The shipyard didn’t sleep. Not really.
Even at night, the cranes loomed like steel skeletons against the bruised sky, and the tide slapped the pilings with a sluggish, hungry rhythm. Sodium lights cast long, warped shadows over rows of shipping containers—red, blue, rust-eaten brown—all stacked like a maze built to swallow people whole.
Harper pulled her hood lower as she walked along the gravel path toward Dock 7. The chill from the river slid down her spine, carrying the sharp smell of diesel and metal.
Oz was already there.
He stood with his back to her, shoulders hunched, smoking a cigarette he kept forgetting to inhale. The glow at the tip burned unevenly.
“You came alone?” she asked quietly.
He startled, dropping the cigarette and crushing it with his boot. “Thought you might bail.”
“I don’t bail,” Harper said, though her voice betrayed a tremor.
Oz scrubbed a hand over his face. Under the harsh lights, she realized how gaunt he looked—cheeks hollowed, eyes sunken. Fear carved deeper lines than time.
“I don’t got much,” he muttered. “But it’s enough that someone’d kill to keep it buried.”
“Then say it anyway.”
He exhaled, breath shaking. “Your dad… he wasn’t mixed up in anything dirty. He stumbled into something ugly by accident. The kind of ugly that’s got roots far from Savannah.”
Harper swallowed hard. “The argument you had with him—Isla said it was about—”
“Owed money?” Oz laughed without humor. “Nah. That was just the story I fed people. Your dad came to me because I knew the docks. Knew the crews. He… he’d found some ledgers. Shipments coming in under false manifests. Numbers that didn’t match inventory.” Oz hesitated. “And one name that didn’t fit in any of the port books.”
“Whose name?”
He looked at her, guilt and dread fighting in his expression.
“Mason.”
Harper’s entire body went cold. “You’re sure?”
“I saw the documents myself. Your dad took pictures. Said he was gonna take them to Rivera, maybe the FBI. And then…” His jaw clenched. “Then three guys cornered us outside the dry docks. Told him to burn everything. Told me to keep my mouth shut unless I wanted to end up at the bottom of the river wearing concrete.”
Harper’s heart hammered so loud she almost didn’t hear it—
Footsteps.
Slow, deliberate, wrong.
She stiffened. “Oz…”
“I hear it.”
Oz scanned the shadows between container stacks. The echo bounced too close. Too synchronized.
Someone was here.
Not one someone. Several.
“Keep your back to mine,” Harper whispered.
They rotated instinctively—her pulse spiking as shapes detached from the darkness. Three men, maybe four, dressed in work jackets that didn’t match any real dock crew. One held a pipe. Another, something that gleamed like a utility blade.
“Looks like you two are trespassing,” one of them said, stepping forward.
Oz swore under his breath. “They ain’t here to talk.”
The men closed in—measured, confident. Harper’s throat tightened until she could barely breathe.
Then—
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
A flashlight beam exploded across the scene.
“Savannah PD!” Detective Rivera’s voice boomed from behind a stack of crates. “Drop whatever the hell you’re holding.”
The men scattered like startled dogs, but Rivera moved faster than Harper had ever seen him. He tore around the containers, tackling the nearest man while shouting into his radio. The rest bolted toward the dry storage yard, disappearing before Rivera could grab them.
“Move!” Rivera barked. “Both of you—out, now!”
Oz grabbed Harper’s arm, and the three of them sprinted across the gravel. Her lungs burned, the metal tang of fear thick in her mouth. Footsteps thundered somewhere behind them, but she didn’t look back.
They ducked behind a decommissioned forklift, gasping.
Rivera checked them quickly, his face tight. “Either of you hurt?”
“No,” Harper managed. “But they were tracking us. Oz—someone tipped them off.”
“No kidding.” Rivera scanned the yard. “Either they heard you were snooping, or they want to shut up every loose end from your father’s case.”
Oz shook uncontrollably. “We gotta go, man. They ain’t gonna stop.”
“Just breathe.” Rivera pressed a hand to his shoulder. “You did the right thing coming to me.”
Harper leaned against the forklift, trying to steady her heartbeat. “We need proof. Something concrete. Otherwise Mason walks away clean.”
Rivera hesitated—and in that split second, another sound sliced through the night.
Footsteps.
Soft. Quick. Familiar.
Harper turned as a shadow moved near the far end of the yard.
“Harper,” a voice whispered.
Isla.
She stepped out from behind a container, hair windblown, face flushed from running. She looked terrified—but determined.
“You followed me?” Harper gasped.
“I didn’t trust you to be safe,” Isla said breathlessly. “And I was right.”
She reached into her jacket, pulling out something wrapped in a plastic sleeve.
A photograph.
She handed it to Harper with trembling fingers.
Harper held it up to the dim light.
Mason—standing beside a cargo truck marked with an out-of-state freight logo.
Talking to a man Harper recognized from the docks.
Passing him an envelope.
Time froze around the image.
Rivera cursed softly. “That’s not just a lead. That’s leverage.”
Harper’s hands shook as she stared at the photo. Proof. Real proof.
But also a declaration of war.
Oz leaned in, whispering, “You expose him with that, he’ll come after you.”
Harper met Isla’s frightened but unflinching gaze.
“I know,” Harper said quietly.
And for the first time since her father died, she didn’t feel alone.