By a Thread

the Southern coastal town. It was quite a bit warmer here than in the cool mountains of Ashland, and the oppressive humidity made the air thick and heavy, despite the steady breeze that blew in off the ocean. Shops, restaurants, and hotels filled the area, all facing the water to take advantage of the picturesque view and the strip of beach below.

We strolled along the cobblestone walkway that ran past the shops and cafes, ducking into the various storefronts and listening to the street musicians trying to impress passersby and pick up tips with their lively jazz tunes. In the distance, ships with glassed-in decks sailed up and down the waterfront, showing tourists all the sites worth seeing.

Shopping wasn’t really my thing, but it seemed to make Bria happy, so I tagged along behind her, making the appropriate oohing and aahing noises when called upon. I even let her buy me a tacky T-shirt that said I’m a real peach above a picture of the fruit.

“Well,” I said as we left the shop. “Finn will certainly get a kick out of the shirt.”

Bria snickered. “I know.”

She bought a few more things, including a massive T-shirt for Xavier, the giant who was her partner on the police force back in Ashland, and a much smaller one for Roslyn Phillips, his main squeeze. Then she stopped at a flower stand and picked out two bouquets of blue and white forget-me-nots.

“Who are those for?” I asked. “Callie?”

The smile faded from her face. “No, not Callie. You’ll see.”

We left the downtown district behind and walked through some of the island’s historic gardens, passing more shops, restaurants, and museums along the way. Eventually we left the tourist sites behind and came to a wrought-iron gate that wrapped around a small cemetery. Magnolia, cypress, and palmetto trees had been planted around the gate, and their thick branches arced from one side of the square cemetery to the other, creating a canopy that blotted out the blazing sun and cloaked everything below in soft, sleepy shadows. The air was hushed and heavy inside the cemetery, and even the drone of the dragonflies seemed muted and far away.

Bria opened the gate, wincing at the loud creak it made, and stepped inside. I followed her. My sister walked slowly, her eyes fixed straight ahead. All around me, the granite gravestones whispered with low, mournful notes, echoing all the heart-wrenching sobs and quiet tears that folks had cried here for their lost loved ones. I heard the same hollow, empty sounds whenever I visited Blue Ridge Cemetery, where Fletcher and the rest of the Snow family were buried.

Bria finally stopped in front of a simple marker that spanned two graves. Coolidge flowed across the top of the gray stone in an elegant script, and a small heart had been carved in between the two names below. Harry Coolidge. Beloved husband and father. Henrietta Coolidge. Beloved wife and mother.

The marker gave the dates of their deaths, which had been a couple of years ago. Bria didn’t talk about her adoptive parents much, but I knew that her dad, Harry, had been a police detective and her inspiration to become a cop as well. He’d died of a heart attack, while her mother, Henrietta, had been hit and killed by a drunk driver a year later. They’d been good people, and they’d loved Bria just as much as I did.

Bria knelt and picked a few dry, brittle leaves off the smooth grass before arranging the forget-me-nots on the two graves. White flowers for her mother, blue for her father—the colors made a pretty contrast against the lush greenery. She fussed with the stems and petals for several minutes, until they were arranged just so, while I stood still and silent behind her. These were her parents, this was her grief, and I didn’t want to intrude.

Eventually, my baby sister wiped away the tears that had slid down her cheeks and got to her feet. She turned to face me, her blue eyes full of memories, love, and sorrow.

“I thought you might want to see their graves,” Bria said in a quiet voice. “Besides, Callie’s working right now, and I didn’t want to come here alone.”

I just nodded, not sure what I should say to Bria, not sure what I could say to make things better. The sharp edge of grief might dull with time, but it never truly went away. The cruel blade was always in your heart, just waiting to be twisted in again at a moment’s notice and remind you of everything and everyone you’d lost. I knew that better than anyone.

Bria had done what she’d needed to do, so she headed toward the gate, her steps slow and her shoulders slumped. I stayed behind, giving her some space, and waited until she was out of earshot before I looked down at the two graves.

“Thank you for watching over her,” I said in a soft voice. “For taking care of and protecting and loving her when she needed it the most.”

I knew it was silly, but I said the words anyway. I didn’t know if Harry and Henrietta Coolidge could hear me wherever they were, but they deserved my thanks, even if I was the only one who’d ever know that I’d given it to them.

“Gin?” Bria called out in a soft voice.

I turned and walked toward the cemetery gate, leaving the quiet shadows behind.

3

We walked to the convertible in silence, and Bria drove us back out toward the edge of the island. I’d thought we’d go straight to the hotel, but she surprised me by turning into a sandy lot that faced the ocean about a mile from the Blue Sands resort.

The unpaved lot fronted a restaurant made out of weathered boards. The wood might have been a soft blue at one time, but the wind had blasted it with so much sand over the years that the building was now a pale, washed-out gray. Several fiberglass picnic tables done in bright shades of electric blue squatted in the sand outside the ramshackle structure, while a neon sign the same color burned above the screen door. One by one, the letters lit up to form the restaurant’s name—The Sea Breeze—before a tube lit up around them all, forming a clamshell.

I eyed the blue clamshell. The sign reminded me of the heart-and-arrow rune that glowed outside Northern Aggression, my friend Roslyn’s nightclub in Ashland.

“Does an elemental run this place?” I asked. “Because that’s a rune if I ever saw one. That clamshell. It’s a symbol for hidden treasure.”

Dwarves, vampires, giants. Most magic types used a rune to identify themselves, their power, their business connections, and even their family alliances. Humans used runes too, but the practice seemed to be the most common among elementals.

For the first time since we’d left the cemetery, a smile creased Bria’s face. “Nah, she’s not an elemental, but Callie owns this place. The clamshell is her idea of a joke, of saying that her restaurant is a buried treasure just waiting to be discovered, like a pearl inside an oyster, although everyone on Blue Marsh already knows just how good the food is. C’mon, I told her that I’d swing by for dinner tonight, and I’m dying for some of her hush puppies. They’re amazing.”

My sister got out of the car, and I followed her. It was after six now, and the dinner rush was on. Lots of folks must have had the same opinion Bria did about the food because cars filled the sandy lot. I could see a dozen people eating outside at the picnic tables and even more crammed inside through the porthole-shaped windows. Waitresses bustled back and forth from the restaurant, through the rows of tables, and inside again, each one carrying white platters filled with shrimp as big as the palm of my hand and lobsters as long as my arm.

As much as I liked cooking, seafood wasn’t really my thing. I supposed because shrimp and the like reminded me too much of the crawdads I used to catch as a kid in the creeks in the woods that surrounded Fletcher’s house. Crawdads were slimy little suckers with sharp, nasty pinchers, and they’d made my fingers bleed more than once over the years. Deep-fried or not, I had no desire to stuff one into my mouth.

Bria wove through the crowd before pulling open the screen door and stepping inside the restaurant. I followed her and stood by the door a moment, taking in the scene before me.

The Sea Breeze was just what its name implied—a seaside joint with the island decor to match. Sand dollars, starfish, and spiked sea urchins preserved and mounted inside glass cases hung on the walls, along with