Mangroves and Murder: An Enchanted Coast Magical Mystery

by Maher Tegan

  I shot her a warning glance as I squirted barbecue sauce on my plate. "No, I'm not. And if you reach your grubby little paw over here, I'll stick a fork in it."

  I turned back to Bobby. "Please, finish your story about shipwrecks off Florida that you started before we were so rudely interrupted."

  I wrapped the arm nearest Tempest around my plate, and she glowered at me. That was enough, though, because she jumped off the stool and went back to her bed. With a final glare, she turned three times and laid down.

  "That was about it," Bobby replied, smiling a little as he watched her. "We searched around off the coast for a while, but we never found anything more than just a few stray coins here and there. Until recently, anyway."

  A breeze blew through the tiki, sending my napkins flying. I was a pro, though, and caught them before they got away. I dragged them back over in front of me and tucked them under the edge of my plate. "What you mean, until recently? Did you find something cool?"

  Excitement that only another adventurer would recognize sparked in his eyes. "We didn't just find something cool, we found something that would change the way we view history. It would've been the biggest find in centuries."

  I dabbed some beer cheese off my mouth and raised my eyebrows at him. "That's a pretty big claim. What exactly was it that you found?"

  He was quiet for a minute, and I was starting to think he wasn't going to tell us.

  He chose his words carefully. "Let's just say that neither one of us would've ever had to work another day in our lives, even without Sandra's money."

  Dimitri wiped off the bar in front of us, sopping up the water lines where condensation had leaked over the sides of the coasters. "Not to sound cold," he said, "but at least you'll still have that, right?"

  Bobby lifted his shoulder as all the excitement drain from him. He hunched back over his beer. "No, I don't have the means to fund a project like that. I'm just a mechanic. I mean, I own my own garage and do okay, but something like I'm talking about would take millions of dollars to fund."

  "Maybe you can find another partner," I suggested. I sort of wished I wouldn't have said it, though. It came out sounding a lot more heartless than what it had in my head.

  He rubbed his forehead. "I don't know. Maybe. I need to think about what I want to do because it really is the find of centuries."

  He sat there in silence for a few minutes as I ate my sandwich, then glanced at me and slid off the stool. "If you don't mind, I'd really like to be alone."

  With that, he picked up his drink and took it to a small hightop table in the back of the bar.

  Chapter 16

  I'd just finished my sandwich when something vibrated in my pocket. I about jumped out of my skin because my phone was on the bar next to me. I hopped up, barely catching my water before I knocked it over. Shoving my hand in my pocket, I pulled out the conch shell Dax had given me. Sure enough, two seconds later, it vibrated again.

  "What on earth is that?" Dimitri, who'd been standing in front of me putting glasses in the cooler, exclaimed.

  I scratched my head as I examined the conch. "Dax gave it to me this morning. He said to use it if I needed to get ahold of them."

  I examined it as it vibrated yet again. "Why do you think it's doing that?"

  Dimitri blinked. "Don't laugh, but I think you should answer it."

  I glanced at him to see if he was making fun of me, but his face was serious. I glanced around to make sure nobody else was looking at me. The last thing I wanted was for somebody to see me talking into a conch shell. Once I made sure I was in the clear, I held it up to my ear even though I felt a little silly. Well, a lot silly.

  "Hello?" I asked my tone hesitant.

  "Oh, thank the gods!" Amber sounded like she'd just run a marathon. "I wasn't sure you'd know what to do with the shell."

  I raise a brow even though I knew she couldn't see me. Then again, maybe she could. After all, I was talking to her using a conch shell. "Actually, I can't take credit for that one. Dimitri told me to answer it. I thought he was being sarcastic."

  "Whatever," she said her tone laced with impatience. "I need to talk to you but didn't want to come up to the bar. Can you meet us at the same spot as this morning?"

  "Sure. Give me two minutes." The line went dead, and I stared at the conch shell, not sure what to do next. It wasn't like it had a hang-up button. Rather than waste more time on it, I stuffed it back in my pocket.

  Tempest popped her head up. "Do you need me to go with you?"

  I shrugged. "I have no idea what she wants, so if you wanna go, come on."

  She scurried around the bar and hopped onto my shoulder, and I headed to the office. Once inside, I closed the door then snapped my fingers and teleported us to the beach.

  Amber was there waiting for me in her human form. She was pacing back and forth, and as soon as she saw me, she rushed over to me. "I'm not sure what it means, but that silly kraken has been doing the strangest things all day."

  I tilted my head at her. "That's … odd, but what does it have to do with me or the investigation?"

  She ran her fingers through her hair and resumed pacing. "That's just it. I'm not sure it has anything to do with you, but I can't figure out what else he's trying to tell us."

  Tempest jumped off my shoulder and hopped over to a downed log just big enough for the three of us to sit on.

  She patted the spot beside her. "Why don't you sit down and start at the beginning. Maybe we can work it out together."

  Amber sighed but did as she asked. "Okay, but I'm trusting you two with information that literally no other landwalking being has, but I don’t see another option."

  Her expression was dead serious, so I didn't drag it out and make guesses and joke around like I normally would have. "You know you can trust us. Whatever it is, your secret’s safe with us, so let's just get on with what's bothering you."

  She nodded and scrubbed a hand over her face. "Let me start from the beginning. You know that lighthouse he threw at you yesterday?"

  I held up my hand. "Uh, yeah. I'm not likely to forget a full-sized lighthouse landing ten feet from where I was sitting, even if it was just a little one by lighthouse standards."

  She pulled in a deep breath and released it, her gaze examining my face as she did. "All right, then, here goes. That was the lighthouse from Atlantis."

  I laughed but choked it back when I realized she wasn't kidding. I didn't know quite what to say, so I started with the obvious. "Atlantis, as in the mythical lost city?"

  "Yep," she replied, nodding her head. "That's the one."

  Tempest sat up on her back legs and rubbed her paws together. "I have so many questions, but somehow I have the feeling this isn't the time for answers. What other strange things has the kraken been doing?"

  I couldn't imagine that it could get much stranger than that, but considering the world I lived in, I wasn't about to say that out loud. Instead, I just waited for Amber to continue.

  She pulled her long dark hair over her shoulder and wrang the water out of it. "He's been bringing us bits and pieces from there since yesterday. We have no idea what he's trying to tell us."

  "Not to point out the obvious," I said, "but my guess would be that he's trying to tell you something about Atlantis."

  "No shit, Sherlock." She shot me a look that said I was about one step away from getting smacked. "Obviously, it has something to do with Atlantis, but what?"

  "Why do you think it has something to do with us?" Tempest had hopped down in the sand and was pacing.

  "Because Destiny's the one he threw the lighthouse at."

  Understanding washed over me as the connection clicked into place. "Then I guess the obvious question is why me and why Atlantis? What do the two of us have in common?"

  She shrugged, frustrated. "We've all been trying to figure that out since yesterday. The only thing you have in common is the murder. That doesn't make much sense either, though."

  I pick
ed through everything I'd learned over the last day and a half and realized the only conversation I'd had that could remotely be linked to the ocean was the one I'd had just a few minutes before with Bobby. My heart sank because I really liked the guy.

  "What?" she snapped. "I recognize the look on your face. You thought of something."

  Tempest nodded before I could say anything. "She did. We did. What are the odds that somebody found Atlantis?"

  Amber sighed. "Not good, but it's not impossible with today's technology, I suppose. People have looked for it for centuries, but now all those hardcore people looking for treasure or to just prove that the legend is real have the tools to dedicate to the project. Why?"

  I pressed my lips together, not happy to be the one to tell her. "Because I think maybe it happened. Marty and his best friend were treasure hunters. Not ten minutes ago, he was telling me about how they'd found something that was going to change history. He called it the find of centuries. Plural, not singular. Maybe he was talking about Atlantis."

  Amber chewed on her lip, thinking. "So you think maybe this guy killed his best friend so that he can have the treasure of Atlantis all to himself?"

  "That doesn't make any sense." Tempest ran her paws through her tail, something she did when she was thinking. "He flat out admitted that he didn't have the money to fund the project. Why would he kill the golden goose before it laid the egg?"

  I stood from the log, needing to move so I could think. "There's only one person that can answer that question, and he’s sitting at the tiki slugging back beers as we speak."

  Tempest jumped on my shoulder, and I held up my hand to snap my fingers and take us back to the tiki. Before I could, though, Amber grabbed my arm.

  "I'm going with you. This involves my people, and I need to get to the bottom of it and do damage control if I can. We don't want people finding that city."

  I held out my elbow. "You better get a good grip, then, because were about to take the fast track."

  Chapter 17

  I teleported us back to the office, and as soon as we landed, Amber bolted toward the door.

  I reached out and grabbed her arm before she could storm the castle, so to speak. "We need to do this right. For one, if he really does know where Atlantis is, you gonna want to be nice to him. For another, if he did kill his best friend, I'm not sure why. He truly seems broken up about his death, so maybe it was some kind of horrible accident."

  Amber was always so lighthearted and friendly that I forgot how vicious mermaids could be when I was around her. Yes, they were beautiful women who swam in the water, but they'd also lured many a man to his death, at least if the legends were true. Looking at Amber now, I was a little more prone to believe them than I had been an hour ago.

  The fierceness drained from her expression, and she sighed. "You're right. My first instinct is to defend our heritage with everything I have, but charging out there and demanding answers isn't the best way to do that."

  There was the Amber I knew and loved. "No, but let's go out and see what he knows and go from there. I might have it all wrong."

  She paused and examined my face, and I felt like she was crawling right into my skin. "Do you really think you do, though?"

  I shook my head. "No, I don't. But I've been wrong before."

  Convinced she wasn't gonna walk out and tear the poor guy's head off either figuratively or literally, I opened the door and led the way to where Bobby was sitting at the far table all by his lonesome.

  He was so lost in his own thoughts that he either didn't hear us come up or didn't care. Either way, he didn't even bother to look up until I rapped on the table with my knuckles.

  "I said I wanted to be alone. I'm not sure what part of that you didn't understand." His tone was laced with bitterness, but I didn't pick up any real anger. This was just a man that was hurting.

  Amber slid up onto the stool beside him. "Believe me, I wish I had the luxury to let you sit here alone and drink yourself into a stupor. I don't, though. I need to talk to you about what you and your partner found."

  He glanced at her through his lashes, but he did lift his head. "We didn't find anything. If somebody told you we did, they were lyin'."

  He was starting to slur his words, but he wasn't dead drunk and beyond comprehension. I took the stool next to him and across from Amber. "No offense, but you're lying through your teeth. You either lied to me earlier or you're lying to me right now, but either way, we're gonna get to the bottom of this before any of us get up from the table."

  He glowered at us with an unsteady gaze. Maybe he was walking a little more sideways than I'd initially thought he was. "You wouldn't believe me even if I did tell you what we found. You'd just call me crazy like all our potential investors did, and frankly, I don't want to hear it."

  Amber laid her hand on his arm. "Try us. I think you'll find we're a little more flexible than what you're giving us credit for."

  A breeze flitted through the tiki, ruffling his hair so that a lock of it fell over his eyes. He shoved it back and sighed. "We found Atlantis."

  Amber tensed, and I sent a quick wish into the universe that she wouldn't lose it right there were she sat.

  Much to my surprise, she just stared at him for a few seconds. "Where is it?"

  He scoffed. "You're out your mind if you think I'm going to give you that information. What, you think you can just go over there and steal all the treasure and credit after we did all the work?"

  Amber reached over to him and took his chin between her thumb and forefinger, then forced his face up so he had to look at her. Once he did, her eyes flashed the brilliant color of her luminescent turquoise tail. Once she was sure he’d gotten the message, she let go.

  I hadn't realized she'd been holding him immobile until she released him. He snapped back in the stool so hard that he almost tipped over backwards, and I grabbed ahold of his arm to steady him.

  Tempest jumped from the floor to my lap to the table. "Maybe you should just tell us what we want to know. It'll make things easier on everybody."

  Bobby hadn't taken his eyes off of Amber, though. "What are you?" The color drained from his face as he realized the answer to his in question.

  I sighed. "Like I said, it would be best all the way around if you just answer the question."

  He nodded and rattled off coordinates, and it was Amber's face that paled this time. "You really did. Did you just stumble upon it? There's no way you did that. We have that place so warded that nobody should have been able to find it. Our secret's been safe for centuries."

  He scooted his stool a little closer to me. "One of his friends just equipped his research boat with a bunch of new high-tech magical sonar. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but we were puttering around fishing, and it lit up like the Fourth of July just out of the blue. We stopped to see what it had picked up. Imagine our surprise when we jumped in his buddy’s little zillion-dollar mini sub and found your city."

  Is that what the kraken had been trying to tell us? Just that somebody found the city, and that they were at the resort? I didn't believe that. I also had zero proof to prove anything otherwise.

  Bobby turned a bitter gaze to Amber. "I suppose you don't have to worry about anything now. The guy who had the money to fund the project that would've set me for life is dead, and I'm not about to spill the secret when there's no way anybody would pay me nearly what it's worth to me."

  It made me sad to hear him say that because it reaffirmed all the bad things I believed about people. Because I was friends with Amber and Dax, I understood why they didn't want other species scavenging the city that gave them their birth. Had I not known them, I would've looked at the discovery through a whole different lens. To me, it would've been a wondrous thing, and the historical and cultural values of it would have way overshadowed the financial gains of whoever had found it. Before I could ask him anything about the murder, he shoved away from the table.

  "If you'll 'scuse me," he slu
rred, his eyes slightly out of focus, "I think I've made it pretty clear that I want to be alone."

  He stumbled around the table and caught his toe on one of my stool legs. I reached for him, but I was too slow, and I cringed when he crashed to the brick floor of the bar. Hopping off my stool, I reached down to help him up.

  "Just leave me alone," he growled, shoving my hands away.

  I held my hands up. "No problem, buddy. You're on your own. Just don't fall in the ocean and drown. I think we've had enough of that for one week."

  If he could've set me on fire with an unsteady glare, his would've done it. He staggered to the bar and stuffed his hand in the pocket of his khakis. "Here, Dimitri. This is for you, but put the beers on my room."

  He pulled some cash from his pocket, and when he did, something else came with it, making a clanking noise as it hit the floor. Sun glinted off gold as it rolled toward me, and I bent over and scooped it up. I glanced down at the large signet ring in my palm and realized that I'd had it all wrong as the pictures from the society pages flashed through my mind. This ring was a dead ringer, and since it had the family crest, I doubted there was another. Xavier hadn't killed Marty, and neither had Bella. I wasn't sure why they'd covered it up, but the killer was standing right here in front of me.

  "He tried to snatch it back from me, but I stunned him with a little bit of magic.

  "Go get Blake," I told Tempest. "Tell him we've caught the real killer."

  She had no sooner disappeared when the two people I'd thought were killers made their way around the corner of the tiki. When Xavier and Bella observed the scene in front of them, they spun to run.

  Things happened so quickly at that point that even I had a hard time keeping track. I flung out my hands and stunned them too, and Dimitri used his own brand of magic to float them back into the tiki and toward the office before they could raise an alarm. He did the same with Bobby, and once they were all secured, I sat back to wait for Blake. Two minutes later, he popped in, a scowling Lester in tow.