Page 21 of Her Wild Coast Promise

Agent Snow ends the slide show. I flip on the lights and Brian moves to the white board, where he lists the three murders—Terrilynn Silva, Hayden Cole, and Jane Doe—that our task force is combining efforts to solve, with the rough details of each below them.

“Add the abduction of Sarah Thelen, the social worker, too,” I shake my head, but my remorse from failing to foresee the plan those thugs put into play doesn’t soften. If Sarah hadn’t been so resourceful and brave, she would have been killed.

“And the vet clinic fire,” Hunter adds. “Terrilynn’s bracelet puts her at the scene, at least in some way, before the arson. I think that’s why she was so valuable to them. Why they needed her silenced.”

The facts are gruesome, but they’re real, and only by facing them are we going to find the truth.

The team spends thirty minutes hashing out common factors linking the crimes, then play devil’s advocate to make sure we’re not getting tunnel vision.

“What about the pier project and those stolen US weapons?” I ask.

Brian writes it to the side of our master list with a question mark.

“If I was looking to smuggle stolen guns and sex workers out of Alaska, I’d be all for building a bigger pier,” Madison says, crossing his arms. “Not only because of the larger vessels we’d get in here, but increased traffic from tourism would provide decent cover.”

Back when Hunter was working a private security gig to stop an embezzlement scam, he discovered a haul of US military weapons onboard a Russian yacht minutes before it exploded. The two fugitives apprehended that night cut a deal with the feds and entered Witsec, the FBI’s witness protection program. The feds working that case did file charges against the perp who orchestrated the theft of the weapons, but have yet to bring him in. Supposedly the US Marshall’s Fugitive Apprehension Team is now working it.

Which is zero help to us.

“I think this all started with that pier and those Russian thugs,” Hunter says. “Gary Stanislaw starts siphoning cash from the pier project to pay his gambling debt. He gambles more, thinking he’ll dig himself out with a big win, but he just gets deeper. So he borrows from a loan shark—the Russians.”

“If the Russians are behind that pier, wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony,” Brian says. “What’s the status of the pier now?”

“it’s on hold until further notice,” Hunter says.

“Who was behind the pier project?” Madison asks, shooting him an inquisitive glance.

“InXPress Global,” I say to Madison.

He gives me a thoughtful glance. “I wonder if that’s the same company who tried to get a pier built in Alderbrook.”

“Tried?” I ask.

“The tribe was against it, and it’s their land.”

Brian taps his pencil’s eraser on his notebook. “Let’s say this is all connected. In order to grow their enterprise, our perps need to expand their distribution options. In Alaska, that means having a secure transportation system, including by sea. They try to get a bigger pier built—”

“Or several,” I interrupt, because I’m catching on fast.

Brian nods. “Or several. They try Alderbrook, but they get turned down. They get one started in Storm Harbor, but thanks to Gary Stanislaw, it gets scuttled. Let’s dig up every mid-sized pier project on the Kenai Peninsula and see if there’s a connection.”

“On it.” Madison jots a note, then drops his pencil and glances up, a troubled look on his face. “You guys ever hear about the party ships on Lake Superior?”

“There was a bust not too long ago, right?” Brian replies, sending me and Hunter a glance. “Guys lure girls onboard the freighters going back and forth to Canada, promising jobs on the other side of the voyage, but during the crossing they’re forced into prostitution.”

“Could that be happening here?” I glance at Hunter. “Like on that yacht?”

He scrubs his face with his hands. “The only girl on that boat was Petra.”

I breathe hard through my nose. From what Hunter told me, Petra had been used as leverage, but her kidnappers hadn’t been shy about their plans for her should Gary fail to pay them back. But maybe that had been their plan all along, and Petra would have become another victim of sex trafficking.

“There were four state rooms on that vessel,” Hunter says. “I only had a glance, but everything was over the top. What if these guys are selling a cruise with benefits to the highest bidders?”

“And then once they get to Russia, the party favors become slaves in a foreign country they’ll never be able to leave,” Agent Snow says, her tone bitter.

My gut tightens. “How do these scumbags get girls to agree to this?”

Madison glances my way. “A lot of times, it’s a boyfriend, or even a family member.”

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