Harbor House Metadata

There are two versions of me at eight in the morning. One of them sits in the campaign media room assigning radio hits and correcting county-level talking points with a calm voice. The other is running mirrored server logs in a hidden window and praying I do not find Owen's fingerprints on a message from my dead sister.

The Harbor House microsite trail keeps getting dirtier the deeper I go. The domain was supposed to be dormant. Instead it pinged active last night through a private admin login that only five people ever had: me, Owen, Vivian, the charity's former operations director, and a dead web contractor named Eric Shaw. Eric cannot have sent the relay unless hell has very specific fundraising needs.

I print the login history and slide it into a clean briefing folder just as Mel from digital pokes her head in. "You have eight minutes before the morning presser, and Owen wants the education answer tightened."

"On it." I keep my face empty. "Did anyone ever restore Harbor House's donor portal?"

"Not unless Vivian did it through one of her museum people." Mel frowns. "Why?"

"Curiosity."

"That's never a safe look on your face."

After she leaves, I call the old operations director, Ruth Hanley, on a number I have not used in four years. She answers on the fourth ring with a smoker's rasp and no greeting. When I say Harbor House, she goes quiet enough that I check the line.

"Ruth?"

"Don't call me about that place from a number anyone can trace to him," she says. "Not if your child sleeps in that house."

The line dies before I can ask who him is supposed to mean, which tells me more than any answer would. I stand there with the dead call tone in my ear until Owen walks in from the hall, sleeves rolled, tie loosened, looking like a man voters would trust with their daughters and tax plans.

"You missed breakfast," he says.

"Busy."

He comes around behind me and rests a hand on my shoulder, intimate and possessive in exactly equal measure. His gaze flicks to the folder on my desk. "What are you printing from Harbor House?"

I did not say the name aloud. I turn slowly in my chair. Owen keeps his hand on my shoulder like a man comforting his wife, but the pressure of his thumb increases once, just enough to hurt.