Maeve
Peak slid into the driver's seat, and she looked at him. "You driving?"
Warden tossed Peak the keys. "My truck blends in better than your bike, even though you drive like a grandma.”
Peak caught the keys without looking. "My grandmother drove better than you."
"She also drove thirty-five everywhere,” Warden countered.
"She lived to eighty-seven,” Peak said.
Warden grunted. "Fair point." Despite everything, Maeve smiled. She was beginning to understand the strange language of motorcycle clubs. Insults meant affection, arguments meant trust, and silence meant something was wrong.
Peak started the truck, and instead of pulling onto the highway, he simply sat there, like he was thinking.
Maeve had noticed something about him over the last forty-eight hours—whenever everyone else rushed, Peak slowed down.
Not because he was indecisive, but because he refused to let panic make his decisions.
She admired that, but it was also incredibly frustrating.
"We're burning daylight,” she grumbled.
He nodded. "I know."
"So, can we go?” she asked, feeling more impatient with every passing second.
“I'm thinking,” Peak breathed.
Warden sighed dramatically. "I hate when he does this."
Maeve looked between them. "He does this often?"
"Every damn time we go out on a mission,” Warden said, leaning back in his seat. "Five years ago somebody stole bikes from one of our storage garages."
Maeve frowned. "What happened?"
"We're all ready to chase 'em down, and Peak tells us to sit down."
Peak shrugged. "They wanted us chasing them, so I thought better of it."
Warden rolled his eyes. "Turns out he was right."
Maeve smiled. "What'd he do?"
"He followed the paperwork instead and did his computer thing,” Warden said dramatically, as though it was a bad thing.
Peak finally put the truck in gear. "The insurance claim led us to the buyer."
Maeve couldn't help but laugh. "You caught motorcycle thieves through paperwork?"
Peak smiled. "Criminals are lazy. They hide bodies, but they can’t hide taxes." The truck rolled slowly out of the motel parking lot, and Peak deliberately turned away from the abandoned seafood warehouse.
Maeve frowned. "Wrong direction."
"No, it’s not,” Peak insisted.
"We've got less than an hour before high tide,” she reminded.
"I know,” he said.
"Then why are we—" she started.
"They're watching the warehouse,” Peak said, cutting her off. He glanced at her. "If you were the Director, where would you expect us to go?"
"The warehouse,” she mumbled.
"Exactly,” Peak breathed.
Warden nodded. "So we don't go there then."
Maeve looked out the rain-speckled windshield. "So where are we going?"
Peak smiled. "To breakfast."
She stared at him. "What?"
"We’re going to breakfast." He pulled into a tiny twenty-four-hour diner overlooking the marsh.
Three pickup trucks sat in the parking lot.
An elderly couple walked toward the entrance holding hands, and a fisherman loaded coolers into the bed of his truck.
Nothing about the place stood out, which was exactly why Peak had chosen it.
"You've lost your mind,” she said under her breath.
He shut off the engine. "No, I'm buying time."
"For what?" she asked.
"They're watching us right now,” he said, pointing toward the road. "If we panic, then they know they still control us."
The three of them casually got out of the truck and walked into the diner. Inside, the place smelled like bacon and fresh coffee. A waitress with silver hair greeted Peak with a smile. "Mornin', honey."
"Mornin', June,” he said.
Maeve noticed the friendly exchange immediately. "You've been here before."
"Every Tuesday,” Peak said.
June looked at Maeve. "So, who is this pretty girl?" she asked.
Peak nearly choked, and Maeve looked at him. “I’m Maeve,” she said, holding her hand out to the waitress.
“June,” she said, giving Maeve’s hand a firm shake. “Have a seat anywhere, and I’ll be right with you.”
Peak rubbed the back of his neck and nodded over to the corner booth. Before they could even sit down, June was pouring them all coffee and handing them menus. “I already know your order, honey,” she said to Peak. Maeve noticed how his cheeks turned the cutest shade of pink.
"I come here a lot,” he defended.
June laughed. "He does. Usually alone." She winked at Maeve. "But not today." Peak looked mortified, and Maeve couldn't help smiling.
“Well, since Peak seems to know this place so well, I’ll have whatever he usually gets,” Maeve said.
“Same,” Warden said, handing June back his menu. “And keep the coffee coming.” She nodded and walked back to the kitchen to put in their orders.
They had taken the booth furthest from the windows, and Peak chose the seat facing the door.
Maeve was sitting next to him, closest to the window.
“I’m hitting the head,” Warden said as he disappeared toward the restroom after muttering something about bad motel coffee.
The moment he was gone, Peak pulled a folded napkin from his pocket.
Maeve frowned. "What's that?"
"The evidence bag,” he said.
She blinked. "You brought it?” she asked. “I thought that Captain took it with him.”
"I switched it out while we were back at the motel,” he said.
"When did you have time to do that?” she asked.
"While Captain was talking."
She stared at him. "You stole evidence from your own president?"
"Technically, I borrowed it,” he said. “Besides, now that Captain is missing, I’d say that it was a good thing that I took it from him. Otherwise, whoever has him would have this.” He unfolded the napkin and inside lay the coded strip Wren had hidden.
Maeve's heart pounded. "You brought it."
"I figured we'd need it."
She smiled. "I definitely like you."
"I was hoping you’d feel that way about me, honey,” he said, bobbing his eyebrows at her. She leaned in to kiss him, and Warden groaned.
“Get a fucking room,” he grumbled, sliding back into the booth.
“We had one, but you showed up,” Peak said.
“Good thing I did, too,” Warden said. “I saved your ass.” Peak scoffed at his friend, and she cleared her throat.
“Can we get back to the evidence?” she asked. Maeve carefully spread the strip across the table. "Tide Before Dawn."
Peak slid a pen toward her. "What're you doing?"
"Write,” he ordered.
She looked around. "On a diner table?"
"It's laminated,” he said. She smiled despite herself and grabbed a napkin and began writing possibilities for solving the clue. She wrote the words: tide, current, flow, transfer, upload, and sync. None felt right when she sat back to look over her work.
Maeve stared at the words and then suddenly stopped. "Oh."
Peak looked up immediately. "What?"
She pointed to the word current. "Wren hated duplicate meanings."
"So?" he asked.
"So—” Maeve grabbed a napkin. She wrote the words tide and current, and then beneath it, she wrote: Current = Electrical.
Peak froze. "Oh..."
"What?" Warden asked, looking between the two of them.
"The steam pipes,” Peak said.
"What about them?" Warden asked.
"They weren't steam,” Peak explained.
Maeve's pulse quickened. "They were conduit."
Peak nodded. "Electrical raceways." She looked down at the coded strip again, rereading all the words that she had written on the first napkin. Current, tide, flow, transfer, electricity. She had a feeling that they weren’t dealing with water or boats at all. It was all about the networks.
"Oh my God—” she whispered, "Wren wasn't talking about shipping."
Peak was already opening his tablet. "She was warning us about the power grid.
" Within seconds, maps filled the screen of substations, transmission lines, and old utility corridors.
Peak zoomed in on Cambridge. There was one abandoned seafood processing plant there, and it connected directly to the perfect place for them to be holding Wren.
Maeve's breath caught. "A data center."
Peak nodded slowly. "Hidden behind an electrical transfer station."
She looked at him. "It isn't a trafficking warehouse at all."
"No, it's a server farm." The realization hit both of them simultaneously.
The Director wasn't simply moving women; he was moving information, money, and even identities.
The women were only part of the operation.
Wren hadn't been kidnapped just because she was brilliant.
She'd been kidnapped because someone needed her to build something inside that facility.
Peak leaned back. "We've been looking at the wrong target."
Maeve nodded. "The warehouse is camouflage. The real operation is underground.” She pointed at the map.
Warden sat back into the booth and sipped his coffee. “I really hate where this is heading,” he grumbled.
Peak turned the tablet around, ignoring Warden’s sudden bad mood. "We're not raiding a warehouse."
Warden frowned. "Then what are we raiding?"
Maeve smiled grimly. "We're about to break into one of the most secure illegal data centers on the East Coast."
The Enforcer looked from Peak, then to Maeve, and back again.
"You two get way too excited about terrifying things.
" Peak couldn't argue with him, because for the first time since this nightmare began, they finally understood what the Director had really stolen from Wren.
It wasn't just her freedom; it was her mind.
The waitress topped off their coffee without asking, but Maeve barely noticed.
Her eyes remained fixed on the map glowing from Peak's tablet.
The abandoned seafood processing plant, the electrical transfer station, and the underground data center.
Every breadcrumb Wren had left finally pointed toward something tangible.
Not hope, but evidence that would help her find her sister.
She reached for the coded strip again, tracing the words with her fingertip.
Tide Before Dawn
Wren hadn't been trying to tell her where she'd been. She'd been trying to tell her what mattered—the network, the servers, and the data. Peak had been right. They'd been chasing people, but Wren had been pointing them toward information.