Chapter 8 - The Boat That Never Docked
Talia did not scream this time.
That frightened Damen more.
When she heard her mother was gone, she simply stared at him.
“No.”
Damen crouched.
“We’re going to find her.”
“No.”
“Talia—”
“You said the bad men were here.”
“They were.”
“So who took Mommy?”
That was the question.
Elias.
Caleb.
Victor.
All detained.
Yet someone had anticipated their capture and moved Yolanda.
Northstar was larger than the men Damen could see.
Talia’s eyes filled.
“You promised.”
Damen felt the accusation even though she had whispered it.
“I’m not finished.”
Jacoby approached.
“Damen.”
He handed over Caleb’s phone.
A second message had arrived.
DOCK C. MIDNIGHT.
Damen checked the time.
10:03.
“Trace?”
“Burner.”
“Of course.”
They returned to the estate.
The guards confirmed Yolanda had voluntarily left her room after receiving a call.
“She didn’t fight?” Damen asked.
“No.”
“Then someone threatened Talia.”
Jacoby nodded.
“Most likely.”
Security footage showed Yolanda walking through the garden at 9:11 p.m.
Alone.
At the north gate, a dark sedan waited.
She entered willingly.
Talia watched the video.
Damen did not want her to.
She insisted.
“Stop.”
He paused.
“What?”
“Mommy touched her hair.”
Damen looked.
Yolanda’s right hand was near her ear.
“So?”
“She does that when she wants me to look.”
“At what?”
Talia studied the frame.
“Her bracelet.”
Damen zoomed.
Yolanda wore a simple silver bracelet.
A gift from Mateo.
“She never takes it off,” Talia said.
Jacoby understood first.
“Tracker?”
They opened Yolanda’s employment records.
Her emergency information mentioned an old safety feature Mateo had installed when he worked night shifts—a small location tag built into the bracelet clasp.
The service account still existed.
Jacoby logged in.
A signal appeared.
Moving.
Across water.
Narragansett Bay.
Damen looked at the map.
“She’s on a boat.”
They mobilized.
The signal traveled south, then stopped near an abandoned fuel terminal.
Damen’s team reached it at 11:37.
No boat.
No Yolanda.
Only her bracelet placed on a piling.
“They found it,” Jacoby said.
Damen stared at the black water.
Then Talia, waiting safely inside the vehicle behind them, tapped the window.
Damen walked over.
“What?”
“Mommy knew they would.”
“What do you mean?”
“She knows bad guys find trackers in movies.”
Despite the situation, Jacoby almost smiled.
Damen opened the door.
“So why leave it?”
Talia pointed across the bay.
“That’s not where Mommy would go.”
“How do you know?”
“My daddy used to take us fishing.”
She pointed north.
“There’s an island.”
Damen looked at Jacoby.
“Rose Island?”
Talia nodded.
“Mommy knows a little dock there.”
Damen ordered the boat.
They reached Rose Island shortly after midnight.
The old lighthouse stood against the night.
No obvious movement.
Damen found footprints near the dock.
Two adult sets.
One led inland.
One returned.
Yolanda had been left.
They found her inside an old maintenance shed.
Cold.
Terrified.
Alive.
Talia ran to her.
This time the reunion broke both of them.
Damen remained outside.
He watched through the doorway as Yolanda kissed her daughter’s hair again and again.
Jacoby stood beside him.
“We won.”
Damen shook his head.
“No.”
“Yolanda’s safe.”
“For tonight.”
He looked across the water.
“Whoever ordered her moved knew Elias would fail.”
“So?”
“So Elias wasn’t running Northstar.”
Jacoby understood.
“He was middle management.”
Damen stared at the lights of Newport.
“Exactly.”
Inside, Yolanda called his name.
Damen entered.
She held out something.
A business card.
The kidnappers had placed it in her coat.
No name.
Only a symbol.
A compass star.
Northstar.
On the back, handwritten:
YOUR FATHER WAS NEVER THE BEGINNING.
Damen looked up.
“What did they say to you?”
“One thing.”
“What?”
Yolanda’s voice shook.
“They said the person who started Northstar is coming home.”
Damen knew only one person older than his father who had once controlled the family’s maritime interests.
A man everyone believed had died twenty-six years earlier.
His grandfather.
Silas Pharaoh.
May you like
And suddenly the story Damen had been told about his own family began to feel like the greatest lie of all.
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