2. Daniel
TWO
DANIEL
My ass was asleep. I shifted in my chair in the conference room at Nag’s Head Coast Guard base that had become my second home the past few weeks. At some dim, distant point in the past, the chair had been padded, but likely years of other briefings just like this one had broken it down to nothing. Shipping routes and tracking data filled the screen in front of me. The cold-hard facts of drug trafficking patterns in the Outer Banks. The reason I was here, so far as the Coast Guard was concerned.
“And here’s where we lost track of the vessel.” Lieutenant Commander Hayes pointed at a blip that disappeared off the coast of Hatteras.
I leaned forward, elbows on the conference table. “We saw the same pattern in the Gulf. They’re using the barrier islands as cover, probably making drops at night when visibility’s low.”
Across the table, a sheriff’s deputy scribbled notes. Working as liaison between the Coast Guard and local law enforcement wasn’t too different from my old post in Louisiana. Drug runners were drug runners, whether they were slipping through bayous or ducking between islands.
“LaRue, what was your success rate with night interdiction in the Gulf?” Hayes asked.
“Thirty percent higher when we coordinated with local boats. They knew the waters better than the traffickers.” I pulled up the stats from my last operation. “Small craft, familiar with the shoreline, able to move quick and quiet.”
The meeting dragged on. We’d already been at this for three hours, and I found my mind drifting south, past Oregon Inlet, past the tourist spots, all the way to Hatterwick Island. Gabi was down there, probably at her clinic. I checked my watch. Or maybe off work by now. Would she be headed home? Out with friends? Over to spend time with the family she adored? I had no idea. Because it had been three months since I’d taken that promotion to Seattle without talking to her first. Three months of realizing what an idiot I’d been.
Getting this transfer hadn’t been easy. I’d called in just about every favor anyone owed me, worked my connections from the Gulf Coast drug task force where I’d done the solid work that had earned me that Seattle promotion in the first place. Burned a bridge or two. The work here was important—these waters were becoming a major trafficking route. But breaking up drug operations wasn’t why I’d fought so hard for this posting.
I glanced at my phone. No messages. And why would there be? She hadn’t responded to any of the ones I’d sent from Seattle. I hadn’t told her I was here. Hadn’t told her I was coming at all. I’d thought this was a gesture better made in person, so she’d see how serious I was. Fixing things with Gabi would be harder than tracking down smugglers in the dark. At least with smugglers, I knew the patterns, could predict their moves. With Gabi... I’d made the wrong move once already. I couldn’t afford another mistake.
It was so easy to picture her, perched in her wrinkled scrubs on a French Quarter balcony at sunrise, her dark hair coming free of the braid she wore for work and curling around her face in the humidity. She’d just come off a thirty-six-hour rotation at Tulane Medical Center, as she often did. I’d brought her beignets and coffee, and we’d talked of everything and nothing, until the streetcars started running again. It had been a familiar routine. One I hadn’t realized I’d missed like a limb when it was over.
“These coordinates match previous incidents.” Hayes’s voice yanked me back to the present.
Work. Right. This was what I was good at—uncovering patterns, anticipating moves, coordinating assets. I’d take a maritime chess game with drug runners any day. But telling the woman I loved that I’d screwed up beyond belief? Acknowledging that I’d taken her for granted? Well, I’d rather board a vessel in twenty-foot swells.
The conference room door burst open. Chief Weather Officer Lopez stepped in, tablet in hand. “Sir, update on Hurricane Hannah. Track’s shifted. Making landfall in forty-eight hours, Category 3, possibly 4.”
Hayes swore. “Where?”
“Direct hit on the Outer Banks. Hatterwick’s right at the edge of the cone.”
My stomach clenched. Hatterwick. Gabi.
“This changes our surveillance timeline,” Hayes said. “LaRue, what was Gulf protocol for pre-storm drug activity?”
“They’ll likely try to move product before the weather hits. Traffickers can’t risk losing cargo to a storm.” I pulled up historical data. “We usually saw a spike in movement twenty-four to thirty-six hours out.”
“So we’ve got a day, maybe less, to catch them before Hannah shuts us down. Given how this op has been running, that seems unlikely.”
I nodded, but my mind was already racing south. Sixty nautical miles might as well have been six hundred with a hurricane bearing down. I’d waited too long to make things right.
Hayes pulled up the coastal map, marking evacuation zones in red. “We’ll need teams at key points to assist emergency services. LaRue, you’re taking Echo team to Hatterwick.”
My pulse quickened, but I kept my face neutral. “Copy that, sir. How many personnel?”
“Four-person team. Standard hurricane protocol—help local authorities with evac coordination, secure facilities, maintain emergency comms.” He zoomed in on Hatterwick. “Set up at the fire station. They’ve got backup generators and a solid structure.”
I noted the location, just off the main road through Sutter’s Ferry. Three blocks from the clinic. Not that I’d memorized her clinic’s location or anything.
“What about our trafficking surveillance?” Lopez asked.
“Mother Nature’s got other plans.” Hayes closed the map. “We’ll resume once Hannah passes. For now, priority is storm prep and civilian safety.”
The meeting wrapped with discussion of logistics—equipment loads, comm channels, transport schedules. My team would deploy first thing in the morning. Just twelve hours until I’d be headed for Hatterwick. I itched to go sooner, both to check on Gabi and because I wondered if the compressed timeline because of the storm would cause some of the drug runners to slip up. But I had my orders.
Back at my desk, I reviewed the island’s emergency response plan. One main road that circled the perimeter of the island. Two thousand year-round residents. Primary evacuation point at the ferry terminal. Medical services coordinated through... I paused at the words “Island Medical.” Dr. Paul Sibley, Chief Medical Officer. I reckoned that was Gabi’s boss.
“Ready for some island time, boss?” Peterson, my second, dropped a stack of weather reports on my desk.
“Just another deployment.” I closed the file. “Check our gear. I want extra medical supplies and at least three days of provisions.”
“You worked hurricane response in the Gulf, right? Similar setup?”
“This is smaller scale.” I stood, stretching cramped muscles. “But barrier islands can be tricky. Storm surge, flooding, limited access. We’ll need to be self-sufficient.”
Two thousand people. One main road that ran the perimeter of the island. One clinic. Finding Gabi wouldn’t be hard. Figuring out what to say to her after three months? That was the real challenge.