"Captain." She handed him the portfolio. "Let's do this in the salon. Tomas, stay for the checklist. Where's Keon?"
"On the bow line," Destin said. "He came aboard twenty minutes ago. He saw—" Destin stopped. His eyes flicked once toward the pier, where Grant still stood like a man who had walked into the wrong play. "He saw the pier."
"We'll talk about the pier after the papers," Imani said. "Not before."
Inside, the salon smelled of lemon oil and new upholstery. Yara Mendes, the steward, had set a low tray with water glasses and a single folder of her own, crew meal plan and provisioning log, because Yara believed that if you were going to run a boat you should never arrive empty-handed to a meeting. Yara was thirty-one, Brazilian-American, hair twisted up, gold studs small enough to survive a workday. She nodded to Imani and did not ask about the man on the pier. She had already heard from Keon in the six minutes between his boarding and her setting the tray.
Tomas laid out the documents in order: vessel season license, charter compliance addendum, apprenticeship berth roster, insurance rider, the harbor master's preliminary stamp awaiting Imani's signature. Imani read each page the way she always did, even when she had already read them twice in the office on East Basin Road. Destin initialed where captains initialed. Tomas checked boxes with a pen that clicked too loudly in the quiet.
When Imani signed the last page, she felt the usual thing: not triumph, not relief, something closer to the settling of a weight into its correct place. The season was real now. Infinity Liquid could take guests. The apprentices—Keon among them—could log hours that counted toward licenses. Golden Harbor's guest-berth program would have to treat Quaywright's boats as boats, not as favors granted by men who liked the docks to resemble their Christmas cards.
"Done," she said.
Yara poured coffee anyway. Destin took his black. Tomas took his with milk and looked, for the first time all day, like a man who might sit down.
"The man on the pier," Destin said.
"Grant Holbrook," Tomas said, before Imani could. "Broker. Slip C-14. Recreation committee. He called the office last week asking if Infinity Liquid was still in play for a soft listing. I told him the vessel was under contract. He said contracts change."
Imani wrapped both hands around her cup. The coffee was good. Yara's coffee was always good, which was not a small thing on a boat that had spent winters tasting of mildew and unfinished work. "Did he have a client?"
"Anniversary charter," Tomas said. "He wanted to walk the boat this evening. I told him walkthroughs go through the office. He said he knew the marina better than the office did."
Destin's mouth tightened one degree. "Keon heard him send you to crew boarding."