Maritime Caper (Coastal Fury Book 12), Matt Lincoln [good books to read for beginners TXT] 📗

the main front desk area, we looked at a cafeteria area with large menus hanging on the wall and a small built-in food court, an exhibit that looked to be about the city’s history with the shipping industry, an atrium area with benches around an indoor tree, and an area full of art prints related to the ocean and the ships that have sailed it throughout history.

We were able to make out vague outlines of these things, but very few specifics. After seeing the outlines, I was honestly excited to see inside out of more than just concern for Grendel’s journal. The museum looked like a fun place to visit, independent of all that.

“It doesn’t look like anyone’s inside,” Tessa remarked when we had both scoped out everything that was on the outward-facing ground floor of this side of the museum. “I don’t see any lights or anything.”

I looked both ways on the quiet little street and took several steps out away from the sidewalk. Then, I peered up at the second floor of the building, hoping to get a hint of any lights on there.

But there was nothing to be seen. Just dark windows like the ones on the ground floor, albeit a little smaller since there was no one to advertise to who would be walking past the second-floor windows to catch fliers.

“No, I don’t see anything, either,” I sighed, shaking my head.

“Come on,” Tessa said, beckoning for me to follow her again as she made her way back up the slope and toward the parking lot. “I think if we walk around, we’ll be able to look at it from the other side. Maybe we’ll come across something there.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt to check,” I agreed, though I regretted saying the words the moment they came out of my mouth. If there was anything I had learned over my years with the Navy SEALS and with MBLIS, it was that it could always hurt.

I rushed to catch up with her since she was already several paces in front of me. Together, we made our way past the parking lot and around to the next block of downtown area stores one street over.

Here there was a donut shop, a gift shop, what looked to be a pottery store, and an art gallery. And in addition, on the right-hand side, just as Tessa had predicted, the other side of the nautical museum.

“Told ya,” she said, flashing me a grin and jogging down the sidewalk to get to the museum again.

I rushed to catch up with her for the second time—she was surprisingly fast, I had learned over my time of knowing her—until we were both standing in front of the museum once again.

There were no wall-to-wall windows here, however, just a concrete door that was no doubt an employee entrance. This was much to Tessa’s distaste, and she scowled.

“Why even have something here for people to walk past if it isn’t important,” she complained, putting her hands on her hips again. “I mean, come on? Just put some gift shop in front of it or something instead of down there.”

She gestured in the direction of the gift shop down the street with a huff, and I laughed.

“I imagine for this,” I said, pointing at a statue of a smart-looking sailor in the middle of a garden in front of the door. The statue was surrounded by trickling fountains and benches for people to sit and enjoy the flora and the view of the beach down below.

“It does look like a nice little area,” Tessa reasoned, stepping over to the fountain surrounding the statue and holding her hand out to let some water trickle onto her.

“This whole place seems nice,” I said, stepping up beside her and leaning back with my hands on my hips, stretching myself out after a long day of travel.

We stood in silence for some time, enjoying the garden and the view and the steady sounds of the fountain trickling against the backdrop of waves softly pounding against the shore down on the waterfront.

It wasn’t long before I started to get a weird feeling like we weren’t alone. I glanced over at Tessa and could see in her eyes that she was getting a similar feeling.

Then we heard the unmistakable sound of a single footstep.

There was no one else that we had seen in the downtown area since our arrival, just the kids we heard playing on the beach, and they were long gone by then since the sun had finished setting.

I quickly drew my gun and searched the area, with Tessa sticking close behind me the whole time. But we didn’t find anything.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Tessa suggested with a glance back in the direction of the parking lot once I had scoped out the entire street, to no avail.

“That’s not a bad idea,” I murmured, gesturing for her to move in front of me as we made our way back to our rental car.

11

Ethan

“What do you think that was about?” Tessa asked once we were safely driving to a bed-and-breakfast that I had found on the Internet the night before. “Just nerves from a long day?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head and setting my mouth in a firm line. “But I definitely heard something. You definitely heard something, right?”

“Yeah, I did,” she confirmed with a curt nod and a hard swallow. “And I felt like I was being watched. But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It could’ve just been our minds playing tricks on us.”

“One of us, and I might buy that,” I said, shaking my head again as I rounded a corner and took us out of the downtown area and toward a more residential part of town. “But both of us? No way. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that you should always trust your instincts. Yeah, sometimes they’re wrong. But more often than not, they’re right, and ignoring