Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The cabin held its breath after the call, as if even the walls refused to make a choice.
Isobel stood very still because if she started moving, she feared she’d shake apart. The burner phone lay face down on the table.
“I still think this is the wrong move. You were a detective. You can find Echo and my father; we can get them out and then disappear and send the info to the FBI,” she said.
Rone didn’t answer. He leaned against the bulkhead like he needed the wood to keep from tipping.
Night had never really left his eyes; it just sat back in the shadows, waiting.
“I’m not a team of specialized men. I’m one person—a washed-up, failed detective.
What you’re asking is ludicrous. We get to Blake.
We put this in the right hands and come at Laurel Tide with more than two bodies and a bad plan. ”
“Right hands?” Her voice scraped up through the tightness in her throat. “You mean the same hands that helped fake my father’s death, but then those… those criminals found out he was alive? Have you even considered that there’s a leak at the FBI?”
He chuckled. “You watch too many shows and movies. They weren’t involved. More likely, your father made a mistake and was seen somewhere. Or his picture was seen somewhere.”
Long forgotten memories flooded in so much she feared her own brain would drown in them. Picnics, boating, whittling, making campfires. All of it stayed at their cottage on the lake. He never left. Only mom went to the store. “That’s why I was homeschooled.”
“What?”
She shook her head, trying to release the pressure threatening to take her attention.
“He didn’t. It all makes sense now. He didn’t make a mistake.
He never left our property. I only went into town on occasion until he disappeared on us.
Mom died in that cottage five years ago.
” she said, the words tasting like salt and rust. “And now you want to trust them with the only proof we have that could keep him alive. We could trade it for his and Echo’s lives.
Promise to stay silent.” Tears filled her eyes, her throat closed, her ribs constricted. “Please. We have to—”
Rone’s palms cupped her face. “Stop. Take a breath.”
She took in a stuttered inhale and swallowed the emotions back down, but not fast enough. Rone swiped his thumbs across her cheeks catching her tears. “Shhh. Just take a second.” He pulled her into him, his arms wrapping around her with such force she believed he could do anything.
“I know how hard this is. If there were any way I could bring Torres back, I’d be the same way, but I can’t let you risk yourself to find the answers you’re so desperate for.
Your father gave you this to save you, not put you in more harm.
I don’t agree with how he did it, but I believe he thought he was doing the right thing. ”
She slid away before she found herself believing he had her the way no other man ever did. “This isn’t Torres. This is my father, and I should be the one to decide if we risk my life to save his.”
Rone’s jaw flexed, then stilled. The boat rocked, gentler now that the tide had turned, a cradle motion that made everything feel like it might be a dream if she let it. She didn’t let it. Not with her father’s voice still alive in the coils of her memory.
“Turning over the drive,” he brushed her hair behind her shoulders and softened his tone, “doesn’t save him. It buries him again. We need leverage. Evidence buys time.” His gaze tracked to the USB, a sliver of metal on the table.
Energy coursed through her veins, burning with the need to make him listen to her, but she knew only facts and plans would sway him, not emotions.
“Evidence gets people killed when the chain of custody is corrupt. We don’t give them custody.
We use it to force a trade. Echo for information.
My father for silence—whatever it takes. ”
The corner of his mouth did something that wasn’t a smile, wasn’t even close. “You can’t bargain with men who don’t need anything from you.”
“They need quiet,” she said, and was surprised at how steady she sounded, because inside she felt like a winter sea, choppy and cold. “They need me not to talk. I won’t.”
“That’s not how they do their math.”
She knew he was right. But she also knew that standing still while other people calculated your life was a kind of death, too.
She lifted Echo’s collar and her chin because it was the only thing keeping the fear from sliding her down to the floor.
Her thumb rubbed over his tag, but she didn’t see a chip of any sort. “Track Echo.”
Rone shook his head. “I told you—”
“Where’s the chip?” She asked.
His rough hands tugged the collar from her, and he studied it, flipping, lifting the tag. “It’s gone.” A smile wider than the opening to the bay spread across his lips.
“Do it. Check it.”
“No, Echo wouldn’t be able to carry the chip with him. He doesn’t have opposable thumbs. And if I turn on my cell, they can find us.”
“The tide’s changed. We’re heading out; leave your cell in the mangroves for them to find while we head out to meet Blake. Then we can give him the location to find Echo and my father.”
“The tracker probably fell off when they cut the collar.”
“It’s worth the risk. Can you access the information from another device if we leave your cell behind?”
He nodded, swallowed and eyed the alcove. “Tide’s high enough for us to get out of here. I’ll start the engine; be ready to go. At max speed of eight knots, we’re going to need some time to get out of here.”
Isobel raced up to the deck and used the windlass to bring up the anchor while Rone turned the boat around. She joined him in the pilot house. They reached the edge of the alcove, and he turned on his cell.
It lit up, so she took the helm while he thumbed the menu open, then navigated to the microchip app. The map panned north with his command, the red blink re-centering.
“You were right. Tags not pinging here or at the docks. Echo… you sly dog you.”
A giggle slipped out, more as a relief than real humor at his cliché.
He zoomed. The coastline resolved: mangrove hems, the scratched-out calligraphy of inlets and channels.
And an island. Gray-shaded, stippled with ruin marks.
A label popped in tiny text when he tapped it—Coya Costa—then the rest of the name, cut off by the map tile.
Another tap brought up a note somebody had entered months ago.
CLOSED TO PUBLIC. HURRICANE DAMAGE. INFRASTRUCTURE UNSAFE.
Rone stared. “You have to be kidding me.”
“What?”
“It’s a park island,” he said. “Used to be. Boardwalks, ranger station, kayak landings. The last big storm shredded it. It was locked down until they can figure out what’s salvageable.”
“Which means no people,” she said.
He shook his head. “It means no legal people. You want to move product, or people, you like a place with busted docks and a federal sign to keep do-gooders away.”
The red blink kept its pace. “We’ve got a location. Old ranger station.” He raced out the side door and threw the phone into the passing mangroves as they reached the mouth of the cove and swung north.
“If the ranger station is standing—”
“It’s not,” Rone cut in. Not cruelly. Just clean. “And if it is, it’s a trap. The chip could’ve been taped to anything.”
“Then we anchor off the island and dinghy in.”
He exhaled hard, as if every part of him wanted to say yes and no at once. “You asked me to tell you the truth. Here it is: heading to that island without backup is a death sentence. They know this trawler can only anchor in deeper water. That bay’s only accessible during high tide for us.”
“Then we leave the boat at a different bay, at another island, or the other side of the island. We’ll hike or dinghy or paddleboard. Whatever it takes.”
He stood with his hands braced on the table like he was steadying a patient gurney. The wrapped burn on his hand showed clean white against sun-browned skin. “Isobel.”
“Don’t Isobel me. I don’t need your protection. I need your help. I’m not Torres.”
Rone’s voice dropped, that low, steady tone that never boded well. “You’re exactly like Torres, running into the fire without a solid plan. This is NOT happening.”
The words hit like cold spray. She blinked, trying to keep her footing as the trawler pitched. “You can’t just decide that—”
“I just did.” He pushed away from the table, the motion all control, no heat. “Laurel Tide owns half the coast and probably three-quarters of law enforcement between here and Tallahassee. You walk into their den alone, and you’re not coming out.”
“I’m not asking to walk in alone,” she said, following him toward the steps. “I’m asking to try.”
“Try gets people killed.” He turned the trawler north into the opening of the bay. The low rumble filled the cabin, vibrating through her ribs. “We go offshore. Then we call Blake and set a proper extraction point. End of discussion.”
Salty wind pushed through the open hatch as he turned the wheel, easing them into the bay.
The mangroves slipped by in ragged blurs.
Sunlight speared through the gaps in the canopy and flickered across his face—hard planes, focused eyes, that furrow between his brows that meant he was already twenty steps ahead in his mind.
She gripped the edge of the console, fighting to swallow the fear that tasted too much like loss. “You think they can’t track us out there?”
“Not as easy. Land-based surveillance falls off past the shoals. No tracking and no line of sight make it harder to find us.” He didn’t glance her way, just scanned the water like it could lie to him.
“If Laurel Tide’s watching, they’ll expect us to head inland or back to port. They won’t expect deep water.”
“Fine, but then we can return to another shoreline,” Isobel pleaded, her chest tight and aching.
“You’ll only get yourself killed.”