Chapter 5 - Underwater Secrets
The rear yard of Miller’s Impound Lot looked like a graveyard for metal.
Rusting sedans, crushed pickup trucks, and commercial vans sat lined up under the gray, heavy sky. Rain drummed relentless patterns against corrugated tin sheds and tall chain-link fencing topped with razor wire.
Grant slipped through the back gate, using David's silver key to open the padlock without making a sound. He relocked the gate behind him and moved through the stacks of ruined vehicles like a shadow.
In the far corner, tucked beneath a dripping blue tarp, sat Natalie's dark blue Ford Explorer.
The vehicle was in terrible shape. The front bumper was crumpled from where it had struck the riverbank trees, the windshield was spiderwebbed with deep cracks, and the roof had collapsed slightly under the weight of the water. Dried brown silt coated the windows and door handles.
Grant approached the passenger side, his heart pounding a heavy rhythm against his ribs.
He pulled a pair of thin leather work gloves from his pocket and grabbed the door handle. It was locked. He didn't waste time trying to pick it; he reached through the shattered glass of the rear passenger window and unlocked the door from the inside.
The smell hit him immediately—a combination of stagnant river mud, rotting carpet, and old oil.
Grant ducked inside, sliding into the cramped rear footwell. He pulled a compact LED tactical light from his pocket and clicked it onto its lowest setting, shielding the beam with his palm.
He looked under the front passenger seat.
The floorboard was a mess of dried weed, river gravel, and decayed paper. The electric seat adjustment rail was packed with hardened mud.
Grant reached his hand under the seat frame, feeling past the wiring harness. His fingers brushed against metal, plastic, and wet carpet, but nothing that felt like a thick paper folder.
"Come on, Nat," he muttered, his breath rising in small white puffs in the chill air. "Where did you put it?"
He remembered Lila's words: Under my seat.
Grant shifted his position, crawling into the space behind the driver's seat where Lila's booster chair had been installed.
He ran his gloved hand beneath the heavy metal track of the driver's seat frame. Deep near the center console tunnel, his fingertips struck something rigid, smooth, and wedged tightly between the floorboard insulation and the exhaust shield bracket.
Plastic. Waterproof plastic.
Grant pulled his tactical knife from his belt and used the tip to pry at the obstruction. The dried mud cracked away in chunks.
He reached in deep, hooked his fingers around the edge of a heavy object, and pulled.
With a wet suction sound, a thick blue vinyl document binder popped free from beneath the floorboard track.
Grant wiped the silt off the cover. The binder was sealed with a heavy-duty ziplock seam—Natalie's old habit from their days spent on boats. Water had leaked into the outer edges, but the documents inside remained dry and legible.
Grant unzipped the pouch and pulled out the top document.
It was a shipping manifest from the Port of Wilmington, dated six months prior. Attached to it were three bank transaction receipts showing wire transfers totaling four million dollars from an offshore account in Grand Cayman to a shell company named Cape Fear Holdings.
And listed at the bottom of the shell company's corporate filing as the sole managing director was a single name:
Rebecca Vale.
Grant flipped to the second document. It was a printed log of email exchanges between Rebecca and an international shipping broker named Victor Vance—a man Grant knew from his maritime security days as a high-level distributor for contraband firearms.
Natalie had highlighted a specific paragraph in bright yellow marker:
“The shipment of six container units marked as agricultural machinery will clear Customs on July 10. Ensure the internal audit team does not inspect Lot 14. If Mercer becomes an issue, resolve it before the federal inspection.”
July 10 was the night before Natalie died.
Grant's blood turned to liquid fire.
It hadn't been an accidental discovery. Natalie had uncovered an international arms smuggling ring operating right through Wilmington's docks, managed by her best friend.
Grant shoved the binder into his waterproof jacket and zipped it shut.
As he backed out of the Explorer's rear door, the sound of a gravel-crunching footstep rang out behind him.
Grant didn't turn around instantly. He used the reflection in the Explorer's side mirror to survey the yard.
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Standing twenty feet away, holding a suppressed 9mm pistol pointed directly at Grant's chest, was a thick-set man in a yellow rain slicker.
The man had a unlit cigar clamped between his teeth.
