Lexa left medical against advice when she heard Mace had run.
The corpsman threatened to report her. She said he could write it down. The corpsman looked at Olsen, who had arrived outside the bay at the worst possible moment.
“Sir,” the corpsman said, “she should not be moving.”
Olsen looked at Lexa. She was pale, wrapped at the ribs, one shoulder stiff, but her eyes were clear.
“No,” he said. “She should not.”
Lexa stared at him.
Olsen continued, “But she will.”
The corpsman muttered something unkind and handed her a brace.
Olsen did not put Lexa on the extraction team. He was not reckless. But he did bring her into the secure operations room when the search for Mace began. That mattered. For two years, decisions about Harbor Sable had happened around her, above her, and behind her. Now she sat at the table while the case moved.
Mace’s private marina route showed three possible exits: highway, airstrip, or coastal vessel. Highway units moved first. Airfield alerts went out. The Coast Guard was notified. Northstar-linked craft were flagged.
Then Lexa saw something on the marina map.
“Zoom in on the east dock.”
The analyst did.
There was a small vessel registered as a maintenance skiff.
Lexa leaned closer.
“That hull marking—NS-14.”
The room went still.
NS-14.
The same designation from the Harbor Sable tide log.
Olsen looked at the analyst.
“Current status?”
“Transponder off.”
“Of course,” Olsen said.
Lexa’s voice was low. “He’s not just running.”
Olsen turned to her.
“He’s taking the original boat.”
The old crime scene was moving again.
The interception happened just after midnight, forty miles off the coast, under black water and scattered moonlight. Mace’s vessel tried to run without lights, but it was old, heavy, and not built for speed. Coast Guard and Navy security closed in from two angles. Mace did not fire. He did not crash. Like many men who survive by paperwork, he folded when the world became physical.
Inside the cabin, investigators found old Harbor Sable logs, offshore account records, Northstar contracts, and a sealed envelope addressed to David Cross.
Olsen opened it only after the scene was secure.
Inside was a printed copy of the altered review blaming Lexa.
And beneath it, a handwritten note from Mace:
Give a grieving man a villain, and he will guard your secret for free.
When Olsen read the line to Lexa later, she said nothing.
She simply closed her eyes.
Because that sentence was the cruelest truth of the whole story.