Chapter 4 - The Boat That Was Painted
A painted hull could tell investigators where to look.
It could not tell them who had been aboard nine months earlier.
Detective Cross explained this gently when I asked whether the repair-yard discovery proved Julian had taken Nadia away.
"It means the boat's movements deserve a closer look," she said.
She and her colleagues were seeking records from the yard and questioning people who might have seen the vessel.
I made myself stop asking her to promise more.
The detective had been clear that too much speculation could hurt a case and, worse, turn Leo into the center of rumors he had never chosen.
Camille and I met with a family-law attorney, Sarah Kim, to discuss what Camille could lawfully do if she believed Julian was exposing Leo to danger.
Sarah was frank.
"A concerned aunt doesn't automatically replace a parent. You need to document the child's actual safety concerns and work through the proper process."
Camille looked exhausted.
"I've watched Julian dismiss everyone who tells him no."
"That may be relevant. It isn't the same as evidence of immediate harm."
We had no interest in manufacturing allegations.
Leo needed adults who would believe him without using him to win a war.
That afternoon I returned to the Merrick property with an escort to collect the rest of my personal belongings.
Julian remained in his office while a staff member watched us pack.
The cottage smelled of cedar soap and rain.
Leo's red knitted scarf still hung on the peg beside the door.
I touched it once, then left it there.
Taking it would have been a way of pretending I had the right to decide where he belonged.
On the desk lay a drawing Leo had made of Andrea kneeling beside a tree.
Beneath it, in his careful handwriting, was her name and the date she had died.
I had helped him spell the word remember.
I put the drawing back where he could find it.
Outside the cottage, a dock worker named Freya Salter was loading tools into a maintenance truck.
She had worked seasonal jobs along the coast for years and knew the estate's boats better than I did.
She saw me with boxes and shook her head.
"They really fired you?"
"I'm no longer employed here."
"Because of the diamond?"
I didn't answer.
She glanced toward the main house.
"The gray launch wasn't broken last October. I watched it leave the slip."
I set the box down carefully.
"Please tell the detective what you remember."
Freya's eyes narrowed.
"Are the police involved?"
"Yes. And it's important they hear it from you, not from me repeating it."
She considered that, then asked for a contact number.
I wrote Detective Cross's publicly listed office number on a scrap of paper.
Freya told me only one more thing.
On the October night Nadia disappeared, she had heard the launch engine at the dock after ten.
When she looked from her work shed, a second, smaller vessel was moving toward shore without its navigation lights.
She couldn't see the people aboard.
She thought it was unusual enough to remember when the news broke about Nadia.
I was tempted to ask why she'd stayed silent.
Then I thought about the people whose jobs depended on Julian, and about Tasha—no, about every friend of mine who had ever needed work more than she needed a fight.
Fear did not make Freya's memory true or false.
It did make her hesitation understandable.
Before I left, a housekeeper handed me an envelope that had been waiting in the staff office.
It contained my final pay information and a bill for supposed damage to the cottage door.
The claim was false.
I photographed the undamaged door with the employee who had accompanied me.
At Camille's house that evening, Sarah Kim reviewed the bill and advised me how to dispute it in writing.
The point was not the repair charge.
It was the steady effort to drain the time and confidence of anyone who contradicted Julian.
Just before bed, Camille received a message from her brother.
He said he had sent Leo to stay with friends until the 'unnecessary attention' died down.
He would not tell her where.
She called at once.
No answer.
May you like
For the first time, I heard genuine panic in her voice.
"I promised Andrea I would listen," she whispered. "And now I don't even know where he is."
