Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
WYATT
Wyatt was already uneasy. He hated stuffy events where he looked like a glorified waiter, especially when tuxedos came with champagne glasses and polite laughter that pretended the world outside the marina gates did not exist. He untied his bow tie and slid off the tuxedo jacket.
Tuxedos made him restless, especially at events where he was a guest. There were too many civilians, too much alcohol, and too many assumptions that water and wealth kept danger at bay.
I’m just happy to be home at my cottage on the water.
Wyatt poured cranberry juice over ice and gulped a mouthful.
He had learned to love cranberry juice as a kid because it had been his mother’s favorite, and the sharp sweetness still carried the memory of her standing in the kitchen pouring two glasses while the evening sun came through the window.
He sat down in his favorite chair in his small living room and turned on the TV.
“Come on, let there be a replay of the game from earlier.” He flicked through the channels.
“Bingo!” Wyatt settled back. “The University of Arizona versus Arizona State. Let’s go Cats, crush those Devils. ”
He took another drink when Channel 16 crackled alive in his ear.
“Salt & Steel units, report. Active fire on the Palmetto Royale stationary casino vessel. Multiple passengers on board. Unknown origin.”
Wyatt was moving before the word fire finished echoing.
“Roper, copy,” Cal snapped on the radio as Wyatt’s shirt and pants hit the floor. He donned a performance shirt, tactical pants, and boots as he secured his knife and radio and grabbed his rescue kit while he picked up his comms to click in. “Cal, I’m taking tactical lead.”
“Already tracking,” Cal replied. “Duval’s en route. She’s running shore-side coordination. You handle water and interior.”
“Copy that,” Wyatt answered, his mind already on the beautiful doc.
Grabbing his bag, he stepped out of his back door, running for the dock. He hopped into a boat, turned the key, then gunned the engine.
Flames were already licking the night sky upriver, orange cutting into the darkness while smoke boiled upward in thick rolling clouds that moved wrong for a simple electrical fire. Not a clean fire. Damn it, it’s too fast and looks too hungry.
Wyatt’s gut tightened as the Palmetto Royale came into view, the floating casino glowing against the dark water like a nightmare dressed in crystal and gold.
The boat sat tied to the far end of the marina’s commercial pier, less than fifty yards from the fuel dock.
Music still blasted through the speakers while emergency lights flashed along the decks.
Smoke curled from the upper lounge windows as passengers crowded the railings, screaming.
Man, I was just there.
Several people had jumped into the dark water.
Wyatt tried to distinguish how many were splashing in the black water between the casino boat and the marina dock.
He throttled down and swung his skiff alongside the working pier, where a handful of Salt & Steel staff and two marina workers were already running toward the edge with life rings.
Wyatt cut the engine. “Ropes out! Ladders first, pull from the water!”
A voice carried from the dock. “We’ve got them!”
Wyatt didn’t wait for the boat to settle before he jumped onto the pier, boots slamming against wet planks. People flailed in the water ten to twenty feet from the dock. He could see dresses dragging them down and dress jackets ballooning with trapped air.
A marina worker dropped a rope ladder over the edge while Rhea kneeled beside a piling, grabbing for a woman whose hands were slipping off the dock edge.
Wyatt reached down and hauled a man up by the collar, shoving him toward Cal. “Get him clear!” A man in uniform dragged the coughing man away from the edge, where two civilians guided survivors farther down the pier toward the parking lot.
Another splash made Wyatt react. He grabbed a woman, lifting her from the water as she clung to the ladder. Then he heard it. A child screamed.
Wyatt spun, scanning the dark water between the dock and the casino boat. A small head surfaced once in the chop, arms thrashing, and then vanished.
He dove without hesitation. Cold water punched the breath from his lungs as he kicked hard, eyes stinging. The glow from the casino lights cut through the murk as his hands swept forward. His fingers brushed the fabric as they closed around it.
The kid was tangled in a floating life ring, face blue but still there, still fighting. Not tonight. Not on my watch.
Wyatt surfaced, lifting the child high. “Take him!”
Hands grabbed, then the child was taken, passed down the line toward the dock. Wyatt climbed out, chest burning, smoke scraping his throat raw as his mind scrambled, assessing the plan. And then he saw Letty.
Letty stood on the dock. Let’s see what you do under pressure, doctor.
Wyatt paused longer than he should have.
The doctor moved through the chaos with the calm authority of someone who had already decided the outcome would be survival.
“Clear this lane… now. Oxygen kits here. Blankets to the right. No clustering.”
Some people listened as she spoke, and others needed repetition.
Letty stepped into their space without apology. “Move,” she ordered. “You’re blocking triage.”
She wasn’t patching wounds like earlier. She was commanding the dock. Wyatt paused. If she gets hurt doing this…
A man collapsed, coughing. “Sit him up,” Letty said to a Salt & Steel operative standing close. “Don’t lay him flat. It’s smoke inhalation.” The teammate obeyed as she got to him, counting breaths with him, steady, grounding. Another responder brought oxygen.
She scanned again, motioning and calling out to responders, directing them to victims.
Letty spotted Wyatt the moment he hauled himself onto the dock. “Roper,” she called. “I need a hard boundary here. Civilians keep drifting back.”
He nodded once, sharp and immediate. “You heard the doctor. Back now!”
They moved as Letty nodded to him. Trust snapped into place between them as if it had been waiting.
A scream cut through the noise. A woman rushed up to Wyatt. “Please… my daughter is still inside!”
Wyatt was already moving when Letty cried out, “Roper…”
He didn’t think before he hopped over the side of the boat to run inside.
The heat inside the Palmetto Royale hit him like a wall as smoke choked the corridors, alarms screaming, lights flickering.
Wyatt dropped low, pulling his shirt up over his mouth, forcing his breathing steady.
“Rescue!” he shouted. “If you can hear me, get to the rail!”
A sob answered him.
Wyatt followed the sound, boots slipping on the slick flooring. He found a girl crouched under a table, tiny hands over her ears, face streaked with soot.
“Hey,” he said, dropping to his knees. “Easy, darlin’. One step at a time.”
She clung to him like a lifeline as Wyatt scooped her up, turned and sensed the change in the fire.
This isn’t right. The fire isn’t spreading like it should.
It’s feeding in lines. His eyes scanned as he moved.
Lines of flames traveled like snakes on the ground as he kicked the panel near the engine housing and swore under his breath.
Fuel. Fuck, it’s fresh and deliberate. This isn’t an accident.
Someone used accelerant to move the fire.
He carried the child in his arms as he ran through the boat to the deck.
Wyatt bolted, shielding the child as they burst into the open air. He passed her off to waiting hands without stopping. “Get her clear!”
He turned back into the opening on the deck just long enough to confirm what his instincts already screamed. Fuel lines laid out along the lower deck were cut clean, not ruptured. Someone wanted this boat to burn.
LETTY
Letty took the child from Wyatt’s arms and handed her off to a responder with a blanket.
“She’s breathing,” Letty said to the nearest EMT.
“Shock protocol and give her oxygen. Keep her warm.” She looked up just as Wyatt met her gaze across the chaos.
He turned to go back toward the fire as she raised on her toes to watch.
“What the hell is he doing? He doesn’t hesitate, and that’s going to get him in trouble. ”
Minutes later, he stepped back, soot-streaked but fine. Relief slammed into her chest before she could stop it as voices chirped in her earpiece.
Wyatt lifted his comm to his mouth, eyes never leaving Letty. “Cal, this fire’s deliberate. Someone tampered with the fuel lines.”
Letty’s blood chilled as her eyes surveyed the disaster. Someone did this on purpose. She searched for the child, who sat with her mother and the EMTs.
“Copy,” Cal replied. “All units, shift posture. This is now a crime scene.”
Letty stepped closer to Wyatt, lowering her voice. “If this was sabotage, they’d want to control the narrative. That means witnesses, reports, anything that contradicts the ‘accident’.”
Wyatt stepped close enough that she felt the heat coming off him. “What are you saying?”
She took out her phone and swiped over to the photos from earlier in the day. “I took photos of the area this morning, before and after the training exercise. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I caught movement on the boat.”
Sirens wailed closer to them. The Palmetto Royale burned against the dark water like a warning flare as Wyatt took her phone from her hand. His finger flicked across the screen as he growled. “Well shit. You’re not working alone anymore.”
Letty met his gaze, pulse steady despite the chaos. “Okay. We need to figure out exactly what is in those photos.”
Behind them, Channel 16 crackled to life with overlapping voices, teammates calling out status, Cal’s calm cutting through it all.
Wyatt pursed his lips. “We need to get these photos to a computer and enlarge them to see the details.”
Letty looked over the scene. She had studied disaster response for years, but theory always looked cleaner in a classroom than it did on a dock filled with smoke, screaming passengers, and water that could swallow someone in seconds.
Wyatt moved on the dock aiding people, and Letty understood something with sudden clarity. She was staying longer in Tidehaven than she had planned, and whatever came next, they were already in it together.