Tuff Client Eaglercraft 112 2

Word spread. The Tuff Client took on more work: a midnight escort for researchers mapping kelp beds; a daring tow of a stranded trawler; moving crates of vintage instruments no one in the port would claim. Each job stitched together a patchwork of other people’s lives. There was a woman who came aboard once clutching a photograph of a boy on a pier; she asked Mara to take the photograph to the coordinates scrawled on the back. They found the boy grown into a man who had become a lighthouse keeper. He accepted the photo with a quiet nod and, for the first time in years, spoke his mother's name out loud.