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

perfect morning. It was still pretty good, though, I decided. I was with Tessa, and I was by the ocean. What more could a man ask for?

I really thought that the universe was taunting me for even having that thought in the first place as my phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket to see that Holm was calling me.

He didn’t usually get up this early in the morning, so I knew that it must be important.

“What? What is it?” I asked hurriedly, without even taking a second to say ‘hello.’

“Well, hello to you, too, partner,” Holm said in a tone of mock hurt, though I could hear real tiredness in his tone.

“You’re never up this early,” I said flatly. “So what’s going on? Something with the Holland case?”

“Okay, I’m going to preface this by asking you to please not freak out,” Holm said, and that only served to freak me out more, of course.

“Holm, what the hell happened?” I asked, stopping in my tracks in the middle of the sidewalk as fog billowed around my ankles.

“Okay, okay, so last night…” he started to explain, but I cut him off, my tone angry.

“Last night?” I repeated, aghast. “If something happened last night, why didn’t you call me then? I made you promise to update me whenever something happens!”

“Okay, well, sue me if, between all the police reports and talking to the FBI and dealing with three different forensics teams all night, I didn’t stop and have a chance to call you,” my partner responded defensively. “I didn’t even have time to eat dinner, let alone get any sleep!”

“Now you really have to tell me what’s going on,” I said darkly, abandoning all of my annoyance at Holm because I was just worried now. “What are you talking about? What happened?”

“Well, I’m trying to tell you, if you’ll just stop interrupting,” Holm chuckled.

“Yes, yes, I’m done,” I said hastily. “What is it?”

“Well, last night, a guy broke into the office,” Holm said, and I could almost see him wince all the way in Miami.

“The MBLIS office?!” I cried, and a nearby squirrel who had been chomping away on a walnut fixed its beady little eyes on me in alarm, abandoned its prize, and scampered away.

“What other office would I be talking about?” Holm asked. “But yeah, the MBLIS office. Well, he didn’t quite break in, really, but almost.”

“Explain,” I said shortly.

“Right,” Holm continued. “So Diane and I were in the office late, just going over the Holland case…”

“Was there anything new after I texted you?” I asked, interrupting him again despite my promise. “Nothing since the FBI confirmed it was them at the Atlanta airport?”

“No, nothing before this happened,” Holm said, sounding a little exasperated at my latest interruption, though he didn’t say anything about it. “But anyway, so we were just sitting there, and then someone knocked on the door. Diane opened it, and there was a package just sitting there. No address or return address or anything. It was just sitting at the door, and no one was in the hallway.”

“Oh, God, Holm, you didn’t open it, did you?” I asked, thinking that whatever was inside could’ve been laced with poison or contain some kind of explosive.

“I did,” Holm said quickly. “I know I probably shouldn’t have, but Diane wasn’t opening it, and it was really light and only sounded like a piece of paper was inside, so I just went with it. And clearly, I’m still alive, so it was fine.”

“Is Diane still alive?” I asked, flummoxed by this rash decision on my partner’s part, though I wasn’t exactly surprised. I supposed that Holm’s rashness balanced out my own caution, and that was why we made a good team, but still. There were limits.

“Yes, of course, don’t you think I would’ve led with that?” Holm asked.

“Well, you didn’t lead with this,” I pointed out.

“Fair enough,” he sighed. “So I opened the box, and there was just a note in it that said ‘watch out.’”

“Watch out?” I repeated, more than a little skeptically. “Holm, are you messing with me?” It just sounded too much like something out of a bad cop show.

“No, I’m not, I swear,” he said quickly. “I would tell you if I was.”

“Alright, then,” I sighed, deciding to take this at face value for now and confirm it with Diane later. “So that’s it? There was just a note that said watch out? It wasn’t signed or anything?”

“No, it wasn’t signed, and it didn’t match Chester's or Ashley Hollands’ handwriting, either,” Holm said. “Though we’re having a couple of handwriting experts look at it to make sure. I guess one of them could’ve tried to change it up just for the note. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Neither would I,” I said darkly, thinking that I wouldn’t put much past the Hollands, based on what little we did know about the couple. “So that was it? The note? You’ve got three forensics teams and the FBI looking at a note? For all that you know, it could’ve just been a few kids playing a prank on you.”

“It does sound like something like that, doesn’t it?” Holm asked with a small chuckle that didn’t have much humor in it. “Like something they saw on TV. But yeah, what happened next confirmed that wasn’t it.”

“There’s more?” I asked, thinking that my eyes just might bug out of my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Holm. You need to lead with the most important parts from now on.”

“Well, I’m just trying to tell the story in order,” he said in an almost patronizing tone, and he laughed. “But yeah, there’s more.”

“Stop joking around and tell me what happened,” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose and shutting my eyes tightly.

A nearby early morning dog walker stopped to give me a puzzled look but continued on past me.

“Right, so there was a guy hiding in the stairwell,” Holm said quickly, clearly wanting to get it