It had been several years since Corey had been to the East coast. He once had a girlfriend while at USC who transferred to Boston University. It was for her master's degree in business management, and he remembered traveling there three times in the span of a month before they sadly broke off the relationship. The failed East coast-West coast romance had turned him off to long-distance romantic commitments. Fortunately for him on this afternoon, as the plane landed at Baltimore/Washington International Airport, it did not remind him of Boston.

Traveling light, with just a backpack and carry-on bag of clothing, Corey made it through the terminal to a taxi stand and requested a ride to the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel. It was a location he had picked for its proximity to Baltimore's pleasure craft Inner Harbor. From the maps he researched it was the area where most of the Yacht Clubs in the greater Baltimore Harbor clustered. If the phone messages from the girl calling herself Henley over the last days were true, she was somewhere on that large body of water, being held in a large vessel calling itself Morpheus.

Checking into his hotel, Corey learned that there was a conference that week there, attended by doctors and researchers working at the Mayo Clinic. The posters in the lobby informed that physicians from several surrounding medical centers and many out of state facilities were in attendance to learn of the clinic's present findings on Psychosomatic disorders. It was possible he might glean some information from any attendees from Johns Hopkins.

Getting the electronic key to his room and taking the elevator to the fourth floor, Corey for the first time felt just how alone he was in taking on the East Coast mission by himself. Putting his few articles of clothing into the closet and opening the drapes, he looked down at the breath-taking view of Baltimore's Inner Harbor just blocks away. It was an immense bay, and he could see a myriad of pleasure craft moored around the docks. The larger, superyachts were anchored in the outer area, floating impressively in the distance.

It was too late in the afternoon to contact the university, only a few miles away, to make arrangements for a tour of the campus—and specifically the Brain Science Division of studies there. Following a quick shower and hopefully a better meal than the inflight breakfast he had had departing Las Vegas, Corey would make his way to the harbor frontage road and try to get some idea of ship Morpheus' whereabouts. Just possibly discovering there was in fact a vessel by that name anywhere in the vicinity of Baltimore's grand harbor, would give him some validation of his purpose there.

It was a cool evening when Corey arrived at the north end of the harbor. He cruised along by taxi and then on foot the several Yacht Clubs sprinkled across the map he was given at the hotel. The air was fresh, damp and a much different climate than the desert evening air he had become accustomed to in Las Vegas. Walking along the well-lit Waterfront Promenade, amid tourists, strolling lovers and joggers, he looked out at several of the superyachts offshore, now becoming illuminated like Christmas trees on the darkening water. Their spectacular decks and upper-deck lights made them a distinctive sight against the coastal skyline across the harbor.

Smaller, yet no less impressive were the recreational vessels docked with their sterns against the quay which people like himself were observing, taking in the rich lifestyle of those who could afford such crafts—legally or otherwise. He began reading the names of the sailboats and luxury vessels close to him as he walked. He could also see the flags from other ports on their sterns, national and international, sharing where the boat owners haled from. A number of these more luxurious examples were from Miami, the Cayman Islands and Bahama's, and he looked onto the decks of a few from Italy, England, Ireland, and one from afar away as Australia. Most of them, however donned American or Canadian flags and the names of New England harbors beneath their names.

Just then a yacht club worker, driving a golf card along the dock, looked to be delivering boxes of supplies to the stern of one particularly large craft named Milton's Princess. The worker stopped and waited for someone onboard to connect with him by phone. As the young Hispanic man waited for an answer, Corey approached him and made his interrogative move.

"Say, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, man. Are you Mr. Sullivan?" he asked. "I got this load of supplies for him. Said he'll meet me in front of this boat here."

"No. Sorry. I'm new to the harbor . . . and I'm looking for a party that's aboard a certain superyacht somewhere here on the bay. You know of a listing somewhere for these ships I can check with?"

The young man laughed. "Well yeah. The port authority is supposed to have something like that. But look man, most of these guys, especially owners of the big ones. They don't want anyone to know who they are. Where they're from or where they're going."

"OK I see."

"I just work for a delivery company. We get a call which dock they're on, a ship name . . . and we give them the goods."

"OK. Well look. The boat I'm trying to find is the Morpheus. Any idea where I should start looking . . ."

"Morpheus, you say?"

"That's it."

"I made a delivery of food just yesterday to that yacht. Made a lot to those guys, actually. She's over offshore . . . at Belt's Warf Landing . . . Yeah. It'd kinda far from here. They always send a transport over for a pick-up. It's been like once a week for a while now. That ship's been in the harbor . . . I'd say for a month or so. Maybe longer."

"Great, my friend. You say Belt's Warf Landing?"

"Across the transport route . . . Out there just off the yacht club by that name."

"Thanks, man, You're great."

"No prob. But take it easy with those guys."

"Yeah? Why?"

"You never really know. But they seem pretty cold, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah. I kinda figured that. Have a good night."

"You too, man."

It had been years since Corey's heart raced over something so critical he had learned during work on a case. But it was racing now. He had just confirmed the existence of the yacht Henley had named. And better yet, discovered its location on the immense harbor. A good day's work, he thought to himself. To make sure of the development, he hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him to Belt's Warf Landing on the other side of the harbor.

Arriving there in twenty minutes, he got out and looked over the exclusive yacht club nestled at the water's edge. Walking out to an overlook, he could see a well-lit, gun-gray superyacht, sleek and seemingly at peace not more than a hundred yards offshore. Though too far away to see the name on the vessel, Corey could now rest assured, based on what the local eyewitness had told him, that it most likely was the Morpheus and ostensibly where Henley was being held against her will. He could only hope she was now in at least lingering in good health, mentally and physically, since the days ago she had spoken to him by phone. As a seasoned investigator, Corey knew full well that time was of the essence in any abduction case, and this one was now almost two weeks into the girl's mysterious disappearance.

Riding back by taxi to his hotel, Corey reflected on his first objective in Maryland—that of locating the yacht in Baltimore Harbor. It was surprisingly accomplished by the evening of his first day. Yet he could not gloat on it, even when he'd share the news with Mattingly that night, as he had to admit, it was in no small part to chance and good fortune.

What lay ahead was the challenge of getting Marlow out of what appeared to be fortified and extremely isolated confinement. It also begged the question as to who her perpetrators actually were. This could only take place, he knew, after a careful and strategic probing into the activities of the Johns Hopkin's Brain Science Department and its relation to Henley's research project. However, the greater mystery was why she, someone so innocent and celebrated as a paragon of beauty, would have been the target of what was becoming one of the most sensational crime stories of the year.

* * *