Dead Weight
At 0347, a trawler's net rips free of the breakwater at Pier 9 and drags something back from the black water of the inner harbor. By dawn, the city knows: the harbor has given back a body, and everyone wants to know who she was , and who wanted her gone. Detective Roan Fitch takes the case, but every lead runs into a wall of silence. Harbor Medic Yuen knows more than his chart admits. Crew Steward Aldric saw what the net snagged on, and now he won't leave the ship. A shipping magnate named Harlan Dusse and his fixer, Marcus Fell, work quietly to make the death disappear into paperwork. Even Judge Calloway seems ready to weigh in on the side of silence. Refusing to wait for a system that has already picked its answer, Mara Kessler , the dead woman's sister , and her relentless friend Cora Vane begin to pull their own thread. A misrouted text to a man named Orun. A letter with an older secret. Lena Okafor on the pier with a story no one wants to hear. With consulate men watching from the edges and Dr. Yuna Sade's name surfacing in places it shouldn't, the two women learn that the harbor does not give up its dead by accident. The deeper they drag their net through the lies, the heavier the dead weight becomes. And some bargains, once struck, pull the living under.