Not this time, she told herself.Not again.
James's SUV pulled into her parking lot at 3:02 AM, headlights cutting through the darkness like searchlights.Isla was through the door and into the passenger seat before he'd fully stopped, pulling the door closed against the cold that bit at any exposed skin.
"Sterling?"she asked, though she already knew the answer.
"Surveillance team checked in twenty minutes ago.He hasn't moved.Lights out since eleven, no activity, no vehicle movement."James pulled back onto the empty street, accelerating toward the harbor.The city was a ghost town at this hour, streetlights illuminating nothing but empty sidewalks and closed storefronts."Either he's got an accomplice we don't know about, or—"
"Or we've been watching the wrong man."Isla stared out at the darkness, watching the industrial shapes of the harbor district emerge from the gloom."A luxury yacht.That's different from the others."
"Different how?"
"TheNorthern Dawnwas a cargo hauler.TheStorm Runnerwas a fishing boat.Both were working vessels, practical, the kind of thing you'd use for smuggling because they blend into normal harbor traffic."She turned the details over in her mind, looking for patterns."A seventy-two-foot yacht is a statement.It's expensive.It's visible.Not the kind of vessel serious smugglers would typically use."
"Unless they wanted to look legitimate," James said."Rich guy taking his boat across the lake.Nothing suspicious about that."
"Maybe."But something about it nagged at her, a discordance she couldn't quite name.The vigilante—if that's what they were dealing with—had been targeting criminal operations with almost surgical precision.Arms smugglers, drug runners, the kind of people who operated in the shadows and wouldn't be missed.A luxury yacht seemed wrong for that pattern.
Unless the pattern was changing.
The marina came into view as they crested a small rise, and Isla felt her breath catch at the scene spread out before them.Emergency lights strobed across the water, painting everything in alternating waves of red and blue.Coast Guard vessels had formed a loose perimeter around an incoming shape that was still just a silhouette against the darkness—white hull catching the light, chrome railings gleaming, a beautiful vessel being guided toward shore like a body being carried to the morgue.
They badged their way through the perimeter that had already been established, finding Lieutenant Commander Frank waiting at the dock with a tablet in her hands and an expression that suggested she'd seen things in the past hour that would take longer to forget.
"She's about ten minutes out," Frank said without preamble."I've got crime scene techs standing by, and I've already contacted Dr.Henley at the ME's office.She's on her way."
"Walk me through what you found," Isla said.
Frank consulted her tablet, though Isla suspected she didn't need to—the details were probably burned into her memory."Midnight Crossingwas spotted by a commercial fishing vessel returning from a night run.Captain noticed she was drifting without lights, no response to radio hails.He called it in, we dispatched a response boat."She scrolled through photographs on the tablet, turning it so Isla and James could see."This is what the boarding team found."
The image showed the yacht's top deck under harsh flashlight illumination.Blood was everywhere—dark pools spreading across the white fiberglass, spray patterns on the chrome railings, smears that suggested bodies had been moved or dragged.The violence captured in that photograph was overwhelming, almost abstract in its intensity.
"Jesus," James breathed.
"We counted at least four distinct impact sites," Frank continued, her voice carefully professional despite the horror of what she was describing."Blood evidence suggests multiple victims, all on the top deck.No bodies recovered yet—we're assuming they went overboard, same as the others."
"Any sign of what the vessel was carrying?"Isla asked."Drugs?Weapons?"
Frank shook her head."Nothing obvious.The hold was open and appeared empty when we boarded.No hidden compartments that we could identify, no cargo, no contraband visible anywhere.If they were smuggling something, either it was taken, or it's very well hidden."
That discordance again, stronger now.TheNorthern Dawnhad been carrying weapons.TheStorm Runnerhad been running drugs.Both had been targeted specifically because of what they carried, because the crews were criminals who wouldn't be mourned by the justice system.But a luxury yacht with no apparent cargo?
"Registration?"James asked.
"Holding company called Lakefront Ventures, LLC, out of Chicago.We're running it now, but shell companies like that can take days to untangle."Frank looked up as the yacht drew closer, her face grim in the strobing light."There's something else you should know.When we boarded, we found a locked door below decks.Heavy-duty lock, the kind you don't normally see on a pleasure craft.We didn't breach it—figured we'd wait for you."
Isla felt the familiar tightening in her chest that came when a case shifted beneath her feet.A locked door.Something worth securing aboard a vessel whose crew had been massacred.
"We'll take it from here," she said.
* * *
TheMidnight Crossingglided into the marina with the help of the Coast Guard tug, her hull kissing the dock with a gentle thud that seemed obscene given what had happened on her decks.She was beautiful, Isla had to admit—sleek lines, polished chrome, the kind of vessel that cost more than most people's houses.In daylight, she would have been stunning.Under the harsh emergency lights, with blood drying on her deck and her crew missing, she looked like a crime scene wearing a disguise.
Isla climbed the boarding ladder first, James close behind her.Her flashlight beam cut through the pre-dawn darkness, finding the blood that Frank's photographs had only hinted at.It was worse in person—the copper smell hitting her nostrils, the tacky feel of it beginning to congeal on the fiberglass, the sheer volume suggesting violence that had been both brutal and efficient.
She crouched beside the largest pool, studying the spatter patterns with the detached focus that years of crime scene work had taught her.Arterial spray arced across the deck toward the port rail.Impact spatter marked the chrome railing where someone had been struck while standing.Drag marks led toward the stern, consistent with bodies being moved—either by the killer or by victims trying to escape.
"Same methodology," James said quietly, his own flashlight tracking across the deck."Multiple victims, killed on deck, bodies disposed of over the side.No distress call, no survivors."
