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Theo looks away as though the cabinets are suddenly interesting. “Yes.”

Ezra sets his coffee down and comes closer. He traces the frog sticker with one finger. “She likes it?”

“She loves it,” I say.

His smile goes crooked. “Good. I fought for the frog.”

“You did good work.”

Theo’s gaze comes back to me. For a second, the fear loosens enough for me to see the man from beside the truck. The one who wants coffee runs, helmet hair, and ordinary dates.

I hold the helmet out to Ezra. “Thank you.”

He takes it with too much ceremony, bows over it, and returns it to me. “Wear it in good health, preferably while pressed against Theo on a motorcycle and thinking naughty thoughts.”

Heat climbs my neck.

Theo makes a low sound. “Eat your pastry.”

Ezra grins and takes an exaggerated bite.

For ten minutes, the house feels almost normal. Coffee, sugar, sunlight on the kitchen floor, Theo standing close enough to touch, Ezra tapping through images with sticky fingers until I slide a napkin under his hand.

Then he turns the laptop toward us. “I cleaned up the overlays. I didn’t make any edits to the originals. Before anyone panics.”

“Good,” I say, sitting beside him.

Theo stays standing behind my chair.

On screen, the Heritage Hall sketch lies over the hidden spring photo. The curve from the Love Stone label sits near my photographed hand. Ezra clicks to the next layer, and the dock photo appears beneath them. The old mark under the railing fits the same angle.

A chill spreads through me.

Ezra points with the pencil. “The dock mark is old. Older than the repair boards. Maybe older than Theo buying the place.”

Theo says nothing.

I touch the edge of the table. “Your dock wasn’t marked by accident. It is part of the old route marker system.”

“That’s my read,” Ezra says.

Theo steps back, only one small shift, but I feel it.

Ezra does too. His pencil stills. “Hey.”

Theo looks at the old dock photo. “I should have seen it.”

“You weren’t looking for water marks under railings, and even if you saw them, why would you know what it might mean?” I say.

“I’m the groundskeeper.”

“And Jessamine’s note was buried in a botanical ledger inside a museum that called the mark ornamental for decades.” I turn in my chair. “You’re allowed to have missed one old curve under a dock.”

His eyes stay on the screen, but he’s too quiet again.

I reach for my notebook because lists are safer than panic and sometimes safety is a sheet of lined paper with my name on the front.

“Dr. Cole,” I say.