Page 39 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
The hours crawled. The light grew stronger, silver turning to pale gold filtered through the canopy. Neither of them slept.
Holiday songs blared from some beachside bar in the distance, reminding him it was nearing Christmas.
Isobel made coffee at some point by lighting the gas stove by hand since he refused to run the generator, the smell filling the small space—bitter, grounding. Rone took a cup but barely drank it. His thoughts kept looping back to Echo—where he might be, how far they’d gone, what it meant. He surveyed the food she had aboard and was thankful for the power bars in his ditch bag or they wouldn’t make it more than a few days. Andthey needed longer than that to get the heat off enough to refuel at a dock. They’d be watching for any sign of this boat. He would’ve taken his own boat if he hadn’t spent too much time focused on Isobel and not enough on fixing his engine.
He kept replaying the collar’s break, the cut, the precision. A clean removal. Not a fight. A snatch. Professional.
Which meant Echo was still alive.
The thought steadied him more than the coffee did.
By late morning, the heat began to climb. Cicadas screamed in the mangroves. The air thickened. The quiet turned heavy, suffocating.
Rone stood at the helm again, scanning the tree line. Isobel joined him after a while, her face pale but composed.
“They’ll come looking,” she said.
“I don’t plan on being found. But we start planning our hunt.” Tactical plans swirled in Rone’s head. He wouldn’t play hero, but he’d get Echo back, and before Isobel knew what was going on, he’d have all of them disappear into the tides. He still had a connection with his friend in the FBI; he’d turn over the thumb drive and get some sort of witness relocation for Isobel.
The tide rose again, lifting the trawler an inch, two. The shadows lengthened across the cove. Rone worked on recalibrating the portable radio, trying to pull any chatter from nearby vessels. Mostly static and fishermen complaining about fuel prices.
He was about to shut it off when a burst of white noise filled the cabin—a sharp crackle, loud enough to make Isobel flinch.
Rone frowned and turned the dial back a hair.
The static thinned, resolved into a faint rhythm, like breathing through a bad connection.
Then a voice—low, warped, echoing slightly—slid through the interference.
“Family First… this is… Shade. Do you copy?”
Isobel froze. The mug in her slipped, shattering against the teak floor.
Rone went still. His hand hovered over the tuner, not touching, not breathing.
The voice came again, clearer this time, strained.
“Rone… Isobel… need… help…”
She looked at him, wide-eyed. “Did he—did he say Shade?”
Rone’s heart pounded, slow and violent. Every instinct told him it couldn’t be real. Shade was gone. He’d seen the aftermath himself. But the cadence—that clipped, gravel-edged tone—it washim.
“Could be a recording,” Rone muttered. “A mimic.”
“Or it’s him,” Isobel whispered. “He’s alive.”
Rone shook his head, jaw clenched. “They’re baiting us.”
But even as he said it, his hand drifted toward the microphone. His pulse beat in his throat, hard enough to hurt.
The radio crackled once more.
“Echo’s alive. They want the drive.”
The signal cut out, dissolving into static.
Isobel grabbed for the mic. “Father. We’re here.”
