by Lucy Quinn
“Cookie? Cookie!” Rain grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, not hard but forcefully enough to finally get Cookie’s attention. “Why do you look like you rolled around in the dirt? What happened? Where’s Scarlett?”
“They took her,” Cookie mumbled, staring down at her mother but barely registering her. Instead all she could see was her best friend’s face as that man shoved her into the truck beside him. She’d been scared—Scarlett, who was never scared of anything—and Cookie had just stood there and done nothing. Stood there and watched her go. Maybe Hunter was right. Despite her training, she clearly wasn’t cut out to be an FBI agent anymore.
“What?” Rain cried. “Well, what’re we standing around here for, then? Let’s go get her back!”
The sheer, unbridled confidence in her mother’s voice snapped Cookie out of her trance.
“Come on.” Rain started to drag Cookie toward Hunter’s Mustang.
As Cookie eyed the car, her brain kicked in and she planted her feet. “Wait.” As much as she wanted to go off half-cocked after the kidnappers, she knew she had to be smart if she wanted to see Scarlett alive again. “We’re going to need help.”
She had to call Hunter. No matter how angry they were at each other, this was bigger than their petty problems. And no matter what, she knew he’d still have her back when the chips were down.
Except he was still out on his run. And Cookie knew from past experience that he wouldn’t have his phone on him. Until he made his way back to the inn, she had no way to reach him.
But she did have someone else she could call. Someone who’d also been there for her many times already in the short time they’d know each other. Through a haze of tears, she pulled out her phone and pressed a familiar number.
“Dylan?” she managed when he answered. “I need you.”
He didn’t even bother to ask why. All he said was, “I’m on my way.”
Ten minutes later, he swept her into his arms, hugging her protectively as if his embrace alone could make all the pain and fear and grief go away. And for a moment, it worked. But then reality crashed down on her and she gently pushed him back, knowing she needed to get to work.
“Okay,” he said, reaching up and gently brushing tears from her cheek with his calloused finger. “So what’s this all about?”
“They took her,” she blurted out, seeing it happen all over again. “They took Scarlett!” All the emotions she’d pushed down came pouring back up, erupting out of her in a tidal wave that threatened to suffocate her. “They can’t hurt her, Dylan. Not Scar. You, Scarlett, and my mom are the most important people in the world to me—they can’t get away with this.” The emotional outburst was foreign to her own ears. As an FBI agent, she’d always been cool and collected in a crisis. But this was different. This was personal.
“Okay, back up,” Dylan said, concern clouding his eyes. “Who took Scarlett, exactly? And why?”
“I don’t know!” Cookie all but screamed at him, her hands bunching into fists and starting to pound against her sides. “They just took her, and I couldn’t stop them. I failed, and now… My God, Dylan, what if they hurt her?” The tears were coming fast now, the whole world dissolving into a blur of color. But then Dylan’s voice reached her, low and calm. And his hands pressed against her shoulders a second later, not restraining her or controlling her, but just connecting. Warming. Comforting.
“Okay,” he said gently. “I’m right here. You’ve got to pull yourself together, though, right? You’re no good to Scarlett like this. Just take a deep breath and focus, okay? Just one deep breath.”
Cookie did as he said, concentrating on the air she drew into her lungs, and then releasing it. She repeated the motion and felt her self-control start to return.
“Good,” Dylan complimented. “Now do it again. Nice and slow and steady.”
She did as he instructed, and a moment later her tears ceased and her panic turned to cold, icy anger—a much more valuable emotion when she needed to hunt down the bastards who’d abducted her best friend. “I’m okay now,” she told him. “Well, not okay—I’m seriously pissed off. But I’ve got this.”
He released her shoulders and stepped back a pace. “So what happened, exactly?”
Cookie frowned, replaying the recent events in her mind, but this time she was able to maintain some distance by seeing it as a crime scene rather than her home. “Three men,” she replied after a second. “One had carrot-colored hair. The other two were less distinctive and likely just hired muscle. They had a pickup truck, and they pulled up right here in front of the house. Then they went after”—she glanced down at her feet, her eyes finally landing on the black-and-yellow-striped buoy. “That. They were after that.”
Dylan reached down and scooped it up. “A lobster buoy? Why go to all that trouble over this?”
“I don’t know,” Cookie said. “But it seems that’s what they were here for.” She winced, remembering. “Scarlett spotted them first. She charged right into Carrottop and made him drop this. But then… then he grabbed her instead. I tried to get to her, but his two goons stepped in, stopping me. By the time I’d shaken them, he was already shoving Scarlett into the truck.”
Dylan rubbed at his jaw, idly scratching the stubble there. “Why would they do that?” he asked, not really looking at anything in particular. “I mean, let’s say you want that buoy—that particular one. You come all the way out here to steal it. And then, what, you decide you just wanted a girl you don’t even know instead? I don’t get it.”
He made an excellent point. Cookie didn’t get it either. She took the buoy from him and as she turned it over, something rattled inside. “Do these things usually have anything in them?” she asked, holding it closer to study it more carefully.
“No,” Dylan said.
Cookie shook the buoy again and got only a muted rattle. “Do you hear that?” she asked, not expecting an answer to her question. She turned the foam buoy over, looking for some way to crack it open, to find out what was on the inside, but came up empty. Instead, she tugged on the handle that fit into the body, and muttered a curse when it didn’t budge.
“Let me.” Dylan held out a hand, and she passed the buoy to him. He examined it a second, then nodded and pulled a folding knife from a sheath at his belt. Flicking the knife open, he inserted the tip near the handle and, with a deft twist, popped the entire section loose. Then he upended the buoy, and a small plastic device dropped into his free hand. It was the size of a thumb drive, but had a digital readout taking up most of one side.
“What the hell is that?” Cookie asked, leaning in to see it better.
“No idea,” he admitted. “But I’ve got an old military buddy who might.” He pulled out his phone and, after scrolling down for a second, hit a number. “Yo, Hammer,” he said. “It’s me, Die-cut.”
Cookie mouthed, Die-cut?
He just grinned and carried on with his conversation. “Got a question for you. We’ve got a funky little gizmo on our hands. I figured you’d know what it was. Can I send you a pic? Thanks.”
Dylan turned his phone over, snapped a picture of the device, and a second later Cookie heard a whooshing noise, indicating he’d sent it. Returning the phone to his ear, Dylan said, “Sent… got it? Okay. Any way to figure out whose it is? You rule, man. Thanks.”
Cookie stared at the plastic device still in Dylan’s hand. “So this is what they were after.”
“Appears so,” Dylan said. “But if that’s the case, why they did they snatch Scarlett? What does she have to do with it?”
Bile rose in the back of Cookie’s throat as she tried to block out the look on Scarlett’s face as she was stuffed in the truck. Focus, Cookie, she told herself and forced herself back into FBI agent mode. “The commotion was drawing too much attention,” she said, testing out a theory. “The scuffle, I mean. They didn’t expect to get tackled, or all the shouting. Sooner or later, somebody was bound to call the police or show up with a gu
n of their own. Carrottop probably decided he couldn’t risk that. They could always come back for the buoy later.”
Especially if they had some sort of collateral.
“That’s it,” she said. “They took Scarlett so they’d have some collateral. They needed to have something we wanted so that we’d be willing to trade.”
“Scarlett for the buoy that contained this.” He held up the plastic device. “Makes sense. And if they want to use her as a trade, then that’s good. It means—”
“They’ll need to make sure she stays in one piece,” Cookie finished for him, silently praying her conclusion passed the sniff test.
Because a hostage situation was something she could work with. Especially if she had the one thing they really wanted.
Cookie shivered, the cold she’d managed to ignore suddenly chilling her to the bone.
Dylan pulled off his coat and draped it around her. “Let’s get you inside,” he suggested. “Warm up a little. You’ll think better if you’re not freezing to death.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and she followed him into the inn. Rain, who’d disappeared back inside once Dylan had shown up, greeted them with a tray loaded with hot chocolate and fresh-baked gingerbread cookies. “Brain food,” she said.
Cookie automatically took a mug and a cookie and pushed down the guilt eating away at her for enjoying the simple treats while Scarlett languished somewhere with Carrottop and his goons. Because Rain and Dylan were right. She’d think more clearly when she was warm and fed.
“Okay,” Cookie said after a few minutes of the cocoa warming her up. She fingered the plastic device Dylan had placed on the coffee table. “The question is what is that thing and why was it in Lester’s buoy?”
“Lester’s?” Dylan asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Yes, the buoy came from Lester. Mom saw it when we talked to him yesterday. When she asked about it, he gave it to her. So?”
Dylan perched on an ottoman in the living room, staring down at the mug cradled in his strong, capable hands. “Lester,” he started, paused, and started again. “Remember I said that he and Fleet were practically surrogate dads for all the kids on the island?”
Cookie nodded.
“Yeah, well, there was more to it than just teaching us to fish and hunt and sail. At least, with Lester there was.” He paused and looked up at Cookie. “When I was a kid, there were always these stories… more like rumors. They said that if you were a kid here and you really needed something, you could go to Lester and he’d help you out.” He frowned, studying the mug again. “Not like if you just wanted a new bike, or shocks for your beater car. He’d just tell you to get a paper route or a job. But if it was something serious where you needed real help, Lester was there. No questions asked.”
“Do you have an example?” Cookie asked, intensely curious where Dylan was going with his story.
He glanced up, meeting her eyes. “Like, this one kid, Mike Eversole. He got hit by a car over in Hancock. Total hit and run that tossed him in the air like he was nothing. His left knee was shredded. Mike played football and was damn good, until that incident. They said he’d never walk again.” He shook his head. “Next thing we knew, he was being airlifted to New Hampshire. There was some specialist there, best knee surgeon in the country. When Mike came back a month later, he barely had a limp. Got a full ride to Michigan State, second-round draft pick to the Steelers.” He smiled. “And though Mike never said so, we all knew Lester’d paid for it.”
“So you’re saying not only does Lester have a big heart, he also has money,” she said, instantly picking up on what Dylan was trying to tell her. “A lot of money.” She thought back to his house, what she’d seen of it—it had been nice enough, and well maintained, but not crazy expensive. Nothing about his home screamed “I’m a millionaire pretending to slum it.”
“I couldn’t say how much,” he hedged. “But Lester never really made a go of it as a lobsterman. He just didn’t have the drive to really make a living at it. Yet somehow he always had money, always kept the house up, all that. So yeah, I’d say he has money.”
“And you think this thing is connected to his hidden wealth?” Just then Cookie heard the front door open. Hunter walked in, wearing only sweatpants and a tank top, drenched in sweat from his morning run. He stopped dead when he saw her there, his eyes darting to Dylan and back to her, then finally honing in on the plastic device still clutched in her fingers. His lips formed a thin line as his expression turned stony. “What’s going on here?”
Cookie took a deep breath and rose to her feet, covering half the distance to her former partner in just a couple of steps. “Scarlett’s been abducted.”
Hunter took one look at Dylan and barked, “So you called him?”
Cookie ground her teeth together, forcing herself to remain calm. “Listen, we don’t have time for the macho posturing. I would’ve called you, but you didn’t have your phone.” She swept her gaze over him. “Not unless you’re hiding it in your tighty-whities.”
“I wear boxer briefs, as you well know.”
She didn’t actually, but she knew he’d thrown that in there for Dylan’s benefit. “Can we focus on what’s important please? Didn’t you hear me when I said Scarlett’s been abducted?”
“Right.” He dropped his cave man persona and set his shoulders, instantly morphing into the FBI agent she recognized. “What happened?”
“Three guys showed up and tried to steal this buoy.” She waved a hand at the yellow and black buoy. “Scarlett took it upon herself to try and stop one of them and ended up getting herself abducted in the process. I took out one of the others, but before I could get to her, they stuffed her in the truck and took off.”
“They tried to steal a buoy?” he asked, incredulously. “Why?”
“This.” Cookie held up the plastic device. “We found it inside. Dylan was just calling a buddy to figure out what it is.”
“And he came through,” Dylan added, standing and moving to join her. “Hammer says it’s an encrypted security token. You get them for really high-end banks, the kind with numbered accounts. You have to have the passcode on the token in order to gain access. No token, no account, no matter who you are.”
“And where did the buoy come from?” Hunter asked.
“It was Lester’s. Fleet’s best friend. And Dylan says Lester may have a lot more money than you’d expect from someone living on this island,” Cookie said, filling in the rest of the blanks.
Hunter stared at Dylan, at the token in Cookie’s hand, at Cookie, then finally at the buoy. He was clearly processing. After a second, he said, “Okay, let me get this straight. Two old friends. One turns up dead. The other’s secretly loaded. He gives you a buoy and inside it is that thing, which controls access to his money. But you don’t know it’s there until these guys try to steal it, and when they can’t, they take Scarlett instead. That about right?”
Cookie nodded.
“Okay.” Hunter ran a hand over his scalp. “I need a shower and some clean clothes. Then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“We?” Cookie asked carefully.
“Yeah, we.” He glared at her a second, then sighed. “I know you won’t sit on the sidelines for this one, and I wouldn’t expect you to. And we always did work well together. So truce until we get Scarlett back safe and sound, all right?”
She and Dylan both nodded.
Hunter, apparently having reached his civility limit, turned without a word and disappeared upstairs.
“It’ll be okay, Cookie,” Dylan told her softly, stepping closer and wrapping an arm around her. “You’ll see. The three of us, we’ll get her back.”
Cookie leaned into him, hoping he was right.
10
“We need to talk to Lester,” Dylan said. He didn’t seem at all surprised when Hunter shook his head, but his eyes widened when Cookie shook hers too.
“That’s the first thing these guys would expect,” Cookie
pointed out. They were sitting around the dining room table, picking at the brunch Rain had set out for them and discussing their options. “If we go straight to him, we’ll tip our hand.”
“Because they don’t know we figured out what was inside that buoy,” Hunter added. “As long as they don’t, we’ve got an advantage.”
Dylan strummed his fingers on the table then nodded. “Do you think they’re going to go after him, too?”
Cookie didn’t see any reason to sugarcoat the truth. “I’m guessing they already did.” She took a sip of coffee then set the mug back on the table. “He must’ve stashed the token in the buoy to hide it. Then when Mom took a liking to it, he figured this was his chance to get the thing off his property altogether.” She shrugged and pushed her hair back from her face before adding, “Even if they were watching him the whole time—and they probably were—there’s no way they knew the token was in that thing unless he told them.”
“So you’re saying he’s dead already.” Dylan snatched up a roll and tore it to shreds in quick, efficient movements.
Fortunately, this time Cookie was able to provide some good news for a change. “No, I’m betting he’s alive and well,” she said. “Maybe a little roughed up, but they need him healthy and whole in case they need more information from him.”
“That’s something, anyway. Thanks.” He frowned. “Do you think these guys killed Fleet, too?”
“Could be.” Hunter took another sip of his coffee. He looked a lot more like his usual professional self in a dark suit, crisp white shirt, and electric blue tie. “Though I’m not sure what they’d gain from that. Or did he have money stashed away too?”
That got a bark of laughter out of Dylan. “Who, Fleet? If he did, he was a whole lot better about hiding it. All we ever saw from him was a lifelong fisherman and lobsterman with a soft spot for kids and a way with women. Lester was the one with the funds.”
“Maybe he was a warning for Lester,” Cookie offered. “Or a warning that went too far. ‘Give us the money or we’ll come for you, too.’” She wasn’t entirely happy with this theory, though, and Hunter nailed exactly why.
