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

“I guess you are the expert,” Tessa said warily, and I could tell that she had been hoping for me to give a different answer.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, reaching out and squeezing one of her hands, which was scrunched up into a fist in her lap. “Nothing happened. We’re fine. And no more sneaking around at night, okay?”

“Agreed,” Tessa said darkly, turning to look out the window as I rounded yet another corner and drove along a street that paralleled the ocean. We could see a thin line of water beneath the horizon to our left.

I narrowed my eyes in thought as I redirected my attention forward. I’d reassured Tessa, but I hadn’t exactly managed to reassure myself. What had happened behind the museum may have been nothing. It was true. The strange sound could’ve easily been caused by a squirrel or some other form of wildlife, and the eerie feeling we had both had of being watched could’ve just been a coincidence, or the result of a combination of a long day of travel and our existing concerns about the museum, as Tessa had already suggested.

Still, I was hesitant to write it off as such, especially after the thinly veiled threat the museum director had sent my way that morning. And it was true that my gut was telling me that someone really had been watching us there in the garden, though how they could’ve escaped my detection once I started looking around was beyond me. If there had been anyone else on that street, we would’ve known. And escaping before I started scoping out the place would’ve no doubt alerted us to their attention, as well.

So only one option remained, if my gut was to be believed: someone had been watching us from inside the museum or one of the other shops surrounding it.

I had remembered seeing a few windows on the second floor of the back of the museum, but there hadn’t been any light coming from them, either, and I hadn’t given them much thought until now.

But someone must’ve been inside. I was sure of it, now that I considered the possibility. And as for that sound that we heard? It could’ve come from inside the museum. Perhaps someone opened a window or was coming to spy on us from behind that door. Perhaps they even could’ve opened the door, and we heard them walking toward us as we stood in the garden, but when they realized that we heard them, they scurried back inside before we had a chance to turn around.

I turned this all over in my head until we arrived at the bed-and-breakfast, a tall old house sitting on a quiet little corner in a residential neighborhood, and looking warm and inviting with garden gnomes out front and a deep magenta shade of pink coating the outside.

We parked in the empty driveway and headed up the front walkway.

An older woman greeted us at the door before I even had a chance to knock.

“Hello, young man,” she said, smiling down at me where I stood on the steps. “Are you looking for a place to stay tonight?”

“We were hoping you had an opening, yes,” I said, giving her my best smile and thinking that it was nice to be called ‘young man’ at my age. I supposed I was young compared to the woman, at least.

“Oh, we do,” she said, giving both Tessa and me a toothy grin. “Come on in, come on in!”

I went to retrieve our luggage from the car as Tessa followed the old woman inside. I met them at the front desk area next to a wooden stairwell. The area was carpeted in an ornate magenta rug to match the exterior of the large old house.

“And how long do you think you will be staying?” the woman asked.

I exchanged a look with Tessa.

“A couple of days, at least,” I reasoned. “Maybe a little longer. Why don’t you put us down for three nights for the time being?”

“Of course, of course,” the mousy little woman, who looked to be in her seventies, said, tapping away on an old, boxy computer. “I’m sure we’ll be able to accommodate you if you end up staying longer. One room?”

“Yes,” Tessa confirmed, and I let her take the lead on that one, not wanting to be presumptuous.

“Here you are, Mr. Marston,” the woman said when she had taken my credit card, handing over two sets of keys and a directory of nearby restaurants and attractions. “I’m Paulina. If you need anything during your stay, just let me know. Now, what brings you two to our little neck of the woods all the way from Florida?”

I realized she must’ve seen my address on my payment information.

“Oh, we’re just here for a little getaway,” I said as I took my card back and returned it to its place in my wallet. “We were going to check out the nautical museum tomorrow.”

The old woman perked up at this.

“Ah, my friend Martha is the manager there,” she gushed with a wide smile on her face. “You’ll love it, I’m sure. She’s so thorough. The exhibits are always very educational. They make school trips there all the time, and the university even has its own intern program there.”

I exchanged a bemused look with Tessa.

“You know the manager?” I asked, and Paulina nodded. “You know, I’ve actually been trying to get in touch with her for a while now.”

I leaned casually on the front desk, not wanting it to seem like I took this all that seriously.

“Oh, really?” Paulina asked with a worried expression on her face. “She shouldn’t be all that hard to reach if you just call the museum. The number’s right there on their website. Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to find things like that these days? In my time, sometimes it took forever to find it, and by then, you might as well have just gone