CHAPTER SEVEN
Diana Pearce's shoulders ached from hunching over her desk for the past three hours. The clock on her office wall read 1:37 a.m., but she barely registered the time as she compared yet another set of shipping manifests against weight records. The harsh fluorescent lighting had long since given her a headache, so she'd switched to the softer glow of her desk lamp, casting long shadows across the stacks of papers surrounding her.
When Agent Rivers had asked her to look for discrepancies in the port's shipping records, Diana hadn't expected to find much. After all, Marcus Whitman had been one of the most meticulous inspectors she'd ever worked with. If there were obvious irregularities, he would have spotted them.
But maybe that was exactly why he'd ended up dead in a shipping container.
Diana pushed a strand of auburn hair behind her ear and reached for her lukewarm coffee. Outside her window, Lake Superior stretched into darkness, ice floes visible only by the moonlight that occasionally broke through the clouds. The storm had passed, leaving behind bitter cold and an eerie stillness that made the empty port building feel even more isolated.
She returned her attention to the manifest from Northern Continental Shipping. Over the past six months, containers from this particular company showed a pattern of weight discrepancies—nothing dramatic, just fifty to seventy pounds difference between documented and measured weights. Easily dismissed as measurement error or rounding differences.
Except that the discrepancies were always in the same direction. And always on shipments that passed through the same warehouse in Thunder Bay before crossing to Duluth.
Diana pulled up the company's registration information on her computer. Northern Continental had been operating for just over two years, with corporate registration in Delaware and a main office in Chicago. Nothing particularly suspicious there, but when she cross-referenced the company directors against the port authority database, she found something odd—one of the junior directors had previously worked for Thomas Bradley's fishing operation.
"That can't be coincidence," she murmured, making a note of the connection.
Diana stood, stretching her stiff back, and walked to the window. The port lay silent below, containers stacked, cranes frozen in mid-operation until morning crews arrived. Somewhere in that maze of metal and concrete, Marcus had discovered something.
And now she might have found the same thing.
Diana returned to her desk and gathered the relevant documents, placing them in a folder marked with the FBI case number. She should call Agent Rivers immediately. The weight discrepancies, combined with the Bradley connection, were too significant to wait until morning.
She reached for her phone but paused, her hand hovering over the receiver. Maybe she should check with Raymond first. As her supervisor, he'd want to know about any information being shared with federal agents, especially something this potentially explosive. He'd been protective of the port's reputation lately, concerned about the impact negative publicity might have on shipping contracts.
Then again, a man was dead. Bureau protocol was clear: evidence in an active murder investigation took precedence over administrative courtesies.
Diana made her decision. She'd call Agent Rivers now and inform Raymond later. Better to ask forgiveness than permission when lives might be at stake.
She gathered the folder and her notes, switched off her desk lamp, and headed for the door. The hallway outside her office was dimly lit by emergency lighting, the building silent except for the hum of the heating system fighting against the bitter cold outside.
Diana had taken just three steps when she heard it—the soft scuff of a shoe on the linoleum floor behind her.
She turned, her heart suddenly pounding. "Hello? Is someone there?"
No response came, but she could feel a presence in the shadows. Security should have been the only other people in the building at this hour, and they usually stayed at the main entrance.
"Raymond? Is that you?" she called, hoping her supervisor had simply come in early.
The silence stretched, broken only by her increasingly rapid breathing. Diana clutched the folder tighter against her chest and reached for her cell phone with her free hand.
Before she could unlock it, powerful arms wrapped around her from behind, one hand clamping over her mouth while the other locked around her throat. The folder fell from her grasp, papers scattering across the floor like fallen leaves.
Diana drove her elbow backward, connecting with something solid. Her attacker grunted but didn't release his grip. She tried to scream, but the hand over her mouth pressed harder, cutting off sound and much of her air.
"You should have minded your business," a voice whispered against her ear. It was familiar, but in her panic, she couldn't place it.
She thrashed violently, her heel connecting with her attacker's shin. The grip loosened slightly, enough for her to wrench her head free and gasp a desperate breath.
"Help!" she managed to cry out before the hand clamped down again, tighter this time.
"No one's here to help you," the voice said. "Just like no one helped Marcus."
The mention of Whitman sent a fresh wave of terror through Diana. This wasn't a random attack or robbery—this was connected to what she'd found, to what Marcus had discovered before her.
Diana's vision began to dim around the edges as the pressure on her throat increased. With the last of her strength, she reached backward, managing a punch at the attacker’s face.
The attacker cursed, momentarily loosening his grip. Diana took advantage of the moment to slam her head backward, connecting with what felt like her attacker's nose. Warm liquid—blood—spattered against her hair.
