Sirens Across the Harbor
Chapter 13 - Sirens Across the Harbor
The agents searched the yacht while guests gave statements on the dock. News vans crowded the marina entrance, their lights reflecting across the water. The gala that had begun as a celebration of Grant and Celeste's generosity became the night their empire stopped obeying them.
Ava remained aboard until the final donor had been safely escorted away. Her leg throbbed, and exhaustion blurred the edges of her vision, but she refused a wheelchair until Caleb quietly reminded her that accepting help was not surrender.
He pushed her down the gangway while cameras flashed.
Reporters shouted questions. Had her parents tried to have her killed? Would she take over Reed Maritime? Did she forgive them?
Ava raised one hand.
“This investigation is larger than my family,” she said. “The money belonged to service members, spouses, children, and displaced workers. Tonight should be about returning what was taken, not turning pain into entertainment.”
It was the only statement she gave.
At the edge of the crowd, a tall man in a dark suit waited beside an old blue truck. Lieutenant Daniel Brooks had been Ava's closest friend since flight school and the person who sat beside her through the worst weeks of rehabilitation. Before her final mission, they had quietly planned to marry. After she disappeared, Daniel refused to attend the televised memorial because the Navy had not ended the search.
When Ava saw him, her composure finally broke.
Daniel did not rush her. He simply opened his arms.
She stood from the wheelchair with Caleb's help and leaned into him. For a moment, the yacht, the cameras, and the betrayal disappeared.
“You took your time,” Daniel whispered.
“I had to make an entrance.”
Caleb laughed, and Ava began to cry. They were not the controlled tears Celeste had performed for donors. They were messy, relieved, and impossible to hide.
Daniel drove them away from the marina. They stopped at a twenty-four-hour diner where Ava ordered pancakes, Caleb ordered everything on the menu, and no one asked them for a statement.
At three in the morning, the three of them sat beneath fluorescent lights while the news replayed the yacht confrontation on a television above the counter.
Caleb turned the screen off.
“I'm glad you're alive,” he said.
May you like
Ava reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
For the first time since her helicopter went down, she understood that coming home was not the same as returning to the old house. Home was the place where the truth did not require permission.
