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Monica Silver sat in a lounge chair on the deck of the Bodacious Tata, waiting for the sunrise.

It was so peaceful at this time of the morning. The waves were rocking gently. She had a perfect view of the coastline to the east, where the first morning rays sun would soon peek over the hills.

She hadn’t had much time for peace lately. But she would soon. Her work was almost done. She had some regrets, notably that she wouldn’t be able to get to either Archie Crittendon or Jackson Dwyer. The trackers that she put on both their cars indicated that they’d each gone to law enforcement locations overnight, which was a sure sign that they knew they were in imminent danger. She had to accept that they were out of her reach.

But that was okay, because she already had the big fish here with her now. And she could take her time with him. Joel Cisco was currently below deck, roofied into unconsciousness, and tied to a chair. She’d tossed his cell phone in the ocean and turned off the boat’s AIS beacon. She’d wake him up soon, once the sun began to rise, so that their final act could begin.

She allowed herself a moment to appreciate the work she’d already done. She couldn’t really relish the accomplishments, as her work wasn’t for pleasure, but rather justice. She wasn’t happy about what she’d done, so much as satisfied. She hoped that wherever her sister was, Heather was feeling some measure of satisfaction too.

It was a long time coming. After she’d returned from her academic research trip to the Amazon three years ago, she gone straight to L.A. to find out why Heather had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. But the police officer she spoke to was no help. It was obvious that she would have to pursue Heather’s disappearance on her own. So she did exactly that.

First, she switched from the master’s program that she was about to start at Johns Hopkins to one at Loyola Marymount, which was ecstatic to have her. She got an apartment near the school and then proceeded to use every non-academic moment to figure out what had happened to Heather.

She started with what she knew, which wasn’t much. In their last conversation, Heather had mentioned that until she got a job, she planned to stay at a hostel to keep costs low. Her one priority was to find a place within walking distance of the ocean.

So Monica made a list of every hostel that ran along the Southern California coast, starting at Point Mugu in Malibu and going all the way south along the oceanfront to Long Beach, a distance of over 75 miles. She also included cheap motels along the same route just to be safe.

Then she started looking. Every free moment she had, she would visit these places and show the staff there pictures of Heather in the hope that someone would recognize her. After Malibu turned up nothing, she moved south to Santa Monica, followed by Venice, Marina del Rey, Playa del Rey, El Segundo, and Manhattan Beach.

That process took two and a half years and turned up nothing. Between hostels and motels, she had visited over two hundred locations without a single hit. She completed her master’s degree in that time, which was both a blessing and a curse.

She’d been offered a job with a top research facility researching biodiversity in the Southern Hemisphere. But it meant relocating to Florida. She sank into what she eventually realized was a deep depression when she processed the truth: accepting the position would essentially mean giving up on any hope of finding Heather, either alive, or more likely dead.

That was when she visited, almost as an afterthought, a hostel just off the Hermosa Beach Pier. She still remembered that day six months ago, when the on-duty manager had casually said, “oh yeah, I remember her.”

“You do?” Monica replied, stunned.

“Yeah,” replied the middle-aged guy with the paunch and sun-bleached blond hair. “I can’t recall her name, “but she was definitely here. She was nice.”

“How do you remember someone who stayed here three years ago?”

“Because she pre-paid for her bed in the dorm for two full weeks,” he explained, “but she left before the second week was up. She didn’t ask for a refund or anything. Everyone who stays at places like this is on a budget. No one would just leave money on the table, uncollected. She even left some clothes and toiletries behind. I was surprised.”

“Did you try to find out what happened?” Monica asked.

“I asked some of the gals who shared the room with her, but they didn’t seem to know anything.”

“Didn’t seem to?” Monica said.

“They were from Brazil and my Portuguese is non-existent so I might have missed something in translation.”

“Do you remember any other details?” Monica pressed. “Did she indicate where she hoped to move? Any job prospects? Or guys she liked?”

The manager’s face lit up.

“Actually now that you mention it, she did say she thought she was on the verge of getting a job,” he said. “She said that she was interning as a cook at a nearby restaurant—what do they call that?”

“Staging?” Monica offered.

“Yeah, that was it.”

“Do you recall the restaurant?” Monica asked.

"No, I'm not sure she ever said the name," he told her, "but I know it was close because she mentioned loving that her commute was a five-minute walk."

Monica left the hostel with a surge of renewed hope. This was the most encouraging development she’d had after years of searching for her sister, and she felt borderline giddy. In between rehab visits, Heather had gone to culinary school. She was a great cook and an aspiring chef, so this lead made sense. Unfortunately, while that sounded promising, it wasn’t a slam dunk.

Monica counted over thirty restaurants within about a five minute walk of the hostel, and fifty if her sister was just approximating the walking distance. So that weekend, she got a hotel room nearby and committed to visiting every single one.

She hit paydirt at her 22 nd stop. It was an upscale seafood place called Hermosa on Harbor and the executive chef, a tall, painfully thin man with prematurely gray hair named Marcus Hillenbrand, immediately recognized Heather.

“She was really talented,” he said. “In fact, I was going to offer her a full-time gig starting the following month because one of our people was moving up to San Francisco.”

“Did she know that?” Monica asked.

“I mentioned that it was a strong possibility if she kept up the good work,” he said. “She seemed excited. But then she just bailed.”

“Do you remember anything about the last time you saw her?” Monica asked.

“Yeah, a little,” he said. “If I’m remembering right, she worked the lunch shift, then hung out at the bar afterward with some folks.”

“How do you recall something from so long ago?”

"Because the people she was with were pretty raucous, and I was debating whether to ask them to leave. But they beat me to it and decided to head out on their own. She left with them, but before she did, she said that she’d see me tomorrow. That’s why I was so surprised when she never showed up again.”

The phrase “pretty raucous” sent a shiver through Monica. Exactly what kind of people had Heather hooked up with?

“Do you remember any of the people she was hanging out with at the bar that afternoon?”

He looked at her like she was crazy.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m impressed that I remember this much.”

“Would any of your staff remember? Maybe a hostess or server?”

He shook his head.

“Other than my general manager, who works in the back office, the staff has turned over multiple times since then. No one here now would have known her.”

Monica was just leaving when he called after her.

“I do remember one thing,” he said. “one of the folks she left with was a guy with a red Maserati.”

“You didn’t know him?”

“No,” he said apologetically.

“Would you remember him if I showed you a photo?”

“Maybe?” he said unconvincingly.

But that was all Monica had to go on, so she put all her efforts into it. So she got records for every red Maserati registered in the South Bay. Of course, this guy could be from Beverly Hills and have just come down for the afternoon, but she had to start somewhere.

Her search uncovered eleven owners of red Maseratis in the area, nine of whom were men. After finding photos of all them, she brought them to Chef Hillenbrand.

“That’s him,” he said, pointing at a moderately attractive man of about thirty with longish black hair that that swooped across his forehead.

“You’re sure?” Monica asked.

Hillenbrand nodded. The man’s name was Joel Cisco.

After that, everything got easier. She declined the position in Florida. Instead, she decided to pursue a PhD at LMU but took this semester off. With nothing to distract her now, she found that researching Cisco was easy.

She learned about his business as a financial advisor and the ongoing investigation into whether he had stolen from clients even richer than he was. She found out about his wife, an innocuously pleasant woman named Lana. She drilled down on his circle of friends, many of whom were from the South Bay Yacht Club, where he was a member.

She hung out at the club’s bar, wearing disguises and keeping a low profile as she eavesdropped on these guys’ conversations. She watched them take an endless array of girls—many close to a decade younger than them—onto their boats for parties. She even spoke to some of those women after they returned. Few of them had nice things to say about the way they were treated.

She looked into the backgrounds of these friends and found that each of them had a history of impropriety with women, ranging from solicitation to stalking to outright assault. Some had settled sealed legal claims from women. While she didn’t have any hard evidence of anything involving Heather, Monica could draw conclusions. But she needed to be sure.

That’s why, four months ago, she'd purchased a wig with flaming red hair and altered her makeup to look as little as possible like Heather. Then, she approached Cisco at a Manhattan Beach restaurant bar. She knew that his marital status wouldn’t be an impediment, as she’d seen him take multiple young women onto his boat.

She flirted with him aggressively and within an hour they were in a room at a nearby hotel. In the room, they partook of the mini bar. When Cisco went to the restroom, she slipped him a dose of sodium amytal, which would eventually knock him out. But that was a secondary benefit. The drug, which was banned in many jurisdictions and hard to come by, also had a reputation as a truth serum of sorts. And in this case, it worked.

Just before he passed out, with her phone recording the conversation, Monica cajoled Cisco to recount any yacht parties that went off the rails. Though drowsy, he was also uninhibited and at least somewhat forthcoming. While he never confessed to anything specific, he made reference to him and his friends “doing a bad thing” one night about three years ago. It was clear, though he did his best to restrain himself, that he still recalled the night vividly.

Before he drifted off, she got him to list the names of everyone who’d been “bad” with him and even concede that the “bad thing” was his idea, with support from his “best bud” Robbie Chandler.

After he zonked out, she stripped him naked. She slept fitfully on the small couch against the wall. When morning came, she undressed so that she was only in the lingerie she’d worn for the occasion. Then she got into bed beside him and woke him up. He was groggy and confused. She told him that they’d had a great night together, that he was amazing in bed.

“But this has to be the only time,” she said regretfully as she got out of the bed and quickly put her clothes back on. “I let my passion get the better of me last night but now, seeing you with that ring on, I realize that I can’t be responsible for breaking up a marriage.”

“It doesn’t have to be anything like that,” he replied, now convinced that they’d hooked up and apparently recalling nothing about his semi-confession. “We can just keep it casual.”

“I just can’t,” she said, “but I have your number if I ever change my mind.”

She considered taking the recording to the authorities. But she doubted they’d do anything. After all, she had drugged the man into his confession. And even then, admitting to "doing a bad thing," wasn't a smoking gun. There was nobody. He could claim that the bad thing was cheating on his wife or snorting coke or any number of other things. Even if the cops were interested, Cisco and his friends had shown an ability to skirt responsibility for their misdeeds. No, she had to handle this herself. So she did.

She came up with a plan. And to make it a reality, she prepared accordingly. She trained relentlessly to get in the best possible shape so that she would be desirable to the group known as the “yacht club bros.” She worked on different makeup styles that ensured she didn’t conjure up memories of her sister for them. She bought three more wigs for when she needed them. And she swam. All the time. Her plan required her to be both unflappable and full of stamina in the water.

Then, after so many months of prep work, she finally put the plan into action. She’d chosen this last Tuesday, not only because it was Heather’s birthday, but because she was now the same age—24—that Heather had been on the night she disappeared. It felt appropriate.

She’d planned to kill each of the yacht club bros on successive night. But in retrospect, that was na?ve. Of course, the cops would figure out the connection among the guys. The morning after the first kill, she went to the yacht club and parked outside to spy on events there. The second that she saw the profiler Jessie Hunt walking around, she knew time was short. And of course the guys would scurry for protection the second they understood they were in danger.

So she’d been forced into this situation where she had to jump ahead to the grand finale to exact vengeance on the man she knew to be the ringleader in whatever happened to Heather. She called Cisco and told him that she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head, that she wanted a repeat of their night four months ago.

Under normal circumstances, the man might have been suspicious of such an offer. But because they’d “hooked up” months before his friends had started dropping like flies, he apparently felt a level of unjustified safety in her presence. But he wasn’t completely clueless.

He told her that it wasn’t safe for him to hang out at the South Bay Yacht Club right now and instead suggested they meet at his sailboat in the marina for what he called a “slumber party.” Fighting off the urge to throw up, she’d agreed.

That was why she was lying on the deck of the Bodacious Tata now, while Joel Cisco was down below, roofied and tied up. Very soon, she would wake him, and get his confession, torturing him if necessary, and maybe even if it wasn’t. Then, after he came clean, she’d kill him anyway. It was the only way to get justice for Heather. Whatever happened to her after that, she was okay with it.

The silence of the boat was broken by what sounded like a dull moan from down below. Apparently, Cisco was starting to wake up on his own. It was perfect timing, as the first rays of the sun were just starting to peek out over the hills.

Monica stood up, pulled off the red wig she’d been wearing, and tossed it onto the deck. She wouldn’t need it anymore. Then she started down the stairs.