Chapter 9: Port Haven
Chapter 9: Port Haven
The Coast Guard reached them before dawn.
Ethan expected rescue.
Instead, armed officers separated everyone immediately.
Police Chief Nolan Briggs boarded the rescue vessel and approached Victoria first.
“Mrs. Cole, are you injured?”
Ethan noticed the familiarity in his voice.
Victoria had been telling the truth.
Briggs was compromised.
“My husband attacked me,” Victoria said suddenly.
Ethan stared at her.
Margaret gasped.
Victoria continued without looking at him.
“He became violent after his mother caused a disturbance. He locked us aboard the yacht and started the fire.”
Chief Briggs nodded.
“Mr. Cole, turn around.”
Captain Hayes stepped forward.
“That is not what happened.”
Briggs ignored him.
Two officers handcuffed Ethan.
Margaret tried to intervene.
“My son saved us!”
Briggs signaled to another officer.
“Take Mrs. Cole for psychiatric evaluation.”
Victoria’s eyes met Ethan’s.
There was something strange in her expression.
Not triumph.
A warning.
As officers dragged him away, she said loudly, “You should have checked the blue compass.”
Ethan frowned.
The blue compass was an old brass ornament in their bedroom at the coastal estate.
A wedding gift from Victoria.
She had hidden something inside it.
Ethan was taken to a holding cell beneath the Port Haven police station.
Captain Hayes and Mason were placed in separate rooms.
Hours passed.
Then the lights went out.
A guard opened Ethan’s cell.
“Move.”
“Where?”
The guard struck him in the stomach.
“Dr. Vale wants to speak with you.”
Ethan was taken through a rear exit and placed inside an unmarked vehicle.
A man waited in the back seat.
Dr. Adrian Vale was sixty, silver-haired, elegant, and completely calm.
“You have your father’s stubbornness,” Vale said.
“You murdered Daniel Ross.”
Vale smiled.
“Daniel made poor decisions.”
“You used Victoria.”
“I gave her purpose.”
“You killed her father too, didn’t you?”
Vale’s smile faded.
“Her father became weak.”
Ethan’s hands tightened inside the cuffs.
Vale leaned closer.
“Your company will transfer its assets to Northstar by morning. Your mother will be declared incompetent. You will be charged with attempted murder.”
“And Victoria?”
“She has served her purpose.”
The vehicle turned onto a cliffside road.
Ethan recognized it.
It was the same road where Daniel Ross had died.
May you like
Vale looked out at the ocean.
“Tragic roads,” he said. “So many accidents.”
