The Forty-Two-Minute Gap
A retired Oregon harbor inspector helps her apprentice nephew preserve evidence after a dockside restoration shop burns, while official investigators follow a missing forty-two minutes through access logs, camera footage, and financial records.
Fictional story. Depicts family tension, false accusations, and workplace hazards.Chapter 1: The Midnight Signal
Maren Sloane woke not to an alarm, but to the rhythmic thrum of the Cape Alder foghorn drifting across the bay. It was 3:15 in the morning. Rain rattled against the windowpanes of her cedar cottage on the Oregon cliffside. Before she could sit up, her workbench phone vibrated sharply against the desk top.
Maren had spent thirty-four years inspecting working harbors for an Oregon port district. She had been retired for five years, but a call in the third watch of the night still sounded like an alarm from her old duty desk.