Chapter 1: Arrival in Driftwood Cove

The morning drifted gray and salt-stained over Driftwood Cove, curling mist over the broken slate rooftops and the jagged shoreline. The Serious Crimes Unit’s evidence transport van rumbled off the battered Coastal Route C2, its navy livery at odds with the battered, paint-peeled outbuildings that greeted them by the old wharf. Lead Investigator Mira Lorne watched the landscape through the window, a tangle of rain-streaked glass and wild brambles. She pressed her thumb to the faded photo of a younger man in her notebook—a ritual, now. The town looked exactly as the files promised: mysterious, rugged, and fiercely self-reliant, the air heavy with a hush that was both secrecy and suspicion. Yara Novik, tall and broad-shouldered in her plain tactical jacket, was already scanning the narrow streets, eyes wary. “They’re watching us,” she muttered, voice clipped and low. “Every window, Mira. You feel it?” Mira nodded, catching her own haggard reflection. “They don’t want us here. Not with their secrets—and not with a body in their church.” She let the silence stretch, fingers brushing the edge of her notebook. Elias Vann, hunched behind his laptop in the rear seat, frowned at his screen. “The local net’s a wasteland. No public feeds near the church—no town cams, no doorbell devices, not even decent WiFi. We’re flying blind.” Dr. Ivo Grell, pulling on latex gloves as the van lurched to a stop, gave a humorless grunt. “Maybe the body will at least speak to us. Out here, that may be all we get.” Celeste Arbour, walking small, anxious circles on the gravel, spoke in her peculiar, lilting tone: “Driftwood Cove’s churches are older than their records. And what little is written down has holes—deliberate ones. The villagers erase what they fear.” They stepped out into the morning drizzle, the tang of brine and old smoke thick in the air. On the hillside above the village, the Church of the Seafarer rose out of low mist, its wooden spire blackened from decades of gales. The SCU’s presence had gathered a few wary onlookers—fishermen with weathered faces, older women with kerchiefs tight over their hair, and children peering out from behind half-closed doors. Superintendent Corentin Faure of the Marleaux Coastal Constabulary met them at the church gates, tension masking the exhaustion in his eyes. “You’ll want to see this first,” he said quietly, leading the team toward the nave. Inside, the scent of incense failed to mask a sharper, metallic tang. The nave was dim, light filtered through stained glass—sea blues and shipwreck reds. At the front, beneath a wooden cross carved with anchor motifs, lay the body: a young man of slight build, skin bronze even in death. Blood pooled under his torso, staining the cracked flagstones. A single, vicious wound to the abdomen—sharp weapon, deep and sure. Mira crouched beside the body, taking in the details—the torn shirt, the calloused hands, the bruises that spoke of a life spent hauling nets or crates. His pockets were empty but for a battered phone and an ID card: Emil Syarif, age twenty-seven. Nationality: Indonesian. Occupation: dockhand, temporary visa. “He was found at dawn,” Faure said, glancing at the closed doors. “By Father Brandt. The priest’s waiting in the vestry. But you’ll find no shortage of town rumors. Some say he was involved in… things.” Mira’s eyes narrowed. “What things?” Faure hesitated. “Some say blackmail. Some say theft. Some say he stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.” Yara was already cordoning off the area, using soft authority to keep the curious at bay. Ivo knelt beside the corpse, methodical and gentle as he inspected the wound. Mira stood, letting her gaze drift over the pews—each one whittled by hand, the wood scarred by generations. Outside, the mist thickened, enclosing the church and the investigation in a cocoon of uncertainty. “Let’s get to work,” she said. “Whatever secrets this place is hiding, we’re not leaving until we’ve found them.” —

Chapter 2: The Dead Man’s Phone

Elias Vann hunched over a folding table in the nave, the battered phone from Emil Syarif’s pocket cradled in latex-gloved hands. The device was old, the screen spiderwebbed, its case scuffed from years of hard use. Outside, the low thrum of the sea and distant caw of gulls served as the soundtrack to his thoughts. “No lock code,” Elias mused, brow furrowed. “But no signal either. SIM card’s missing.” Celeste hovered nearby, organizing case notes by color, her scarf trailing along the edge of a pew. “Phones without SIMs are like ships without sails. But even empty hulls carry ghosts, Elias.” He ran a forensic cable to the phone’s USB port, firing up his analysis suite. “Deleted files, then. Let’s see what’s hiding in the slack space…” His fingers flew. “There’s a bank of photos, mostly work—dockyards, fishing boats. And… here. A series of screenshots. Messages in Bahasa. Looks like… blackmail? Demands for payment. Attached images—compromising photos of another worker. Threats.” Mira joined them, her eyes scanning the scrolling lines of code. “Can you tell who sent them?” Elias’s lips twisted. “No headers, no traceable accounts. They used an anonymized messaging app—wiped server-side. Nothing for us to follow but the screenshots.” Celeste leaned closer, her voice a murmur. “Blackmail is a language of fear, not always profit. Who wanted Emil silent—and why here, in the church?” A flash drive sat loose in the church’s donation box—Elias popped it open. “Encrypted. I’ll need hours… maybe days, best case, to break this. But it’s amateur work. Not a pro’s encryption.” Yara called from the far end of the nave, her voice echoing between the pews: “Got a blood trail, faint. Starts at the side entrance, ends at the altar. Like he staggered in for sanctuary.” Ivo, gloves still smeared faintly red, approached. “Single wound. Sharp, angled down—likely a knife, could be a local fisherman’s blade. No hesitation. Knew what they were doing.” Mira’s gaze drifted to the half-healed scrapes on Emil’s hands. “He fought back?” “Some struggle,” Ivo agreed, “but not much. The killer was fast, strong—or caught him off guard.” Faure entered, tension visible in the set of his jaw. “You’ll want to interview Father Brandt quickly, before the town starts spinning its own stories.” Outside, the mist was lifting, sunlight slicing through the church’s stained glass. But inside, the shadows seemed to lengthen, drawn out by secrets that would not be easily dispelled. Elias packed up the phone, scanning the nave one last time. “No digital witnesses. No cameras. Just old wood and older eyes.” Mira nodded. “So we find the eyes that saw.” —

Chapter 3: Father Brandt’s Testimony

The vestry was cramped and warm, the air thick with candle wax and the faint, persistent scent of brine that seemed to linger everywhere in Driftwood Cove. Mira sat across from Father Brandt, whose lined face was a study in nerves. His hands trembled against his cassock; his eyes, red-rimmed, darted from Mira’s face to the rain-smeared window and back. Yara stood by the door, arms folded, a silent figure of authority. Mira broke the silence. “Father Brandt, thank you for speaking with us. Please, tell us everything you saw this morning.” Brandt swallowed, voice thin. “I—I came to open the church, as I do every dawn. The air was cold; I remember that. I… found Emil near the altar. At first, I thought he was praying. Then I saw the blood.” Mira watched him, silent, letting the pause stretch. “I called Superintendent Faure immediately,” Brandt went on. “I didn’t touch the body. I just—prayed. For him. For the town.” Yara’s voice was blunt. “Did you know Emil well?” Brandt hesitated, fingers tightening. “He came to services sometimes. Sat in the back, always alone. He was quiet, polite. Kept to himself.” “Did you know of any trouble he was in?” Mira asked, gaze steady. Another hesitation. “There were… whispers. Some said Emil had gotten involved with the wrong people. Perhaps… local smugglers. But this is a hard town, Detective. Outsiders are rarely welcomed. Some saw him as a threat, others… as a scapegoat.” Yara’s eyes narrowed. “Did you see or hear anything unusual last night? Anyone lingering near the church?” Brandt shook his head, anxiety sharpening his features. “No. But… there was a boat, I think. Around midnight. I heard its engine; it sounded wrong, like it wasn’t from here. But I saw no one.” Mira took note. “And the townsfolk? Who disliked Emil?” Brandt’s lips pressed thin. “Many. Emil sometimes worked extra shifts at the docks, undercutting local boys. Some said he was too clever with computers. There were rumors about… digital blackmail. That’s all I know.” A silence stretched, broken only by a distant ship’s bell and the tick of the vestry’s old clock. Mira stood, offering a tight smile. “Thank you, Father. We’ll need you to stay available for further questions.” As they stepped back into the nave, Mira turned to Yara, voice low. “He’s scared. Of what, I’m not sure yet. But he’s hiding something—or protecting someone.” Yara’s jaw clenched. “Out here, it’s the same thing.” —

Chapter 4: The Migrant’s Circle

The rain let up by midday, and the SCU fanned out across Driftwood Cove’s winding lanes. Mira and Elias made their way to a squat, salt-stained boarding house by the water—Emil’s last known address. The proprietor, Mrs. Hani, was a heavyset woman with quick, sharp eyes. “Emil? Quiet boy. Hard worker. Sent money home. Sometimes drank alone by the quay, but he never caused trouble. Why do you ask?” Mira offered her badge. “He’s dead, Mrs. Hani. We need to know who his friends were.” She crossed herself, lips pursed in grief. “He kept to himself, mostly. But sometimes, other migrants from the docks visited. Sat together and spoke in their language. There was noise last night—arguing, then quiet. I thought nothing of it. These boys fight, then make up. Driftwood Cove is not always friendly.” Elias spotted a slip of paper tucked behind a photo frame: a handwritten note in clipped Indonesian, scrawled in pencil. He angled it toward Mira and began translating in a whisper. “‘Meet me at the church after shift. It’s urgent. Don’t tell anyone else.’ No signature.” Mira examined it. “Left for Emil, or from him?” Mrs. Hani shrugged. “He had visitors yesterday evening. Three men—one local, two migrants. I didn’t see faces—too dark. But one had a limp, I remember.” Mira and Elias exchanged glances. Outside, Celeste and Ivo canvassed the migrant workers at the docks. A wiry man named Riko, hands raw from rope burns, admitted he’d known Emil. “He was smart—fixed phones for people. Sometimes got messages, threats, but he never told us much. Said he was going to make a stand. Said he had proof about someone in town.” Ivo jotted notes, his gaze lingering on the old fishing knives hanging from the wharf wall. Celeste, reflective, murmured: “A migrant alone is a shadow—easy to ignore, easy to fear. But a shadow can also hide something greater.” As the team regrouped, Mira pieced together what they had: Emil had been threatened and perhaps blackmailed himself. Someone wanted him silenced, or perhaps, wanted to make an example of him. Elias, frustrated, reported: “No digital trail. Whoever did this knew how to cover their tracks, or the tech was so primitive there’s nothing left.” Mira’s notebook filled with names and half-truths. “We need to talk to the three who visited Emil last night. Especially the one with the limp.” Yara cracked her knuckles, eyes cold. “And we’ll need to push harder on the locals. They know more than they’re saying.” Above them, slate clouds gathered again, promising another night of rain—and, perhaps, new answers hidden in shadow. —

Chapter 5: Suspects and Motives

The SCU convened in the mobile lab van behind the church—a brief haven against the gathering storm. Mira, perched on a stool, ran through the list of suspects as Elias projected data on the screen. “First,” Mira began, “we have Riko—the migrant friend. No limp, but close to Emil. Second: Samuel Tate, local dock foreman. Known for anti-immigrant sentiment, recently accused of wage theft. Third: Viktor Sima, another migrant, older, walks with a limp from an old injury. Fourth: Oskar Marsh, a fisherman who lost several jobs after Emil began fixing electronics for local crews.” Celeste, flipping through color-coded notes, interjected. “Don’t forget the outlying cases—there’s a pattern of digital blackmail at the cove, dating back months. Several locals and migrants hit. The language is almost… evangelical. ‘Cleanse the cove of corruption.’” Yara frowned. “Someone’s using ideology as cover for personal vendetta. A true believer, or just hiding their tracks?” Elias pulled up the flash drive’s decrypted contents. “Bingo. Encrypted chat logs, mostly threats. But look here—one message, in English but with odd phrasing: ‘The truth must bleed into the light. Mariners must know.’ Attached is a photo of Emil, taken last week—outside the church.” Mira drummed her pen on her notebook. “Someone wanted Emil exposed. But why use a knife, so up close, if this started as digital blackmail?” Ivo, leaning back, spoke with quiet certainty. “It’s a statement. Not just about silencing Emil, but making a spectacle. The church as stage.” Celeste circled the van, voice soft: “A double motive. Fear and belief. The killer may have hated Emil for what he represented—modernity, change, challenge to old ways. But also, a personal fear—perhaps Emil had something on them.” Elias nodded. “But who? The limp puts Viktor Sima high on our list. But the ideological messages feel more educated—maybe Samuel Tate?” Mira leaned forward, her green eyes sharp in the dim light. “We’ll bring them all in. Start with Viktor. And push them hard. Someone’s about to crack.” Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the lab van. Inside, suspicion and desperation mingled, the boundary between truth and fear blurring by the hour. —

Chapter 6: The Interrogation of Viktor Sima

Viktor Sima sat in the cramped interview room at the village constable’s office, hands clasped and eyes ever on the door. His limp was pronounced—a remnant of a fall on the docks years before. Yara took the lead, her posture dominating the little space, Mira sitting quietly beside her, eyes soft but unblinking. Yara’s tone was direct. “You were seen visiting Emil the night he died. Witnesses place you at his boarding house, late. Why?” Viktor’s accent was thick, his tone defensive. “Emil was friend. We talk, drink. He worried—said someone was after him. I try to help. That is all.” Mira let silence hang for a long beat. “You were also seen limping away from the church after midnight. Can you explain that?” His face reddened. “I go to pray, sometimes. Old habit. I did not see Emil there. I swear.” Yara’s eyes narrowed, her interrogator’s instinct searching for the smallest crack. “Did you know what he was involved in? The blackmail?” Viktor shook his head, eyes shining. “He show me messages, yes. Said someone threatened to reveal secrets—his, others’. But I tell him, go to police. He afraid. Said police do nothing for men like us.” Mira scribbled in her notebook. “Did you see anyone else near the church? Hear anything?” Viktor hesitated, then shook his head. “Nothing. Just fog, rain. I leave quickly, go home. I was alone.” Yara pressed harder. “Where is your fisherman’s knife, Viktor?” He swallowed, glancing down. “At home, in drawer. I do not use for fighting, only fish.” “Would you submit to a search?” Yara’s voice was steel. He nodded, resigned. “Yes.” They left Viktor under guard, Yara and Mira exchanging a glance. “He’s scared, but not lying,” Mira said quietly. “Or if he is, it’s not about murder. I want to see that knife.” Later, a search of Viktor’s room revealed his knife—sharp, but clean. No blood, no trace evidence. An investigative dead end. Celeste, reviewing chat logs, muttered, “If Viktor’s not the killer, someone wanted us to think he was. But why the limp? Maybe a red herring. Or someone imitating his gait.” Mira frowned, the case’s threads growing more tangled by the hour. —

Chapter 7: The Red Herring

Night pressed in around Driftwood Cove, rain beating against the old constable’s office as the SCU regrouped. Elias hovered over his laptop, frustration evident. “Whoever did this wiped everything. No emails, no camera footage, no traceable device signatures near the church. It’s like the town’s gone analog on purpose.” Celeste, absorbed in her color-coded notebook, traced her finger along a pattern. “The blackmail messages reference a ‘cleanse’—coded language from an old Driftwood Cove pamphlet about purity, from decades ago. The phrasing is almost identical to Samuel Tate’s letters to the dock workers’ union. He’s fought to keep migrants out.” Yara’s jaw tightened. “That’s motive. Ideology. And he’s handy with a knife.” But Samuel Tate, called in for questioning, was all bluster and wounded pride. “I didn’t like Emil, sure. Outsiders take jobs, don’t respect our ways. But I was at the wharf all night—ask anyone. We had a power outage. I was fixing the main breaker till two in the morning.” The alibi checked out. Shift logs from the fishing cooperative confirmed Tate’s story. Security logs, though sparse, showed his access card used throughout the night. The team scoured every detail, but nothing contradicted his account. Later, a fisherman named Oskar Marsh stormed into the station, wild-eyed, clutching a blood-stained rag. “I did it!” he cried, voice cracking. “Emil threatened me. Said he’d go to the police with lies unless I gave him money. I snapped—I stabbed him. It’s my knife. Arrest me.” Yara and Mira exchanged a glance, skepticism high. Ivo examined the rag and knife Oskar brought in. The blade was too short to match the wound’s depth and angle, and the blood on the rag—upon quick test—was animal, not human. Oskar, when pressed, broke down, sobbing. “I didn’t… I found him. I was drunk. I saw the blood, tried to help, panicked.” Mira’s voice was gentle, but firm. “You found the body, touched the scene, but you didn’t kill Emil. Why confess?” Oskar wiped his eyes. “Guilt. I hated him sometimes. Thought… if I just said I did it, maybe it would be over.” Yara’s face was unreadable. “False confession. We’re back to square one.” The storm outside intensified, wind shrieking through the eaves. Inside, the shadows stretched, and the case’s heart remained hidden. —

Chapter 8: The Internal Rift

The next morning, tension within the SCU simmered. Elias, bleary-eyed from another fruitless night of digital trawling, snapped at Yara as she reviewed evidence logs. “You keep chasing the dockworkers, but there’s nothing there. We need to focus on the messaging apps—maybe the servers are offshore.” Yara glared. “And you keep promising digital magic where there’s nothing left. We can’t ‘hack’ our way out if there’s no trail. Maybe you’re out of your depth here.” Mira intervened, her voice soft but commanding. “Enough. We work every angle. Elias, you keep at the digital side, but start looking for analog clues—paper notes, physical remnants. Yara, focus on witness statements. We need both approaches.” Ivo, watching from the doorway, offered a dry observation. “We’re chasing ghosts, not suspects. Maybe the town wants it that way.” Celeste, circling the cramped room, murmured, “In Driftwood Cove, everyone’s a suspect, and everyone’s a victim. The lines blur.” The friction crackled, an undercurrent of resentment and fatigue. Mira’s leadership steadied the ship, but the cracks in the team’s unity were widening. By midday, a tip came from a local boy: he’d seen a figure leaving the church’s side door around 1 a.m.—not limping, but walking with a pronounced hunch, as if burdened or trying to disguise their height. The detail rattled the team: someone was deliberately misdirecting with physical mimicry. The limp, the hunch—both could be false leads. Elias threw up his hands. “We’ve been played. Someone wants us chasing phantoms.” Mira’s jaw set, her resolve hardening. “Every misdirection is a message. Find out who benefits—from Emil’s silence, and from our confusion.” Outside, the storm passed, leaving a brittle calm in its wake. —

Chapter 9: The Timeline Twist

Celeste pored over her colored notes in silence, lips moving as she rechecked timestamps. She circled a detail: the time of Emil’s death had been assumed to be just before dawn, based on the body’s temperature and rigor. But Ivo, revisiting his autopsy findings, called Mira and the team together. “I made a mistake,” Ivo admitted with a rare note of humility. “Emil’s body temp was artificially lowered. He was dead much earlier—around midnight, not dawn. The window for the murder is wider than we thought.” Elias perked up. “Wait—that means the church was unlocked for hours after the killing. Anyone could have staged the scene or left clues to mislead us.” Mira sifted through the witness statements. The boat Father Brandt had mentioned now seemed more relevant—a vessel with an engine not from the local fleet, arriving near midnight. Celeste, thinking aloud, mused, “The killer may have killed Emil elsewhere, then brought him to the church, staging the scene for maximum effect. The church as a symbol—ideological statement. But also—practical: hides the body for hours, lets rumors spread.” Mira’s mind raced. “If the killer wanted Emil found in the church, it’s about more than the man. It’s a message. To us, to the town, maybe even to outsiders.” Elias, scanning maritime logs, found an anomaly—a small powerboat docked without registry at a slip near the church, departing just after 1 a.m. Yara, voice grim, said, “Find out who owns that boat. And check every local with a motive for both blackmail and public spectacle.” The timeline crumbled, reshaping the investigation. What had seemed a simple crime of opportunity was now a carefully staged event—one designed to confuse, inflame, and perhaps, to hide the truth in plain sight. —

Chapter 10: The Eyewitness Detail

By late afternoon, the SCU tracked down the boy who had glimpsed the figure leaving the church. Ten-year-old Callum Meyer, son of a local fisherman, sat nervously in the station’s interview room, sneakers kicking the chair legs. Mira crouched to meet his eyes. “Callum, you’re not in trouble. Just tell me what you saw.” He fidgeted, voice barely above a whisper. “It was dark. I was coming home from Mrs. Hani’s—her cat had kittens. I saw someone, big, but hunched over, wearing a hood. They were carrying something… like a bag, but heavy. They put it in a boat, real quiet. Then they went back to the church, then out again—this time, nothing in their hands.” Yara asked gently, “Did you see their face?” Callum shook his head. “No. But… their shoes squeaked. Like Dad’s old work boots. Most fishermen wear rubber boots, but these were leather—like the ones Mr. Lafferty wears at the market.” The team’s eyes locked. Lafferty, Driftwood Cove’s market manager, had previously escaped scrutiny—he had no known connection to Emil, but managed local hiring, and had once campaigned against “unregulated” labor. They pulled Lafferty in for questioning. He was calm, even arrogant, denying any involvement. “I was at home with my wife all night. Ask her.” But when pressed, his alibi faltered—his wife, under quiet questioning from Mira, admitted Lafferty was absent for hours around midnight, returning soaked and agitated. A search of Lafferty’s boat turned up a fisherman’s knife—recently scrubbed, but with minute traces of human blood in the handle’s crevice. The DNA matched Emil Syarif. When confronted, Lafferty’s composure cracked. “He was a troublemaker,” he spat. “Bringing criminals into our town. Hacking local business accounts, threatening honest men. I warned him—told him to leave. He didn’t listen.” Mira pressed, “Why the church? Why make a spectacle?” His eyes burned. “People needed to see what happens when you poison a community. This place—Driftwood Cove—belongs to those who keep it pure. Not to some foreign blackmailer.” Celeste, softly: “So it was both personal and ideological. You feared exposure, but you also wanted to make a point.” Lafferty shrugged, a cold defiance settling over him. “Someone had to do it.” The truth, at last, was in hand. But resolution would not come so easily. —

Chapter 11: Partial Justice

The evidence against Lafferty was damning, but not absolute. The knife, though tainted, had been cleaned; the blood traces, while matching Emil’s DNA, were too scant for a conclusive murder charge without a confession. Lafferty’s lawyer, a sharp-faced man from Marleaux, argued that the boy’s testimony was unreliable—a frightened child seeing shapes in the dark. The wife’s statement was recanted under pressure, and Lafferty’s friends provided conflicting alibis. Local sentiment turned ugly. Flyers appeared overnight: “Outsiders, leave our town alone.” The constabulary dragged its heels, reluctant to press charges against a prominent local. Superintendent Faure, caught between duty and survival, offered only platitudes. Meanwhile, media from The Verrowind Herald began sniffing around, their questions more pointed, their presence agitating the town’s collective paranoia. Mira watched as Lafferty walked free, head held high, the villagers clapping him on the back. She saw the fear in Father Brandt’s eyes, the tightness in the migrants’ shoulders, the silence that crept in where hope had tried—briefly—to surface. That night, Elias sat with Mira on the church’s steps, the wind keening through the eaves. “We know who did it,” he said bitterly. “But he’ll never pay. Not here.” Mira tapped her pen to her chin, staring out at the restless sea. “We exposed the truth. Sometimes, that’s all we get.” Celeste drifted by, her voice barely a whisper. “Driftwood Cove will remember, even if it pretends to forget.” The team packed up, the storm’s aftermath lingering in every shadow, every salt-stained lane. Justice, like the tide, had receded—leaving only the evidence of its passing, and questions that would echo long after the case was closed. —

Chapter 12: Echoes and Endings

The SCU left Driftwood Cove under a sky bruised with the colors of ending rain. Inside the van, the mood was heavy—a silence that spoke of battles lost as well as won. Yara stared out at the passing shoreline, knuckles white. “I hate leaving it like this. Feels dirty. Like the town spat us out.” Elias tucked his laptop away, frowning. “At least we cracked the blackmail ring. The app’s admin keys—hidden in that flash drive—lead back to a server outside Verrowind. Some of Lafferty’s cronies are on the chat logs. The Ministry’ll push for charges.” Celeste organized her notes, voice distant. “The cycle repeats. Driftwood Cove won’t change in a day. Or a year.” Ivo, voice gravelly, offered a tired smile. “Dead men tell no lies. But sometimes, the living just lie better.” Mira held her notebook, unsolved cases and all, close to her chest. She let her gaze linger on the church’s distant outline, its spire rising above the cove like a warning, or a prayer. The van rumbled away, the road vanishing behind mist and memory. In the church, Father Brandt lit a candle for Emil. On the docks, Riko and the other migrants gathered in silence, mourning in the only way they could—by surviving. As the SCU returned to Greyhaven, the case remained open in all but name. The truth had surfaced, briefly, shimmering in the salt air before sinking back into Driftwood Cove’s depths, unresolved and unforgiven. The tide, Mira mused, always returns. And so, perhaps, would justice—one day. —