Page 37 of Christmas Harbor Secrets
He stared at the collar—mud, salt, and broken metal—andfelt something inside him drop, slow and heavy, like an anchor through black water.
“They took him,” he said. His voice was too steady, the kind of calm that only came from being past the edge.
“How? Echo would’ve put up a fight.”
“Drugs? They’ve got plenty of that, or he simply went to protect us. That dog is more than smart, he’s loyal and selfless.” He growled, swept the collar, up and squeezed it in his fist, willing it to bring Echo back, but it wouldn’t. Nothing could bring Echo back; going after him would only get them both killed. “They took him to show us they could. Next time, it won’t be a dog.”
Isobel looked up, eyes wide, pale in the low light. “What do you mean?—”
“I mean we move. Now.”
He reached past her, shut the door. The night rushed back out, but the emptiness it left behind filled the cabin.
Isobel clutched the collar against her chest. “Rone, we can’t leave him.”
“No time. No choice.” He grabbed for the ignition key, the motions all muscle memory. The diesel engine coughed to life, rumbling low and guttural. He throttled back to idle, enough to make way without lighting up the channel like a parade float.
The vibration hummed through the deck plates, steadying him. It was something to hold onto.
He went to work—hands quick, deliberate. Untied the bow lines, coiling the ropes as he went. Isobel took the stern lines. The trawler eased free, drifting a foot from the dock. He leapt back aboard, catching the rail with one hand.
Isobel hovered upstairs near the pilot house door, collar still in her hand, face caught between fear and disbelief.
“We can’t just leave him,” she said.
Rone didn’t look at her. If he did, he might stop moving. “I’ll find him.”
“But now?—”
“Now, we get gone.” He spun the wheel, shifting the throttle forward just enough for the boat to slide into the main channel.
The marina Christmas lights fell away, swallowed by the dark. Only the faint line of moonlight traced the rippling water ahead.
Behind them, the hum returned for a breath—low, taunting, like a predator’s purr—then faded into distance.
They cut through the water at six knots, the wake small and silent. Rone kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the throttle. He wouldn’t outrun anyone in this boat, but he could go farther than most.
He glanced at the gas gauge and cursed himself. He could’ve gone all the way to the South pacific on what this trawler held, but apparently Shade never gassed her up.
His eyes scanned everything: the channel markers, the horizon, the black silhouette of the shoreline.
No running lights. He’d killed them the moment they cast off. Only the dim red from the instrument panel washed the pilot house in light—enough to see his hands, not enough to make them targets.
Isobel stood beside him, steady but quiet. The collar rested on the dash, metal tag clinking with each rise of the hull.
He wanted to tell her to sit, to rest, to let him handle it. But something about her silence made him hold the words. She wasn’t the same woman who’d arrived on the dock days ago, nervous about fuel gauges and anchor lines. She’d crossed some invisible line with him now—blood and threat had a way of binding faster than comfort ever could.
Still, he felt the guilt gnawing. Echo’s absence was a missingheartbeat on deck. That dog had been his partner, his last link to Shade, the only creature left that didn’t flinch at the man Rone had become.
“They won’t hurt him,” Isobel said suddenly, voice barely above the rumble of the motor. “He’s too valuable.”
Rone’s jaw ticked. “You don’t know men like this.”
“Then tell me.”
He didn’t. He couldn’t.
Instead, he kept his eyes on the next buoy flashing red against the tide, counting seconds between blinks. “They don’t waste effort. Taking him was a message. They want us scared, desperate, predictable.”
