The bus sighed at the edge of the harbor, its brakes releasing a long breath of hot metal and diesel into the pale morning air. Lena Marlowe stepped down onto the cracked pavement with one suitcase in her left hand and a professional knife roll tucked beneath her right arm. The driver closed the luggage compartment behind her before she had quite decided whether Saltmere looked smaller than she remembered or whether she had simply grown too large for it.
Wind came off the water carrying salt, fish scales, seaweed, and the faint buttery scent of pastry from the bakery near the pier. It threaded itself through the loose strands of her hair and lifted the hem of her black trousers. Beyond the bus shelter, gulls wheeled over the harbor as if nothing in the world had changed, as if six years had not passed since Lena had walked away with a borrowed suitcase, a bruised heart, and a promise never to come back.
She watched the bus pull out. Its red taillights shrank between the cottages and the weather-beaten shops, then disappeared around the bend. For a moment, the road seemed to close behind her.