Chapter One: The Widow of Port Morrow
The fog came in at 4:17 PM, like it always did.
Elena Voss watched it roll across the harbor from her bookstore window-gray and patient, swallowing the fishing boats one by one until they became ghosts. She pressed her palm against the glass. The ring on her fourth finger caught the dying light.
Cold.
She'd worn it for three years now. The gold band was thin, unremarkable. A pawn shop find from a town she'd passed through in the rain. She'd chosen it because it looked like it belonged to someone who'd loved simply. Someone who'd lost simply.
Elena didn't know much about simple.
The bell above the door chimed-a rusted sound that always made her flinch. She turned, ready with her practiced smile, the one that said I'm fine, I'm grieving, please don't ask questions.
But the man standing in the doorway wasn't a customer.
He was tall. Salt-and-pepper hair that hadn't been cut recently. A canvas jacket worn thin at the elbows. He held a paperback in his hand, dog-eared, spine cracked like a confession.
He didn't look at the bookshelves.
He looked at her.
"Elena," he said.
Not a question. A statement. Like her name had been sitting on his tongue for years, waiting for the right moment to fall out.
Her fingers curled against the counter. The ring bit into her skin.
"I'm sorry," she said, voice smooth as glass. "Do I know you?"
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Not yet," he said. "But I know him."
He held up the paperback.
It was a photograph of a man she'd never met.
And yet-the face was hers.
