Rising Tide (Coastal Fury Book 5)

by Matt Lincoln

  “Hey, I don’t need a babysitter,” I protested. “I know how to control myself. And yes, Robbie is here. Geez.”

  “We all know you can control yourself.” Diane’s exasperated tone grated on my nerves. “It’s a jury who wouldn’t know that. Don’t give a defense team ammo.”

  I rubbed the back of my head. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I’m sending Sylvia and Lamarr over. When they get to your place, they can update you on their interview with Tommy Chen.”

  “Who?”

  “Tommy Chen,” Diane repeated. “He’s the bodyguard who showed up at that protest outside Zhu’s offices.”

  “Gotcha.” I looked over to where Holm was playing gin rummy with Alice. “Look, nothing’s going to happen between me and her. Even if I couldn’t be trusted at my word, which I can, we won’t be alone.”

  “Convince a defense attorney of that.” Diane was quiet for a moment, and I imagined her rubbing her temples. “Robbie texted that Wendell Muskie has some intel. You’re meeting him tonight, right?”

  “You just won’t call him ‘Dollar Store,’ will you?” I observed with a chuckle. “Yeah, after Sylvia and Lamarr get here, Robbie and I are going to see what he’s got.”

  “What ‘he has,’” Alice called out. I scowled at her, and she grinned. “Just messing with you, but I’m right.”

  Diane laughed. “I like her more every day. It wouldn’t hurt for you to have the grammar police on hand some days.”

  “I am hanging up on you, Boss.”

  “Talk to you tomo—”

  I hung up on her. Holm shook his head. He shook his head again as Alice proceeded to create a run of cards between her hand and half the discard pile. She waved the back of her last card in his face. That woman was having a good day. Hell, she deserved it.

  Holm won the next game. They tried to wrangle me in, but I got a kick out of watching and peeking at their cards. As Alice shuffled for the best out of three, a sharp knock on my door made her freeze.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I promised. “It’s Sylvia and Lamarr.”

  She swallowed and nodded but didn’t relax until her personal security detail for the next several hours entered. Muñoz carried a backpack and handed it to Alice.

  “I did my best at guessing your size,” Muñoz told her. “My partner picked out the toothpaste.”

  “Oof, you might wanna make sure it’s not liver or worse, baking soda,” Holm heckled.

  Birn leaned over and checked Holm’s hand of cards. “You better quit now, while your honor is intact.”

  Holm stood and brushed imaginary dust from his pants. “Watch your grammar around this one,” he warned Muñoz and Birn. “She’s a sharp one.”

  Alice stuck out her tongue in a cute little display.

  “My grammar is impeccable,” Birn informed us. “I’m not worried.” He winked at Alice. “It’s better than anything you two have to offer.”

  “That’s our cue to get out of here,” I told my partner. “Let’s see what Dollar Store has for us.”

  Although I generally avoided taking my Mustang on the job, I decided to leave the Charger in the garage for the day. We had a nice breeze, and it was waterline than the day before.

  “You should get this baby out more often,” Holm said over the wind from the open windows. “She needs to stretch her legs.”

  “Tell me that when it’s too hot for the air conditioner to keep up.” The dang air system was at the end of its life. “Besides, I don’t want to hit a hundred-k on this engine.”

  Holm rolled his eyes and leaned back to enjoy the fresh, salty air. I drove to the park where Dollar Store had asked to see us. We usually met him in town, but this time, it was at the quiet dock where he usually parked his aging speed boat.

  Clouds were turning pink and orange to the west as I parked, and the sky to the east had shifted to indigo. Dollar Store sat on a splintering bench next to the beach access with his elbows on his knees and head down. This wasn’t like our perky stoner at all.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?” I asked as we walked over.

  “A lil’ bit of this, a lil’ bit of that.” He got up and forced a smile. Something was different about him. “Good to see ya, Marston, Holm.” The smile faded. “So yeah, I found out who moved the TNT for that hotel explosion.”

  We hadn’t released the info on what caused the explosions. That Dollar Store knew that gave him instant credibility, not that I doubted him. Despite his issues with weed and his grifter tendencies, the guy hadn’t let us down since he started working with us.

  That’s when it hit me what was different. He didn’t reek of weed.

  “That’s great, Wendell.” I frowned at him. “Dude, are you okay?”

  “No, man, but the info is legit.” He shuffled his feet. “I gotta ask for more this time. I, uh, I need the cash.”

  “Who do you owe?” Holm asked with a sigh.

  Dollar Store looked up. “No, nothing like that. I got caught in Freeport when that damn hurricane hit. I barely got back a couple weeks ago. Come see.”

  He led us out to the dock, and I groaned.

  “Aw, shit, Wendell. I’m sorry.”

  His beloved, if rickety and rusted, speed boat rested at a slight angle to the waterline. We walked out and saw that it wasn’t floating. The tide was out, and she was beached.

  Water had breached the hull and reached the single seat he’d kept after making as much room as he could for knockoff goods that now bobbed around what had once been space for passenger seating. I knelt on the dock and saw the rusted-through hole the size of a basketball at water level. What looked like a patch of aluminum roofing pounded flat hung from an inexpertly secured rivet.

  “What are you gonna do?” Holm asked.

  Dollar Store shook his shaggy head. “I dunno. She’s done. I can’t patch her up no more.” He sat, removed his flip-flops, and dangled his feet in the water next to the decrepit boat. “Best I can think is to salvage what I can. Sell it at cost. I have a friend in Orlando who’ll let me crash for a while.”

  The guy never had much luck. Our deal was we’d pay him for what he heard on the streets. If he kept us in on good intel, we wouldn’t bust him for his side hustle of moving those knock-offs between Miami and the Bahamas. He was lucky he made it back before the boat gave out.

  “Tell us what you have on the TNT,” I told him as I pulled out my wallet. Holm pulled his out, too. We weren’t supposed to lay too much cash on the guy, but… “We’ll see what we can do for you.”

  Dollar Store didn’t look up. Instead, he pulled a crumpled, unused cigarette paper from his pocket and held it out to us. As I took it, I noticed that it had a name and address written on it.

  “This Oliver Jones dude, they call him ‘OJ,’ but he hates that.” He crossed his arms across his belly once I had the paper. “He moved the TNT to your bomber. I didn’t get the name of who bought it.”

  I’d hit the ATM earlier before taking Alice out, and I had two c-notes. Holm had five or six twenties. He made a slight face at handing me the cash, but he did it. I took off my shoes and sat next to our informant and slipped our money into his hand. His eyes widened.

  “I didn’t mean that much, man.” Tears gathered in his bloodshot eyes. “I was only gonna ask for seventy or eighty bucks.”

  I searched for a bullshit excuse in case anyone asked. “Remember those IOUs from a while back? We owe you back pay.”

  He frowned and started to shake his head, but then my meaning dawned on him.

  “Oh yeah. That’s right.” He sniffed and stuffed the money in his pocket. “About time, Marston.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. “Thanks, guys.”

  “We don’t want to hear about anything illegal happening,” Holm told him. He snorted. “I mean, we want to hear about illegal stuff other people are doing, just not you.”

  Dollar Store managed a small smile. “I got it. I’ll see what I can round up. Maybe get a real job. Hard telling.”

&n
bsp; We all knew he would be right back to his grifter ways as soon as he restocked and got a new-to-him boat. I was okay with that. He wasn’t hurting anyone or dealing in anything worse than cheap-ass goods. If there was a divine balancing scale, I figured the help he gave us more than balanced out a little scamming.

  I got up and clapped him on the shoulder. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?” I’d never offered that, but the guy was nowhere near a bus stop.

  “In that sweet car?” Dollar Store’s eyes widened. “For real? I haven’t ridden in one of those since I was a kid.”

  He was cleaner than usual and down on his not-so-great luck.

  “C’mon. We’ll drop you off at a bus stop.” I pulled out the bus card I almost never used and handed it to him. Yeah, I was feeling unusually generous. Maybe I was glad the guy wasn’t dead.

  Half an hour later, after we left our happier informant off at a strip mall near a stop, I headed out to the marina. Holm looked at the name and address on the paper.

  “Oliver Jones. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.” He handed the paper back to me. “What about you?”

  “Nope,” I answered, “but tomorrow morning, he’ll wish we never had.”

  CHAPTER 32

  After dropping Holm off at his condo, I made my way back to the houseboat. The cool breeze had turned humid by the time I got home, and lightning streaked across distant clouds.

  “Sorry, baby,” I muttered as I got out of the Mustang.

  I hated leaving it outside in bad weather, but I wasn’t ready to take chances with the Charger. When I managed to get it assigned after my silver Charger got flooded, the distinctive color and black accents spoke to me. I loved the car but now second-guessed my brilliance. The silver one was a great car, but it blended in with every other silver Charger out there. Once the Liu case was over, I’d have to come up with a way to keep the red car without endangering witnesses and targets like Alice.

  My first-world dilemma still occupied me when I walked up to the houseboat. Soft laughter floated down from my patio deck on top of the boat. I heard Muñoz’s voice, and Birn and Alice laughed some more. When I opened the door at the dock, they went silent.

  “It’s me,” I called up just loud enough for them to hear.

  Birn waved over the rail. “Get up here before the storm comes in.”

  I joined them on the deck and could taste the rain in the air. A stiff breeze kicked up as I dropped into one of my patio chairs and helped myself to a Sam Adams from the cooler they’d brought upstairs. Muñoz and Birn weren’t drinking because they were on duty, but Alice had a longneck of Guinness Dark Chocolate.

  “Dollar Store’s boat died,” I told them. At Alice’s blank look, I explained. “That’s what we call one of our informants. His boat is his life.” That was our name for him. He was known as something else on the street, so if anyone heard us mention our nickname for him, they wouldn’t know who he was.

  “Weren’t you worried that he got caught up in that hurricane?” Muñoz asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah. He got stuck in Freeport. The lucky bastard survived that, but the boat got a hole.” I held my hands out to show how big, and Birn whistled. “He made a patch that held just long enough to get ashore here.”

  “Did he have anything good for you?” Birn wanted to know. “Or was he hitting you up for money?”

  “A little of both,” I admitted. “He gave us a name, and we’re going to check on this guy in the morning.”

  A lightning bolt zipped over the marina toward the bay. Thunder slammed my eardrums half a second later.

  “That’s our cue to exit stage downstairs,” Alice announced. She glanced at me. “Unless you like watching storms up here. Me? Not so much.”

  I saluted her with my beer. “I’ll wait for the rain.”

  Muñoz stood with Alice. “How about Yahtzee?”

  They made their way down the narrow stairs and into the cozy safety of my living room. Birn grabbed a Dr Pepper and then propped his feet up on the cooler. I enjoyed a good thunderstorm and was glad for his company.

  “What didn’t you tell her?” he asked.

  “The name?” I shrugged. “I’ll ask her in the morning. If the supplier is someone she hasn’t heard of, it won’t matter. If it’s someone she does know, it still won’t matter until morning. Let her finish the day on a good note. It’s been a nightmarish week for her.”

  Birn nodded. “Good points.” He gave me a firm but kind look. “Alice seems to be good people. I can see why you like her.”

  I took a long pull from my beer and watched lightning lace through the sky. Thunder rumbled in an uneven rhythm that damn near matched my heart. What was wrong with me? I kept getting caught up in women I met through the job. I imagined that if Gramps were alive, he’d tell me to get off my ass and put myself out there. He would’ve loved the proliferation of dating sites. As if I had time for that business.

  “She lives nearby, Lamarr. Once the case is over, we’ll be able to see each other whenever I’m home.”

  “True that.” I stretched and then gulped the last of the beer as the first wave of rain pelted down on the canvas canopy over my patio deck. “I’m gonna turn in. In the morning, we’re going after the guy who sold TNT to the hotel bomber.”

  “I want in on that action.” He got to his feet. “I’m taking first watch tonight, so I’ll get some sleep before sunup.”

  “As long as Diane can get someone in for the last hours here, I’m good with that.”

  The downpour lasted all of five minutes and turned to a light rain. Birn found a dry area on the dock side of the houseboat. I left him to keep watch from his perch. Downstairs, I found Alice and Muñoz finishing a round of Yahtzee. Alice yawned. Her hair, while not quite a bob, almost brushed her shoulders.

  “Time for you to get some shut-eye,” Muñoz observed. She got caught by a yawn of her own. “I say she gets the real bed, Marston. You can grab a bunk in your guest room like my partner and me.”

  Without waiting for my answer, Muñoz went off to the tiny bathroom to make ready for some sleep. She’d get up in a few hours to take the late-night guard so Birn could sleep.

  “Is that okay?” Alice asked. “I don’t mind sleeping on a bunk bed, really.”

  I waved off the concern. “I’ll tidy up and change the sheets. No worries.” I gestured toward the bathroom. “I’ll have it ready in no time. Go ahead and do whatever you need to do.”

  There wasn’t enough stuff in my room to make a mess… other than my clothes. The queen-size bed made for tight quarters, but it worked for me. My grandfather’s old houseboat was as close as I got to having a place to call home. I’d also inherited my grandparents’ house with their orange grove, but that hadn’t been home since Gramps had passed. One of the best things about having the houseboat was that if anyone tried to dig up an address for me, they’d be led to the rural house I owned but didn’t live in.

  I yanked the sheets off my bed and did a rush job on getting my other set onto the mattress. A quarter wouldn’t bounce if I dropped it on the bed, but it would do. Alice knocked at the doorway as I stuffed a stubborn pillow into a fresh case. I swallowed at the sight of her in a tank top and exercise shorts.

  “I like your place,” she said. “It’s cozy like somewhere friends could hang out and chill.”

  Or more, I thought. “In real estate, ‘cozy’ is code for tiny.”

  She chuckled and shook her head. “Cozy is underrated. Sometimes, I get clients who request at least one small room where they can feel like they’re wrapped in their favorite blanket.”

  “Sounds a bit warm for Florida.”

  “Those clients live north, way north.” A Kewpie smile graced her lips. “They like to cuddle when winter hits, and those little dens are good for that.”

  Oh, hell, I was in trouble.

  “Hey, kids, what’s up?” Muñoz appeared behind Alice, who jumped. I wasn’t sure if Muñoz’s presence was a relief or curse.
“Got things ready, sailor?”

  “Pretty much.” I cleared my throat and grabbed my nightclothes. “If either of you need anything, you’re welcome to it. I’ll keep a light on over the kitchen sink in case you need water or something.”

  Next on my agenda was a cold shower. A very, very cold shower.

  “Good night, Ethan,” Alice said as she made her way into my room. Her arm brushed against mine as she passed over to check the window. She tested the lock and pulled the curtains tight. “Night, Sylvia.”

  Muñoz pulled that door shut and gave me a shove toward the bathroom. “See you in the morning, Marston.” Her mouth twitched. “Don’t wake me up. I have the late shift, and I get cranky if I don’t get a few zees.”

  With that, she vanished into the guest room. By the creaking of the aging wood joints, I guessed she’d taken the top. Birn was going to have a hell of a time in the small space between that bunk and the low ceiling. I hoped the big guy and all that muscle weight wouldn’t collapse the bed and crush me. If I was lucky, I’d sleep through the shift change.

  The cold shower did wonders for my problem. Since retiring from the SEALs, I hadn’t been in many situations where I didn’t have hot water for showers. It was amazing how a guy could get used to the luxury of a steamy shower.

  What I couldn’t get used to was having the woman I wanted to be with mere feet away but entirely untouchable.

  CHAPTER 33

  Holm and I crewed up with Birn, some MBLIS agents, and a Metro SWAT team as backup. We met in a vacant lot a block away from the address Dollar Store gave us the day before.

  “Cyber pulled up a metric shitload of dirt on this guy,” I informed everyone. “If Jones isn’t taken in fast, he could blow the building. If you can think of an explosive, he has a history with it. Be careful as hell.”

  “You sure you want to go in first, Marston?” The SWAT commander, Patrick O’Neil, crossed his arms and studied me with a critical eye. “You SEAL types think you’re so damn tough, but when shit hits the fan, you’re just as human as the rest of us.”