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

other employees who she recognized from when she perused the museum website.

“Here,” Martha said, hovering her mouse over Henry’s number, scrutinizing it, and then flipping back to the log. “And there it is! It looks like it’s been used several times since Henry left.”

Martha’s voice shook as she said this, and it was clear that she was even more spooked now than she had been before. Tessa looked back at Ethan and felt that chill run up and down her spine again.

“What’s this?” Ethan asked sharply, pointing down at a new line that had just appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Martha froze, and her mouth dropped open.

“That’s… that’s Henry’s ID card,” she said, the words coming out stilted and shaky. “It was just used to open the library door.”

19

Ethan

I froze as I stared at the screen, Martha’s words echoing in my head.

She was right, I realized. That was Henry’s ID number and the number for the library door. And the time stamp was just a moment ago. Someone had used it to enter the library while we were talking.

Tessa opened her mouth as if to say something, and Martha made a terrified whimpering noise. I shook my head slightly at each of them and pressed a finger to my lips.

Then I listened hard. The library was large, but I hoped I could still manage to hear something—someone’s footsteps, perhaps, as they snuck up on us.

But I couldn’t hear anything.

I put my hand to my side, where I kept my gun, and I pulled it out before whirling around to come face-to-face with the barrel of someone else’s gun.

There stood three men in ski masks, dressed in black, all with weapons of their own. Each had his gun trained on one of us.

Martha let out another whimpering noise as she began to cry again. Tessa stiffened beside me.

“My name is Ethan Marston, and I’m a federal officer with MBLIS,” I said slowly, pointing my own gun straight back at the goon in front of me. “Shooting at me is a federal offense. I’d think twice if I were you.”

None of the men responded, and the two that were pointing their guns at Tessa and Martha stepped forward to stand closer to their respective targets.

“Watch it,” I growled, waving my own gun in either direction to indicate that I was watching the other goons, too, not just the one opposite me.

I was already kicking myself internally for getting Tessa into another one of these dangerous situations. Hadn’t she told me this would happen? That trouble and excitement had a knack for following me wherever I went, regardless of whether I wanted it or not?

Diane had told me as much during our brief conversation on the phone earlier when I’d stepped out of Martha’s office to see if we could make this an official case and get her some well-needed protection.

Of course, this happened, she had said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go. Now you’ll have to stick it out there and see this case through before coming home to help us on the Holland case. I guess we’ll just have to figure out how to manage.

She’d been happy to contact the local police for me, however, when I described to her just how dire the situation was turning out to be, with Henry mysteriously missing and Martha at her wit's end. Clearly, I’d spoken too soon. Now it was even worse.

I took a step toward the man in front of me.

“Drop your weapons,” I instructed. “Drop them now.”

“Or what?” the guy across from me sneered, and I could hear the expression in his voice even though I couldn’t see his face beneath the ski mask. “You’ll shoot me? Then my friends will shoot your friends, and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”

I bit my lip. I had to admit that he had a point there. I didn’t want Tessa or Martha or anyone else getting shot because I just had to track down an old pirate ship.

“Alright, so I guess we’re at a standstill,” I said airily, trying to sound like I wasn’t as concerned by this situation as I actually was. “How about we talk a little? Who hired you?”

“Like we’re going to tell you that,” the guy scoffed, rolling his eyes, and I could at least see that beneath the slits in the ski mask.

I closely studied each of the men. The one in front of me was slightly above average in height, with blue eyes. He had a lean build but didn’t appear skinny. The guy to his left was about an inch shorter, and he was skinny. His eyes were green, though a lighter shade than Tessa’s. Both of them were white. The third guy was shorter and stockier and looked to be Hispanic. He had brown eyes.

I committed all of this to memory. If these guys got away, I was going to have to relate their descriptions to the police later, and to Diane, and maybe even another agency. Who knew what was really going on here? Somehow I doubted that Walldale was much of a crime hotspot in normal times.

“Come on, guys, we’re going to need to figure something out, or we’re going to be standing here all day,” I pointed out with a lazy tone in my voice and a shrug, though I didn’t waver my gun from the man in front of me for fear that he would take the opportunity to take me out.

“Easy,” the guy said with a shrug of his own, his voice muffled by his ski mask. “There’s three of us and one of you. We win. It’s simple math.”

“I think you need to check your counting skills,” Tessa quipped back, and I groaned internally.

Wasn’t it bad enough that I’d dragged her into this mess without her putting herself in even more danger? Her smart mouth was part of what I liked so much about her, but it wasn’t