“Same beautiful, challenging, infinite air,” he countered without hesitation. “God, Riley, I can’t wait to see you. To actually see you, not just picture you in my mind.”
Her breath caught. “When?” The question slipped out before she could swallow it back.
“Soon. I have to coordinate with a couple of schedules, but soon. Maybe next week?”
“I’d like that.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.
They spoke for another twenty minutes about logistics, his training schedule with the SRF, and her environmental compliance inspections. But beneath the professional exchange was a live current of anticipation, charging every word.
“I should probably let you get some rest,” Talon said at last. “You’ve had a long day.”
“Talon?”
There was a pause, that almost-audible shift when his full attention landed squarely on her. “Yeah?”
“There’s another reason I’m here,” she said slowly. “Beyond proving I can handle the field again.”
“What’s that?”
Her gaze dropped to the manifest files scattered across her desk, the numbers that didn’t add up, the discrepancies that mirrored patterns she’d already seen in South America and Southeast Asia. Patterns her father had waved away.
“I’ll tell you when I see you,” she said. “Face-to-face.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Maybe it is.” Her voice was steadier now, anchored by resolve. “Or maybe it’s just my imagination.”
After they hung up, Riley sat in her office, watching the sky outside her window bleed from molten gold into deep crimson. Tomorrow, she’d drive to the coast to the water processing station uncomfortably close to the site of her worst memories.
She’d conduct her inspection. Smile for the cameras. Deliver every bit of the professional competence she’d fought to reclaim.
And she’d start looking for patterns in the shipping manifests. Discrepancies that might explain why her father had been so quick to dismiss her concerns.
In a few days, she’d see Talon again. She’d look into the eyes that had been her lifeline through a thousand texts. She knew she could trust him with the suspicions gnawing at her.
The Sahel had nearly broken her once. But as the first stars appeared in the darkening sky, Riley felt something she hadn’t in a year. It was an almostfierce joy that built in her chest. She wasn’t running from her ghosts anymore. This time, she was hunting them.
The convoyto the water processing station kicked up a plume of pale dust that hung in the air. It kind of drifted there, like a veil, held aloft by the intense heat. Riley sat in the rear seat of the lead SUV, letting her nails bite lightly into the leather armrest as the landscape shifted from scrubland to coastal terrain.
The air changed first. Even through the air conditioning, she could smell the ocean. It was faint but unmistakable. Her chest tightened. She shifted her focus to the steady rhythm of her breath.
Twelve kilometers from Arjun Ridge. Less than three kilometers from where the MV Calypso Queen had anchored. Her reflection in the tinted window showed her chin lifted, eyes steady. No one in the convoy saw the way her left hand curled briefly into a fist.
As the coastline came into view, flashes of blue-green water appeared between stands of mangrove. It glittered in the sun, beautiful, true, but it still scraped against her nerves. She made herself catalogdetails like she was filing a compliance report: water depth, visible infrastructure, proximity to the river mouth. Not proximity to the spot where she’d screamed until her voice went raw.
The station came into view. It was a low sprawl of concrete and corrugated steel buildings built right at the mouth of the Senegal River. Large cylindrical tanks rose behind fencing topped with razor wire, and the hum of pumps was faintly audible even over the SUV engines.
Her driver glanced back. “We’re arriving, Ms. Shoemaker.”
“Good.” She kept her voice crisp. “Remind the inspection team—hard hats, safety vests, compliance cameras rolling the moment we clear the gate. We’re not here for show; we’re here for verification. Let’s make it look like both.”
The driver nodded, radioing the message back to the trailing vehicles.
As they rolled through the station’s security gate, the tang of brine mingled with the smell of hot machinery. Local contractors in faded coveralls paused to watch the convoy. Riley stepped out as soon as the vehicle stopped, the salt air hitting her like a heavy wave. Her boots crunched on packed gravel, the sun baking down on the open area.
A facility manager approached, clipboard in hand, his expression faintly wary.
“Ms. Shoemaker,” he greeted.
