Stolen Child (Coastal Fury Book 13), Matt Lincoln [ebooks children's books free TXT] 📗

that supposed to mean?” I asked, turning my torso around in my chair to face him.

“Come on, now, we know the Hollands are after that ship of yours, too,” Birn pointed out. “So now it’s official business. Diane said as much when she got off the phone with you when you were in Virginia.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, still not quite catching on to his meaning.

“So, when are we going to get out there and find it?” Birn asked, rubbing his long hands together expectantly. “I call shotgun.”

“I… I…” I sputtered, not sure how to respond to this.

“Ah, look, he doesn’t want to share,” Muñoz teased, shooting a pouty expression my way.

“That’s not it,” I said defensively, though if I were honest with myself, it was true.

The search for the Dragon’s Rogue had been passed down to me from my grandfather, and for a long time after he passed, it had become something of a solo endeavor for me in my free time. Then, when the remains of the ship’s original owner, an ancestor of mine named Lord Jonathan Finch-Hatton, washed up in a cave off the coast of Miami to be found by an unsuspecting photojournalist, Tessa had become a large part of my search.

Sure, others had gotten involved here and there, most notably Holm being that he was my partner. But by and large, I thought of this as a thing for Tessa and me to share together. I supposed that it was only natural that more people would be brought into the fold now that the Dragon’s Rogue was connected to a big MBLIS case.

“Come on, now, why don’t you talk to Diane about it?” Holm asked, latching onto this idea with predictable enthusiasm. “We could all go out to one of those places on the map and try to track this thing down. Or at least you and me, if she doesn’t want to spare us all. She can’t say it’s not related to the Holland case since they’re looking for it, too, and it’s not like we’re getting anything done here.”

“We are getting something done here,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but the more we go through these files and chase down bad leads, the closer we get to the one that’s actually going to pan out. Taking half our labor force or more off of that is a big ask.”

“Come on. You can’t really consider this a valuable use of our time?” Holm complained, gesturing at the lopsided pile of files sitting atop his own desk.

“Of course it is,” I shot back. “But I agree it doesn’t feel like it. Diane warned us that it would be like this, remember? We have to get it done. This is an FBI’s Most Wanted List case now. There are going to be more dead ends than we can count. That’s how we work a case like this.”

“You can say that again,” Birn said sullenly, swiveling back around in his chair to face his own desk and files. “Dead end, after dead end, after dead end…”

“After dead end,” Muñoz finished for him sullenly.

“Come on, will you just talk to Diane about it?” Holm pleaded.

“No,” I said quickly, with a curtness to my tone that communicated this was the end of the conversation. “Besides, the Hollands are on the run now. They’re probably not even thinking about the Dragon’s Rogue anymore.”

The truth was, I’d already talked to Diane about it shortly after I got back from New Orleans, and again a couple of weeks before that day. Both times, she’d emphasized that she needed all hands on deck here in Miami until further notice. She was right, of course. The Hollands probably had put their search for the ship on hold for now, so sending us off to look for it on agency time wouldn’t do much to help us find them.

“They could be, though,” Holm quipped, unable to help himself. “We don’t know that for sure. They could be somewhere on that old map as we speak.”

“And if they are, what we’re doing here will lead us to them just as well,” I replied. “The difference is that if we go, we’re missing out on the opportunity to find them if they aren’t one of those places, but somewhere else entirely.”

Holm opened up his mouth as if to respond, but I cut him off.

“That’s it, Holm,” I said. “We’re needed here. And we have work to do.”

3

Ethan

We worked in silence for a couple of hours until it was the time that most people in Miami were probably waking up to make their way into work. As much as we’d been working late on this case, we’d also been coming in early.

The FBI agents weren’t quite so silent, however. They were constantly humming with energy that we didn’t seem to have. Holm had joked more than once that they might’ve sucked it right out of us and taken it for themselves.

Diane said that it was just a different way of operating. The FBI was used to this kind of slog. They thrived on it, even. We were used to catching the bad guys and then moving on to the next case in a clean-cut fashion.

We were also accustomed to always being on the move and catching up on our sleep in between cases. These guys sat at their desks more often than we did, but they also never seemed to hit a lag in their workload. Apples and oranges, I guessed.

I also got the sense that they liked infringing on our territory. They wanted to be the first ones to catch a big break in this case. It was a weird competition for them, and it was infecting everyone’s attitude.

By the time Diane reemerged from her office around eight in the morning, my eyelids were drooping again. I sent several more messages the way of the woman in Maine, as well as half a dozen others on the