Page 51 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
The light blinked once—green,faint—and vanished.
Isobel thought her eyes were playing tricks, that exhaustion and dark water had finally blurred into one long hallucination. But Rone went still beside her. So still she could almost hear the shift in his breathing, the subtle snap from rest to readiness.
“What is it?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. Just moved. Fluid, fast, dangerous. The kind of movement that came from training, not panic. “Downstairs,” he said, his voice low, stripped of warmth.
A chill crawled up her spine. “Rone?—”
“Go.” He shifted to neutral and cut the engines.
The word wasn’t shouted, but it carried the weight of command. Her heart stuttered. She tripped, caught herself on the handrail near the stairs, but refused to descend. The light from the dash painted his face in hard edges—focused, relentless, all militant again.
“Someone’s out there,” he said. “Half a mile, maybe less. I saw their nav light before they killed it.”
The words scraped through her. “Could it be Coast Guard?”
“Not a chance.” His tone left no room for hope. “They wouldn’t cut lights unless they’re hunting, and if they’re hunting—” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to.
Her throat tightened. “Hunting who?”
He didn’t look at her. “Us.”
The word landed like a weight. Heavy. Final.
“Can we outrun them?”
“No. Our only hope is if they don’t see us.” The boat rolled with the swell, cutting through ink-black water. The coastline had long vanished into shadow, and now even the horizon looked like it had dissolved.
Isobel moved closer to him, drawn by the steady certainty in his posture even as fear coiled low in her stomach. She’d seen him calm before, but this was different—this was survival mode. A silence hung between them thick enough to choke on.
“What do we do?”
“Stay low. Stay quiet,” he said. “Not good. They’re headed straight for us. They see us.”
She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “How long until they?—”
“Not long,” he said, cutting her off. His voice was calm, but she could feel the tension radiating from him like heat.
No lights besides the dim green from the console, flickering faintly across his hands on the wheel.
The boat slowed, gliding into silence. The only sounds were the slap of water and the muted thud of her heart.
For a moment, there was nothing. No engine. No movement. Just the endless, suffocating dark.
Then—soft and low—a hum. Mechanical. Steady.
Her head snapped up. “Do you hear that?”
Rone nodded, eyes narrowing. “They’re close.”
The hum cut out. The sea went still again.
Then came the sound that made every muscle in her body seize—a faintclangof metal on metal, somewhere behind them.
Her blood turned to ice.
He grabbed a flare gun from the cabinet. The sound of it clicking into his grip was too loud, too real.
