Chapter 4 - THE ROUTE THEY NEVER PLANNED TO EXPLAIN
At the hospital in Newport, Officer Hayes sat beside my bed while a fetal monitor tracked the baby’s heartbeat. Officer Miller stood near the doorway, ensuring Graham and Victor could not reach me.
The baby was alive.
I had bruised ribs, a dislocated shoulder, cuts along my hip, and salt water in my lungs. The obstetrician warned that the next twenty-four hours would determine whether the trauma triggered early labor.
I kept one hand on my stomach while Hayes described what the watch had captured.
The emergency signal transmitted my coordinates through a marine satellite relay. Coast Guard operators received an automated distress alert showing an abnormal heart-rate spike followed by a sudden drop near the yacht’s swim platform. Because the yacht had altered course and stopped transmitting its public tracking signal minutes earlier, the patrol boat was diverted immediately.
Victor had ordered the yacht’s automatic identification system disabled.
Graham had texted the captain not to report for duty.
A coiled rope lay beside an open storage hatch on the lower deck. Inside the hatch, officers found two weighted anchor bags moved from their normal compartment.
Neither item alone proved what they intended.
The audio did.
“Farther out.”
“No one finds her near the route.”
“We weight her before dark.”
The GPS log showed the yacht had deviated nineteen nautical miles from Victor’s filed recreational route and was heading toward deep water when the emergency signal activated.
They had prepared the location.
They had removed the crew.
They had disabled tracking.
They had discussed how to dispose of me while I lay conscious enough to hear everything.
Hayes told me the digital evidence would be preserved independently and verified against the Coast Guard vessel logs.
May you like
Then he asked whether I knew why they wanted me dead.
“Yes,” I said. “But it isn’t only because they hate me.”
