Stolen Child (Coastal Fury Book 13), Matt Lincoln [ebooks children's books free TXT] 📗

the poor old guy couldn’t remember. That’s not too out of the ordinary, though.”

Holm and I exchanged a look, and I could make out the glint of excitement in his eyes that was no doubt in mine, too. A missing boat. That could be something. It could be nothing, but it could be something.

“What kind of boat?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager about this.

“Ah, just a motorboat like this one, except more white than gray,” Marty said with a shrug. “Nothing too special. As I said, it’s not too unusual, though. Mr. Samuels is loaning these things out all the time as he does with me. It drives Danny totally nuts, I know, ‘cause it makes it so hard for him to keep all the books. Usually, when push comes to shove, the old man will remember who he gave ‘em to, though. That was the unusual part. I’m starting to think the poor guy’s losing it, and by the look on his face, Danny does, too. It’s too bad. He’s a local legend just about. He’s been here longer than anyone, and nicer than anybody, too.”

“You said the nephew’s name is Danny?” I asked, pulling a notepad and pen out of my jacket and beginning to scribble this all down. “Last name?”

“Samuels, just like his uncle,” Marty said. “And the uncle’s first name is Danny, too, everybody just calls him Samuels, or Old Samuels, or something like that. Hey now, you don’t think either of them had anything to do with all this, do you? Those guys wouldn’t hurt a fly. A fish, maybe, if it was giving them trouble, but not a fly.”

“We’re just covering all our bases,” I assured him, giving him a smile. “And if a boat’s missing, maybe we can help them find it.”

“Isn’t that a little below the FBI and… uh… em-bell-what’s-you-call-it, anyway?” Marty asked, stumbling over the name of Holm’s and my agency.

“A little,” I relented. “Though we can help someone else by pointing them in the right direction if need be.”

“Is there anything else you can think of?” Holm asked. “Anything that might help us? Anyone you’ve seen on the water today, or maybe yesterday, that looked out of place to you?”

“Haven’t seen anybody doing anything in a day,” Marty reiterated. “Even out on the water. Except the Coast Guard, if you count them. In fact, there were more of those ships than usual today.”

I let that slide, not explaining why that might be, though I was glad to know that the Coast Guard was still looking fervently as ever for Mikey.

“Do you know the name of the ship that’s missing?” I asked him, glancing back over at the one he’d borrowed himself and seeing that the name “Annette” was coated across its sternum in calligraphy.

“Uh, let’s see,” Marty said, swiveling on his feet to gaze out at all the docked boats. “Mr. Samuels named all these old models after ex-girlfriends of his, believe it or not. There’s Marcy, and Becca, and Caroline. I do not see Lucy anywhere, and she’s one of the white ones, I know that. Don’t think anyone rented her out, either, since I remember seeing her when I got back yesterday around this time, and almost everybody was cleared out by then.”

“Thank you,” I said again, nodding to him in thanks as I scribbled this down. “We appreciate you talking to us, and if you think of or see anything else, just give me a call, okay?”

I replaced the notebook and pen in my jacket and pulled one of my business cards out instead, handing it to him.

He squinted down at it.

“Marston,” he muttered as if committing my name to memory. “Will do, Agent Marston. I appreciate what you’re doing here.”

15

Ethan

Marty left the docks not long after that, having finished cleaning the boat for the most part. He saluted us and headed up to where he must have been parked in a lot not far from there, where Nina had left her rental car from the airport.

“We might as well stick around until this Samuels guy and his nephew come back,” Holm suggested. “Take a look around. Maybe this missing boat is the one we’re looking for.”

“Hold on, I should send that description to the Coast Guard,” Nina said, pulling out her phone and giving Marty’s rental boat a penetrating stare as if she was trying to determine how best to describe it properly.

“Give it here,” I chuckled, holding out my hand for her phone. “I’ll write one.”

“Thank you,” she said as she passed the phone over to me, looking relieved.

I quickly described the boat and gave the name Marty had deduced, and snapped a quick picture of the witness’s boat for good measure, sending it along to Nina’s contact with the addendum that “Lucy” was white, not gray.

When I handed the phone back to Nina, we all started instinctively walking toward the boat rental place without really discussing it. I felt like we didn’t have an hour to waste, but we didn’t have much else to do, and in the meantime, we could keep exploring the bay and hope we ran into another Marty along the way.

We didn’t run into another Marty. We walked all the way to the store, just to see that it was closed with an old, worn hand-written sign denoting that the owners were away without a set return time, taped to the inside of the front door’s window.

After that, we continued to walk up and down the pier for some time, our steps and my stomach a little lighter now that we might actually have a lead until Nina’s phone buzzed.

“It’s the Coast Guard guy,” she said apprehensively as she looked at it before her shoulders deflated. “They got the message and got the word out to everyone, but nothing new yet.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” Holm sighed, though his tone revealed he’d gotten his hopes up again when her phone went off.

My own phone vibrated