But he had opened the wrong valves.
Water rushed into the lower deck.
The ferry turned broadside to the waves.
By the time Gideon understood what he had done, the Meridian was dying.
He could have admitted his mistake.
Instead, he damaged the radio equipment, destroyed the cargo records, and spent the following years building a heroic version of himself.
“Did he put the poison in your wine?” Mina asked.
“I never drank it.”
“Then how?”
“The fireplace.”
Elara explained that Gideon had dropped a small capsule into the flames. The substance vaporized instantly. She remembered a bitter smell, a sudden weakness in her legs, and Gideon watching her fall.
The last thing she saw was him kneeling beside her.
Not to help.
To check her pulse.
“He thought I was dead,” Elara said. “But he still needed the recording.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Jonas Pike.”
Mina knew the name.
Jonas was a retired rescue diver who lived in an old signal house beyond the eastern breakwater. He had worked on the recovery operation after the Meridian sank.
“He hid it inside Red Nine,” Elara continued.
“Red Nine?”
“The warning buoy near Wren Head.”
Mina looked toward the window.
The storm outside was strengthening. Wren Head stood several miles beyond the harbor wall, where submerged rocks formed a narrow channel. Red Nine warned ships away from the most dangerous section.
During severe weather, the buoy was often removed before it broke free.
“When will the harbor crew bring it in?” Mina asked.
“At first light.”
“And Gideon knows?”
“He heard part of my conversation with Jonas.”
Mina stood.
“I’m going to get it.”
“No.”
“It proves what happened to my parents.”
“It is too dangerous.”
“So is leaving it where Gideon can reach it.”
Elara tightened her grip.
“Mina, listen to me. Gideon has spent seventeen years protecting this secret. He has already tried to bury me once.”
Mina looked at her mother.
“Then he won’t expect you to have raised someone who knows how to survive a storm.”
Jonas Pike did not look surprised when Mina arrived at his signal house.
He stood in the doorway wearing a heavy waterproof coat. His white beard moved in the wind, and an old diving lamp burned on the table behind him.
“Elara woke up,” Mina said.
“I heard.”
“She told me about Red Nine.”
Jonas studied her face.
“Then we don’t have much time.”
His boat was a narrow rescue launch named Patience.
It had a reinforced hull, two powerful engines, and more repairs than original parts. Mina climbed aboard while Jonas released the ropes.
They left the harbor without navigation lights.
Fog covered the water. Rain moved horizontally across the deck. Each wave lifted the launch and dropped it into a black hollow.
Mina held the railing.
“Why didn’t you take the recording to the police?”
“I did, seventeen years ago.”
She turned toward him.
Jonas kept his eyes on the compass.
“I reported that part of the transmission was missing. I told the investigators someone had interfered with the radio. Two days later, my house was searched. The notes I had made disappeared.”
“Gideon?”
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“Why help my mother now?”
“Because she believed me.”
The light on Red Nine appeared through the fog.
The buoy rose and vanished between the waves. A steel bell beneath its frame rang with each movement, producing a lonely, uneven sound.
Jonas brought the launch alongside it.
Mina secured a line and climbed onto the narrow maintenance platform. Cold water struck her boots.
At the center of the buoy was a sealed electrical housing.
She removed the panel.
Behind the wiring, wrapped in waterproof material, was a black metal cylinder.
“I found it!” she shouted.
A second engine answered from the fog.
Jonas turned.
A larger vessel approached without lights.
Mina recognized Gideon’s private patrol boat.
A voice came through its loudspeaker.
“Bring the cylinder to me.”
Gideon stood near the bow.
Two men waited behind him.
One was the head of security at the Vale Foundation. The other was the harbor commissioner.
Mina held the cylinder against her chest.
“You tried to kill her.”
“I tried to stop a frightened woman from destroying everything we built.”
“One hundred and six people died.”
“And thousands have been saved by the foundation since then.”
“You used their deaths to make yourself a hero.”
Gideon’s boat struck the side of the Patience.
The impact threw Mina against the buoy railing.
Jonas reached for her, but one of Gideon’s men jumped onto the rescue launch. The two men struggled near the controls.
Gideon extended his hand.
“Give me the cylinder, Mina.”
She looked at him across the dark water.
“Did you know my parents were trapped below deck?”
His expression changed.
Only slightly.
But she saw the answer.