POV: Ione Mercer
“Ione insisted I take the life jacket,” Sabine said, her voice trembling through the small television mounted above the bar.
I stared at the screen. Sabine dabbed the corners of her eyes with a tissue. She wore a pristine white sweater, sitting in the brightly lit press room of the port authority.
“She told me to think of my future,” Sabine continued, looking into the camera.
Damian sat right beside her. He placed a comforting hand on Sabine’s shoulder and gave a solemn nod to the reporters.
I aimed the greasy plastic remote at the screen and pressed the mute button. Silence swallowed Sabine’s performance.
“Your husband is a very good actor,” Nico said.
He dropped a heavy, tangled mass of green nylon fishing net onto the concrete step of the back alley. The smell of salt and dead algae filled the damp night air.
“He is a liar,” I said.
I knelt on the cold concrete next to him. My fingers were still numb, but I dug into the wet mesh anyway. We needed to clear his gear before the morning tide. Pieces of charred fiberglass and melted plastic from the Thalassa clung to the ropes.
“Pull that section tight,” Nico instructed, pointing a calloused finger at a knotted loop.
I yanked the rope. A clump of scorched seaweed tore loose. Something small and metallic slipped out of the debris. It hit the ground, bounced off the toe of my shoe, and clattered into the shallow white ceramic dish Nico used to hold anchovy bait.
I picked up the heavy cylinder. Grease coated my thumb. I wiped the metal clean on my damp chef’s apron.
“What is that?” Nico asked, pausing his knife halfway through a tangled line.
“A high-voltage marine fuse,” I said, rotating the brass casing under the dim alley light.
Numbers were stamped into the metal rim. 8-9-9-4-4-B.
My mind snapped back to a Tuesday morning three weeks ago. Damian had thrown a stack of maintenance invoices onto the kitchen island while I was testing a new saffron risotto recipe. I had filed them. I remembered the exact total. Eight hundred and forty euros for a replacement main-engine fuse.
I held the brass cylinder closer to the bulb. The glass window on the side of the fuse was intact. The thick copper filament inside was not melted into a slag of blown metal.
It was sliced. The cut was perfectly straight, leaving two flat, shiny ends.
“A blown fuse melts,” I said, holding it out to Nico. “The heat destroys the wire.”
Nico squinted at the gap. “That is a tool mark. Someone took wire cutters to it.”
“Damian,” I whispered.
“You need a phone that cannot be traced,” Nico said. He wiped his hands on his jeans and pulled a heavy black smartphone from his jacket pocket. “Use the encrypted dialer. The application icon looks like a blue shield.”
I took the phone. My fingers left greasy smudges on the screen as I dialed a London number from memory.
The line rang twice before a sharp voice answered.
“Reed Maritime Law. Speak.”
“Asha. It is Ione.”
A heavy pause stretched across the line.
“They broadcast your death two hours ago,” Asha said, her tone dropping to a harsh whisper. “Where the hell are you?”
“Kalyra Island. I am alive.”
“Did you fall off that yacht, Ione, or were you pushed?”
“Damian left me on board to burn,” I said, my jaw tightening. “And I found a piece of the engine debris in a fishing net. A brass main-engine fuse. Serial number ends in 44-B.”
“A blown fuse proves mechanical failure,” Asha countered.
“The filament is sheared,” I said. “Cleanly snipped. It did not blow. Someone cut the power before the fire started.”
Keyboard keys clacked rapidly on Asha’s end. “If you have physical proof of tampering, that is enough for a judge to issue an independent preservation order. We can lock down the wreckage.”
“Do it,” I said. “File the motion.”
“I can draft it,” Asha said, her voice tightening. “But you have a massive problem.”
“What problem?”
“The insurance adjusters already signed off on the preliminary inspection. They are not waiting for a full investigation.”
“They have to wait,” I said. “It is a crime scene.”
“Damian is the sole policyholder, and he waived the extended review,” Asha replied. “The underwriters are moving the salvage out of Greece in six hours. Once that hull leaves local waters, it gets scrapped. The evidence vanishes.”
I looked down at the cut brass cylinder in my palm. Damian was erasing his tracks. He forged the passenger manifest, left me to die, and now he was buying off the salvage crew to destroy the boat.
“I need the original port logs,” I said. “The ones Damian signed before the tender launched.”
“You cannot get those if you are dead, Ione. You need to walk into a police station right now.”
“If I show up alive tonight, Damian will claim I am hysterical,” I said. “He will say I hid on the boat to frame him. He has Sabine backing his story. I need the logs first.”
“You are playing a dangerous game,” Asha warned. “How much time do you need?”
I grabbed a pen from Nico’s breast pocket. I smoothed out a crumpled paper napkin on the concrete step.
“Give me three days,” I said.
I wrote 72 HOURS in thick black ink across the thin paper.
“Three days of silence,” Asha confirmed. “I will stall the legal filings. But I cannot stop that salvage transport.”
“I will handle the transport,” I said, and ended the call.
I handed the phone back to Nico. He looked at the napkin, then at the brass fuse in my hand.
“You are going after a billionaire with a piece of wire,” Nico said.
“I am going after my husband,” I corrected.
Nico’s phone buzzed violently in his palm. The screen lit up with a harsh white glare. He glanced at the notification and frowned.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A maritime alert from the harbor master,” Nico said, reading the text on the screen. “Salvage transport for vessel Thalassa loading at zero five thirty.”
The evidence would be sealed inside a truck and gone before sunrise.
