Chapter 7 #2
Her breath hitched. Rone must’ve heard it because his footsteps thudded back onto the swim platform; the door flew open to the cockpit.
“Isobel?”
She couldn’t look away. Her father’s eyes on the screen were rimmed in exhaustion, but alive.
“If you’re seeing this,” he said, “then something’s gone sideways.
Laurel Tide isn’t just smuggling anymore.
They’ve gone bigger—chemical, military-grade.
And someone high up is letting it happen.
” He hesitated, swallowing. “I tried to pull out. But as I learned fifteen years ago, they’ll never let me be.
So I did the only thing I could. I left them a trail. ”
Rone stopped beside her, gaze locking on the image. He went still.
Her father’s voice trembled. “You’ll find all the evidence you need on this drive. Don’t trust anyone wearing a badge. And tell Rone Archer…” He exhaled shakily. “Tell him I’m sorry.”
The screen went black.
Silence again. The kind that hums heavy and unreal.
Rone’s jaw flexed, eyes still on the blank screen. “He knew,” he said under his breath. “He knew they’d come for it, and he dragged his only daughter into this anyway?”
Isobel pressed a hand to her mouth, her body trembling in the quiet aftermath. “He wasn’t one of them,” she whispered. “He was trying to stop them.”
Rone looked like he wanted to argue—like logic demanded he keep his distance—but something stopped him. He reached out instead, touched her arm. “Then we’re both targets now.”
Her father’s voice seemed to linger in the air: Don’t trust anyone wearing a badge.
The boat rocked gently against its lines, the water slapping in low, rhythmic waves.
“Rone,” she said softly. “What do we do now?”
He opened his mouth, but the sound that answered wasn’t his. It came from outside—the sharp, rising whine of an approaching engine.
He strode to the window, scanning the docks.
Echo growled low, the sound vibrating through the hull.
“We need to get out of here. High tides at two in the morning. Be ready to leave.”
Isobel closed the laptop, pulse spiking, her father’s warning still echoing in her head.
“Where will we go?”
He lifted his chin. “Where no one can find us until we figure this out.”
The hours crawled slower than a manatee swims.
They didn’t speak much. Words felt too fragile, too dangerous.
Rone sat at the small galley table, back against the bulkhead, his gaze moving between the laptop and the window as if watching the horizon could change it.
Isobel stayed near Echo, fingers absently tracing circles in the fur at his neck while the dog slept with one ear cocked toward the door.
Outside, the marina had gone quiet. Even the gulls had given up and roosted somewhere inland. The only sounds were the soft slap of water against hulls and the groan of ropes shifting with the tide. A few boats away, a wind chime clinked in the darkness.
Every so often, Rone’s eyes flicked toward the clock above the galley. The hands crawled past midnight, then one, then two.
He rose, rolling his shoulders, stretching the stiffness from his neck. “Tide’s changing soon,” he murmured. “We should move while there’s cover. Less noise. Fewer eyes.”
Isobel nodded, grateful for something that wasn’t silence. “Move where?”
“Out past the bridge. I know a cove where we can hide in the cover of mangroves. That’ll keep us out of sight until I can figure out our next step.”
“And if they come back?”
His mouth tightened. “They won’t find us twice.”
Echo stirred at his feet, yawning. Rone crouched, scratching the dog’s chest. “Alright, big guy. Last chance before we shove off.”
Isobel smiled faintly. “Even heroes need bathroom breaks.”
Rone’s mouth twitched—the closest he came to smiling back. He reached for the latch at the back door, opening it enough for Echo to slip through. The night air rolled in, damp and cold with salt.
Echo trotted down the ramp, nails clicking on the wood before disappearing around the corner of the pilings.
Rone checked his watch, then the waterline. “Five minutes,” he said. “Tide’ll turn by then.”
Isobel leaned against the doorway, arms folded, eyes following the rippling reflections in the water. “Hard to believe all this could hide so much,” she whispered.
Rone didn’t answer. His gaze was on the horizon now, scanning the darkness as though it might reveal its secrets.
Minutes passed. The tide began to let go, allowing them to cruise out of the marina.
She turned back to him. “I’ll call Echo in.”
“Make it quick. I’ll fire up the engine.”
She nodded and stepped outside. The air bit cold against her skin, and the boards were slick beneath her bare feet. “Echo?” she called softly. The sound of her voice felt swallowed by the night.
Nothing answered.
She tried again, louder this time. “Echo. Come!”
Still nothing. Only the lap of the tide, the groan of a fender brushing the dock, the faint whistle of wind through rigging.
Her heart kicked. “Rone?” she called over her shoulder.
The quiet raised the fine hairs on her neck. Echo didn’t wander. Not without checking back. Not without that single soft bark that said I’m fine, I’m here.
She took another step down the dock, the light from the trawler fading behind her. The shadows grew thicker, pressing close. “Echo, come on, boy,” she said again, voice tight with worry now.
And then she heard it.
A sound, low and steady beneath everything else. At first, she thought it was wind through the pilings. But it grew, deepened, rolled through the water like the growl of something vast waking beneath the surface.
A hum.
Not loud, like a small engine fading away.
A bark snapped from a distance. Her stomach dropped.
Something glinted at her feet.
Echo’s collar lay in the weak pool of light from the stern lamp—twisted, the clasp snapped.
Rone didn’t move for a beat. Not when the collar gleamed up from the wet boards. Not when Isobel whispered Echo’s name like it was a prayer that had missed its mark.
He stared at the collar—mud, salt, and broken metal—and felt something inside him drop, slow and heavy, like an anchor through black water.
“They took him,” he said. His voice was too steady, the kind of calm that only came from being past the edge.
“How? Echo would’ve put up a fight.”
“Drugs? They’ve got plenty of that, or he simply went to protect us.
That dog is more than smart, he’s loyal and selfless.
” He growled, swept the collar, up and squeezed it in his fist, willing it to bring Echo back, but it wouldn’t.
Nothing could bring Echo back; going after him would only get them both killed.
“They took him to show us they could. Next time, it won’t be a dog. ”
Isobel looked up, eyes wide, pale in the low light. “What do you mean—”
“I mean we move. Now.”
He reached past her, shut the door. The night rushed back out, but the emptiness it left behind filled the cabin.
Isobel clutched the collar against her chest. “Rone, we can’t leave him.”
“No time. No choice.” He grabbed for the ignition key, the motions all muscle memory. The diesel engine coughed to life, rumbling low and guttural. He throttled back to idle, enough to make way without lighting up the channel like a parade float.
The vibration hummed through the deck plates, steadying him. It was something to hold onto.
He went to work—hands quick, deliberate. Untied the bow lines, coiling the ropes as he went. Isobel took the stern lines. The trawler eased free, drifting a foot from the dock. He leapt back aboard, catching the rail with one hand.
Isobel hovered upstairs near the pilot house door, collar still in her hand, face caught between fear and disbelief.
“We can’t just leave him,” she said.
Rone didn’t look at her. If he did, he might stop moving. “I’ll find him.”
“But now—”
“Now, we get gone.” He spun the wheel, shifting the throttle forward just enough for the boat to slide into the main channel.
The marina Christmas lights fell away, swallowed by the dark. Only the faint line of moonlight traced the rippling water ahead.
Behind them, the hum returned for a breath—low, taunting, like a predator’s purr—then faded into distance.
They cut through the water at six knots, the wake small and silent. Rone kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the throttle. He wouldn’t outrun anyone in this boat, but he could go farther than most.
He glanced at the gas gauge and cursed himself. He could’ve gone all the way to the South pacific on what this trawler held, but apparently Shade never gassed her up.
His eyes scanned everything: the channel markers, the horizon, the black silhouette of the shoreline.
No running lights. He’d killed them the moment they cast off. Only the dim red from the instrument panel washed the pilot house in light—enough to see his hands, not enough to make them targets.
Isobel stood beside him, steady but quiet. The collar rested on the dash, metal tag clinking with each rise of the hull.
He wanted to tell her to sit, to rest, to let him handle it.
But something about her silence made him hold the words.
She wasn’t the same woman who’d arrived on the dock days ago, nervous about fuel gauges and anchor lines.
She’d crossed some invisible line with him now—blood and threat had a way of binding faster than comfort ever could.
Still, he felt the guilt gnawing. Echo’s absence was a missing heartbeat on deck. That dog had been his partner, his last link to Shade, the only creature left that didn’t flinch at the man Rone had become.
“They won’t hurt him,” Isobel said suddenly, voice barely above the rumble of the motor. “He’s too valuable.”
Rone’s jaw ticked. “You don’t know men like this.”
“Then tell me.”
He didn’t. He couldn’t.
Instead, he kept his eyes on the next buoy flashing red against the tide, counting seconds between blinks. “They don’t waste effort. Taking him was a message. They want us scared, desperate, predictable.”
“Are we?”