Buddy scanned the rooflines, the pilings, the stacked crab traps. He felt watched because he was watched. “Cameras?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Fletcher did a sweep an hour ago,” Dawson said. “Nothing funny, and we regularly check the software in all our systems because of the trouble a couple of years ago. It hasn’t been hacked. No one’s watching from here.”
Buddy looked from the text to Dawson. His mouth was already making the call his brain hated. “Give me ten. Then you come the long way around Hoag Island, no decals. If you’re inside five minutes of my wake, they’ll smell you.”
“Copy,” Dawson said. “Martyrs make paperwork.” He held Buddy’s gaze. “Don’t be a martyr.”
Buddy tapped the screen on his phone—Fallon, then Cullen. Both went to voicemail. He didn’t leave one. Words were a weight, and he wouldn’t drop any that might be found by someone else.
Sterling had two airboats ready—tanks topped off, hulls clean, radios checked. “Yours is number four,” he said. “Tracker pinged. Dawson’s got you.”
Flagler stepped into the second without ceremony. “The Bureau appreciates the loan,” he said dryly to no one. “I’d better not see an alligator out there. I hate those creatures, and I’ve seen enough of them already.”
Buddy swung onto the deck, fired the ignition, and the fan screamed to life. He didn’t look back. He pulled out, nose down, and let the river take him, white wake unrolling like a dare.
The Glades grabbed heat and flung it back. Sawgrass hissed against the hull; dragonflies stitched green lines in the air. Sector markers flew by in quick slashes—painted poles, numbers Buddy had memorized long before he’d admit this place felt like home. Sector Five meant narrower cuts, mangroves with knuckles for roots, the kind of water that ate mistakes and called it a light snack.
He watched everything at once. The glare, the dark seams that meant deeper channels, the margins where a boat might sit with its prop out and a man with a long gun could think about range and wind. The text rode shotgun, words repeating in a rhythm he couldn’t escape.
If you want to save her.
He had failed to save two. Their faces lived in a box in his closet, and on the bad nights, behind his eyelids. He said their names out loud every day.
Maya. Sophie.
He’d never forget.
And he’d never be able to forgive himself.
Wind shifted left. Smoke threaded the air, thin at first, then thicker, dragging its own shadow. Buddy opened the throttle, and the boat leapt, as if grateful to be told what to do.
Buddy banked hard around a curve, and the world opened to brightness and wrong—an old Seminole shack at the waterline, dry boards stacked under a grass roof, the whole thing licked orange and then swallowed by flames.
Two boats rode at the edge of the reeds—Fallon’s FWC airboat and Cullen’s patched skiff, both nosed in ugly like they’d been shoved into the reeds. Fallon and Cullen were a blur—bucket, throw, bucket, throw—steam rising where muddy water hit heat.
Buddy cut power before the last turn and let momentum carry him in with a quietness that felt like respect. He put a hand to his radio, making sure he was on the proper channel. It crackled to life before he could press the mic.
“Buddy, this is Keaton. There’s a fire in Sector Five. Same coordinates I sent Fallon.”
“I know. I’m staring at it.”
“Fire rescue on the way,” Keaton said. “Sending everyone in. This takes precedence. For now.”
Buddy cradled the mic and dropped anchor against the mangroves, hopped down, and his boots hit muck with purpose.
“Fallon!” His voice was bigger than the space could hold. She turned—face streaked with smoke, hair caught under a cap, eyes steady—the right arm of her uniform charred.
“There’s another bucket over there,” she shouted over the roar, pointing. “We’ve got to get this under control. Fire department at least ten minutes out.”
Sterling brought his boat in tight, Flagler’s hull just behind.
The shack’s beams groaned. A corner fell, and the roof punched smoke into a low ceiling over the water. Heat bent the air. Buddy moved Fallon back two steps with a hand on her shoulder—gentle, no argument in it. She resisted, then gave him those two steps because she’d seen the roof list, too.
“Anyone else here?” he asked her.
She shook her head once. “I don’t know.” She raced to the waterline, dipped her bucket in and ran back to the flames, tossing what looked like a droplet onto a raging inferno.
As Cullen marched toward him, Buddy stood in his path. “That’s not going to do anything.” He looked Cullen up and down. Shirt torn up. Parts of his pants were burned away, but the exposed skin looked unharmed. Silas was first going to be grateful that both Cullen and Fallon were okay.
