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  “Yeah, I hate to reward that instinct,” Holm grinned. “But then again, it does help us.”

  “It can’t hurt to have someone on the lookout, though,” Muñoz said. “The best thing that could happen is that we find one of them and get him to lead us to their base and find Birn. The stake out’s just a roundabout way of getting to that point.”

  “Maybe that’s something we could do after we talk to Nick,” I suggested. “Just take a walk around town and see if we can run into anyone. They have to be somewhere nearby, after all, if they’re going out every night looking for their lost drugs. It’s not like it would be practical for them to be staying on Key West and then making the trek over here every night to do that.”

  “I suppose it would be possible, but I agree it would be unlikely,” Muñoz said with a nod. “So, okay. Let’s do it.”

  22

  Ethan

  We drove back to the resort and took a breather for a few moments, washing up in our separate rooms after the fight. I checked my phone and smiled when I saw that Penny had texted, saying she was looking forward to tonight but that we could reschedule if I was too busy with my mission.

  I quickly responded that it was great timing and that I thought she could still help us with our mission. She shot me an address for the restaurant she had in mind, and I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time I was washing the grime and the sand from the gunfight off of me in the shower.

  In fact, there was so much sand everywhere that I was pretty sure I inadvertently swallowed some that had slipped down my sleeve when I was eating lunch. Ah, the beach. It never really left you, did it?

  When I got out of the shower, I quickly checked my email to see if Tessa had responded to me about Grendel’s journal. For the most part, I had been pretty good on this mission so far about compartmentalizing and setting aside my obsession with the journal to focus on finding Birn. But it still ate at me at the back of my mind, and every so often, my attention would drift to where I left the old—or, not so old, it turned out—book that I’d left sitting on my kitchen table back in my houseboat in Miami.

  Tessa had not responded to my email, however. I doubted she had read it, wholly focused on whatever exotic story she was working on up in the Yukon, of all places. She had told me that she was going to be out of cell and Wi-Fi range for a while, but it still gnawed at me that she hadn’t responded yet. I was eager to tell her everything that had happened in New Orleans. It was true. But I was also a little worried. I didn’t like being out of touch with her for so long, I realized. It had been going on three weeks now, and I didn’t like it. Maybe I was getting a bit more attached to my reporter friend than I had thought.

  When I was done checking my email, I put away my tablet and headed back downstairs to the bar where I was supposed to meet Holm and Muñoz. Sure enough, the other two MBLIS agents were already waiting for me when I got there. They were sitting at the bar, seltzer waters in hand since we were still on duty for the day, listening to Nick, the bartender, yap away about something.

  “What’s going on?” I asked them as I took my seat next to Holm. “How are you doing, Nick?”

  “Good, good,” he said, nodding to me as he whirled around to get me seltzer water, too. “I assume you’re going the non-alcoholic route as well this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to run into any perps with that in my system,” I chuckled as he handed over the glass full of sparkling water. “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry that I missed you guys when I went into the station today,” he said, flashing me a grin. “I gave that Rollins fellow a piece of my mind.”

  “I’m sure you did,” I said wryly, leaving out how the chief of police had laughed at the bartender’s attitude.

  “We were just filling Nick here in on some of what we’ve been dealing with this morning,” Muñoz told me from Holm’s other side.

  “Oh, yeah, this is crazy stuff,” the bartender said, shaking his head. “I knew there was something weird going on. I just knew it.”

  “You did call it,” I said, exchanging a knowing look with Holm. “We were wondering if you’ve seen any more of those unusual tourists today? Or even some time in the past week or so?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Nick said, scratching the side of his beard and staring out across the mostly empty bar as if trying to visualize when he’d seen the Jamaican campers last. “I haven’t seen any the last few days. I know that for sure. I’d say the last time was maybe a week ago? Something like that. And it wasn’t here in the bar. It was when I was out walking along the beach.”

  “When was the last time any of them were in the bar?” I asked, more than a little disappointed to hear this. Judging by the expressions on Holm and Muñoz’s faces, they were, too.

  “Oh, I’d say a couple of days before that,” Nick said, scratching the other side of his beard now and raising one of his eyebrows. “They were all Jamaican that time. They had a real hard time ordering in English. Eventually, I just gave them all the cheapest beer we had on tap. Figured they couldn’t complain about that.”

  “I guess not,” I chuckled. “Have you noticed any pattern to when they show up at all? Not just in the bar, but around town in general?”

  “No, not that I can think of,” he said, shaking his head slowly at this. “Do you want me to start keeping track? I can do that for you.”

  “Um, sure,” I said, nodding to him. “You can do that. At least just for while we’re here, and there’s a real problem going on. I wouldn’t want you to keep doing that when it isn’t necessary.”

  “Right, right,” Nick muttered, a gleam in his eye at being given permission to do this. Honestly, I was shocked that he wasn’t already. And while I hated to encourage paranoid behavior like this, for the time being, it could actually be helpful given the nature of recent events on the island.

  “Mainly, what we were wondering is whether you could call us if you see any of them while we’re here,” Muñoz said, reaching into her wallet and handing Nick her card. “I know you already have my colleague’s card, but we’ll be splitting up soon, so I want you to have my contact information, as well.”

  The bartender took the card with characteristic eagerness.

  “Sure thing,” he said, shooting Muñoz a half-grin only barely detectable through his well-groomed but substantial beard. “I’ll keep an eye out and ask around with the other staff. Discreetly, of course.”

  “We appreciate it,” Muñoz said, returning his smile with a more forced one of her own.

  “So you figured out something about them, huh?” Nick asked, leaning forward with his elbows on the bar, his bar rag cast over his right shoulder. “It’s drugs, isn’t it? I damn well knew it was drugs. I knew it.”

  There was a gleam in his eye as if he relished this and didn’t see it for the bad news that it was. His island was infested with a foreign drug cartel, but he might as well have been told Christmas had come early by the expression on his face.

  “We can’t confirm or deny anything,” I said honestly, meeting his eyes and giving him a stern look. “But this is serious business, Nick. If you see one of these guys or more, don’t engage them. Call Agent Muñoz or me straight away. You could get yourself in danger, or inadvertently mess with our progress on this mission, by trying to interfere, or talk to them, or play detective.”

  Nick looked a bit crestfallen at this but nodded.

  “Sure thing,” he assured us, to my relief.

  “It’s not that you haven’t been a big help,” Holm was quick to say. “You have. You got us on the right track, gave us some new leads, and corroborated some old ones. And you can be our eyes and ears here in town. Just not our mouths at this point, okay?”

  This had the desired effect, and Nick grinned back at Holm.

  “Got it, boss,” he chuckled. “Can I get you guys anything else while you’re here?”

  He gestured to our seltzer glasses, which were all close to empty by then.

  �
��Oh, I think we’re good,” I said, waving away the suggestion. Those tacos were more filling than I’d first thought, and I was stuffed. And I still had dinner with Penny to think about.

  “There might be one other thing, though,” Muñoz said, and we all turned our attention to her, wondering what this was about. “Holm and Marston here mentioned that you saw some of these… uh, weird tourists, places outside the resort sometimes. Is that right?”

  “Yeah, sometimes,” the bartender said thoughtfully, scratching the other side of his beard this time.

  “Could you try to give us a list of where you saw them, maybe?” she asked, pulling out a small pad of paper and a pencil from the inside of her jacket and passing both to Nick. “Especially if you saw them in the afternoon hours. We’ve got a few hours to kill, and we’re going to go out looking ourselves.”

  “Uh, yeah, I think I can do that,” Nick said, taking the pencil and notepad from her. “I mostly see ‘em in the mornings and evenings, though.”

  “Is that so?” Muñoz asked, raising her eyebrows at him. “Why do you think that is? Are they just not out and about at these hours?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t tell you,” Nick said with a shrug as he squinted down at the blank notepad. “Those are just the hours I’m out and about, I guess. Either here at the resort or running on the beach. I’m not one to mingle, you could say.”

  Somehow, this did not surprise me, and I chuckled.

  “Well, we’re glad you’re here today,” I told him.

  “Yeah, my day guy called in sick,” Nick sighed. “Plus, I was already out and about so I could check in on that police chief of ours. Can’t say I wasn’t hoping to see you guys around again, either.”

  The bartender glanced between Holm and me and then started to scratch at the notepad with his pencil. I squinted to try to see what he was writing, but I couldn’t make anything out. His handwriting was predictably bad and amounted to chicken scratch. I hoped that one of us would be able to make out what it said.

  “Sorry to hear about your day guy,” Holm said, and Nick just rolled his eyes.

  “Can’t count on anybody but yourself, that’s my motto,” he grunted as he handed the pencil and notepad back to Muñoz.

  “Uh, can you tell me what this says?” she asked, squinting down at the paper as much as I had, clearly unable to make out the bartender’s handwriting either.

  “Yeah, sure,” he laughed. “Don’t worry. You’re not the only one who can’t read what I write. This is the lunch place at the resort on the other side of the island. I saw them during the day one time, so you might want to start there. Then this is the bar down the street, and this one’s the bar on the south shore. And here’s the private beachfront where I met them that one time, but I gather you’ve already been there. Oh, and here on this ferry from the other Keys. That was early in the morning, one time. They were covered in mud and carrying fish with them.”

  “The ferry?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. No one had mentioned that before.

  “Sure thing,” he said. “It isn’t exactly regular, but it comes every so often. It stops by a few of the middle Keys. This one company runs it, can’t remember their name. A good way for tourists to get a look at all the islands in the area without having to rent a car or drive or anything. I didn’t think much of it at first. Lots of campers come off that thing since obviously, they’re not going to be driving where they come from, most of ‘em. Not a lot of ‘em stop by Little Torch, though, till recently.”

  “So we’ve been told,” I murmured, trying to look past Holm to see the piece of paper Nick had written on in Muñoz’s hand, but not being able to do so. “Anyway, thanks a lot, Nick. Let us know if you see any of them, as we said before.”

  I passed my now empty glass back over to him, and Muñoz and Holm did the same.

  “Will do,” the bartender said, saluting us as we exited the dimly lit bar. “Take care of yourselves now, you hear?”

  23

  Ethan

  We went to that little lunch spot first, as Nick had suggested. We didn’t find much of anything, though, and the guy working there hadn’t seen anything either.

  “Haven’t seen any campers in a while,” he murmured when we asked him, scratching the back of his head. “Don’t get many of those around here. This is a resort Key, you know.”

  “Yes, we figured,” Muñoz said, smiling kindly at him. “So you don’t think that there have been more campers around here lately? Maybe looking a little unusual?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, furrowing his brows together and shaking his head. “Can I get you folks anything to eat?”

  He gestured back at the menu above his head at the pop-up stand restaurant out on a patio at a much more casual resort than the one we were staying at across the island from there. I thought that if I were to come back here on vacation, I’d rather stay somewhere like this, sunny and on the beach, everyone in t-shirts and unpretentious.

  “No, we just ate, thank you,” I said, waving away the suggestion.

  “You folks with the police or something?” the guy asked, narrowing his eyes at us.

  “Something like that,” Holm said, his mouth set in a thin line.

  “This about that kid who OD'd on that stuff a while back?” the man asked, unrelenting. “‘Cause that was that other resort across town, the one with all those rich folks. That had nothing to do with us.”

  “We understand,” I said, giving him a thin smile. “Thank you for your time. We appreciate it very much.”

  As we walked back to where I parallel parked my car on the street next to the resort, Holm groaned and rolled his eyes.

  “I guess not everyone’s as observant as Penny and that nosy bartender,” he said shortly with a shrug.

  “I guess not,” I laughed, shaking my head. “Well, she’s ex-military, and he doesn’t seem to have much else to do, so it kind of makes sense.”

  I walked around to the driver’s side and opened the other doors for Holm and Muñoz, who crawled into their usual positions in the back and passenger’s seat, respectively.

  “It’s like I told you when you got here,” Muñoz said as she and I ducked into the car, as Holm was already inside. “Things move at a snail’s pace on a small island like this. Not many people are paying attention to much except the ocean and their pocketbooks.”

  “I guess that’s not much different from most places when you think about it,” Holm chortled from the back as I started the car up again.

  “That’s one way of looking at it, I guess,” I said dryly.

  “And how would you look at it?” Muñoz asked, turning to me.

  “People just have different strengths,” I shrugged, putting the car into reverse and pulling out of the parking spot easily since there was no one behind me. “And they’re interested in different things. Some worry more than others, like that bartender, ‘cause they don’t have much else to do. Others just live and let live and enjoy their lives. Nothing wrong with that. Only one kind helps us much, though.”

  “That’s true enough,” Holm chuckled. “What’s next on the list, then?”

  Muñoz pulled the crumpled up piece of paper that she’d torn out of her little notebook out of her pocket and squinted down at it some more as if trying to remember what it was supposed to say.

  “What about that ferry thing he was talking about?” she asked, reaching out so that I could look at the paper, too. “It’s last on the list. I think this is an address, see?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s not far from where we met Penny by the docks,” I said, squinting down at it myself and barely making out a street name. “Let’s drive around there and see if we can find it.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Muñoz sighed, crumpling the paper back up and putting it in her pocket. She turned to stare out the right-hand window as I drove along the west shore of the island where the second resort, the one with the pop-up restaurant, was.

  It really was a beau
tiful island, but I could tell that wasn’t what Muñoz was thinking about. It wasn’t what I was thinking about, either. Or Holm, for that matter, though I was sure the thought crossed his mind every once in a while. We were all worried sick about Birn at that point, even more than we had been before because, with each passing hour, we knew that the odds of finding him alive and well were shrinking considerably.

  We drove around for a bit, even passing the dock where Penny kept her sailboat and her little shack of a business, but I didn’t see her down there. The sailboat was gone, too, so I figured that she must be back out on the water that day without even taking a break following the chaotic events of the previous evening in that cave.

  I had to admire her for that, and I couldn’t help but smile when I saw that the sailboat was absent. I caught Holm grinning at me in the rearview mirror, waggling his eyebrows and clearly poking fun at me, and I quickly wiped the smile off my own face.

  Eventually, we found the ferry area buried away in another small corner of the shore, much like Penny’s own business. There was a small boat in the dock, and I thought that it could probably be considered a ferry, by some stretch of the imagination. It was small and had an inside area, at least, and could probably fit five to seven people in addition to the captain if they really packed them in tight.

  There was a man tying the boat up to a dock, in front of which was a small pop-up stand made out of thick cardboard advertising the ferry.

  “See the sights and sounds of the middle Keys on a state-of-the-art voyage!” it advertised. I had to laugh at this, and I wasn’t alone.

  “State-of-the-art,” Holm snorted as we parked on the gravel lot not far from the shore and climbed out. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Yeah, you’d expect more in a place like this,” I mused as I locked the car and followed Muñoz and Holm down toward the guy. “Then again, the people who could afford more probably have private yachts or something.”