Page 4 of Accidental Bodyguard Summer

Chapter 2

Noah

The radio crackles at 0640, and I know before Rafi says a word that my day is about to go sideways.

“Vance. Bring her in. My office when you dock.”

Two years I’ve worked for Sunbreak Harbor Security, and Rafi Haddad has called me into his office exactly four times. Once to hire me. Once to promote me. Once to tell me a client had died of natural causes before we could bill him, which Rafi found darkly hilarious. And once to ask, with the delicacy of a man defusing something, whether I planned to attend the company Christmas party.

I did not attend the company Christmas party.

I bring the patrol boat in slow past the channel markers. Morning’s my favorite shift for a reason. Water like hammered pewter, gulls working the shrimp boats, nobody talking to me. Out here the checklist is simple: watch the water, log the traffic, radio anything that smells wrong. Boats make sense. Boats tell you everything through the hull—weight, wake, how they sit when they’re carrying more than they claim.

People lie better than boats. That’s the whole reason I’m on the water.

Rafi’s office smells like burnt coffee and the cigar he’s not supposed to smoke inside. He’s behind the desk with two file folders and an expression I don’t like. Rafi’s got a good face for poker and he’s not using it, which means he wants me to see the concern. That’s a technique. I taught it to him.

“Sit,” he says.

“I’ll stand.”

“You’ll sit, because this one’s long.”

I sit. First domino.

He slides the folder across. “Coast Guard flagged us Tuesday. Joint task force out of the district office has been building a case on a smuggling network moving product up this stretch of coast for eighteen months. Mixed cargo—stolen goods going out, other things coming in. They use legitimate fishing charters as cover. Cash changes hands, cargo goes over the side in dump zones, gets picked up clean later.”

“And this is our problem how?”

“It wasn’t. Then a marine biologist with a research permit and a GoPro filmed one of their drop runs over the reef north of town.” He flips the folder open with one finger. “She reported it. To everyone. Coast Guard, state environmental, and—I want you to appreciate this—her blog.”

“Her blog.”

“With a caption.” Rafi’s mustache twitches. “Do better, humans.”

I look at the file. Marlowe, Abigail. Ph.D. Photo’s a university headshot: sunburned nose, big smile, the kind of open face that gets people talking in line at a gas station. A civilian. The word lands the way it always lands, somewhere behind my sternum, and I move past it fast.

“The network noticed,” Rafi says. “Registration in her footage traces to a boat they’ve since scuttled. They don’t know how much she filmed or what she’s told the task force. There’schatter. Yesterday one of their people followed her home from a grocery store.”

“So the Coast Guard protects their witness.”

“She’s not a witness yet. Task force wants the network intact—grabbing her up into protective custody tips their whole hand. So they came to us. Quiet, local, plausible.” He leans back. “Full-time close protection. Live-in. Starting today.”

“No.”

“Vance.”

“Give it to Torres. Torres likes people.”

“Torres is on the Whitfield estate through August, and Torres couldn’t clear a room with a map and a flashlight.” Rafi laces his fingers over his stomach. “I need somebody who can read the water, because the threat’s coming from the water. I need somebody the task force will trust. And I need somebody who won’t get bored and sloppy on hour two hundred of nothing happening. That’s you three times.”

“I do boats.”

“You did protective details for eight years before you did boats.”

“That’s why I do boats.”

It comes out flatter than I mean it to. Or exactly as flat as I mean it to. Rafi looks at me for a long moment, and he doesn’t say what he could say, which is one of the reasons I still work here.