Pirate Gold and Murder

by Patti Larsen

“Now that I know for certain Fee is going to be okay,” he said, beaming that smile of his at all of us, “if you’ll excuse me, I have an autopsy to perform.” With that, he left us in that brisk stride of utter confidence that always made me feel better.

  I didn’t get time to settle long, Mom and Crew barely turning to focus on me, when Jill appeared at my door. I waved her inside when she hesitated, joining us with an unhappy expression and not looking at Crew in a way that triggered new anxiety.

  “You’re not here about Gregg,” I said.

  “I am,” she said. “And.” She finally glanced at my husband who, grim, nodded back. “I have to ask you both questions about the incident this morning.” Incident? What was she talking about? “I’ve already spoken to your… friend outside.” Crew had made Darius remain at the door, on guard, not that the big man argued. I think he preferred that position.

  But why would Jill want to talk to—and then, it hit me. “Geoffrey.” The ass. “Did he actually press charges?”

  Crew answered before the sheriff could. “That’s where I went at lunch,” he said, voice low and soft, filled with embarrassment. “He filed a restraining order. I went to talk to him about it, but I couldn’t find him.” He glanced at Jill, his shame so clear I hurt for him. “I know, I was breaking the law doing so. But I wanted to apologize.”

  Jill seemed sympathetic enough. “Just tell me what happened.”

  Mom stood to one side, her anger clear in her flaring nostrils and flashing green eyes as Crew and I told her everything that unfolded that morning at Sammy’s. Funny, with the discovery of the doubloon and Gregg’s subsequent death I’d completely forgotten about Geoffrey and his bloody nose. Seemed inconsequential in light of what happened, and yet, if he was really going to press charges, this could mean a headache for Crew that we didn’t need.

  If he decided to sue? Yikes. Well, we’d deal. We always did.

  When we were done, Jill inhaled, exhaled, shrugged. “You should know Geoffrey has made an official complaint and has gathered witnesses.” Sammy’s was full. Not hard to find people who saw what happened. Still, thanks a lot, Reading residents, for taking his side. “He wants you charged with assault.”

  Mom tsked brusquely. “And what about his assault on my daughter? What about that, Jill?” I’d seen my mother’s reaction to being manhandled and, it turned out, she was just as protective of me being mauled as having her own person touched against her will.

  Jill seemed like she would have liked a giant black pit to open up and swallow her rather than have to answer my mother. “That will all have to come out in court,” she said. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “We’ll just see about that.” Mom turned toward me, her shoulder to Jill. “If you’re done, Sheriff Wagner, my daughter has been through a terrible trauma and needs her rest. Not some ridiculous and petty questioning based on the petulant reactions of a truly distasteful human being.”

  Jill flinched. I knew she adored my mother. Everyone did. But I had no idea Mom’s approval meant so much to her. It was pretty clear, though, as my friend turned to me, face tight with regret but knowing she had no choice. “I hope you’re feeling better,” she said. Hesitated. Then left with her head down and her footsteps quick but quiet.

  “Honestly,” Mom said before falling still herself.

  “It’s my fault, Lucy,” Crew said. Sighed. “I’m an idiot. But I’ll handle it. For now, Fee needs to sleep.”

  I was tired, and oddly hungry, though I wasn’t going to tell them that. Not when my next visitor appeared and distracted me. MC looked ten years older, face pale, shoulders rounded, hands in the pockets of her jeans, boot soles squeaking on the floor as she shuffled just past the threshold and waited for us to invite her further before coming to my bedside.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “You must be devastated.” Yes, still feeling guilty over not being able to help Gregg, though Dr. Aberstock said otherwise.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “Thanks to this disaster, the hunt will have to stop. My funders are tapped out and when they found out someone died, they decided to stop sponsoring me all together.” She shrugged faintly, like someone who’d lost everything in one tragedy. Which, I guess she had. “I’m done.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder what bothered her more, though. Gregg’s death or the loss of her business? Mind you, I knew my own mind would have led me to feel sorry for myself, so I wasn’t about to judge her. Or shouldn’t have been calling kettles black, since I’d been a pot a few times myself.

  Still. For the first time it crossed my mind Gregg’s death might not have been an accident. Now that I knew I was going to be okay? I could focus on what actually happened. Or what didn’t.

  MC didn’t linger long, especially when a massive yawn took me over a moment later, my mother instantly shooing the Tortuga dive leader out of the room, pausing herself only long enough to softly kiss my forehead before taking her leave.

  I sent Crew home, too, though I could see the argument brewing. “You need sleep. I need sleep.” Like I was going to get much in the hospital, but whatever. “We have a lot to deal with tomorrow. Get some rest, please.”

  He left then, a long kiss for me before he exited, the soft sound of his voice outside my room and Darius’s answering tenor telling me while my beloved might be going home (or so I told myself despite knowing he was as bad as I when it came to leaving things alone already), my bodyguard would watch over me.

  Which actually gave me the security I needed to sleep enough over the next twelve hours by the time Crew came to pick me up in the morning, I was feeling much more myself than I probably had the right to.

  Dr. Aberstock cheerfully discharged me, though when I tried to quiz him about Gregg’s murder, he wouldn’t tell me much. “Still investigating,” he told both of us. “Now go home and lie down before I change my mind and readmit you.”

  He might as well have told me to stop breathing. Crew dropped me off at home, Petunia snuggled next to me and hovered for about ten minutes before I huffed a sigh and glared at him.

  “If you’re going to be Captain Protectivepants for the next few days,” I said, knowing I wasn’t being fair but needing him to back off already, “you can just forget it, Crew Turner. Go to the office. Have a run. Something. Anything. Just beat it.”

  Crew’s frown couldn’t win against my determination and, after a short standoff, he shrugged before kissing me and leaving.

  I waited until I heard his truck pull away before getting out of bed, getting dressed and harnessing my pug. No way was I sitting still like some good little girl, tucked away from all the action. I couldn’t just convalesce when I felt totally fine, knowing that a) my husband was about to be charged with assault and b) someone else might find the treasure thanks to the mess of yesterday and c) a man was dead and I had no idea if he’d been murdered or killed himself out of his own idiocy.

  I couldn’t help thinking, as Petunia hopped down off the bottom step and headed out in her rolling waddle toward the sidewalk, about Martin fiddling with MC’s tanks. The guilt on his face had been epic. He claimed he thought they were Gregg’s, though, and my natural suspicions rose to the surface like air bubbles from a regulator. What if he really had mistaken MC’s tanks for Gregg’s and was planning to do something to his boss’s equipment? But why? He’d seemed genuinely broken up by the treasure hunter’s death. I had no frame of reference for conflict between them, so research was in order.

  As for the others, they’d all had access to the equipment in the shed and, if I recalled correctly, even Hannah had been alone with our gear yesterday, hadn’t she? I’d seen her go into the shack before driving off while we were finishing lunch.

  That was assuming murder, of course. My default. Frankly, the pool of suspects, if I was going to be honest, was as wide as the lake. From what I could tell, everyone involved had a reason to hate Gregg, me included. Crew included. And, if my leap of accusation about him was accurat
e, if Gregg was working for Blackstone as I’d suspected, maybe that entity had something against him.

  Not to mention the Patterson family. Hadn’t Olivia just warned me to stay away from anything to do with the treasure? If Gregg’s death wasn’t an accident, could this have been something that founding family organized as the means to keep me from finding the truth?

  Too many questions, not enough answers. I followed Petunia as she meandered her way down the street, doing nothing to encourage her to walk faster as I usually did, content to wander and think while she led the way. I was surprised when she turned at the end of the street and headed downtown, considering she usually wanted to go to the annex—or, if I was being honest, the empty lot where the B&B named for her and her predecessors once stood. Happy she didn’t seem so obsessed with the loss of her familiar home, I continued to follow her while she plodded at a steady, if slow, pace toward the center of town.

  Two blocks in, my head spinning, I finally shook off the seemingly endless spiral of thoughts I could do nothing to satisfy in my present circumstance. Worrying over questions that had no answers only made me tense and uptight and, frankly, more than a little cranky. It was in that state of mind I looked up, came back to awareness, and spotted the young editor/reporter who was now the voice of the Reading Reader Gazette entering that paper’s office.

  I’d only met Christopher Jenkins once, and did my best not to hold the fact he was Geoffrey’s son against him. While he might not have been as hard-hitting in his reporting as Pamela used to be (as soft as she’d become in the final months of her control of the paper), he didn’t seem to be the pro-Patterson mouthpiece I’d expected when I heard he’d taken over the Gazette. Or, had it handed to him, more than likely. He’d been polite enough, but in a hurry that day, handsome where his father was shark-like, earnest but guarded, dark hair and eyes reminding me of my dear friend who’d been kept from me by Christopher’s family. But my assumption he was anything like Jared Wilkins was a guesstimate, nothing more.

  No time like the present to find out if the apple fell far from the rotten tree. And if he had a worm at his core or was just what the doctor ordered.

  ***

  Chapter Sixteen

  Christopher looked up as I entered, his curious expression turning sullen and unwelcoming, telling me everything I needed to know before I could even open my mouth.

  “I know why you’re here, Miss Fleming,” he said, looking down instantly, bitterness in his voice. “I have zero influence over my father, so asking me to do anything about the assault charge is a waste of time.” He met my eyes again, then, chest puffing out under his golf shirt, lips a tight line of disapproval. “Not to mention the fact your husband should have controlled his temper. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do and zero patience with the Fleming family, unlike the rest of this sad little town.”

  Wow. Okay then. He turned his back on me, sat down at a computer and put on headphones, proceeding to ignore me completely.

  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, and honestly getting offended by the temperamental little snot did me no good. But the temptation to march up to him, tear off those headphones and give him a piece of my mind was so strong I willfully spun myself to the exit and marched out.

  The last thing we needed in our family was two assault charges and that’s the way I was heading if I decided to follow through on impulse. Look at me, adulting and everything. Crew would be proud.

  It wasn’t until I hit the street again I realized my shadow was missing. No dark sedan followed me, no sign of Darius whatsoever. Had Malcolm done something horrible to him after finding out about Gregg’s death? A shiver ran down my spine, fear for the big bodyguard replacing my annoyance with the brat I’d just left behind me, and good riddance.

  I returned home, texting Malcolm as I went, but didn’t receive an answer. Instead of retreating inside, I bundled my pug into my car and took a drive to The Orange, to check in in person. But the small collection of dark-suited men matching my own Darius—okay, so I had claimed him after all, it seemed—didn’t know where their boss was and seemed surprised my protector had gone missing.

  I did drive to the house then, settled on the couch with my pug for an hour of TV, restlessly paced and refused to call Crew, pretended to be interested in the episode I was watching and then, knowing it would make me mental if I stayed any longer, stuffed Petunia full of strawberries and left her snoozing on her pillow while I went out again.

  My tolerance for doing nothing had never been lower, though pacing the streets of Reading wasn’t really helping all that much. I could have gone to the annex and checked in with Daisy and Mom, but I was positive those two would be horrified (Day) and motheringly furious (guess who) in equal measure before sending me home or turning me in or insisting on babysitting me when all I really wanted was some answers or something to do.

  I briefly considered bugging Dr. Aberstock but knew he’d be in touch the second he had something. And honestly, going to the annex meant I might run into the dive team and I really didn’t feel like encountering any of them at the moment.

  Instead, frustrated and feeling a bit frazzled, I headed for town hall and the one person I never thought I’d have on my friend list but who I now considered one of the most trustworthy people in my life.

  Olivia’s old space hadn’t changed much since Vivian’s takeover, even Hugh Farcourt the familiar face of the mayor’s office. Though, when I peeked in to see if she was around, her assistant was absent. Which meant neither of them was in the office at the moment.

  Grunt. I hesitated at the top of the steps, thinking about Geoffrey and feeling anger grow from the lingering seed he’d planted yesterday. No, not yesterday. Long ago, as in the first time he’d hit on me, standing on the steps of the sheriff’s office, offering me protection and support if I’d back him. I’d been horrified and grossed out then. And even more so over the span of time he’d decided to increase his apparent bid for my affection. Never mind he’d been married to his wife, Gail, for at least twenty-five years, if not more. Or that he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I loved Crew more than life itself.

  Angry? You bet I was angry. Because that piece of work wasn’t going to get away with taking his jealousy and disgusting plans to make me feel uncomfortable at every turn out on my darling husband.

  Wasn’t.

  Time to give Geoffrey Jenkins a piece of my mind and an ultimatum. Either he stepped off Crew or I’d make him regret it.

  I spun and marched down the hall, past Vivian’s office door and to the end of the corridor. I’d worked up quite a head of steam by the time I paused at the wood and glass entry to Geoffrey’s office, hating the sight of his name etched there. Now, it was possible I’d wasted that buildup to action, considering he had an accounting office a street over. The likelihood he was even here was slim to none. But I wasn’t really considering I might have to march myself out of town hall to confront him.

  And, when I noted the door was ajar, I almost stopped and turned around. Not because I knew it meant he was likely here, but because I wasn’t sure this was a good idea after all. I had to catch myself, catch my breath, a soft wave of dizziness taking me over, forcing me to lean against the dark wood paneling of the wall, hands on my knees, doing my best not to pass out as the rush of darkness closed in around the edges.

  It took about a minute, I think, for the spell to pass and I knew despite my treatment I still had lingering effects I really should report to Dr. Aberstock. I dabbed at the cold sweat standing out on my upper lip, my forehead, and promised I would. But the reminder of what I’d been through had a positive shift in my mood. I was so lucky to be safe, alive and well yet again, despite everything that happened. Geoffrey Jenkins wasn’t going to take that away from me.

  My temper broken, but my determination no less powerful, I pushed open his door. The curtains were drawn, the lights dim, his chair turned toward the windows. But it was clear he was there, one hand visible
on the armrest. I approached while taking slow, calming breaths, planning what I wanted to say before planting myself in front of his desk.

  “We need to talk.” I kept my tone low and clear, rational. I would not lose it, not in front of him. Not when Crew’s safety and reputation was at stake. “We both know you provoked my husband this morning. I want you to drop the charges, Geoffrey. If you do, we’ll just let this go.”

  I knew my argument was weak, but I had some ammunition at least. If he decided to push back, I’d suggest he might want to reconsider since I was thinking about my own assault charges, with “sexual” tagged on for good measure.

  He didn’t respond right away, so I marched on, taking his silence as a sign he was, at least, willing to listen.

  “Crew is genuinely sorry,” I said. “And willing to publically apologize.” Okay, I was speaking out of turn, but I knew my husband would agree if need be. “We don’t want this to get ugly, Geoffrey. Let’s be reasonable, shall we?”

  Still no response. Seriously, the guy was a total jerk, Why was I even trying? Temper rising once again despite my decision to the contrary, I circled his desk, ready to hand him my ultimatum, only to stop in my tracks.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  And shake my head with a terrible fear growing in my chest.

  Because he hadn’t stayed silent out of some kind of attempt to piss me off. Not if his staring, empty gaze—my second in less than twenty-four hours—was any indicator.

  No, he’d stayed silent because Geoffrey Jenkins had touched me inappropriately for the last time.

  ***

  Chapter Seventeen

  Was it just me, or did Jill’s lack of surprise as I quietly filled her in on finding Geoffrey’s body tied to a long-suffering soft sigh of acceptance and, dare I say, expectation? She didn’t comment as much, but it wasn’t hard to see that Sheriff Wagner’s attitude toward my discovery had little to do with sympathy and much more with overwhelm.