Page 39 of The Marine's Homecoming

Dorsey chuckles and shakes his head, but he walks past me toward the parking lot. His crates sit there unattended, giving me the perfect opportunity to pry one open, but with his men aboard his boat, I don't dare try it. I don't need an attempted robbery charge on my permanent record.

Turning, I watch him walk. He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials someone, then holds it to his ear. For all I know, he's calling one of his higher ups who help bankroll this operation and telling them he has a problem. Well, good. If that's the case, they'll all have their little warning that something isn't going to go as they planned.

And I intend to follow through with this to the fullest extent, which is why I'm going to do this the right way. And I'm going to protect Hannah with my life.

Her and my unborn child.

24

HANNAH

My phone buzzes on my nightstand and I roll over to grab it. It's only seven in the morning and someone has the nerve to call me this early. That someone's name is flashing on my phone screen, and I glower, already thinking of the ways I’m going to hurt him for waking me up so early. But I swipe to answer and mumble, "What?"

"Hannah, it's Luke."

"I know," I grumble, feeling grumpy. "It's seven in the morning."

"I know what time it is. I need you to come to my office."

I sit up and push my hair out of my face. "Right now?" This feels like torture. I never get to sleep in anyway, and waking twenty minutes before my alarm is painful.

"Right now. I've got something you need to see and it can't wait. It's about Dorsey."

That wakes me up the rest of the way. I swing my legs off the bed and reach for the jeans draped over the chair. "What abouthim?" I ask as I pinch the phone between my ear and shoulder while I shove my legs in the jeans.

"I'd rather show you in person. Can you be here in twenty minutes?"

If it's important enough to him that he feels the urge to wake me up this early, I have to take it seriously. "I can be there in fifteen."

"Good, just don't call anyone else about this. Just come straight here."

"You're scaring me, Luke." I sit straighter, holding the phone with my hand now.

"I don't mean to. I just need you to see this before we figure out our next move. I'll explain when you get here."

I hang up and pull on my jeans and a T-shirt and skip the toast entirely. My stomach is calm this morning, which is rare, so I grab my keys and drive to the marina. The parking lot is mostly empty when I arrive. Tank's truck is in its usual spot and Gary's van is parked near the bait shop, but the pier is quiet as I walk to Luke's office. I knock, but he's already at the door, probably saw me through the window and knew I was here. He opens for me with a dark look of concern.

"Come in," he says, stepping aside.

I pass by him into the messy, cluttered space and stand there with my arms closed. Luke closes the door and pulls a second chair around to the front of the desk for me.

"Sit down," he says.

I sit as he reaches into the top drawer and pulls out a manila folder, thick with paper, and sets it on the desk between us. "Everything I'm about to show you comes from my buddy I told you about, the one who's investigating Dorsey for me."

"Okay?" I say, feeling a bit annoyed. This stack of papers doesn’t feel as life-or-death as he made it sound when I was still in my warm bed.

Until he opens the folder and spreads the pages out across the desk. I lean forward and look over the files. The first few pages are corporate filings. Shell companies registered in the Cayman Islands, all connected through a single holding group that traces back to a freight operation based in Panama. Dorsey's name appears on two of the filings as a managing director. The dates go back years, long before he ever showed up in Bandon.

But then Luke turns to the next set of documents. Shipping manifests showing cargo routed from ports in Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador to small coastal towns along the Pacific. Towns I've never heard of. The shipment descriptions are vague, just like on my shipments, but I'm starting to see a pattern. This isn't the first town Dorsey has been to.

"Keep going," Luke says, scowling. He gestures at the stack so I flip a few sheets of paper over and keep reading.

The next pages are financial records. Wire transfers between Dorsey's personal accounts and offshore entities that don't correspond to any vendor I've ever approved. The amounts are larger than six figures in some cases, and the timing lines up with his shipments into Bandon. It's starting to make the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end.

This man is running some sort of smuggling operation through our small town, and I'm the one who gave him all the freedom and access he needs.

"I gave him everything," I say blankly, leaning back. "My vendor lists, my delivery schedules, my permit applications. I handed him the blueprint for this entire festival and told him to run with it."