Read Chapter 28: The Woman in the Fog

The fog came on without warning, a gray wall that swallowed the horizon and turned the Sea Serpent’s deck into a world of damp shadows. Mack stood at the helm, knuckles white on the wheel, peering into the murk. Rosa was below, checking the repaired hull patching. Pete was up forward, coiling line, his movements slow and mechanical since the fishing boat rescue.

“This isn’t natural,” Mack muttered, tasting salt and something metallic on the air.

The compass needle spun once, twice, then settled—wrong. Fifteen degrees off from their last heading. Mack tapped the glass, but it stayed stubbornly skewed.

“Hey.” Pete’s voice came thin through the fog. “You seeing this?”

Mack squinted. Through the veil, a shape emerged—not a ship. A figure. A woman standing at the bow, where no one had been a moment before. She wore a vintage dive suit, the heavy canvas-and-brass kind from decades past, and her hair was dark and wet, plastered to her skull. Her face was pale as bone.

Mack’s breath caught. He’d seen ghosts now. He knew the look. But this one didn’t belong to Blackwood’s crew.

Pete had frozen mid-coil, the line slipping through his fingers. His face had gone the color of the fog.

“No,” he whispered. “No, that’s not—”

The woman lifted her head. Her eyes found Pete, and something like recognition passed across her features—sorrow, longing, a grief older than the sea.

“Pete,” she said. Her voice was soft, underwater, yet it cut through the muffled fog like a bell. “You grew up.”

Pete’s knees buckled. He grabbed the gunwale to steady himself. “Maria?”

Mack stepped down from the helm, moving slowly, not wanting to spook the apparition. “Pete, you know her?”

“My sister.” Pete’s voice cracked. “She died—twenty-two years ago. A salvage dive off the Yucatán. They never found her body.”

The woman—Maria—glided closer. Her feet didn’t quite touch the deck, and the mist curled around her ankles like it was trying to pull her back. She wore a brass medallion around her neck, tarnished green, and Mack caught the glint of a ship’s name etched into it. The *Santa Catalina*.

His blood went cold.

“I’ve been stuck here,” Maria said, her gaze drifting from Pete to the deck beneath her. “On this ship. It’s not the same ship I dove from. But it’s the same water. The same pull. When the ghosts rose, I felt them. They know I’m not one of theirs. But they can’t let me go either.”

“What do you mean, stuck?” Mack’s voice was tight. “You were on a salvage dive. What happened?”

Maria’s eyes flickered, and for a moment the fog seemed to thicken around her, pressing in. “We found a wreck. A Spanish galleon, we thought. But it was older. Darker. The captain’s log was full of gold and screams.” She shook her head slowly. “I went down last. My line snagged. The others… they left.”

Pete’s jaw clenched. “They said you’d gotten tangled in the anchor chain. They said you—”

“They lied.” Maria’s voice was flat, ancient, heavy with resentment. “They heard something. A voice. It told them to go. They cut my line and hauled the boat out of there. I was down there alone, Pete. I watched my air run out.”

Pete made a sound like a wounded animal. Mack grabbed his shoulder before he could collapse entirely.

“The ghost of the captain,” Mack said slowly. “Blackwood. He was on that wreck, wasn’t he?”

Maria nodded. “He was sleeping. Dreaming. I woke him up.” A strange smile crossed her pale lips. “I think that’s why he’s still bound. Part of him is still in that trench, waiting for something to finish what I started.”

Mack’s mind raced. The helmet. The ritual. Jake’s story about the cave. All of it was tied to the wreck where Maria died. His father’s helmet had come from that same site—the old man had always refused to say where he’d gotten it.

“Your family,” Pete said, voice breaking. “Mom. Dad. They never got over it. Mom still leaves a plate out for you on your birthday.”

Maria’s composure cracked. For a moment she looked like a young woman again, terrified and alone. “Tell them I didn’t suffer. Tell them I’m sorry I didn’t come home.” Her gaze shifted to Mack. “And tell them the man who cut my line is still alive. He’s the one who sold the dive logs to your father’s shop. He knew about the helmet. He knew about all of it.”

Mack’s heart stopped. “Who?”

“His name was Wilcox. Dave Wilcox.” Maria’s form began to shimmer, the fog pulling at her edges. “He runs a salvage shop in Tampa. He’s got a locker full of underwater cameras and a reason to keep the Santa Catalina’s secrets buried.”

“Wait—what do you mean, a reason?” Mack stepped forward. “What does he know?”

But Maria was already fading, her voice growing thin and distant. “Finish the captain’s rite. Stop the bleeding.” Her eyes found Pete one last time. “I’ll be waiting in the deep. In the wreck where I died. Where the captain sleeps.”

She dissolved, and the fog rolled back like a curtain, revealing a clear stretch of open water. Pete collapsed to the deck, shoulders shaking, silent sobs wracking his frame.

Mack knelt beside him. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Just let the man grieve.

Finally, Pete wiped his face with the back of his hand. “She said she’s still down there. Her bones. In the wreck.”

“Yeah,” Mack said quietly.

“Those bastards left her.” Pete’s voice hardened. “Cut her line and ran. And I spent twenty-two years thinking it was an accident.”

Mack thought of his own dishonorable discharge. The lie he’d told himself for years—that it was someone else’s fault. That he’d had no choice. He’d seen Pete’s face in the mirror more times than he cared to admit.

“We find her,” Mack said. “We go back. We bring her up, and we give her a proper burial.”

“The wreck’s unstable. Jake said so.” Pete’s laugh was hollow. “You’re already planning to turn yourself in. You don’t owe me this.”

“You dove with me when I wasn’t worth trusting. You stayed on this boat when the ghosts rose. I owe you more than you know.” Mack stood, feeling the weight of the coat on his shoulders pulse once—warm, like a heartbeat. It wasn’t Blackwood’s will anymore. It was his own.

“There was one other thing she said,” Pete murmured. “The man who cut her line—Wilcox. He had a reason to keep the secrets buried.” He looked up. “What if he knows about the second log? The one Abigail found?”

Mack’s stomach tightened. He pulled out his sat phone, thumb hovering over Rosa’s number. He didn’t dial it.

“We’re heading for port to surrender,” he said. “But Tampa is on the way.”

Pete rose to his feet, unsteady, but his eyes were clear. “We go after him first.”

“We go after your sister first.” Mack clapped him on the shoulder. “Then Wilcox answers for what he did.”

The fog had cleared, but something darker settled over the horizon. Mack checked his compass. It had swung back to true north, but the needle trembled now, as if it were afraid.

Jake emerged from below, a rigging knife in hand. He looked from Pete’s wet face to Mack’s set jaw. “What did I miss?”

“A ghost just dropped a name,” Mack said. “Dave Wilcox. You know it?”

Jake’s face went pale. “Wilcox ran the salvage operation out of Tampa that found the original wreck in the seventies. He was the one who pulled the gold the first time—before it sank again with a crew of fifty.” He paused. “He’s the one who convinced the Navy to seal the site. He said it was too dangerous to dive. He knew that because he was the one who sank it.”

Mack stared at him. “He didn’t finish his job.”

“He was supposed to bring up a hundred bars. He brought up one, and it cursed him. The rest went down with the ship and the crew.” Jake’s voice was grim. “He’s been waiting ever since for someone else to do the job he couldn’t.”

The coat pulsed against Mack’s back. Hard. One word in his mind, not his own, heavy with centuries of anger.

*Wilcox.*

Mack turned the wheel, adjusting their heading toward Tampa. The plan had changed. The Navy would have to wait.