Blake headed for the shoreline connection at the stern. The plug was ancient, frayed around the edges. He fit it into the socket, twisted, and waited. Nothing.
He checked the breaker box, tapped it once. Still dark. He glanced over his shoulder to Viv standing in the doorway, her arms wrapped tight around her middle as if shielding herself from more than the storm. “Shore power’s dead. I’ll go to the marina office. Be right back.”
He didn’t like leaving her behind, but knew she’d take care of herself. The biggest mistake would be to coddle her. She might just burn the op to get away from him. He knew the only reason she agreed to this was because Maddox dangled that precious promotion over her head.
He only made it halfway up the dock before Dan rounded a finger and waved him down. “Storm has blown the power. Won’t have any tonight. Sorry man, we’re working on some upgrades around here, but money’s tight. I’d say you should move to another marina, but I don’t think you can even get her engine going in her condition.” He lifted an old camping lantern. “Brought you this, though.”
“Thanks, man; guess I need to hire you. There’s a lot of work to do on that boat if I want to get her out of here, and the new missus isn’t happy with me. Good motivation to get going on our dream trip around the world together, right?” He hoped that would buy him some time. If Dan relayed the news that they were working to get out of here, and if they didn’t already know they were agents, this gave them a shot. Laurel Tide wanted them gone with the least amount of suspicion surrounding them.
“Absolutely.” Dan stood inches taller. “Happy to work on her for you.”
If Blake judged the man right, he was in it for the money, not for Laurel Tide. He probably didn’t even know this was a main hub for the organization. “See you later. Best get back to my bride.”
Bride. Funny, he’d never even thought of marriage. He cared about one thing the last seven years—taking down Laurel Tide.
He climbed the steps and found Viv cleaning the place, organizing things. No shocker there. “No power to the entire dock.”
She sighed, the sound half frustration, half resignation. “Then we’ll have to run the generator.” She nodded toward the far wall. “Already did another bug sweep, we’re clean on board. Even checked the lazarettes.”
“Lazarettes?” he asked.
She shook her head. “You really don’t know anything about boats or mechanics, but somehow you’ll come out looking like a pro. I don’t know how you do it.”
He caught the hint of resentment in her voice but decided not to dig into their issues right now. Maybe when this op was over, they could finally sit down and iron out what was or wasn’t between them. “Right,” he muttered. “Guess I better figure out the generator that’s older than me.”
Vivian crossed her arms. “Unless you want to freeze. By the way, the generator needs diesel to run. We’re good there. I checked while I was sweeping.”
He gave her a mock salute and ducked below again. The generator sat in the corner, crusted with rust, a tangle of hoses and wires that looked like something out of a scrapyard. He hit the starter switch.
The machine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life—too fast, too loud. The vibration rattled the deck plates under his boots.
“Blake?” Vivian called down, voice sharp.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” He adjusted the choke, but the pitch only climbed. The smell of burning oil filled the air. His instincts screamed.
He killed the switch. The motor died with a shuddering groan, leaving the boat too quiet.
A thin trail of smoke drifted up from the vent. Not normal. Not at all. He didn’t know about fixing boats up, but he knew engines after his undercover op as an auto mechanic.
Vivan hopped down beside him and shined a flashlight on the generator. “There, the pressure vent’s sealed with what looks like clear resin. No way that’s a wear and tear problem.”
“If you say so; guess you’re the handy woman on board.” Blake crouched beside the generator. The casing was hot—too hot for the short run time—and the smell wasn’t right. Not oil or exhaust, but acrid, metallic. He leaned in, narrowing his eyes.
He followed a wire along the housing, his light catching on something small and charred near the fuel line—a burnt fleck, the remains of a matchstick. He brushed the intact edge with his gloved finger, and the sulfur scent hit him.
His stomach dropped. “Someone taped a matchhead near an exposed splice. If the line overheated, the wire would’ve sparked, the match would’ve lit—and with the vent sealed, the whole compartment would’ve gone up like a grenade. This was rigged to blow. These traps weren’t built around shore power—they were wired ages ago to trigger regardless of whether the dock had electricity.”
“Laurel Tide doesn’t do direct hits,” Blake said, running a hand over the charred casing. “They stage accidents. Electrocution, engine failures, carbon monoxide, flare malfunctions—things investigators write off. These traps were set long before we got here. Whoever used this boat before us was the real target.”
CHAPTER TWO
For a moment,Vivian couldn’t breathe. The wordsrigged to blowhung in the air like the echo of a gunshot. Her pulse thundered against her ribs, and every instinct she’d honed through years of fieldwork screamedmove.
She stepped back, shoulder brushing the cold bulkhead, flashlight trembling despite the tightness of her grip. The smell of scorched metal filled the space, sharp and invasive, clinging to the back of her throat.
Blake turned toward her, crouched low, the beam from his flashlight carving shadows across his jaw. Even smeared with soot and grime, he had that calm about him—the kind that made people follow him into danger. His hand hovered near the sealed vent, fingers tracing the resin like a man reading braille.
“I’ve seen setups like this before. Crude. Cheap. But effective. This doesn’t mean they know who we are,” he said.
