by Matt Lincoln
“Afraid not,” I replied as I finished washing their glasses. “All tapped out for the time being.”
“Yeah, I thought so,” he replied as he looked around at the walls of the bar. “Can you give us a hint, at least?”
“A hint as to…?” I narrowed my eyes at him, unsure what he was asking me.
“What else is related to the Rogue in here!” He explained as he looked around more earnestly. “So far, pretty much everything you’ve told us about has been in here somewhere. Well, except the figurehead, but that’s technically in here too, since it’s in the picture.”
“Alright.” I smiled. “Take a guess, and if it is, I’ll tell you. Only one guess, though.”
“Oh, you’re on,” he replied excitedly as he immediately pointed at something on the wall before putting his finger down. “No, no, wait.” He looked around for a few more seconds. “Oh, I know. That hook-- No, nevermind, not that.” He repeated this process several times, to the point that Mac turned to shoot him an unimpressed look.
“Okay, that old dartboard!” he declared triumphantly as he pointed to the wooden dartboard that was mounted at one corner of the bar. “The raggedy one with all the darts missing. That’s probably an antique, right? It looks pretty old to me. I bet that’s an old relic from the Rogue, right?”
“Wrong,” I replied flatly. “But thank you for reminding me that I really need to buy a new dartboard.”
“The dartboard?” Mac laughed. “Ty, it doesn’t even look that old, just worn.”
“Oh,” he muttered sheepishly. “Oops. Well, how am I supposed to know? I was trying to be smart about it and choose something that wasn’t so obvious! Like that sword! A pirate sword is too stereotypical, so I know that’s probably just a decoration.”
“You mean the cutlass?” I asked as I looked up at the sword that was mounted high on the wall to the left of the bar, practically touching the ceiling. It was a real sword, after all, and the last thing I needed lying around within easy reach around drunk people was a weapon. “That actually is from the Rogue.”
“What?” Ty balked, his jaw falling slack as he looked up at the cutlass. “Wait, you’re messing with me, right? You’re just saying that because you wanted to see my reaction.”
“Your reaction is funny,” I admitted. “But no. That sword is connected to the Rogue.” I sighed as I looked up at it. It was rusted brown and even crumbled in places. “It’s a shame that the person who had it before me didn’t take care of it. It was probably a lot more impressive in its heyday.”
“Whoa, wait a second,” Ty replied, his eyes shining curiously as he looked back at me. “You have to tell me about this. That’s a real pirate sword? How is it connected to the Rogue? How did you find it?”
“I’ll tell you,” I agreed with a smirk. “Next time. Make sure you bring Charlie and Jeff with you too. I don’t think they’d forgive me if they missed out on this one, too.”
I grinned impishly as Ty protested, my mind already going back to the case that had led me to that sword, a case so high-profile that we almost weren’t able to solve it, all due to the media’s interference. Jeff and Charlie definitely wouldn’t want to miss that one.
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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