Maritime Caper (Coastal Fury Book 12)

by Matt Lincoln

  “Yeah, it does, in a way,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “But it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. If they were super into the collecting and the searching for its own sake, they would likely never let go of the ship in the first place. But if they were just in it for all the buried treasure… well, they wouldn’t have left Lafitte’s treasure in the ship for someone else to find now, would they?”

  “Huh,” Tessa grunted. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Why would they leave all that money and stuff in there?”

  “Yeah, I think I’m going to need to have a talk with the FBI about that ship when I get back,” I muttered. “They kept everything from the New Orleans case because their agent was there before us, but now that the Hollands are involved, we have a good argument to make that it’s our domain after all. I’d also like to have a talk with those collectors in New Orleans. The last time I talked to them, they didn’t mention anything about the Hollands. I wonder if they know more than they let on after all.”

  “Looks like you’ve got all kinds of leads to pursue,” Tessa said dryly. “So if they aren’t in it for the history of it, or for the money, what are they in it for?”

  “That’s the question,” I said with a low, dark laugh. “I can’t even begin to say. Maybe they just like the hunt and don’t really care about the rest of it? I don’t know. It’s all very strange.”

  “You could say that again,” Tessa laughed, shaking her head as she turned back to the table. “So if the numbers aren’t coordinates, then what are they?”

  “I think they’re supposed to be coordinates,” I mumbled as I turned my attention back to the pages. “He just didn’t write them properly or something. Here, see this post-it note? Ashley Holland wrote real coordinates under them, and I think those are near here.”

  “Are they the Hawthorne house?” she asked, peering over my shoulder again as I pointed out the post-it in question.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head. “These coordinates are too far out. They would be in the ocean, I think. Near here, though, just not on land.”

  “Maybe that’s why that Joey guy said that they thought the Dragon’s Rogue was in the area,” Tessa suggested. “They thought that might be where the ship was. But when they looked for it there, they didn’t find it.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said excitedly, wanting nothing more than to send a team out to look at those coordinates as we spoke, though I doubted that anything would come of it given that the Hollands had already spent a year looking, no doubt searching far and wide beyond those coordinates when they realized that the Dragon’s Rogue wasn’t actually there. “Yeah, I bet that was it.”

  “But it’s not here,” Tessa sighed, slumping her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Ethan, I know you probably got your hopes up, even when you said you didn’t. I should’ve never suggested that it was here. I know better than that. I’ve gotten my own hopes up a few too many times chasing a good story, so I know how it feels.”

  “It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” I assured her, shaking my head. “I got my own hopes up. And besides, it’s not like we haven’t found all kinds of stuff to help me find the Dragon’s Rogue. I’m closer than I’ve ever been before now. I can feel it. I just wish I was the only one looking for it. Now I’ll be worried that the Hollands are going to get ahead of me every step of the way. There wasn’t really a time constraint on things before. I could just look whenever something turned up or when I had some free time to spare on it. Now I feel like I’m in a race to the finish line that I didn’t even know I was running until now.”

  “I know,” Tessa said, pursing her lips and leaning back against the table with me before shaking her head to clear it. “Alright, what about the rest of this stuff?”

  We both turned our attention to the remaining contents of the table. There were lots of old papers, most of which I didn’t get the significance of right then.

  “I can have my friend George look at some of this stuff if you want,” Tessa offered after we’d sifted through a good portion of the table’s contents. “He should be able to figure out what some of it is, at least.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” I said, smiling at her as I turned to look through the last remaining pile, which had been obscured from view behind some other papers before.

  My hand faltered as I reached for an old book, leather-bound with frayed yellow pages. It looked more than a little familiar to me.

  I glanced over at Tessa and immediately knew that she had noticed it, too.

  “Is that…?” she asked, her voice trailing off as she pointed at the book as if she didn’t dare suggest what she was thinking out loud.

  “I think so,” I whispered as I grabbed for the book and gingerly opened it to a random page, my heart pounding in my chest so loud that I could feel the pulsing in my ears.

  I opened the book toward the back, where nearly every word had been redacted in the fake version. I couldn’t help but breathe a long sigh of relief and close my eyes when I confirmed that yes, this was Grendel’s journal based on his handwriting, and no, nothing appeared to be redacted.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Tessa breathed excitedly as I closed my eyes. “And it’s okay, right? Right?”

  She peered over my shoulder again to see for herself, and I opened my eyes and smiled down at her.

  “Right,” I confirmed, thumbing through the journal’s remaining pages just to make sure that there was nothing redacted there, either. “I’ll have to have Percy look at it just to make sure, but I’m pretty sure this is the real deal.”

  “Amazing,” Tessa breathed, her eyes still peeled on the journal much like mine were. “How’s it feel?”

  “Amazing,” I echoed, letting out a long, nervous laugh that released all of my anxious energy.

  Having this journal in my possession at long last, after all that time, was really something else. I wasn’t sure how to describe it other than how I already had. I felt like all the tension that I had been holding about this for weeks was finally released, the tension that I didn’t even realize that I was carrying.

  “We’re going to have to read through it together while we’re still here,” she suggested.

  “You sure that’s what you want to do with the rest of your vacation?” I laughed, arching an eyebrow at her.

  “Positive,” she confirmed, standing on her tip-toes and pecking me on the cheek.

  I wasn’t sure that I had ever been so happy in my life, between finally finding the journal and having Tessa there beside me.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her, looking her in the eyes.

  “I’m glad I’m here, too,” she grinned, looking back at me before her eyes drifted to the remainder of the pile in the corner. “Hold on, what’s this?”

  She reached past me to grab another framed old yellow piece of paper, running her fingers along its front and narrowing her eyes at it. There was a familiar glint in her expression that told me she had found something else that might be important.

  “What is it?” I asked excitedly, moving so that I was very close to her and to the paper.

  “I… I think it’s a map,” she stammered, looking down at it with a mix of confusion and wonder. “And this handwriting… you would know better than I do, but isn’t that Grendel’s?”

  I took the frame from her and examined the handwriting she was speaking of closely.

  “Yeah, yeah, it is,” I said with a nod. “His original handwriting, before he went mad. Well, most of it anyway. Some of it looks a little slanted, like the later parts of the journal.”

  It was a map of the United States from a very long time ago, with a focus on the eastern coast and some nearby islands. There was a path etched along it, with x’s in certain places and small notes corresponding to them written by Grendel.

  “Do you think this is… I mean, could this be a map of the Dragon’s Rogue’s movements?” Tessa asked, her eyes widening at the thought.

  “I don’t kn
ow,” I said, shaking my head and grinning at her again. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out.”

  30

  Ethan

  Tessa and I were at the house with the police and the forensics team for most of the night. There was a lot of combing through the old house to do, but we didn’t find much else of interest. The rest of the place was just full of sleeping bags and old food from the goons, for the most part—nothing else about the Dragon’s Rogue or where the Hollands might be.

  By the time we made our way back to our rental car, which was still where we’d left it in the restaurant parking lot by the beach nearly a mile away, the sun was coming up.

  I checked my watch. It was almost six-thirty in the morning.

  Tessa let out a long yawn and stretched out her arms as I unlocked the car.

  “I know it’s morning already, but I really need some sleep,” she told me as she climbed inside the passenger’s side, and I got into the driver’s seat.

  “I know, me too,” I said, yawning myself as hers was infectious. “We’ll just sleep for a few hours. Otherwise, we won’t be able to tonight.”

  “Hmm’kay,” Tessa murmured, leaning her head back against the seat cushion and already starting to drift off as I pulled out of the parking lot.

  I could barely keep my eyes open as I drove back to the bed-and-breakfast, and more than once, I thought that I’d forgotten how to get there. But at long last, I pulled into the driveway of the cozy little house with all the windows.

  Paulina was more than just excited to see us, so much so that she came running down the driveway before I’d even opened my car door.

  “Come on,” I said, nudging Tessa gently as she came to, and I jumped out of the car and opened her door for her.

  “Oh, Agent Marston, we got so worried when you didn’t come home,” Paulina gushed, following Tessa and me all the way to the front door. “Martha barely slept a wink, the poor thing.”

  “I’m sure,” I sighed. “Have the police updated you?”

  “Oh no, not yet,” Paulina said, shaking her head as her eyes widened at this. “Officer Collins only told us that most of his colleagues had to go out to the Hawthorne house last night, so when you didn’t come home, we were sure that something must’ve happened. We’re so keen to know what it was.”

  I sighed and pulled out my phone, realizing that I’d neglected to check it before because I was so tired. My own eyes widened as I realized that I had about fifty missed calls from Holm and a fair number from Diane as well.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” Tessa said, touching my elbow as she noticed that clearly, something was wrong. “Sleep can wait. I’ll update Martha.”

  “Thanks,” I said absent-mindedly, noticing what she said enough to be grateful to her, but not much else. My heart was pounding as my mind ran through all the terrible possibilities about what could’ve happened to my colleagues in Miami.

  While Tessa and Paulina headed into the house to talk to Martha, I feverishly paced up and down the driveway as I returned one of Holm’s near-countless calls.

  “Marston, where the hell have you been?!” my partner asked almost accusingly as he picked up before the first ring could even finish. “We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for nearly twelve hours!”

  “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I was out of cell phone range,” I said quickly, relieved to hear him alive and well, at the very least.

  “Did you get my messages?” he asked. “I left dozens of them. And texts. Same with Diane. I think even Birn and Muñoz left you some.”

  I hadn’t noticed this in my concern to get back to him.

  “No, I literally just looked at my phone for the first time since yesterday afternoon,” I explained, running a hand across my face wearily. “What’s going on, Holm?”

  “The Hollands, they’re behind everything you’ve been dealing with there in Virginia!” he cried, to my surprise. “Or at least we think they are. They bought some old property there under an alias we didn’t know about before. It’s hard to think it’s not related to all this weird stuff and those guys who attacked you yesterday. Are you okay, by the way? Diane was just about to send me up to check on you since you’d been out of touch for so long.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I breathed. “And I already know about the Hollands, but how do you know?”

  “Wait, how do you know?” Holm asked, suddenly just as perplexed as I was.

  “I asked you first,” I chuckled.

  “Fair enough,” he relented. “Diane and the FBI found another few aliases that the couple’s been using, and they had Birn, Muñoz, and I comb through all the files on it. That’s how I came across this property, it’s called the Hawthorne house, and there are all these old ghost stories about it.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’ve been there all night,” I told him.

  “Huh?” he asked, and I had to launch into a whole explanation about what had been going on since I talked to him last.

  “Well, damn,” he said when I was finished. “You’ve had quite a day, haven’t you? When was the last time you slept?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” I sighed, shaking my head.

  “Hold on, let me get Diane,” Holm said. “I think she just walked in.”

  There was a lot of shuffling on the other line, and then muffled voices, and then Diane’s voice rang out, tense and worried.

  “Marston, is that you?” she asked. “Please tell me you’re not dead yet.”

  “Not yet,” I chuckled. “I’ve got quite a bit to go yet, I think.”

  “You’d better,” she said grumpily. “Robbie says you already knew about the Hollands?”

  And so I launched into yet another explanation of everything that had happened to Tessa and me since the scuffle at the museum the previous morning.

  “Well,” Diane said in a huff when I finished. “I guess I can’t complain about letting you take time off in the middle of such an important case, after all.”

  “I guess not,” I laughed. “As you said, trouble has a way of finding me, even when I’m not looking for it.”

  “Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You’re always looking for it and don’t for a second try to convince me otherwise.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Holm agreed with a chuckle.

  “Alright, alright,” I sighed. “Whatever. So what do you think about all this?”

  “What do I think?” Diane repeated with a long sigh of her own. “I don’t know, guys, this one’s tricky. It seems these people are way ahead of us.”

  “Is there anything new on your end?” I asked. “Other than what Holm already told me about the aliases, I mean.”

  “Well, it looks like a few officers ran across the guy who attacked us, hanging out in the parking lot of a gas station just north of the city,” Holm explained. “Lines up with what your guy told you, too. He said his name was Charlie, at least. We’re waiting on them to get back, and then we’ll question him some. Hopefully, he can give us some more, but I doubt he knows more than your guy if he was telling the truth about being the Hollands’ right-hand man.”

  “Still, Joey’s been locked up in the Hawthorne house for months,” I reasoned. “It’s possible that this Charlie guy is more acquainted with recent events, even if he’s lower ranking. He might have a better idea of where the Hollands might be.”

  “That’s true enough,” Diane mused. “A good point, though I wouldn’t count on it. Anyway, I want to talk to this Joey character myself.”

  “I imagine everyone will,” I chuckled. “Everyone at MBLIS, at the FBI. He already figured as much himself. But he’s in the hospital now. They airlifted him after I talked to him, and they updated me that he needed some minor surgery on his shoulder. Once he’s recovered, maybe they can send him down to Florida somewhere for housing, and we can have regular access to him.”

  “He’ll need to be on maximum security,” Diane sighed. “By the sound of it, the Hollands would manage to
sneak someone in to kill him in a regular prison. Witness protection might be the best course when this is all over for him.”

  “Yes, I was thinking similarly,” I agreed with a smirk, remembering how little Joey had liked this idea himself.

  “Well, it looks like you weren’t wasting time looking for old pirate ships after all, eh, Marston?” Holm asked, and I could hear his grin even over the phone. “You were working a real case this whole time after all.”

  “I don’t know about the whole time,” I chuckled. “They’ve only been tailing me since Haiti.”

  “Yes, let’s get back to that, shall we?” Diane asked, the original worry now seeping back into her voice. “I don’t like the sound of that at all. What do they mean by tailing? Could they be listening in on us now?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said quickly, shaking my head even though I knew that Holm and Diane couldn’t see me. “Joey said that they didn’t even know I hadn’t dropped my whole search for the Dragon’s Rogue until I called the museum manager the other day. That means that they didn’t even know Percy had told me the first journal was a fake.”

  “Good, that’s good,” Diane said, a fair amount of the anxiety leaving her voice then. “The question remains how they found out in the first place, though.”

  “Well, we know that the Hollands were working with Clifton Beck, who was working with Solomon,” I explained. “So I’m betting there was someone in Haiti that Holm and I ran across who was paying attention to what we were talking about, spying on us even. And he and I talked about the Dragon’s Rogue a fair amount, if only in passing. We had no reason to think that anyone else would care.”

  “Yes, that is possible,” Diane murmured, deep in thought. “They had someone down there watching the drug activity and started tailing you when they realized you were agents. Then they lost track of you after that. That makes sense, though, and it would mean that they’re not listening in on everything you’re doing. We need to be more careful, though, in the future. These people know what they’re doing, perhaps better than anyone we’ve been up against before. We can’t take this lightly.”