The NCIS agent stopped three feet from Delphine and showed his credentials. “Ma’am, don’t leave the area.” For the first time that morning, my sister had nothing to say. Her eyes kept moving between his badge, my rank insignia, and the dark water where my bag had disappeared.
“I didn’t know,” she finally whispered. “She never told me she was important.” Agent Cole looked at her without expression. “Commander Voss told you the bag contained federal property. You threw it anyway.” Behind him, two security officers were already approaching.
Harbor patrol arrived within minutes. Divers entered the water while I started documenting exactly what had been inside the bag. Delphine kept trying to interrupt. “Marlo, tell them this was family stuff. Tell them I was joking.”
I looked at her. “You were warned.”
That was when Rosalind Vega stepped closer. “Commander, there’s another problem.” She held up her tablet and showed me footage from a nearby security camera.
Delphine hadn’t walked directly toward me when she entered the pier.
She had stopped beside my bag first.
For almost forty seconds.
The video showed her opening the outer pocket, looking inside, then quickly closing it before starting the argument.
Agent Cole saw it too.
His entire posture changed.
“Ms. Voss,” he said, “what were you looking for?”
Delphine went pale. “Nothing.”
Then a diver surfaced and raised one hand.
They had recovered the bag.
Ten minutes later, Cole opened it beneath a temporary evidence canopy. The tablet was damaged, the binder soaked, but something else was missing.
A sealed envelope containing access credentials for the inspection team.
I stared at Delphine.
She started crying.
“I didn’t take it.”
Before I could answer, Master Chief Kettleman called my name.
He was standing beside Delphine’s catering van.
In his hand was the missing envelope.
And taped beneath it was a photograph of me taken outside my house three nights earlier.
