The Ferry Manifest

She boarded the morning ferry.

The passenger records say she arrived.

But Elena Ward has vanished.

Every morning, Elena crosses the river from Pennsylvania to New Jersey on her way to work.

Until one ordinary Monday, when she never reaches her office.

Her ticket registers at the departure gate. The electronic system records a completed journey. The ferry operator insists its passenger numbers match.

But a crew member's handwritten count tells a different story.

And nobody can confirm where Elena went.

Federal investigator Mara Keene joins Detective Serena Vale and investigative analyst Eli Fenwick to reconstruct the missing woman's final movements.

What begins as a search along the riverbanks soon exposes troubling inconsistencies in passenger records, access logs and maintenance reports.

Elena had been questioning suspicious charges on canceled ferry accounts.

Someone contacted her before she disappeared.

And the deeper investigators examine the records, the more they discover that a completed transaction does not necessarily mean an event happened as recorded.

As pressure mounts to restore ferry services and close the investigation, Mara follows a trail of disputed financial records, unidentified contractors and overlooked witnesses.

Because Elena may have reached the opposite shore.

And the real danger may have been waiting there.

The Ferry Manifest is Book Two of The Disappearance Desk, a gripping missing-person crime thriller featuring a determined federal investigator, a mysterious ferry disappearance, realistic police procedures, conflicting passenger records, financial wrongdoing, institutional secrets and mounting psychological suspense.

The central disappearance mystery is resolved in this book. Mara Keene returns in Book Three, Winter Trail Zero, with a new investigation.