Chapter 8 - The First Bad Decision
I did not go alone.
That would sound like growth if the rest of the decision had not been stupid.
I told Torres about the message.
Then I asked her to let me approach Pier Fourteen while officers stayed out of sight.
“No,” she said.
“Good discussion.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Adrian Ross was beaten five weeks ago, vanished from normal life, and is now walking around with a seventeen-year-old tied to a homicide cover-up.”
“He asked for me.”
“That does not make it safer.”
“It makes me useful.”
Torres folded her arms.
“You are doing the religion thing Rhodes warned you about.”
I hated that she knew about that.
“He talks too much.”
“He’s a police chief. It’s basically a job requirement.”
Daniel stepped between us.
“No.”
I looked at him.
He looked back.
For once, there was no secrecy in his face.
Just fear.
“You’re not going out there for my son.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
“That doesn’t make me less against it.”
Torres pointed at him.
“For the first time tonight, he’s useful.”
Daniel ignored her.
“Elena, please.”
I wanted to say something sharp.
Instead I noticed his hand shaking.
That interrupted me.
“Okay,” I said.
Both of them looked surprised.
“I won’t go alone.”
Torres narrowed her eyes.
“What are you proposing?”
“Wire me. Keep a tactical team close enough to move in if Ethan is in immediate danger. No visible uniforms.”
“Still no.”
“Then Adrian leaves.”
“Maybe.”
“And takes Ethan with him.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you have a better way to get him talking?”
Torres was quiet.
That was not agreement.
But it was the space where agreement sometimes grows.
Twenty minutes later, I was wearing a transmitter under the same academy T-shirt and a borrowed rain jacket.
The marina smelled like diesel, old rope, and fish.
A storm was moving offshore, flattening the sky into dirty blue.
I walked toward Pier Fourteen alone.
Police watched from three positions I could not see.
Daniel stayed in the command van.
He hated that too.
I reached the pier.
Empty.
A sailboat tapped against its mooring.
Somewhere a loose halyard knocked metal against metal.
I waited.
Five minutes.
Seven.
Then Adrian stepped from behind a maintenance shed.
His face was thinner than the traffic image.
The healing bruise along his jaw had gone yellow.
He did not have Ethan with him.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Safe.”
“That word has been abused enough this week.”
He almost smiled.
“You sound like Claire.”
“Where is Claire?”
“Also safe.”
“Prove it.”
He held up a phone.
A video played.
Claire sat in what looked like a motel room, one eye swollen, glasses missing.
“Elena,” she said into the camera, “I’m alive. I’m sorry about your dress. That sounds stupid. It isn’t the main thing, but I am sorry. I didn’t alter it.”
The video ended.
I stared at Adrian.
“When was that recorded?”
“Two hours ago.”
“Why not bring her to police?”
“Because someone inside the department gave Vanessa a copy of an evidence request before the party.”
My pulse changed.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“Nothing about this has been convenient.”
He looked toward the water.
“I took Daniel’s money because I was broke.”
“That’s refreshingly simple.”
“I was going to sell him the truth.”
“Which truth?”
“That Colin Mercer didn’t die where everyone said he did.”
I went still.
“What do you mean?”
“He went overboard at 12:41.”
“That’s in the report.”
“No. The report says 12:18.”
“Twenty-three minutes.”
“Those twenty-three minutes matter.”
“Why?”
“Because at 12:18 Colin was still alive and below deck.”
I waited.
Adrian’s mouth tightened.
“Owen shoved him later. That part is true. But Colin didn’t go straight into open water.”
“Then where?”
“He hit the lower swim platform.”
My stomach turned.
“Was he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Could he move?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Adrian looked at me.
“Vanessa told me not to pull him up.”
The marina noise disappeared behind the blood in my ears.
“What?”
“She said Owen needed to understand consequences. She thought Colin would hang on until she finished dealing with Owen.”
“You obeyed her?”
His eyes hardened.
“For four minutes.”
The answer was awful because it was honest.
“What happened after four minutes?”
“I went back.”
“And?”
“He was gone.”
I stared at him.
“Why did you lie?”
“Money. Fear. Cowardice. Pick one. They all fit.”
I believed that more than a noble excuse.
“Who changed the time?”
“Vanessa’s lawyer.”
“Martin Keene?”
“Yes.”
“Daniel knew?”
“Not at first.”
“At first?”
“Claire found the original navigation logs. She came to Room 814. She showed Daniel.”
My chest tightened.
Daniel had told me Claire came because Owen may have called her.
Maybe he truly believed that.
Maybe not.
“What did Daniel do?”
Adrian’s eyes moved to my jacket.
“To the wire?”
I did not react.
He smiled without humor.
“Your left shoulder sits higher when you’re wearing a transmitter.”
I cursed internally.
“Keep talking.”
“I don’t care if they hear.”
“Then answer.”
He looked past me toward the marina entrance.
“Daniel destroyed the original navigation printout.”
I felt something inside me go quiet.
Not break.
Breaking is dramatic.
This was smaller.
A lock turning.
“You saw him?”
“Yes.”
“Claire saw him?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she stay working for him?”
“To collect what was left.”
The answer hurt in a new place.
Adrian reached into his jacket.
“Slowly,” I said.
He stopped.
“Tell your friends not to shoot me.”
“I can’t tell them anything without touching the mic.”
“Then trust them.”
That was rich.
He pulled out a folded piece of paper.
An old marina fuel receipt.
On the back was a handwritten number.
47.
“What is this?”
“Seconds.”
“Of what?”
“Video.”
He handed it to me.
“The yacht’s stern camera recorded the swim platform. Vanessa’s people deleted most of it, but Claire found forty-seven seconds in a maintenance backup.”
“Where is it?”
“Ethan has it.”
“The flash drive.”
“Yes.”
“Why give it to a kid?”
“Because Claire trusted the one person Vanessa would never believe could betray her.”
I hated that logic.
It was also good logic.
“Where is Ethan?”
Adrian glanced at his watch.
“He was supposed to be with Claire by now.”
“Supposed to be?”
His face changed.
For the first time, he looked genuinely afraid.
He pulled out his phone.
No messages.
He called.
No answer.
“Where did you send him?”
Adrian looked at me.
“North ferry terminal.”
The transmitter in my shirt clicked once.
Torres had heard enough.
Adrian’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man’s voice said, “You should have kept the money.”
Then a loud horn blasted through the speaker.
A ferry horn.
Adrian went white.
The line ended.
I touched my mic.
“Move. Now.”
Police vehicles came alive around the marina.
That should have been the end of my bad decision.
It wasn’t.
As I turned to run back toward the road, Adrian grabbed my arm.
I reacted without thinking.
I drove my elbow into his chest and shoved him against the rail.
He slipped.
For half a second, his body went over the edge.
I caught his jacket with both hands.
Pain tore across my old scar.
Adrian dangled above black water.
He looked up at me, shocked.
“Don’t let go.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Officers sprinted toward us.
I held on.
And in that stupid, ugly second, the fuel receipt slipped from my pocket and vanished into the harbor.
The only physical clue Adrian had handed me was gone because I had lost my temper with my body before my mind caught up.
Torres hauled him back over the rail.
Then she looked at the water.
“Tell me that wasn’t evidence.”
I was breathing too hard to lie.
“It was.”
She stared at me.
I stared back.
“No speech,” I said.
“Oh, you are getting a speech.”
Her radio exploded with another voice.
“Units at north ferry terminal. We found the boy’s backpack.”
Daniel’s voice came through from the command van.
“Is Ethan there?”
A pause.
Then the officer answered.
“Negative.”
Another pause.
“But there’s blood on the strap.”
---
(To be continued)
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