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

“No, I’m not threatening you,” the old woman said quickly, her tone bordering on panic now. “I’m warning you. There’s a difference.”

I narrowed my eyes at this.

“Warning me?” I repeated. “What do you mean you’re warning me? Warning me about what?”

There was only silence in response.

“Look, you’ve been dodging our calls for weeks, and we know that there’s more going on here than meets the eye,” I continued when I realized that she wasn’t going to respond. “It’ll be better for all of us if you just tell us what we need to know now. Get this done quicker and more painlessly.”

“Nothing about this is painless,” the manager snapped, and she sounded like she was speaking more to herself than to Tessa and me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, meeting Tessa’s eyes as we both eagerly awaited an answer. “Look, we’re going to figure it out eventually anyway, so you may as well help us and work with us. We can protect you this way.”

“I’m under no illusions about you being here on official agency business,” the manager scoffed, and she wasn’t exactly wrong about that. “I don’t care who you are. I’m calling the police. You can be their problem now.”

There was a note of finality in her tone, and there was a rustling sound as she picked up her landline to make the call.

“Hold on!” I called, rapping on the door with my knuckles violently in an attempt to get her to stop. “If you think the police are going to respond any differently to me than your security guards, you’re mistaken. And by involving them, you’ll just be drawing even more attention to whatever you’ve got going on here than you have already! And you don’t want that, do you?”

This was a gamble. I didn’t actually know that this was true about the police, considering that I wasn’t actually here on MBLIS business. Sure, I could maybe get Diane to go along with it in normal times. But who’s to say I could even get her on the phone at a time like this? Her focus was rightfully elsewhere.

Even so, Martha hesitated, or at least I didn’t hear her calling for the police.

“Look, I know you’re probably not the big gun behind this operation,” I continued. “No offense, but you don’t strike me as the type. I get it: you got caught up in something you don’t understand, and now you don’t know what to do. I can help you. You just have to let me.”

There was another period of silence, and then I felt the door beginning to swing open, and I took a step back. Martha Willis’s mousy little face poked through the sliver that was now between the door and the wall.

“What can you do to protect me?” she breathed as if she was afraid that someone would overhear.

Tessa glanced back at the other doors, but she didn’t seem to notice anyone there or any light under the doors of the other offices. I remembered that the museum didn’t have very many employees anyway, and the rest of the employees were probably downstairs dealing with visitors and giving tours of the museum. The only ones who probably stuck to their offices on a regular basis were Martha and Henry, but he wasn’t anywhere to be found, was he?

“That depends on what you can give us and what exactly is going on,” I pointed out. “But if there’s any real danger going on here, I promise that we’ll be able to shield you from it. As far as any possible charges against you, that depends on what you’ve done and who you’ve been cooperating with, as well as how much you’ve helped them.”

“I don’t know very much, I swear,” Martha said, shaking her head as her voice started to quiver. “I was just trying to stay out of trouble… and now it just keeps finding me some more.”

“If that’s truly the case, then we shouldn’t have much trouble,” I assured her with a nod. “But if it turns out that you’re still withholding any information from me down the line, that will come back to bite you. Do you understand? Either you’re fully honest with me now, or I can’t protect you to the extent that you may want or need, for practical reasons as much as anything else.”

“I… I understand,” the manager stammered, opening the door wide enough for Tessa and me to slip through. Her office was dark, and the window shades were drawn down as if she didn’t want anyone to know that she was there.

“Thank you,” I said, nodding to her again as she gestured for us to take a seat in the chairs that were sitting across from her desk.

We did so, and Martha sat back down behind the desk without turning on the lights. Papers and books were scattered across her desktop in front of an old MacBook, and the entire office gave me absent-minded professor vibes.

I wondered if this was the way things usually looked, or if the office was now a reflection of her frazzled and nervous state of mind given the funny business that had been going on lately at the museum, whatever that funny business was. Well, I thought that it was high time that I figured that out.

“So,” Martha said curtly, folding her hands in front of her on her desk. “You believe that you are a direct descendent of Lord Jonathan Finch-Hatton, is that correct?”

“Yes,” I said, a little taken off guard by this question. “I mean no, it’s not just a belief. It’s a fact. I believe I forwarded you the appropriate paperwork containing my blood work, crossed with the DNA extracted from Finch-Hatton’s remains.”

“Yes, I saw the paperwork,” Martha said curtly, the corner of her mouth quivering as if this distressed her in some way.

“And you don’t believe it,” I said flatly. This wasn’t a question. It was clear by her demeanor what her position was.

“It’s not