by Matt Lincoln
“Don’t worry, there’s no chance of that,” I said darkly.
“So,” Holm said. “What’s next?”
“Well, I’m going to be here for a few days helping the police clean up this mess, if that’s alright,” I told them. “Then I was hoping I could head back down to New Orleans for a couple of days to talk to those hotel owners again, the ones who climbed into bed with the gang on the promise of Lafitte’s ship. I think maybe they know something about the Hollands.”
“And you want to go see that old man again and make sure you’ve got the real journal this time,” Holm teased, knowing me far too well for my liking at that moment.
“Um, well…” I said, not sure how to respond to this with Diane on the line. I didn’t know how much she would like the idea of me using agency time to look for the Dragon’s Rogue, even though my search for the ship was now at least somewhat related to an MBLIS case.
“Don’t worry,” she assured me, a sly smile in her voice. “I won’t exactly let you spend all of your time looking for this old ship of yours now that it’s related to the Holland case, but I’m not going to complain about it either. Consider yourself cleared to fly to New Orleans when you’re done in Virginia. But make sure you come back to Miami as quickly as you can. We’ll need you here with us. I have a feeling that things are about to get very interesting.”
Epilogue
I sipped at the last of my whiskey as I finished my story, peering over the glass at Charlie, Jeff, Ty, and Mac, as Mark and his friends from the retirement home gaped at me.
The bar girls had all congregated around our booth at some point around when the little boy Miles had run into the Hawthorne house trying to help Tessa and me, and they had stuck around since that point. It was late enough that most of the other customers had cleared out by then, leaving them without much work to do and freeing them up to listen to me, though I got the sense that they hadn’t even noticed that, they were so wholly absorbed in my tale.
“Well?” Charlie asked, his eyes practically bugging out of his head as he leaned forward on the table. “What happened in New Orleans?”
“Not much,” I said with a shrug. “I talked to Percy again, and he confirmed that I had Grendel’s journal for real this time. So that was exciting.”
“What did it say?” Charlie asked, looking like he just might jump out of his skin in anticipation. “Were you able to figure out where the Dragon’s Rogue was by reading it?”
I chuckled and shook my head as I handed my empty glass over to Rhoda.
“Now I can’t tell you that, can I?” I asked, winking at him. “That would ruin the rest of my stories.”
“But what about the people who owned that hotel?” Jeff asked. “Did they know anything about the Hollands?”
“Now look who’s asking the real questions?” I grinned, nodding to him appraisingly. “And yes, they knew about the Hollands. They knew that they were well-known nautical enthusiasts who looked on the black market a lot. But they’d never met them and had no idea that they had been behind all that mess with Lafitte’s ship.”
“So nothing came of it?” Jeff asked, his shoulders slumping in disappointment.
“Now, I wouldn’t say that,” I cautioned. “The hotel owners gave me some other names of people we might be able to talk to, who might know more about the Hollands. As for whether anything came of that, I can’t say yet either.”
Charlie groaned as if he was going to just die of all the anticipation.
“What about that map?” Mac asked, breaking her usual silence for once. “Was that what you thought it was?”
“Another one asking the real questions,” I said, flashing her an approving half-grin. “But alas, that is also a story for another time.”
She laughed and smiled back at me, and I could tell she was enjoying the story just as much as her friends. Sometimes it was hard to know what was going on in that head of hers.
“Did the Carltons stay in that house of theirs?” Rhoda asked, leaning against the edge of the booth. “They sounded like a nice family. I’d hate it if they were driven away from their home by all that mess.”
“Yes, they were nice, if a bit anxious,” I chuckled. “Though I supposed that much was to be expected. And the last I heard, they were still living there, yes. I hope they let their kids out to play every once in a while once the Hawthorne house was empty again.”
“Man, do you have stories,” the old man, Mark, said, shaking his head as he sipped on yet another beer. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think they were all made up!”
“Nope, not made up,” I laughed. “Though I can see why you might think that. From an outside perspective, it must all sound so strange. Heck, from an inside perspective, it’s pretty strange.”
“What about that old man, Henry?” Ty asked. “Did he turn out alright? Was that Joey guy telling the truth about how he was actually with his grandson at the end of the day?”
“Oh, yeah, Henry was fine,” I said, unable to keep the smile from reaching my lips. “And he really is an expert on old nautical stuff.”
“What do you mean by that?” Charlie asked eagerly, leaning forward on the table again.
“Still not going to tell you,” I laughed. “He was actually with his grandson, though, and he retired not long after that. So did Martha. The poor woman had had enough, not that I can blame her.”
“Come on,” Charlie asked, his tone almost whining. “Can’t you tell us the next story? It’s not that late.”
“We close in five minutes,” I chuckled, checking my watch to be sure. “Plus, the next story’s a long one. And far too exciting to tell when we’re all tired. You’ll just have to come back in some time and get me to tell it to you then.”
“Now that’s just wrong,” Rhoda teased me. “You can’t say that and then turn them away. They’ll be dying to find out what happens next.”
I glanced back over at Charlie and thought that they probably already were.
“Alright, well, let’s just say that the next story involves a little less talk and a little more action,” I said, my eyes drifting up to the wall above the booth, where a small but elegant telescope hung over us.
Author’s Note
Hey, if you got here, I just want you to know that you’re awesome! I wrote this book just for someone like you, and if you want another one, it is super important that you leave a review.
The more reviews this book gets, the more likely it is there will be a sequel to it. After all, I’m only human, and you have no idea how far a simple “your book was great!” goes to brighten my day.
Also, if you want to know when the sequel comes out, you absolutely must join my Facebook group and follow me on Amazon. Doing one won’t be enough because it relies on either Facebook or Amazon telling you the book is out, and they might not do it.
You might miss out on all my books forever, if you only do one!
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