IN LOVE WITH MY BROTHER'S WIFE

EPISODE 3

"I said, get out."

Sarah’s voice was ice cold. We were parked in the dark woods, the rain drumming a frantic rhythm on the roof of the truck. The heater was blasting, but the cab felt freezing.

I looked at her. She was clutching the bag of money to her chest like a shield. Her eyes were hard, fixed on me with a mixture of fear and betrayal.

"Sarah, please," I said. "You can't leave me here. It's three miles to town."

"I don't care," she snapped. "Read the note again, Jack. Don't trust Jack. My husband—the man I love, the man who is missing—wrote that. He knew something I didn't."

"He was paranoid!" I argued, my frustration boiling over. "He was stealing from criminals. He was cutting his own air hoses. Maybe he just wanted to isolate you. To make sure you didn't turn to me."

"Why would he worry about me turning to you?" she asked sharply.

I shut my mouth. The silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. She was looking at me, waiting for an answer. She was smart. Too smart. She was putting the pieces together—the way I looked at her, the way I never dated, the way I always fixed her car before she even asked.

"Because I'm the only one who can help you," I said finally. It was a half-truth. "And he knows I would stop him from doing something stupid."

She didn't look convinced. She reached for the door handle. "Get out, Jack. I'm taking the truck. I'm going to the police."

"You can't," I said. "Look at your phone."

She frowned and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. "No signal."

"Not the signal," I said. "Look at the time. It's 2:00 AM. If you go to the Sheriff now, with a bag of cash and a note from a 'dead' man, they'll arrest you. Or worse, Ford calls it in, and the people in that black SUV hear about it on the scanner."

She hesitated. Her hand trembled on the door handle.

"Those men tried to kill us, Sarah," I pressed. "They know the truck. They're probably watching the house right now. If you go home, you're walking into a trap."

She squeezed her eyes shut. A tear leaked out. She looked exhausted, broken. The fierce anger was draining away, leaving just fear.

"Then where do we go?" she whispered.

"My place," I said. "It's above the garage. No one looks there. It's a mess, but it's safe."

She looked at me for a long time. Weighing the note against the reality of the man sitting next to her. Finally, she let go of the handle.

"You drive," she said quietly. "But if you lie to me again, Jack... I'll never forgive you."

My apartment was exactly what you’d expect from a bachelor mechanic. It smelled like stale coffee and engine grease. There was a stack of unread mail on the counter and a pile of laundry on the chair.

I locked the heavy steel door and slid the deadbolt. I pulled the blinds down tight.

"Sorry about the mess," I muttered.

Sarah stood in the middle of the room. She looked out of place here. She was used to white carpets and fresh flowers. Here, everything was grey or brown.

She walked over to my bookshelf. It was mostly technical manuals—Advanced Hydraulics, Deep Sea Welding. But on the top shelf, there was a single framed photo.

It was from three years ago. The day Danny won the Regional Salvage Award. In the photo, Danny was holding the trophy up, grinning at the camera. Sarah was laughing, looking at Danny.

But I wasn't looking at the camera. And I wasn't looking at Danny. I was looking at Sarah.

Sarah stared at the photo. She picked it up. Her thumb brushed over the glass.

I held my breath. She saw it. She had to see it. The way I looked at her—like she was the only light in the room.

She put the photo down face down.

"We need to look at the map," she said. Her voice was flat. She was building a wall again.

I exhaled. "Okay. The map."

We cleared the dirty dishes off the small kitchen table. I laid out the laminated chart of the Gilded Lady.

It was a standard nautical chart of the Dead Zone. But Danny had drawn a red X over a deep trench.

"The Gilded Lady was a luxury yacht that sank in the 1920s," I said. "Rumor was it was carrying contraband liquor. But that's not worth killing over. Not anymore."

"He wrote that it's a vault," Sarah said, tracing the red line. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. But look at this." I pointed to the margin of the map.

There were numbers scrawled in blue marker. 192.168.0.44

"Is it a phone number?" Sarah asked.

"No," I said. "It's an IP address. A local network address."

My mind clicked. The gear. The tech.

"The drone," I said.

"What drone?"

"Danny bought a high-end underwater drone last month. The 'guppy.' He said he needed it for hull inspections. But if he was scouting the Dead Zone... he wouldn't go down there blind. He would send the drone first."

"Where is it?"

"It's in the shop downstairs," I said. "In the secure cage. If this IP address connects to the drone's internal drive... we might be able to see what he saw."

We went down the back stairs into the main garage. It was cold and shadowy. The shapes of half-repaired boats loomed around us like sleeping beasts.

I unlocked the secure cage. The yellow underwater drone was sitting on the workbench. It looked like a miniature submarine with a camera dome on the front.

I booted up my laptop and grabbed a data cable. I plugged it into the drone.

"Please work," I whispered.

I typed in the IP address from the map.

CONNECTING... PASSWORD REQUIRED.

"Damn," I hissed. "He locked it."

"Try his birthday," Sarah said.

I typed it in. ACCESS DENIED.

"Try our anniversary," she said. 06-12.

I typed it. ACCESS DENIED.

"Try... 'Gilded'," Sarah suggested.

I typed it. ACCESS DENIED. ONE ATTEMPT REMAINING.

I stared at the screen. Danny was simple, but he was arrogant. He thought he was the king of the world.

"What would Danny use?" I asked myself. "What did he love most?"

Sarah looked down. "Himself?"

"No," I said. I looked at Sarah. "You."

I typed in S-A-R-A-H.

ACCESS GRANTED.

Sarah let out a sharp breath. She leaned in closer, her shoulder touching mine.

The screen filled with file folders. Most were empty. But there was one video file. Dated two days ago.

I clicked play.

The video was grainy and dark. It was underwater footage. The drone’s headlights cut through the murky green water. Fish darted away. The depth meter in the corner ticked up. 200 feet... 300 feet... 400 feet.

"That's too deep," Sarah whispered. "You can't dive that deep without mixed gas."

"Danny wasn't certified for trimix," I said. "He shouldn't have been there."

On the screen, a shape emerged from the gloom. It was a ship. It was massive, lying on its side. The hull was covered in rust and barnacles, but the name was still visible in brass letters: GILDED LADY.

The drone moved closer. It scanned the deck.

"Wait," I said. "Pause it."

I hit the spacebar. The image froze.

"Look at that," I pointed.

On the side of the rusted hull, there was a patch of shiny, new metal. It looked like a round door. A modern airlock hatch. It had been welded onto the 100-year-old wreck.

"That shouldn't be there," I said. "Someone modified the wreck. They turned it into... a habitat? A storage unit?"

"A vault," Sarah whispered.

I hit play again. The drone moved toward the hatch.

Suddenly, the camera jerked. The image spun wildly.

Something had grabbed the drone.

A face appeared in the camera lens. It was a diver. But he was wearing a full-face mask with blacked-out glass. We couldn't see his eyes.

He was holding a spear gun.

He wasn't Danny. The suit was different. It was military-grade, sleek and black, with no markings.

The diver held up a gloved hand to the camera. He made a gesture. He drew his thumb across his throat.

Then he fired the spear gun.

The screen went static.

Sarah gasped and pulled back. "Who was that?"

"The Third Diver," I said, my blood running cold. "The note said 'The Third Diver knows.' That's him."

"Is he... is he the one who took Danny?"

"Or the one Danny was working with," I said. "Danny found that hatch. He knew what was inside. And this guy didn't want him sharing it."

I pulled the flash drive out of the laptop. "We have evidence. This changes everything. This isn't just a missing person. This is an industrial operation."

Bam. Bam. Bam.

A heavy fist pounded on the metal roll-up door of the garage.

Sarah jumped, grabbing my arm. "Is it them? The men in the SUV?"

"Open up! Sheriff's Department!"

It was Ford.

I looked at Sarah. Her eyes were wide. "We can't let him in. He'll take the drive. If he's working with them..."

"We don't have a choice," I whispered. "If we don't open it, he'll kick it in."

I hid the flash drive in my pocket. I grabbed a rag to wipe the grease off my hands, trying to look casual.

I walked to the small side door and opened it.

Sheriff Ford was standing there. But he wasn't alone. Two deputies were behind him. And they had their hands on their holsters.

Ford didn't look tired anymore. He looked angry.

"Jack," he said. He didn't look at me. He looked past me, spotting Sarah standing by the workbench. "Sarah. Thank God you're safe."

"What's going on, Ford?" I asked.

"We found the truck," Ford said. "Your truck, Jack. It was abandoned three miles out of town. Smashed up. Tire iron through the mirror."

"We had an accident," I said quickly. "We were scared."

"Scared?" Ford stepped inside. The deputies followed him. "Funny. Because we also got a call from a witness. Said they saw a pickup truck matching yours speeding away from the lighthouse."

He stopped in front of me. He was close enough that I could smell the stale tobacco on his breath.

"And they said they saw you carrying something," Ford said. "An orange box."

My heart hammered against my ribs. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Ford sighed. He reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper.

"Jack Miller," he said formally. "I have a warrant for the search of these premises."

"Search?" Sarah stepped forward. "For what?"

Ford looked at her with pity. "For evidence related to the disappearance of Daniel Miller. And for the fifty thousand dollars that was reported stolen from the bank this morning."

"Stolen?" I stared at him. "Danny didn't steal that money. It was his!"

"Was it?" Ford’s eyes narrowed. "Because the bank says the serial numbers match a robbery from two days ago. A robbery where the suspect was wearing a dive mask."

He signaled the deputies. "Tear this place apart. Find the money."

One deputy moved toward the stairs to my apartment. The other moved toward the workbench—right where the drone was sitting.

"Wait!" Sarah cried.

But it was too late. The deputy grabbed the drone.

"Hey, Sheriff," the deputy called out. "This thing looks pricey."

Ford turned to me. A slow, sad smile spread across his face.

"Jack," he said. "I really hope you didn't kill your brother for a bag of cash."