Pirate Gold and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  Pirate Gold and Murder

  Fiona Fleming Cozy Mysteries #13

  Patti Larsen

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2019 by Patti Larsen

  Find out more about me at

  http://www.pattilarsen.com

  ***

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ***

  Cover art (copyright) by Christina Gaudet. All rights reserved.

  http://castlekeepcreations.com/

  Thanks, as always, Kirstin!

  ***

  Chapter One

  I could honestly say there was nothing more incredible than opening my eyes to find a pair of gorgeous blue ones staring right back at me. I’d been enjoying this particular view for the last six months, with many, many more mornings to come. The rest of our lives together, to be exact, minus a few the delicious man I’d married was out of town.

  How lucky could I possibly get?

  Crew’s crooked smile, the sexy one that actually made me secretly happy I no longer ran a demanding and time consuming bed and breakfast on a daily basis spread to that brilliant gaze, the corners crinkling, sunlight from the parted curtains making his eyes sparkle. Literally sparkle. Like an angel or some kind of make-believe, Hollywood-created tall, dark and luscious hunk of manhood who couldn’t possibly exist in real life.

  Except he did. And he was in bed with me.

  Growl.

  If I still had Petunia’s? I’d be up and at ‘em, 6AM, with only rare opportunities to take in the yummy view of how his muscles tensed and bunched when he reached for me, how the heat of his skin made my whole body tingle when he tugged me close, the scent of him eliminating my ability to think straight for the few moments I inhaled him and let the world disappear.

  How did I know? I’d had experience, right? While we dated. And though we’d been mostly well behaved, I’d had enough early mornings forced to drag myself away from him I now and would forevermore fully appreciate the fact I no longer had to put my happiness and my time and energy into other people’s tourist experience. As much as I’d loved Petunia’s, as much as I still missed the beautiful old house and the memories I’d made there, I loved Crew Turner more.

  Bliss was sleeping in until 7:30 beside the man of my dreams.

  I knew moving would wake the pug at our feet. Petunia had taken a few weeks to adjust to her new home at Crew’s house, the poor, portly creature rather discombobulated by the change in her routine. She had, after all, spent the last eight years of her life in my grandmother’s—and then my—home, woken every morning like clockwork far too early but just fine with her, spending her days surrounded by people and dropping food and tidbits handed over by guests who could read the DO NOT FEED THE DOG signs posted everywhere. While my previous six months had been a rather delightful descent into a job with more regular hours and the chance to spend time with the man I loved, Petunia’s existence had taken a turn for the confusing.

  She snorted when she joined us, her still rotund body heavy as she gracelessly tromped her way into our personal space and plopped her fat butt down on Crew’s chest. He laughed and scratched her ear, making her yawn and cat-meow her approval. I offered my own caress, though I’d been starting to consider kicking her off the bed again since she was rather an uncomfortable third wheel when I wanted some private time with my husband.

  My. Husband. Never got old.

  “I think she’s finally settling in.” Crew worried about her as much as I did, bless him. It wasn’t lost on me she’d been out of sorts not just because of the loss of Petunia’s, but thanks to the poisoning she’d (barely) survived just before the wedding, not to mention the blow to the head she’d taken to knock her out the night that fire devoured the house that bore her name. I still owed Ruth and Peggy for that. I wasn’t about to disagree with my darling former FBI agent turned former sheriff turned private investigator extraordinaire, though. While she might still have been acting quirky and nervous from all the changes, the pug had managed to maintain her sweetness, at least.

  Maybe I was being hasty about kicking her off the bed.

  Crew stretched with Petunia still on his broad chest, making her scramble for balance and finally hop over me to settle with her bulging brown eyes glaring at both of us like we’d insulted her somehow. Another long, warm hug and we were up and out of bed, a routine that felt like I’d spent my whole life designing it settling around us in a happy fog.

  I caught myself humming most mornings as I made the bed, brushed my teeth with my hip pressed to Crew’s while he shaved, while I poured our coffee and shared crispy bacon and medium eggs from a single plate, orange juice from a shared glass.

  So this was what domestic bliss felt like. Yes, please.

  “Did you want to drop Petunia off at the annex before we head to the club?” Crew glanced at his watch, a boyish grin tugging at his lips.

  I grinned back with a start, realizing in the magical morning I’d almost forgotten what today was. Almost. “Mom will love to have her,” I said, still feeling a bit guilty over dumping the annex on her and Daisy, though neither of them protested all that much. I helped out when they needed me, kind of a giant role reversal. But since the loss of Petunia’s and my new daily endeavors at Fleming Investigations had taken over my time, I’d let the three-way partnership turn mostly into Mom and Day.

  “I’ll call MC when we’re ready to go.” Crew’s growing excitement was contagious as he tapped his fingers on the counter, one knee bobbing. He took the last two bites of his eggs a bit too fast, swallowing hard, gulping coffee. “I really want a chance to get a look at the bottom of the lake today.”

  And there it was, the bubble of anxious delight and nervous thrill that I’d been shoving down as hard as I could the last few weeks. Since my gorgeous husband, his jaw set and his determination winning us all over, told the Reading Hoard Crew (as we’d come to call ourselves) since Rosebert clearly knew about the truth of the treasure, there was only one thing to do.

  Go public. And did we ever.

  “She said the equipment arrived last night?” I cleared the dishes away while Crew transferred the last of his coffee to a travel mug, and one for me, while Petunia shuffled back and forth from one foot to the other, licking her chops before he handed her a little pile of blueberries he’d saved for her. She snorfled them down with suitable enthusiasm while he answered.

  “Should be loaded on the boat and ready when we get there.” His tone was calm, even, as much as mine was. A lie, both of us doing our best to uphold this charade of not caring one way or another if we found anything today. While my heart pounded and I had to distract myself with loading the dishwasher to keep from shrieking out loud.

  “Can we really cover the whole lake in one day?” I finally turned to him, my worry emerging. This was a huge endeavor, after all. One that, when we’d called a town hall meeting and actually revealed to the gathered residents of Reading what we’d found and what we were doing, had resulted in the kind of uproar that was usually reserved for visiting royalty.

  I shoved that memory aside, too, of the cheering and the following minor protests and the national media we’d sidestepped, all the while wondering and worrying still about my missing friend. Pamela Shard might have assured me in an email she was okay, and in a way that proved it was he
r who’d sent it. But it had been six more months without a sign of her and there had been one other notable woman who’d vanished from Reading due to the Patterson family, so there was precedence to be concerned.

  Nope. Not thinking about Fiona Doyle today. Not.

  Crew handed me my coffee when I straightened from harnessing Petunia. “MC seems to think so,” he said. “And my experience with side scan sonar fits her assessment. As long as we stick to the pattern we planned on. Or.” He paused then, grinned.

  Or. Find the good captain’s brigantine ship, the Darkling Dragon, sunk and waiting for us somewhere under there.

  Ack. Stop it, brain. No jumping ahead of yourself today.

  It was hard, though. Hard to maintain a normal tone of voice as Crew locked the front door of his little house, when he climbed into the front seat of his new SUV, me behind the wheel of my car to follow, while he drove up the street to the annex so I could drop off the squirming pug in my lap. So hard not to demand he double (okay, triple, yeah, make that quadruple) check the credentials of the treasure hunting team Liz recommended. Of course I’d looked into MC Tortuga and her people. I now knew intimately (thank you private investigation license) every dive they’d undertaken, their specialty underwater searches, each of her crew talented, passionate about their work and experienced enough I should have been reassured that Chantal Laniel, Anja Härle and MC herself would get the job done if anyone could.

  Except. Well. Control freak much?

  I glanced in the rearview mirror of my car and suppressed the frown that always fought for ownership of my face at the sight of the black sedan following me at what felt like a less-than-discrete distance. Not that I didn’t like Darius Smith (surely his real last name, right? Right), mind you. The giant bully—sorry, bodyguard—who used to protect Malcom Murray with such quiet composure and now did the same for me—from outside my house, firmly and without compromise outside my house—was a good person as far as criminal heavy weights who did the kind of work he did went. I even kind of enjoyed his sense of humor when I got the chance to actually talk to him. But having him hover over me, lingering in the background, making me uncomfortable and look over my shoulder endlessly? That got old fast.

  Protesting to Malcolm ended in nada. And asking Darius to stop doing what his boss required of him? Like telling a brick wall to just freaking stop being a wall already.

  Frustrated? Who, me?

  And if I was annoyed and out of sorts, Crew was all kinds of put out and irritated. Though, to his credit, my gorgeous husband creature didn’t show it often. Just enough I knew it lingered with him like a toothache. Every once in a while the vein in his forehead would pulse, the cord in his neck standing out and even the old tic under his eye would fire up and I’d have to distract him to keep him from doing something we’d both regret. Yes, he carried a gun, but so did Darius and the behemoth of a giant in a suit and tie and plastic earpiece outweighed even the solid strength of the man I loved by six inches and over fifty pounds.

  I bit back a sigh and purposely looked away from the sedan in the mirror. While Darius’s presence reminded me constantly that Peggy Munroe and her grandniece, Ruth Wilkins, were still out there and gunning for me, it wasn’t reassuring to know he was there. Instead, it made it impossible to sink back into the full and blatant ignorance I’d cultivated the bulk of my mostly happy existence. I missed it.

  Daisy accepted the grunting, farting pug with a beaming smile and a kiss for my cheek. “Good luck, keep us posted!”

  I hugged her as I left again, knowing I was hurrying now, the excitement too much for me and it wasn’t until I climbed back into my car and followed the SUV I realized I forgot to hug Mom. Bad daughter. She’d understand, though. She’d been there, Dad, too, when MC had agreed to help, when she and her crew, excited themselves when presented the evidence we’d gathered, agreed to join the search. Even offered to foot the bill for the hunt.

  “Part of the job,” the treasure hunter, her dark hair in a ponytail, blue-green eyes lit with something I recognized in myself as the lust to know, just know the truth, said in her low, calm voice. Like she’d done this a million times before despite the impish grin she’d flashed when she’d handled the doubloon I’d found in Grandmother Iris’s music box. She had been much better at containing her excitement than I’d ever be. “And our financial backers love this kind of evidence. For a cut of the treasure.”

  I had the insurance money from Petunia’s and enough saved up from how busy I’d been I could have funded the project. But I was happy to not have to dip into that cash, and since this really wasn’t about getting rich (shiver, giggle, meep) but figuring out the mystery behind the treasure itself (keep telling yourself that, Fee), I didn’t mind sharing.

  With MC and Tortuga Divers. But as I drove past the sheriff’s office and the male half of Rosebert climbed out of his cruiser to glare at us on the way by? Yeah, you can bet my generosity died a quick and painful death.

  Because despite the fact they still had a piece of the map and there was a possibility we’d never find the treasure without it? The piles of whatever the old privateer had or hadn’t hidden away could stay lost forever if that was the case.

  One thing was absolutely, utterly and completely certain. I’d be sharing the hoard with my hated cousin and his little snip of a girlfriend over Captain Reading’s dead body.

  ***

  Chapter Two

  Cutter Lake’s smooth surface flashed past the end of the dock as Crew pulled into the parking lot and stopped on the far side of the large, white pickup truck, the cap bearing the Tortuga Divers logo. I parked beside him, waving at Chantal where she leaned against the passenger’s door, talking intently with Anja, instant concern tightening the already tense line running up the center of my back to my now aching shoulders at the sight of their grim expressions. A million worries woke, including the nervous anxiety tied to the fact we’d been wasting their time after all and they were pissed to discover the treasure wasn’t real. But as I exited my car, hurrying to them while Crew beat me to it, I could tell their anger wasn’t aimed at me, at us.

  “Something’s wrong.” My husband wasn’t big on preamble and, frankly, neither was I.

  Chantal’s shoulders shrugged in a sharp up and down, her green eyes narrowed, normally kind and sweet nature clearly on edge. I’d started thinking of her as the easy-going, happy-go-lucky member of the group that put everyone at ease with her kind smile and ability to explain basics without judgment, even to a rank newbie like me. Not that Anja with her tall, willowy beauty wasn’t lovely, or MC, for that matter. But I’d taken to thinking of them as three parts of a puzzle who each complimented the task at hand—the leader with her instant decisions, the teacher and her kind patience and the adventurous youngest member with her enthusiasm and fresh ideas.

  Concerning to see these two suddenly uptight and upset. Gave me reason to worry, I guess.

  “You could say that.” Chantal exhaled deeply, slowly, like she fought her temper while Anja, arms crossed over her chest, looked away, lips in a line, bangs low and straight in a dark shadow over her brown eyes.

  “The equipment?” Crew’s obsessiveness over safety and the gear we were using was understandable. His commercial diver training—a massive leap ahead from fresh-from-her-beginner diving course me who was still trying not to panic I’d forget everything once under the water—made him uber cautious. A good thing, as far as I was concerned, and hadn’t met any objections from the team.

  But Anja’s tight headshake, her long, dark hair shivering down her back as she denied his question, was joined by Chantal’s echoing, “No.” They both glanced past the front of the team truck toward the dock and, for the first time, I noticed MC stood near the gear shed, almost to the end of the wooden floats, where the boat we’d hired waited, bobbing ever so lightly on the shining water of the lake.

  She wasn’t alone, and the man she was speaking to—no, arguing with—didn’t look familiar. Neither d
id the second man, standing slightly off, his expression concerned as he watched their growing fight unfold. I could hear them now, their voices rising, watched MC’s right hand rise and fall, form a fist, strike her thigh loudly enough the sound reached us.

  “Who,” Crew growled, blue eyes locked on the fight, “is that?”

  “Trouble,” Chantal muttered back as MC finally spun away from the two men and marched toward us, her feet thudding on the wooden slats, shoulders tense, scowl dark enough to make me think twice about ever crossing her. Good thing she was on our side.

  She swung up the ramp from the floats below to the main dock, joining us while the two men trailed behind her. I instantly disliked the smirk on the face of the one she’d been arguing with, despite his attractiveness. He had that dark-haired and blue-eyed look that was usually my type, but the clear arrogance that gave him a rolling swagger and the way he looked me up and down?

  Yeah. Nope.

  Besides, I was married to tall, dark and handsome. And if MC and her crew didn’t like this asshat? I was team Tortuga all the way.

  I gave the second guy a brief once over, not meaning to dismiss him but not really having much choice as MC joined us, jaw jumping before she inhaled to speak. At least Dude#2 looked innocuous enough, even a bit embarrassed to be there. So our trouble was with Dude#1?

  We’d just see about that.

  “Crew.” MC nodded to him. “Fee.” I returned her head bob. “I’m afraid I have some… troubling news.” She didn’t turn around, didn’t bother, as Captain BossyPants pushed his way into our little circle, facing off with my husband. Crew had at least six inches on the guy, but you’d think he was a giant the way he grinned at winked at the former sheriff.

  Of course, my darling was never one to be intimidated. He glared right back while he addressed MC. “What seems to be the problem?”