Chapter 7: Coordinates to Nowhere

The harbor master's logbook sat open on the counter, and Natsuko did not look at it.

She stood at the edge of the fuel dock with her father's canvas bag over one shoulder and her complaint log pressed flat against her ribs and watched Tetsu walk the length of his uncle's boat — a twelve-foot fiberglass inboard, the paint on the bow bleached from blue to the color of old bruise — with the deliberate casualness of someone who has rehearsed his casualness and knows it shows. He checked the fuel line. He checked the bilge plug. He said something to the boat that she couldn't hear, which was the kind of thing Tetsu did when he thought no one was watching, which was something she had stored in the back of the complaint log in the section she did not label anything.

"Line looks fine," he called back to her. "Engine ran clean last week. Uncle leaves it in good shape."