Yacht Games (Coastal Fury Book 22) Page 3

  “Down, now!” Muñoz repeated the order as she drew her weapon and directed all the other patrons in the bar to safety, away from the scene.

  “What is this?” Julietta gaped at me, fear and fury swirling together on her face.

  “Looks like you’re the one who underestimated us,” I replied as Holm got up and pointed his gun at the two guards.

  The guards stood in numb shock as they faced down the three agents. One of them reached for his waist, but I drew my gun and spoke up before he could do anything.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I warned.

  Both guards looked at each other before raising their hands in the air and sinking to their knees.

  “What are you doing?” Julietta screeched. “Get up!”

  “It’s over, Morales,” I looked her dead in the eye as I slowly stood up to face her. “You were right. I’m not stupid enough to believe that this wasn’t a trap. We had a feeling something was up when that call first came in, and from there, it didn’t take us long to figure out that you were the one behind all of this. I figured you would come and talk to me if we came, and thanks to your little monologue, we now have you on recording admitting to everything.”

  “You’re going to regret this,” she hissed as Birn, Muñoz, and Holm rushed in to apprehend her and the two guards.

  “I doubt that,” I replied as Holm pulled her arms behind her back to cuff them.

  She continued to struggle and snap at Holm about not touching her, but I tuned her out as I plopped back down onto the barstool and downed the rest of my drink. Everything had ended as smoothly as it possibly could, all things considered. No one had been shot, and we’d even gotten a full confession. That didn’t mean that it hadn’t been nerve-wracking, though. My heart had been pounding the entire time, worried that one of the two goons would suddenly strike or that Julietta would realize what was actually going on.

  “That was good,” Holm commended as he walked back over to me. I could see Julietta and the two guards sitting by the entrance, being watched over by Birn and Muñoz. “You played the part of clueless detective pretty well. I almost believed it.”

  “Really?” I looked at him. “I thought it was kind of obvious that I was faking it. I mean, she did have a point. It would have been pretty stupid of us to just run in here blind, without any kind of suspicion that something shady was going on. I was worried she’d suddenly catch on that she was right.”

  “Well, lucky for us, she was too confident,” Holm replied with a shrug. “She thought she was too smart for her plan to fail.”

  “That was her mistake,” I agreed. “Now, we can wrap this case up.”

  The rest of the evening passed by in a blur as we got to work cleaning up the scene, which didn’t take long as there wasn’t actually much of a fight or even any shots fired. After getting Julietta and her men into custody at the police station, all that was left to do was head home.

  It was well past midnight by the time I stumbled through the door of my houseboat, tired from the long day spent working on the case and ready to go to sleep. As I walked into my bedroom, I slipped my phone from my pocket, intending to check for any new messages or calls before having a quick shower. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did, in fact, have a message from one Ava Finch-Hatton.

  Ava was a distant relative of mine I’d gotten in touch with through Bonnie. Apparently, she’d posted on an ancestry message board looking for information about an ancestor of hers, which had led Bonnie to the discovery that we were both related to Jonathan Finch-Hatton, the original owner of the Dragon’s Rogue. We’d exchanged messages a few times since then, and though my busy schedule made it difficult for us to meet right away, we were still planning on getting to it, eventually.

  Her latest message was short, a funny reply to the last thing I’d sent her, as well as some information that she thought I might find interesting.

  “I have some old documents that I think you might like. A few of them talk about ships, though I’m not sure if any of them are about the Dragon’s Rogue. There are some drawings, too. To be honest, I really don’t know much about any of them. I always thought they were cool, but it was never something that really drew my interest. I figure you’ll appreciate them a lot more since you’re super into pirate ships and all. Anyway, let me know when you might be free to meet up or even talk on the phone!

  Love, Ava”

  I smiled at the way she’d signed the message. It felt kind of weird, but I supposed we were technically family. She was my cousin a hundred times removed or something like that. In any case, the message had piqued my interest, as anything concerning the Rogue always did. I shot back a quick message promising to get back to her as soon as I had some free time and then headed off to bed, feeling much lighter than I had before.

  3

  Ethan

  A cool breeze blew past me as I got out of my car in the office parking lot. It was a temperate sixty-six degrees, the coldest it ever really got in Miami, even in the middle of December. It wasn’t cold by any means, but for someone who was used to nearly year-round sun and warm, balmy weather, the breeze was enough to send a chill through me, and I hurried across the parking lot and into the building.

  Up in the office, I headed straight over to my desk. Holm was already sitting at his, talking with Birn.

  “Speak of the devil!” Birn declared as he looked up at me.

  “Uh-oh,” I replied. “I’m assuming that means you were talking about me? Good things, I hope.”

  “Define ‘good,’” Holm grumbled.

  “Holm’s feeling grumpy,” Birn teased as he snickered at Holm.

  “Hm? Why?” I asked as I looked down at my partner, who did have a bit of a sour expression on his face.

  “He’s moping that Julietta went over to you instead of him,” Birn practically cackled as he clapped Holm on the shoulder.

  “I’m not moping!” he countered defensively. “Just… I mean, there was a fifty-fifty chance, you know? We knew that she was trying to lead both of us there to take us out.”

  “And you’re grumpy that she went for Marston instead of you,” Birn snickered. “Well, no offense or anything, Holm, but—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence,” Holm deadpanned. “Nothing remotely good has ever come after the phrase ‘no offense.’” Holm turned pointedly away from Birn to look at me. “Anyway, how are you this morning, Marston?”

  “Uh, great,” I replied as Birn took his leave. “I got an email from Ava last night.”

  “Ava?” Holm furrowed his eyebrows at me. “Who—oh, Ava! What did she say? Did you two finally figure out a date to meet up?”

  “Not yet,” I sighed as I took my seat. “It’s hard to find time between cases, especially since we never know when another one might pop up. Now might be a good time, though, since we just wrapped up the Morales case. She said she had some documents I might be interested in, and as long as there’s a lull—”

  “Marston, Holm,” Diane’s voice suddenly cut me off. I looked up and found her standing at the end of the bullpen, calling to Holm and me. “Could I see you two in my office?”

  “So much for a lull,” Holm muttered as the two of us got up to follow Diane. She closed the door behind us as we stepped inside before taking a seat behind her desk.

  “I’ve got a case for you, potentially,” she dove right in after sitting down.

  “Potentially?” I repeated as I took a seat in my usual spot during these briefings. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, the details of the case are a little… strange,” she replied. “A lot of it isn’t adding up, and while it seems fairly likely that the case should fall into our jurisdiction, there are too many missing pieces for us to say with certainty until we get a little more information.”

  “What, so this might not be under our jurisdiction?” Holm asked, his face marred with confusion.

  “Why don’t I just explain everything?” Diane replied. “Several days ago,
the body of an American man was discovered on a small island in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Now, normally, something like this would immediately become our responsibility. However, several things about the body and the crime scene make this an unusual case. For one, Palm Island, where this man was discovered, is a tiny, private island only accessible by private boat. It’s extremely exclusive, and by that, I mean that at any given time, there are only a couple of dozen people total on the island.”

  “I would imagine that would make it pretty easy to figure out who the killer is,” I replied, sensing that there was a lot more to this than she’d told us.

  “You would think,” she scoffed. “Especially considering the state the body was in. The corpse had been absolutely brutalized. He was covered in bruises practically from head to toe, he had lacerations, and even his nose was broken. The extent of it was so bad that it would be unthinkable that it could have happened without any of the other people on the island noticing, and yet that’s what happened.”

  “No one saw anything?” I raised an eyebrow at her. “They’re obviously lying.”

  “Maybe not,” she sighed heavily. “There’s more to the mystery. No one on the island knew who the man was, and in fact, there was no record of how he’d gotten there. Of course, all the people on the island had purchased tickets to get there, but all of them were accounted for. No one had any idea who the dead man could be, not the guests or the officials on the island. As he was found on the beach, it’s believed that he might have been killed somewhere else and just washed up there. However, that’s difficult to believe, too, since the nearest body of water is several kilometers away. He likely would have sunk before making it all the way to Palm Island.”

  “So, he just appeared out of nowhere?” I asked. “That is bizarre.”

  “There’s more,” Diane added, to my surprise. “Since no one had any idea who he was, the police ran a DNA test on him. It came back two days ago, and that was when they discovered that he was actually Logan Clearwater, a seventy-two-year-old military veteran who’d been reported missing over a year ago in New Jersey.”

  “A year!?” I balked, unsure if I’d misheard. “This man has been missing for a year, and he suddenly turned up dead on a random, private island out in the Caribbean?”

  “Now you understand why we aren’t sure who should be taking jurisdiction on this case,” Diane sighed as she clasped her hands together on top of her desk. “There are a lot of confusing factors here. His disappearance may or may not have anything to do with the case as well. Apparently, when he was initially reported missing a year ago, his daughter told authorities that he had exhibited signs of dementia. It’s possible he just wandered off on his own, and in fact, that was what the police believed happened until his body was discovered recently. Now, they’re not quite sure what to think.”

  “So, what should we do?” I asked as I leaned forward in my seat pensively. The case was certainly odd, but I already felt invested. I wanted to know what happened to this man, and I wanted to find justice for him. “Can we investigate?”

  “For now, yes,” Diane replied. “The FBI seem interested in taking it from us, especially if it turns out he was actually abducted all that time ago, but for now, it seems like this falls more under our jurisdiction, so we’ll proceed as normal.”

  “Alright,” I replied, honestly relieved to hear that we weren’t going to get booted off the case. “So, we’re heading to St. Vincent?”

  “Not quite yet.” Diane shook her head. “For now, I’d like you to head up to New Jersey to speak with Clearwater’s family. I’d like to get some more information about his initial disappearance before we move. After that, though, you probably will be heading out to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I’ve already booked you a flight to New Jersey. It leaves tonight.”

  “Got it,” I replied as I stood up.

  “I’ll forward the flight information and everything we know about the case to your tablets,” Diane added as Holm stood up after me.

  “We’ll head to the airport now,” I replied.

  “Have a safe trip,” Diane replied as Holm and I headed toward the office door. “Keep me updated on anything you find.”

  “Will do,” I replied before saying goodbye and heading out. Holm and I stopped by our desks just long enough to grab our things before heading back out.

  “I guess meeting up with Ava will have to wait for now,” I remarked as we headed out of the building and into the parking lot, anticipation for the mission already rising in me like a flame. “Never a dull moment working as an MBLIS agent.”

  4

  Ethan

  I regretted my earlier griping about the weather in Miami the moment we landed in New Jersey, which was a shocking thirty-three degrees. I hugged the jacket I’d brought with me closer as Holm and I walked out of the airport. Though we often traveled for work, we usually didn’t stray all that far from the warm, sunny shores of the Caribbean. As someone who lived and breathed balmy Miami air virtually year-round, there really wasn’t any need for me to own a heavier winter coat. The jacket, which was soft leather and too warm to wear most of the time back home, felt like paper against the harsh wind that tore through me as we ventured into Atlantic City, where we’d landed.

  Clearwater’s daughter, Marjorie, lived all the way up in Burlington, which was a solid two-hour drive from the airport, so our first order of business was getting our hands on a car. It seemed a little wasteful since we’d likely only be using it for a few hours before heading down to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but we had to get there somehow.

  At least the ride itself was peaceful. The roads weren’t particularly congested this time of day, and the further north we got, the more scenic our surroundings became. Lush oak trees that hadn’t lost all their leaves yet painted the hills in shades of red, orange, and yellow. For a long period, there was nothing but trees and grassy fields as far as I could see. Then, suddenly, we hit the first stoplight I’d seen in nearly an hour.

  “We’re making good time,” Holm noted as we drove into Burlington.

  As we made our way through the streets of the small town, my first thought was how much it reminded me of the place in upstate New York where Tessa and I had now gone several times to visit Professor Slade at his museum. I was so used to being surrounded by the huge, towering skyscrapers of Miami that the tiny, old-world buildings that lined the streets here seemed like they belonged to an entirely different world. Holm was right, as well. Traffic had been exceptionally light on the way up here, which had allowed us to arrive in just under an hour and thirty minutes.

  Marjorie lived in the kind of quaint, picturesque house that’s often used as the backdrop for feel-good Christmas movies: a two-story Victorian-style made of brick, with an arched roof covered in shingles and even a white picket fence. The light blanket of snow spread over the front lawn to complete the pretty picture, and it was jarring to think that inside the warm, cozy-looking home was a woman in the throes of grief.

  The front door opened as soon as Holm and I stepped out of the car. As we made our way up the short driveway that led to the front door, a small, blond woman stepped cautiously outside.

  “H-hi!” she called nervously, wringing her hands as we approached her. Her eyes and nose were a little red, and it looked like she’d been crying recently. “I’m Marjorie. You must be, um… sorry, could you remind me of your names again?”

  “Agent Marston,” I introduced myself as I stepped forward to shake her hand.

  “Agent Holm,” Holm added before doing the same.

  “Right, sorry,” Marjorie mumbled as she brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “I’m not usually this scatterbrained, but, well, with the news…” Her face fell as she trailed off, and her eyes got shiny with unshed tears again.

  “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” I said as she sniffled and quickly reached up to wipe her tears away with the back of her hand.

  “Oh, no, not at all!” she m
uttered. “If anything, I should be thanking you. You’re the ones who are going out of your way to investigate his—what happened to him. Anyway, let’s not just stand here in the cold. Let’s head inside where it’s warm.” She turned around and beckoned us to follow her into the house.

  The home's interior looked just as quaint as the outside, if a little messier. Toys and coloring books were littered around the floor, and a couple of half-eaten bowls of cereal were sitting on the floor in the living room, in front of the TV.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Marjorie laughed nervously. “My kids can get a little crazy. I should have cleaned up before you got here.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I replied as she led us into the living room before leaning down to pick up the bowls.

  “How many kids do you have?” Holm asked her as she hurried to the kitchen to drop the bowls into the sink.

  “Um, two,” she replied, smiling slightly as she answered. “A boy and a girl. Their father… he, uh, he died last year. It’s been rough since then, and now this.” A flurry of emotions flashed across her face, among them anger, sadness, frustration, and likely more that I didn’t manage to catch in the brief instant that her face crumpled in on itself before she recovered. “Sorry, you didn’t come here to listen to me unload like that. You’re here about Dad.” She ambled back over to the living room before sinking into one of the armchairs. “Please, have a seat.”

  “Thank you,” I replied as I did as she suggested and sat down.

  “So, um, where should we start?” Marjorie mumbled as she fidgeted with her hands.

  “How about with his initial disappearance?” I suggested.

  She pursed her lips and swallowed as I said that.

  “Right, well, it was a little over a year ago,” she replied quietly. “Fourteen months, exactly. I remember that it was right around Halloween. I was so busy getting the kids ready for trick-or-treating that I didn’t even notice. I have no idea how long he was gone before I finally realized he wasn’t in his room.”