CHAPTER 8: The Bracelet Was Not Jewelry

Maren’s bracelet had been a gift from Declan on their last anniversary.
Vivienne had called it sentimental and small, which meant she had not recognized it. Gideon had not recognized it either, though his company manufactured half the maritime tracking devices on the Eastern Seaboard.
Declan had given Maren the bracelet in private, behind the pool house, with his voice too low and his smile too tired.
“If my family ever tells you something happened cleanly,” he had said, “assume the opposite.”
Inside the clasp was a narrow lens, a location beacon, and a passive audio recorder built for crew safety inspections. Declan had designed it after a deckhand vanished from a Cross freighter and the company settled before the newspapers learned his name.
Maren had worn it because it was the last thing he fastened around her wrist.
Tonight, in the patrol cutter’s cabin, the bracelet blinked red beneath a towel.
The officer noticed first.
“Is that transmitting?” she asked.
Maren looked down.
The tiny light pulsed steadily, patient as a heartbeat.
Leo leaned against her side, wrapped in silver foil and exhaustion.
Maren closed her fingers over the bracelet and felt the first hard edge of something better than fear.
Evidence.