Yacht Games (Coastal Fury Book 22) Read online

  Yacht Games

  Coastal Fury book 22

  Matt Lincoln

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  2. Ethan

  3. Ethan

  4. Ethan

  5. Ethan

  6. Ethan

  7. Ethan

  8. Ethan

  9. Holm

  10. Ethan

  11. Ethan

  12. Ethan

  13. Ethan

  14. Ethan

  15. Ethan

  16. Ethan

  17. Ethan

  18. Ethan

  19. Ethan

  20. Ethan

  21. Ethan

  22. Ethan

  23. Holm

  24. Ethan

  25. Holm

  26. Holm

  27. Ethan

  28. Holm

  29. Ethan

  30. Ethan

  31. Ethan

  32. Holm

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  It was a bright, sunny, and gorgeous afternoon when the jukebox decided to take its last breath. It was a busy time of day, during the golden time where the sun was just beginning to set. The air was still warm, but it was getting dark enough that customers had started to flow in steadily. So, of course, that was the precise moment that the jukebox decided to give out.

  “The hell is that?” One of my regulars looked up from the glass of scotch he was nursing, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion at the unholy noise the jukebox was making.

  It had happened out of nowhere. One moment, the bar was filled with the soft notes of old classic rock, and in the next, the speakers suddenly doubled in volume and were letting off a screech that was only slightly more pleasant than the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

  “Oh.” Rhoda looked at the machine in confusion before stepping out from behind the bar to inspect it.

  I watched her cringe as she got closer to the source of the noise before finally covering her ears completely. She spent a few minutes looking it over and messing with some of the settings before finally just giving up and yanking the plug out of the wall. The terrible noise cut off abruptly and plunged the entire bar into welcome silence.

  “What’s the matter with your jukebox?” my regular asked me as he went back to slowly sipping from his glass.

  “Heck if I know,” I scoffed. “The girls are the ones who helped me set up and program the thing. I’ve never heard it do that before.”

  I looked back at the jukebox. Rhoda was walking back to the bar now with a frown on her face.

  “That was weird,” she muttered as she tossed a look back at the jukebox over her shoulder. “I wonder why it did that all of a sudden.”

  “It’s not raining or anything,” Nadia added as she walked back to the bar carrying a tray of empty glasses. “It couldn’t have been a short.”

  “I could probably figure it out, but…” Rhoda sighed as she looked around the bar. “We’re pretty packed right now, and I don’t want to plug it back in and subject anyone to that sound again.”

  “Let me try something,” Nadia suggested as she set the tray down.

  “Knock yourself out,” I replied. I’d be happy if whatever she was thinking managed to fix it. The jukebox wasn’t that old, so it would be a shame to have to buy another one so soon. And though I’d never really paid attention, the bar felt oddly quiet now without it humming softly in the background.

  “I wonder if someone spilled a drink on it or something,” Rhoda mused aloud as she took the tray and walked back toward the kitchen to stack the dishes in the dishwasher.

  I looked back at the jukebox. Nadia was crouched beside it, fiddling with some panels on the side. There weren’t any customers sitting near it, though. In fact, there weren’t any tables that were close to it at all. I shrugged as I pushed the thought aside and went back to work.

  Only a few minutes later, my favorite group of customers arrived. It was impossible not to notice them because they came into the bar as a group. They weren’t necessarily loud or boisterous. On the contrary, they were a pretty respectful bunch of kids. It was just impossible to miss them, especially in comparison to the rest of my typical clientele, which mainly consisted of older retirees who just wanted to enjoy their drinks and unwind in peace. Nevertheless, it was no secret that the group of kids had grown on several of my regulars as well, especially since their presence almost always meant one of my stories.

  “Hey, Ethan,” Jeff greeted me with a smile and a wave as he and the rest of them headed over to their usual table.

  I gave him a small wave in response before getting to work preparing their drink orders, which I knew from memory at this point.

  “Your fan club is here?” Rhoda teased me as she wiped up a small spot of beer she’d spilled on the counter.

  “In their usual spot,” I replied as I finished preparing their drinks.

  “I give it two minutes until one of them is begging you to tell them about the Dragon’s Rogue,” Rhoda snorted.

  “Two minutes?” I repeated as I loaded the drinks up onto a tray. “That’s generous of you.”

  Rhoda laughed, and I turned to pick up the tray. The kids were laughing about something when I walked up to the table.

  “It’s been a while,” I remarked as I set the tray down on the table to distribute their drinks.

  “It’s rare we all get leave at the same time,” Mac explained after thanking me for her drink. “And after the meltdown that someone had when they missed a story, we decided not to come unless we all could.”

  “It was not a meltdown,” Charlie protested. “I was just rightfully upset that you guys ditched me, and I ended up missing a story because of it. What if that had been the day that Ethan revealed what happened to the Rogue?”

  “Please,” Jeff snorted. “As if Ethan would tell us that soon. This man loves leaving us hanging.”

  “Well, whatever,” Charlie grumbled before turning to look at me. “The point is we’re all here now, so—what is that?”

  He made a face halfway between horror and confusion as the ear-splitting noise from the jukebox screeched through the bar once more. I snapped my head around to look at Nadia, who was frantically pressing something on the jukebox, all to no avail. Finally, she just pulled the plug again.

  “What the hell…” Mac mumbled as she turned around in her seat to look in Nadia’s direction.

  “Sorry!” Nadia called sheepishly. “I thought maybe one of the internal components came out of place. Obviously, that wasn’t it.”

  “Aw, your jukebox is broken?” Ty asked sadly. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, it does,” I sighed as I looked mournfully over at the machine sitting sadly in the corner.

  “It does sound quiet in here, now that I think about it,” Mac noted.

  “Let me have a look at it,” Charlie offered as he took a long swig from his glass before standing up. “I used to fix cars up with my uncle.”

  “That is not a car,” Jeff snickered as Charlie walked toward the jukebox. “And weren’t you just complaining about missing stories?”

  “I can hear it just fine from here,” Charlie called back dismissively as he knelt in front of the jukebox. “Just talk loud, Ethan!”

  I laughed to myself as I walked back to the bar to get my own drink. I guessed there wasn’t even a point in putting up a token protest at this point since it was already decided that I would be telling them a story. In any case, it was the least I could do as thanks for fixing the jukebox.

  “So, what’s today’s about?” Mac asked me eagerly as I sat back down in the chair that Charlie had vacated.
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  “Let me think,” I replied as I thoughtfully took a sip of my beer. The next logical story to tell would be the one that took place directly after the red room case. “This one doesn’t have all that much to do with the Rogue, to be perfectly honest.”

  “Aw.” Jeff pouted immediately.

  “But it does have a lot to do with Holm,” I continued before taking another sip of my drink.

  That caused all three of them to perk up at once.

  “You mean…?” Mac turned to look at the stool at the end of the bar.

  “Not yet,” I clarified. “Though the stories aren’t that dissimilar, I guess. In any case, it all started with a body found washed up on the beach…”

  1

  “If you’ll just sign here, you’ll be all good to go, Mr. Bransen.”

  Wesley looked up at the nurse from where he was sitting on the edge of his hospital bed. She had a broad, almost scary-looking smile stretched across her face. It emphasized the wrinkles around her mouth and highlighted how her makeup began to crack around her nose and cheeks. She probably meant for the smile to appear welcoming, but it seemed like she was mocking him to Wesley. How could she grin that awful fake smile while she threw him out on the street? It made him sick.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled sullenly as he took up the pen that was attached to the clipboard. It was bright purple, covered in glitter, and it had a little fluffy pompom at the top. The nurse was still grinning manically at him as he scrawled his name down at the bottom of the page.

  “Great!” the nurse exclaimed, snatching the clipboard back the moment he was done leaving his signature, as though she was worried he might change his mind or something.

  As if he had a choice. Wesley snorted beneath his breath. She actually looked relieved that he was leaving. Wasn’t this her job?

  “Alright, just give me one second, and I’ll go and fetch a wheelchair for you,” the nurse informed him as she turned away from him.

  “Don’t bother,” Wesley replied gruffly as he got to his feet. He winced as pain shot up his right leg and back.

  “Oh, careful!” the nurse warned.

  She sounded concerned, but Wesley knew it was all just an act. She didn’t care about him. Nobody did. They all just saw him as an annoying inconvenience, taking a hospital bed from someone who could actually afford to be here.

  Wesley ignored her as he grabbed his coat from the chair it was thrown over before shrugging it on. After checking the pocket for his wallet and phone, he slowly trudged his way out of the building, doing his best not to limp too obviously in front of all the hospital staff. Wesley just knew they all must be laughing at him, and he wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of seeing him hobble away.

  He managed to keep the display up at least until he got past the doors of the emergency room, at which point he gasped with pain and stumbled over to the nearest bench to take a load off before continuing. The frigid air cut against his lungs as he took several deep, harried breaths.

  The doctors had said that there was nothing obviously wrong with his leg.

  “Yeah, right,” Wesley muttered bitterly to himself. If that were true, then it wouldn’t hurt every time he put any weight on it, now would it? Damned doctors were just sick of having to deal with him. They were just like all the rest, a bunch of jerks who only saw him as a useless, annoying bum.

  A woman passing by turned to look at him with wide, frightened eyes as he continued to mutter angrily to himself, and Wesley snarled at her. After watching her scurry off into the hospital, Wesley felt terrible. Was this what he’d become? The dirty man sitting on a bench, talking to himself and growling at passersby? It wasn’t like he wanted to be mean, but he just couldn’t stand the way they all looked at him now, like he was a sideshow freak or a cockroach on the sidewalk.

  He sighed as he reached a hand down to massage his leg. New York was freezing this time of year. There was even a bit of snow on the ground, and the cold only made the pain in his leg that much worse. The emergency room doctors had told him he needed to see a specialist. There was little they could do there, and Wesley would likely need surgery. Well, that was all great to know. If only there were a way he could go to a specialist or afford surgery.

  Sometimes, Wesley just wanted to break down and cry. It was impossible to fathom that everything could change in the blink of an eye the way it did. A good job, a warm home, a loving fiancée… Wesley had once had it all. Then all it took was one drunk driver to run a red light at just the wrong time, and Wesley lost everything.

  “Suck it up,” Wesley scolded himself as he forced himself back onto his feet. He wasn’t going to gain anything from sitting here in the cold. Since he couldn’t stay in the hospital now, it’d be wiser to go and find somewhere warm before it got later and the temperature dropped even more.

  He allowed his mind to wander as he shuffled slowly through the crowded streets of lower Manhattan. To think it had only been three years since he’d moved here from middle-of-nowhere Arkansas with big dreams about becoming a Broadway star. For a while, it had all gone pretty well, too. It was so surreal to think about just how far he’d fallen in that time.

  Wesley’s first thought was to find a subway station to settle down in. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it would help keep out the cold a little. He descended into the first entrance he spotted, and it wasn’t until he made it to the bottom that he remembered that he needed to pass the turnstiles to get inside, and turnstiles required money.

  Wesley patted the pocket on his coat where he had his tiny remaining funds. Eighty-four dollars and a handful of change. That was all Wesley had to his name, and he guarded it fiercely. His gaze slid over to the woman sitting behind the booth, just off to the side. She was talking with a group of people who looked like tourists, probably giving them directions or something. Wesley snapped his head back around toward the turnstile and made a split-second decision. He rushed forward and awkwardly lifted his leg over the metal bar. A jolt of pain burst up his thigh and across his back as he did, but he ignored it. He’d come this far, so he might as well see this through. After several painful seconds, Wesley finally managed to amble his way over the barrier and onto the platform. The moment he made it onto the other side, he quickly walked away, shoulders hunched as he hoped that the attendant wouldn’t say anything to him, as it was unlikely she hadn’t noticed the spectacle he’d just put on back there.

  Wesley’s eyes lit up as they landed on an empty bench a few feet down the platform, and he walked over to it as quickly as he could before plopping down onto it. It was wooden, flat, and uncomfortable, but at least he was off his feet again, and the relief of not putting pressure on his leg was immeasurable.

  Wesley took a look around at the platform. It was early enough to be still packed with people, but maybe later tonight, it would clear up enough for him to claim a spot over in the corner where he’d be able to sleep undisturbed.

  “What are you doing here?!” an old, graying man croaked at him as he jumped up from behind a bench tucked up against the wall. Wesley hadn’t even noticed him lying there.

  “Whoa, sorry,” Wesley muttered as he instinctively shot up to his feet again. A jolt of pain shot up his leg as he did. “I didn’t know this spot was taken. I’ll just—”

  “No, no, don’t worry about it,” the man hurried to calm him. “I thought you were one of them filthy commies! My eyes aren’t what they used to be!”

  “Sure,” Wesley replied.

  The man did look pretty old. His face was wrinkled, and he had wiry gray and white hair sticking out of his head in every direction.

  “Why don’t you sit here?” the man suggested as he pointed down at the bench. “Could use some company. Most folks tend to give me space, which I appreciate, you know. Kids these days don’t appreciate their elders, but they do here. I do like visitors sometimes, though, you know? Gets a little lonely sometimes. You going to sit or what?”

  “Yeah,” Wesley muttered as th
e man continued to ramble about respect and elders and the war.

  The man clearly wasn’t all there, but he seemed friendly enough, so Wesley didn’t see the harm in sitting down with him. If nothing else, it would provide some relief for his leg.

  “They hide in the shadows,” the old man muttered. “Never know who you can trust. They come in the night when no one’s expecting it. I’ve seen it happen myself.”

  “Who?” Wesley asked as he settled back against the hard, uncomfortable bench. “The commies?”

  “Yes!” the old man replied. “I mean, no… don’t try to confuse me, young man!”

  “Sorry,” Wesley chuckled. “And thanks for letting me stay here.”

  “Of course!” the old man exclaimed heartily. “We’ve got to stick together in times like these! Here, have some chocolate.”

  The man reached into a ragged backpack tucked back behind the bench. Though he’d had some oatmeal at the hospital before leaving, Wesley’s stomach still watered at the thought of the chocolates, which he gratefully accepted.

  “Helps keep calories up,” the old man explained helpfully. “Keeps you warm at night, too. We’ll need the energy in case they strike tonight.”

  “Right.” Wesley nodded as he tore the wrapper off one of the candies with his teeth. He wasn’t sure who the old man thought might be coming for them, but he figured it was best to just go along with it.

  “Anyway, the name’s Logan,” the old man introduced himself as he started in on his own piece of chocolate.