Page 66 of Taken from Her
Diana gathered her tactical gear from the passenger seat, her hands shaking slightly from caffeine and adrenaline withdrawal. The rescue operation had been flawless, but her body was demanding rest that had been deferred too long.
The dock stretched ahead, now familiar even in darkness. Other houseboats bobbed gently at their moorings, their windows dark except for the occasional reading light or security lamp. Normal night patterns that spoke to a community at rest.
But something felt wrong.
Lavender's houseboat sat too still in the water. No warm light spilled from the galley windows; no soft glow came from the reading area where she often stayed up late with tea. The space that usually welcomed Diana home looked empty and abandoned.
Diana quickened her pace along the wooden walkway, boots echoing against the planks in a rhythm that seemed too loud. Maybe Lavender was asleep. Maybe she'd turned off all the lights and gone to bed early, trusting that Diana would return safely from the operation.
But Lavender never went to bed without leaving the galley light on when Diana was working late. It was one of their small domestic rituals, a beacon that said home was waiting.
Diana reached the houseboat's main deck, and her senses heightened. The door hung slightly open. Marina security required people keep their doors locked, and Lavender was too careful to leave her home vulnerable.
"Lavender?" Diana called softly, not wanting to wake neighboring boat residents but needing to announce her presence.
No response.
Diana pushed the door open wider, her hand instinctively moving toward her weapon while her mind rejected what she saw. The main living area looked normal except for details that made her chest tighten: overturned cushions on the reading chair, books scattered across the floor, and candles burned down to stubs as if they'd been left unattended for hours.
"Lavender?" Diana called again, louder this time.
The cats appeared from their hiding spots: Saffron emerging from under the galley counter, Basil creeping out from behind the reading chair. Both moved with the careful gait of animals who'd been frightened, their usual confident territorialism replaced by nervous energy.
Diana moved through the space systematically, her training overriding personal panic. No signs of forced entry beyond the unlocked door. No obvious evidence of struggle beyond the disturbed furniture. But wrongness permeated everything.
The bedroom was empty, bed unmade but not slept in. The galley showed signs of interrupted activity: dinner dishes still drying in the rack and coffee grounds scattered beside the French press. Everything suggested normal evening routines that had been suddenly abandoned.
Diana's phone buzzed with a text message. For a moment, hope flared and she thought it was Lavender. But the message was from Agent Delacroix about tomorrow's debriefing schedule.
She tried calling Lavender's number. The phone rang somewhere inside the houseboat—in the bedroom, muffled by fabric. Diana followed the sound and found Lavender's phone tangled in bedsheets, as if it had been dropped or thrown during some kind of disturbance.
The discovery made Diana's hands shake. Lavender wouldn't leave home without her phone. She wouldn't leave the cats without food and water. She wouldn't abandon the evening rituals that structured her life.
Diana forced herself to think like a police officer instead of a terrified lover. She collected evidence and preserved the scene as best as she could, but her hands trembled as she photographed the disturbed areas that felt like violations of the sanctuary they'd built together.
The writing desk in the corner drew her attention—not because anything looked obviously wrong, but because something felt different about its usual arrangement. Diana walked closer to the desk carefully, scanning for signs of disturbance. The surface appeared normal: pen holder, small lamp, and stack of stationary. Except the photo was missing. She looked around, then heard a crunch under her shoes. The missing framed photo of her and Lavender taken during a community event that was usually on the desk lay face down on the floor.
Diana lifted the frame and found the glass was cracked. Behind it, folded paper protruded from beneath the photo itself, something that hadn't been visible when the frame was upright.
Diana extracted the paper. It was a program from the Phoenix Ridge Environmental Festival, margins filled with handwritten notes in Lavender's careful script. But it was the message written on the back that made Diana's breath catch:
Morning tide reveals a hidden sanctuary. Saffron's favorite windowsill herbs: chamomile for peace, lavender for love. Trust the cats to guard what matters most.
Diana stared at the words, her mind racing to decode the meaning that felt both obvious and impossibly complex.
Morning tide—the sea cave where they'd found evidence together, accessible only at low tide. Windowsill herbs—Lavender grew chamomile and lavender in galley planters that caught morning light. Trust the cats—Saffron and Basil, whose names were hidden in the message itself.
This wasn't random writing of a scared woman. It was a message left specifically for Diana, coded in shared experiences and private knowledge that only she would understand. Lavender had left this knowing Diana would find it, trusting completely in their connection.
But it also meant Lavender had been taken. Someone had entered the houseboat and stolen the woman Diana loved.
Diana's legs felt unsteady as she sank into Lavender's reading chair, still holding the program that contained both a love letter and desperate communication. The successful rescue operation suddenly felt hollow, professional triumph overshadowed by this personal catastrophe.
The irony cut deeper than any physical wound. While Diana had been coordinating the rescue of three women and celebrating tactical success and federal cooperation, someone had been here. They'd violated this space, taken the woman who mattered most, and turned Diana's greatest professional achievement into personal devastation.
She'd saved Tara, Isabel, and Joanna. But she'd lost Lavender.
The realization made her hands shake as she understood the calculated cruelty behind the timing. This wasn't random retaliation; it was premeditated. The remaining networkmembers had studied her, learned what mattered most, and struck precisely when she'd be too occupied to protect what she couldn't bear to lose.
