Page 49 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
She walked away, knowing she wouldn’t change his mind, and she needed some air to cool down. Maybe she was naive, but she needed a solid plan. There had to be a way to save her father and Echo. She wouldn’t hand him over to the monsters who’d refused to help when he’d asked for a relocation. No, they’d forced him back into the middle of all this. They wouldn’t suddenly decide to help now.
Hours passed while she sat out under the shade of the pilot house until the sun passed over into late afternoon and flooded her solace. She rose and went inside to Rone, still manning the helm, although on autopilot.
They traveled in silence, switching shifts at the helm. When Isobel wasn’t sleeping, she would hold the rabbit in her hands and wish for her father’s voice to blare over the radio again, but they’d have to turn on something to hear anything outside the boat. Not even GPS or AIS was on in fear they’d be found.
When no better plan materialized, she knew she had to take Rone’s offer, or at least see it through in case another option presented itself. “Fine, make your call. If you get a deal to extract my father and Echo, I’ll consider leaving.”
He didn’t respond; he scooted from his position and slid his cell from his pocket.
She stepped up to take the helm. “You sure you can trust Blake?”
“We’re brothers.” Rone dialed, and a moment later, he said, “Blake, it’s Archer.”
Isobel glanced over at him, trying to read the other side of the conversation. Rone put it on speaker.
“Situation changed,” Rone said. His tone had gone clipped, all business. “We had to move. Need rendezvous location.”
“Copy. We have a team organizing now. Rendezvous at Coya Costa Island.”
That couldn’t be coincidence.
“North sector. Old ranger station.” Blake’s words confirmed what she’d already suspected. The FBI betrayed them. Rone’s own so-called brother betrayed them. They’d given up her father. And now they’d turn them over to be silenced.
No.It couldn’t be true. His buddy, his brother, betrayed him. He couldn’t allow himself time to process because if this was a trap, they didn’t know where they were right now, which meant they had a chance. Rone cleared his throat. “We’ll be there.”
“Understood,” Blake replied, though there was something in his voice—too smooth, too ready. “We can stage there. Can you be there tomorrow evening?”
“Yes. We’ll come in quiet.” Rone hesitated, eyes narrowing.
“Good. And Rone… don’t call local law. Not even marine patrol.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll either warn Laurel Tide or show up dead.”
“Understood. Ranger station, no locals. We’ll be there.”
The line went dead before Rone could answer. The softclickechoed louder than the waves slapping the hull. He stared at the phone in his hand—his brother’s voice still echoing in his head—and felt something crack open inside him that he’d spent years sealing shut.
Blake. His brother in every way that mattered. The one man he’d trusted to cover his six when the world went to hell.
He set the phone down, slow and careful, as if gentleness could undo the betrayal pulsing through his veins. It didn’t. The anger came anyway—dark and quiet, like a rip current you couldn’t see until it dragged you under.
“You were right,” he said, his voice low enough that it scraped his throat.
Isobel’s hand froze on the helm.
He stared out across the gulf where the moonlight cut thin silver lines on the waves. “They can’t be trusted.”
She nodded, telling him she’d already put that much together, but she didn’t sayI told you so. Didn’t gloat. She just went still beside him, shoulders trembling once before she pulled herself together. “Then what do we do?”
He didn’t have an answer. For a man who’d built his life on having them—on plans, exits, contingencies—the hollow in his chest felt like failure.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. The words burned on his tongue. “But we stay alive long enough to figure it out.”
Silence swallowed them—vast and unnerving. Only the creak of the trawler and the rhythmic slap of water against the hull broke the stillness. “We don’t have extra fuel to burn.”
The world turned to shadow. The horizon vanished, and the sea stretched in every direction, a black mirror that seemed to absorb the last of the light. Above them, a sliver of moon hung crooked and dim, its reflection shivering across the water like a broken promise.
