Episode 1: Black Lace and Salt Water. Silk and Smoke, #1

Here you go. Case 1 The Widow's Game begins on a fogged-in dock at three in the morning. Jack Colder, ex-police and very private, is hired off the water by Elena Hale, a billionaire's wife who smells of hotel chlorine and trouble. Her husband vanished off a rented yacht booked under a fake name. No body. No report. No Coast Guard. She wants it to stay that way. The thumb drive she hands Jack is empty on purpose, a perfect leash.
Open it and go to the police, she burns him. Open it and call her back, he is on her payroll. What should be a clean missing-man inquiry turns fast into an off-books money route, a shadow player called Davos, and a wife who may be either a victim or the sharpest person in the room. Jack breaks into the marina system, pulls camera files, and finds a second figure on the boat that night. Someone else was close when David Hale went overboard.
Someone Elena does not mention. To protect her position on the Hale boards she needs proof of what really happened, but she needs it without headlines. Jack likes people who play at that level, but he also knows every name he touches for Elena will echo later. Black Lace and Salt Water is the opening move in a crime-and-desire series where rich people hide bodies, women share the names of the men who can be trusted, and Jack Colder keeps saying yes because the work is too elegant to walk away from.