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

as soon as I hear from her, just like I promised earlier. Until then, there’s no use worrying about it.”

I said this just as much to convince myself as I did them. I wasn’t sure what to make of all this speculating. Muñoz’s new theory was going to stick with me for a while, and I knew that. And I couldn’t exactly afford to get distracted right now, not if Holm and I were going to prove that they needed us in Scotland.

“Well, if the ship is a fake, the question remains as to why,” Muñoz said, determined not to drop the subject as she narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brow, lost deep in thought.

“I thought you just said why,” Holm pointed out, flicking his still-chocolaty fork in her direction now. “Because they wanted to mess with Marston after finding out he was looking for the Dragon’s Rogue in Haiti.”

“Yes, that’s the why, but how,” Muñoz clarified. “That still doesn’t make sense to me.”

Holm looked just as confused as he was before she said this, but I knew exactly what she meant.

“The question is, how was Lafitte’s ship supposed to mess with me?” I asked as an explanation for Holm and Birn, who also looked a little lost. “I wasn’t looking for it like the Dragon’s Rogue, was I? The reason for the fake journal and the fake Dragon’s Rogue was to get me to give up looking or even to think I found the ship when I really didn’t. None of that holds in this situation.”

“I guess you’re right,” Birn said, now adopting the same thoughtful look that was etched across his partner’s face.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Holm said with a sigh, setting down his fork at long last. “Or doesn’t, I mean.”

“And the treasure wouldn’t make sense either,” I added. “And all the artifacts. Could all of those have been fake, too?”

“It didn’t look fake,” Holm said almost defensively as if he didn’t even want to think about that possibility.

“Neither did Grendel’s journal,” I pointed out. “I never would’ve been able to tell if it weren’t for that old book repairman Percy’s help. And even he said that most appraisers wouldn’t be able to tell, it was that good of a forgery.”

“Well then, we need to tell the FBI that,” Birn said quickly. “Do they know?”

“Yeah, they know everything about my search for the Dragon’s Rogue now,” I said with a nod, staring down at the plate in front of me.

This was a sore spot for me, for some reason. It was bad enough having everyone at MBLIS now directly involved in my search, but the FBI, too? This was supposed to be a thing between myself and my grandfather, and now between Tessa and me. For some reason that I couldn’t quite explain, that bothered me. I didn’t want all these strangers all up in my business like that, and I did consider the Dragon’s Rogue to be my business, in a way.

“I wonder if they’ve considered all this,” Muñoz mused, sipping on her coffee as she spoke, holding the cup between both of her hands. “They may not have since they’re not as close to the case.”

“Which is why we should have the damn ship!” Holm exclaimed. “And why we should be on a plane to Scotland right now. We’re the ones most familiar with the case, so we should be the ones who are working it.”

I didn’t disagree, but if Holm continued to go on like this, we were never going to get anything done, and he would probably alienate just about everyone at the other agencies who were supposed to be on our side in the process.

“Look, we just need to bide our time, like Diane said,” I sighed, hating myself as I said the words. “We can still help. All it takes is a phone call for us to make our suspicions known. I’ll talk to Diane about it and have her make sure the FBI knows all about the possibility that Lafitte’s ship could be a fake.”

“A phone call?” Holm scoffed, bugging his eyes out at me. “You can’t be serious. You know as well as I do that we’d be way more help actually there than we could ever be over the phone.”

“Yes, but that’s not the point,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just the way it is. Throwing a tantrum about it isn’t going to fix anything.”

“And just sitting around and letting other agencies steal the biggest case we’ve ever gotten?” Holm asked me, incredulous. “That’s your plan?”

“No, my plan is to keep doing good work and to keep pestering Diane about things until she pulls through,” I said, in as patient a tone as I could manage. “And she will pull through. She always does. She has our back. It’s just a matter of time.”

I looked at each of my brunch companions in turn. They all knew that I was right, that there was nothing more that we could really do. It just sucked. I could see it on their faces, and I agreed with them.

We all went back to eating, though I could tell that most of us had lost our appetite, not that I had much left to begin with given how much food Buddy had given me. Even Holm was just picking at what remained of his pancakes now.

“I guess that would explain why they sent the ship to New Orleans, to begin with,” Holm mused after giving up on the rest of his meal and pushing his plate away from him. “They must’ve known we would’ve ended up there since that’s where the Haitian zombie drug was going.”

“They were looking for the ship for a long time before that, though,” I pointed out, falling on the part of this timetable that troubled me. “And Clifton Beck—well, there were conflicting reports in our interviews about when exactly he was in the Keys. I guess it could’ve been after they found out about