Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

For a moment, Olivia was uncertain how to respond.

“The child we have in our custody is a boy,” she replied. “Around five years old.”

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Barbara screamed so hard that Olivia had to pull the phone away from her ear. “My daughter disappeared nearly twenty years ago! What kind of morons do you have working at the FBI?!”

“Ma’am, I don’t--”

“Go to hell!” Barbara yelled before hanging up.

Olivia was left clutching her phone to her ear, more confused now than before she’d made the call.

5

Ethan

It was a gorgeous, sunny day out, and I clung to the thin hope that Diane might actually have something for us to do that day.

I’d barely made it two steps into the office before the curly-haired ball of energy that was our lab tech, Bonnie, intercepted me.

“Ethan!” she exclaimed as she hooked one of her arms around mine. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“Really?” I smiled as she half-dragged me down toward the forensics lab.

“Yep,” she replied, a Cheshire cat grin stretched across her face. “Remember that skeleton bone you gave me?”

“No way,” I gasped as I finally realized what she was talking about.

“Yes way,” she replied smugly as we walked through the doors of the lab. “It took a while since I had to get a historian buddy of mine to consult on it. Ancient remains are a tad trickier to root through than modern ones, especially when they’ve been sitting underwater for a few centuries. We managed to get something, though.”

“What is it?” I asked eagerly as she led me over to one of the computers. “You know who he is?”

“We’ve got a pretty good guess.” She nodded happily. “Of course, we can’t be sure one-hundred percent since it’s almost impossible to fully trace DNA that far back with such an incomplete database to pull from. Given the circumstances, though, there’s a pretty big chance this is our guy unless there just happens to be another eighteenth-century pirate with suspiciously similar DNA patterns.”

“The suspense is killing me, Bonnie,” I groaned dramatically. “Who is it?”

“This guy, right here,” she declared as she opened one of the windows on the computer with a theatrical flourish. “Captain Abraham Leycester, also known as the Blue Demon.”

“Pretty intense name,” I remarked. “I’ve never heard of him, though.”

“I’m not surprised.” Bonnie shrugged. “He was a fairly small-time pirate for most of his life. It wasn’t until 1708 that he really started making a name for himself, but then he suddenly disappeared without a trace.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, “because someone shot him in the head and sank his ship.”

“Again, not surprised,” Bonnie replied. “He made himself a lot of enemies by constantly attacking British cargo ships. There’s not a whole lot of information available about him, but from what I managed to dig up, it seems like he was a bit ahead of his time.”

“How do you mean?” I asked as I peered down at the computer screen. On it was an old painting of a mean-looking man with a long black beard, wearing a bright blue coat.

“He was kind of an American patriot before America was even a thing,” she explained with an almost giddy smile, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke. “Back when the colonies were still just that, he was one of the first to speak out and demand more rights for the people living there. Of course, the American Revolution wouldn’t be for almost a hundred more years, so when his words fell on deaf ears, it seems like he decided to take matters into his own hands. The few records that still exist of him describe him as being generous with the things he plundered. He’d steal from British ships and distribute what he got back to the colonies.”

“Sounds pretty decent of him, actually,” I muttered as I stepped away from the computer screen. “And similar to Grendel’s own ‘Robin Hood’ persona. It would make sense that the two were friends.”

“Yeah,” Bonnie replied wistfully. “If only he wasn’t also a ruthless murderer, then maybe I could actually get behind the guy. Apparently, the reason he was called the Blue Demon was because of his penchant for going on ship-wide massacres every time he attacked a boat. One report from a survivor who hid inside a barrel of rum described him as being completely insane. According to him, Leycester was smiling and laughing the entire time he was killing people, screaming about vengeance and justice.”

“They can’t ever just be cool, can they?” I sighed as I folded my arms over my chest. “There’s always gotta be some little detail that ruins the whole story.”

“I dunno, I still think he’s pretty cool,” Bonnie remarked with a shrug. “I mean, he was a pirate, after all. Can’t be too surprised that he had a tendency to do bad things.”

“Yeah,” I conceded with a shrug. “I just wish I knew more about how he was related to Grendel and the Dragon’s Rogue. I mean, we found that envelope with Grendel’s seal on it, so they had some kind of relationship. As cool as this is, unless we figure out how they’re connected, I won’t get any closer to finding the Dragon’s Rogue.”

“Have you heard back about what was inside that chest you and Holm dredged up?” she asked.

“Holm was just asking about that yesterday,” I replied. “And no, I haven’t. I’m still waiting to hear back from Tessa about it.”

“Well, maybe my guy could help,” Bonnie suggested with a shrug. “I mean, he’s a historian, so he must have colleagues who know about artifact restoration.”

“Really?” I asked. I was getting excited just at the prospect of it. “Let me call Tessa right now, then.”

I had just pulled my phone from my pocket when Holm walked through the door.

“There you are,” he said as he spotted Bonnie and me. “I didn’t even see you come in. What are you doing down here?”

“I was just telling him about the results