Chapter 23: After the Storm

The storm blew itself out by dawn, leaving the harbor scoured clean and strangely calm, the kind of stillness that always followed real violence, as if the water itself needed a day to recover from what it had just done. Nora slept four hours and woke feeling like she'd aged a year overnight. She found Eli already awake at the cottage's small kitchen table, staring at Sam's notebook without openi...