printing out Vanessa’s phone records.”

“Darla Hedgeseth,” Bea said, shaking her head. “She’s worked at the phone company a long time. Knows everything about everyone.”

“Another one of your informants?” I asked Bea, grinning. She just grinned back, but didn’t confirm.

“So what’s our next move?” Dottie asked.

“We set a trap,” Dash said.

“How?” Deidre asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I like all this excitement. But I’m not forty years old anymore. I can’t keep up this kind of pace.”

“We should go on that seniors cruise when this is over,” Bea said. “Those senior cruises are like a game of chance. Once you get out to sea those old people start dropping like flies. They keep all the bodies in a cooler down below.”

“I’ll go,” Dottie said. “But I want to hear about this trap we’re supposed to set. And then I’m going to take a nap. I’m full of carbs and indigestion. Go ahead, Sheriff.”

Dash looked like he wanted to yank Bea’s sidecar out of her hand and knock it back. But he showed admirable restraint.

“We let it be known that Frank has come forward,” Dash explained. “That he saw everything that night and is prepared to identify Elizabeth’s killer in a lineup.”

“Won’t that put Frank in danger?” I asked, concerned.

“We can protect him,” Dash assured me. “But we need to force the killer’s hand—make him panic, make him act.”

“And when he does,” Walt said, nodding with approval, “we’ll be ready.”

There was a knock on the door and I could see Deputy Harris through the glass before he let himself in. He held a manila envelope in his hand.

“Must be something good in here,” Dash said, studying Harris’s face.

“It certainly paints a picture,” Harris said.

“What about text messages?”

Harris looked every bit of his twenty-two years as excitement flushed his cheeks. “You’ve got those too.”

Dash pulled out the papers and laid them out of the table. “Huh,” he said. “I guess Reynolds was right. We were looking in all the wrong places.”