The city smelled like it was rotting from the inside out. It always had. The kind of stench that creeps under your skin, sticks to your clothes, and whispers in your ear that no matter how much you try to leave, this place will chew you up and spit you back onto the same cracked pavement. The docks were the worst—a festering sore on the city’s waterfront, where men with dirty hands and dirtier souls traded lives as easily as they swapped cigarettes.

I sat in my office, which doubled as my apartment and sometimes, when the weather turned ugly, a place to let the whiskey put me to sleep. The blinds were drawn, but the glow of the neon sign from the bar across the street seeped through, casting a red light over everything. Fitting. Red, like blood. Red, like regret.

The phone rang. Not the cell—I’d pawned that for rent two months ago—but the rotary, an old relic of a time when people believed calls brought good news. I let it ring twice before picking it up. I like to keep them waiting. It makes people think I’ve got other things going on, even when I don't.

"Sam Stone Investigations," I said, leaning back in my chair. "Looking for trouble, you’ve come to the right place."

There was a pause, followed by a voice I hadn’t heard in years. Raspy. Desperate. The kind of voice that dripped with the weight of bad decisions and worse luck.

"Stone, it's Diego. I got a job for you."

Diego was an editor at the Herald. He was the kind of guy who looked like he smoked two packs a day and slept in his office, which, judging by the dirt under his nails and the permanent bags under his eyes, probably wasn’t far from the truth.

“I don’t do charity work, Diego. Not anymore,” I replied. “If you need a missing cat, call Animal Control.”

“This ain’t a cat, Stone. It’s a journalist. One of my best—Rachel Torres. She’s gone. Disappeared three days ago while working the docks.”

Now that caught my attention. Not because I cared about the Herald’s missing staff, but because the docks meant trouble, and trouble was my specialty.

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I let the silence hang for a moment. “Tell me something, Diego. How many people have you sent to those docks looking for a story who never came back?”

Another pause. “Not enough to make me stop.”

I couldn’t help but smirk. Diego wasn’t a good man, but he was honest about it. There was something respectable in that, even if I wouldn’t trust him to hold a door open, let alone my life.

“What was she working on?” I asked, standing and walking to the window, parting the blinds. The city looked peaceful from up here, but I knew better. The peace was just the surface; below that, the sharks were always circling.

“Murder,” Diego said flatly. “A string of them. She thought there was something bigger going on. Something the cops weren’t touching.”

“Cops never touch anything they can’t shake down,” I muttered, already pulling on my coat. “You send her down there with any backup?”

“She wouldn’t take any. Said she worked better alone.”

“Yeah, well, now she’s alone alright.”

“I’m serious, Stone,” Diego’s voice cracked a little. “She’s in real trouble. And she was onto something big.”

I looked at my reflection in the window, at the haggard man who stared back. This wasn’t my kind of job. I liked missing items—watches, jewelry, sometimes a dog. Missing people had a way of staying that way. But Diego was desperate, and desperation paid well.

“I’ll find her,” I said. “But it’s gonna cost you.”

Diego didn’t hesitate. “Name your price.”

I named it, and he didn’t flinch. That’s when I knew this wasn’t about a missing reporter. This was about a headline. The kind that would sell papers for weeks. The kind that would bury everyone involved.

“Where was she last seen?” I asked.

“Dock 13. You know the place?”

I knew the place. Everyone in the city knew Dock 13. It was where the dead men of this town washed up. The morgue of the waterfront.

“I’ll be in touch,” I said and hung up.

I grabbed my gun from the desk drawer—a piece I hadn’t needed to use in a while but felt comforting under my arm—and stepped out into the night. The neon lights reflected off the slick streets, making the whole world look like it was bleeding.

Rachel Torres was gone. I hadn’t even met her, but I already knew her fate. The docks didn’t take people—they consumed them. And if she was still alive, she was probably wishing she wasn’t. But I had to find her, if for no other reason than to prove I still could.

As I walked down the alley towards my car, I had the feeling someone was watching. Maybe it was the city itself, wondering how much more of this I could take before it chewed me up and spit me out like everyone else.

I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke drift into the cold night air. Maybe this job would pay enough to get out. Maybe not.

But either way, I was heading to Dock 13.

And I knew I wasn’t coming back clean.