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bar was wedged between a glass-fronted shop for tourists and a Chinese restaurant that had tables out front.
    Between the harbor and the building was a wide cobblestoned promenade that wound itself all the way around the southern shoreline. Families on holiday strolled along the foreshore and a young boy with a fishing rod came towards them. Stone took Celia’s elbow suddenly and guided her out of the way, and onto one of the timber jetties.
    Fish ing boats scraped and swayed against their mooring posts, and the afternoon sun that reflected off the water was warm on his back as he turned to her. Suddenly he stopped walking, forcing her to stop as well. There was a look of bewilderment and confusion in Celia’s eyes as she discovered that he was staring at her with a brooding intensity that she found unnerving.
    “What’s your story, Celia?” he asked.
    Celia shrugged. “What do you mean?”
    “You know what I mean,” Stone said. “Tell me what you do. Who you are. You know about me because Peter Boltz told you. Now I want to know exactly who I am helping before we step into that bar and I start asking questions about Katrina.”
    She stared up into Stone’s eyes, silent for a moment, like maybe she was trying to sort out what she should tell him.
    “I’m a writer,” she said with a tentative deprecating smile.
    “What kind of writer? A journalist?” Suddenly Stone was guarded.
    “No. An author.”
    Stone raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Fiction?”
    She nodded.
    “What kind of books do you write?” he asked. “Anything I might have read?”
    Celia smiled wryly. “I doubt it,” she said. “I write romance books.”
    Stone blinked. Took the news on board. He was looking at her differently now he knew she wasn’t a journalist. “I figured you for some kind of accountant or lawyer,” he said.
    Celia laughed, but it was a hollow, empty kind of sound, like maybe there was a deeper meaning somewhere below the surface. “I’m a single, lonely woman in my early thirties, Jack. I live with a cat named Jupiter, and I write romance books because in reality my own life is boring.” She stared up at him. “Satisfied?”
    Stone said nothing. He j ust nodded. He walked her back along the jetty until they were standing under an awning out front of the Tidewater.
    The front window of the bar was filled with nautical odds and ends. There was a fishing net hung from hooks, and around it was an old ship’s steering wheel, a couple of brass lanterns and a faded orange life preserver beside a coil of white rope.
    Next to the window was a wooden door with a round glass window cut into it that had been fashioned to look like a porthole. The door was closed.
    Stone glanced in through the little window. He saw people inside, and he could hear the hum of jukebox music. He pushed the door wide open and Celia followed him inside.
    The entire bar was decorated in a nautical theme. There were framed prints of old sailing ships on the dark timber walls, and above the long bar counter hung dusty timber plaques with fish displayed on them like hunting trophies. The room was gloomy, the lighting from red oyster-shaped fittings in the ceiling.
    Clustered along one wall were nests of dark timber tables and chairs, and in front of the counter was a row of stools on steel posts, a nchored into the carpet.
    Stone glanced around quickly. There was about a dozen people in the room. They were all looking at him. Behind the bar was a big man, maybe in his forties. He had thin greying hair and a fleshy nose that made his eyes look dark and small. He was wearing a white singlet and jeans. He had a dishcloth slung over one shoulder. He was leaning against the back wall, with his hip against the cash register, big beefy arms folded across his chest, staring up at a baseball game that was showing on a flat-screen television mounted high up in one corner of the room. The sound was muted so music from the jukebox could be heard.
    He glanced at