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

“Right, I’ve called a few times,” I said, though this was putting it mildly. “Have you seen Martha at all lately?”

“Well, she was at our knitting circle last week,” Paulina said with another smile. “They hold it at the yarn store downtown. You know, while you’re here, you should check them out, too. They’re a nice little place. It would be a great gift for your mothers, I’m sure! The address is right here on my list of attractions downtown.”

She gestured at the pamphlet she had given to Tessa covered in restaurants and other spots to go in Walldale.

“Thanks, we’ll have to check it out,” I said, having no intention of doing so. “Has Martha mentioned anything about the museum lately? Maybe about a missing artifact, or something like that?”

I studied Paulina’s reaction closely, though my gut told me that she had nothing to do with all of this.

“A missing artifact,” she gasped, clutching a hand to her chest. “Why, no, she never said anything about that. And I didn’t read anything about it in the papers, and I’m sure it would’ve been there. No, you must be mistaken, Mr. Marston. It can’t be.”

By the end of this little speech, she seemed to have convinced herself that it was true, working her way from sheer horror at the thought to concern that I had been fed some kind of misinformation.

“Maybe so,” I said, smiling at her. “I hope you’re right. Either way, do you think you could convince Martha to meet with us? She’s been a little hard to reach.”

“I can go down to the museum with you myself in the morning, if you’d like,” Paulina suggested, suddenly excited at the idea of getting out of the house. I got the sense that she didn’t do that a lot.

“That would be greatly appreciated,” I said, taking one of her wrinkled hands between both of my own and squeezing it gently. She seemed to like that, and the smile returned to her face.

“I’m looking forward to it, Mr. Marston,” she said. “Of course, you’ll have breakfast down here with us in the morning, I hope? We make it for all our guests, starting at eight every morning.”

“Of course, we’re looking forward to it, too,” I said, and Tessa nodded in confirmation.

“And what’s your name, dear?” Paulina asked, holding one of her hands out for Tessa to shake.

“Tessa,” she said, smiling and nodding at the woman and shaking her hand softly.

“Such a nice young couple,” the old woman gushed, looking between us, and I could tell that Tessa was stifling a laugh as she looked down at the floor.

“Is there anything else you could tell us about the museum or the town?” Tessa asked her when she’d recovered. “Anything odd going on lately?”

“Odd?” Paulina repeated, shaking her head in confusion. “Why, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh, I don’t know, nothing seems out of place?” I asked her. “No new people in town, or anything like that?”

As innocent as Paulina seemed, and as much as I thought she wouldn’t be able to help us much, you never knew when a witness could stumble upon some tidbit that might be important, even if they didn’t realize it themselves. Asking around in this way was a big part of how Holm, Muñoz, and I broke the Keys case, after all. Some random guy named Chad was able to tell us something important—crucial even, even though he had no idea what we were doing or what he was talking about.

“Oh, I couldn’t say, dears,” she said apologetically, shaking her head. “I deal with the tourists, not the real estate market. I could ask Martha in the morning, though, when we see her. She keeps better tabs on such things than I do myself.”

“That would be appreciated,” I said, giving her another smile as I went to gather up Tessa and my luggage again. “Now, where is our room?”

“Oh, just upstairs on to the left,” Paulina said, gesturing feebly in that direction. “Yours will be the door against the back wall, not one of the ones along the hallway. You do ask strange questions if you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Marston.”

“Oh, you’ll have to forgive me,” I said, flashing her a half-grin. “My job involves a lot of investigative work, and even when I’m on vacation, I can’t seem to turn that part of my brain off.”

“Ah, I see,” she chuckled, her voice low and crackly, but not unkind. “Don’t forget to write in the guest book while you’re here!”

12

Ethan

It was a nice room, large but cozy if a little stereotypical of a bed-and-breakfast with its flowery curtains and frilly upholstery.

Once the door was tightly shut behind us, Tessa crossed over to a table beneath a mirror across from the bed and opened a large leather-bound book sitting there.

“This must be the guest book,” she laughed, looking through its pages. “Everyone writes about their experience of staying here. Some of these are kind of funny. It looks like a kid wrote in it while his parents weren’t looking and complained they came here instead of Disney World.”

“That sounds about right,” I chuckled. “Though I would’ve preferred to come here over Disney World when I was a kid.”

“Of course you would’ve,” Tessa said dryly, rolling her eyes.

I checked my phone quickly to see that I had a message from Nina Gosse, the FBI agent. Alas, she was out of the state on assignment, so we wouldn’t be able to meet up while I was there. I was disappointed, but not too much, given that I had Tessa with me.

Nina was very cryptic in her message about the Holland case. She said she couldn’t confirm or deny anything but couldn’t tell me anything, either, which seemed to me like a roundabout way of telling me that she was involved with the case somehow, or at least knew about it.

I shot her a quick message back, asking why, if our agencies