A scream cut through the noise. A woman rushed up to Wyatt. “Please… my daughter is still inside!”
Wyatt was already moving when Letty cried out, “Roper…”
He didn’t think before he hopped over the side of the boat to run inside. The heat inside the Palmetto Royale hit him like a wall as smoke choked the corridors, alarms screaming, lights flickering. Wyatt dropped low, pulling his shirt up over his mouth, forcing his breathing steady. “Rescue!” he shouted. “If you can hear me, get to the rail!”
A sob answered him.
Wyatt followed the sound, boots slipping on the slick flooring. He found a girl crouched under a table, tiny hands over her ears, face streaked with soot.
“Hey,” he said, dropping to his knees. “Easy, darlin’. One step at a time.”
She clung to him like a lifeline as Wyatt scooped her up, turned and sensed the change in the fire.
This isn’t right. The fire isn’t spreading like it should. It’s feeding in lines.His eyes scanned as he moved. Lines of flames traveled like snakes on the ground as he kicked the panel near the engine housing and swore under his breath.Fuel. Fuck, it’s fresh and deliberate. This isn’t an accident. Someone used accelerant to move the fire.He carried the child in his arms as he ran through the boat to the deck.
Wyatt bolted, shielding the child as they burst into the open air. He passed her off to waiting hands without stopping. “Get her clear!”
He turned back into the opening on the deck just long enough to confirm what his instincts already screamed.Fuel lines laid out along the lower deck were cut clean, not ruptured. Someone wanted this boat to burn.
LETTY
Letty took the child from Wyatt’s arms and handed her off to a responder with a blanket. “She’s breathing,” Letty said to the nearest EMT. “Shock protocol and give her oxygen. Keep her warm.” She looked up just as Wyatt met her gaze across the chaos. He turned to go back toward the fire as she raised on her toes to watch. “What the hell is he doing? He doesn’t hesitate, and that’s going to get him in trouble.”
Minutes later, he stepped back, soot-streaked but fine. Relief slammed into her chest before she could stop it as voices chirped in her earpiece.
Wyatt lifted his comm to his mouth, eyes never leaving Letty. “Cal, this fire’s deliberate. Someone tampered with the fuel lines.”
Letty’s blood chilled as her eyes surveyed the disaster.Someone did this on purpose. She searched for the child, who sat with her mother and the EMTs.
“Copy,” Cal replied. “All units, shift posture. This is now a crime scene.”
Letty stepped closer to Wyatt, lowering her voice. “If this was sabotage, they’d want to control the narrative. That means witnesses, reports, anything that contradicts the ‘accident’.”
Wyatt stepped close enough that she felt the heat coming off him. “What are you saying?”
She took out her phone and swiped over to the photos from earlier in the day. “I took photos of the area this morning, before and after the training exercise. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I caught movement on the boat.”
Sirens wailed closer to them. The Palmetto Royale burned against the dark water like a warning flare as Wyatt took her phone from her hand. His finger flicked across the screen as he growled. “Well shit. You’re not working alone anymore.”
Letty met his gaze, pulse steady despite the chaos. “Okay. We need to figure out exactly what is in those photos.”
Behind them, Channel 16 crackled to life with overlapping voices, teammates calling out status, Cal’s calm cutting through it all.
Wyatt pursed his lips. “We need to get these photos to a computer and enlarge them to see the details.”
Letty looked over the scene. She had studied disaster response for years, but theory always looked cleaner in a classroom than it did on a dock filled with smoke, screaming passengers, and water that could swallow someone in seconds.
Wyatt moved on the dock aiding people, and Letty understood something with sudden clarity. She was staying longer in Tidehaven than she had planned, and whatever came next, they were already in it together.
CHAPTER THREE
WYATT
Cal didn’t raise his voice. He never did when things mattered because quiet decisions usually meant he had already chosen the outcome before anyone else realized there was a choice to make.
Wyatt stood in the Salt & Steel briefing room, damp hair still smelling of smoke and salt, while Cal pushed back against the table with his arms crossed. He had already made the decision. “Duval’s staying in Tidehaven.”
Wyatt nodded.Of course she is. She won’t leave here until everything is settled.
