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

I reached down and checked my phone, only to find that I wasn’t getting a signal way out there.

“I don’t have a signal,” I said, feeling my brow crease with worry. “So I don’t know. What about you?”

She pulled out her own phone, glanced at it, and shook her head shortly.

“No, me neither,” she said, though she didn’t sound as worried as I did. “I guess we’ll just have to hope they’re okay with us dropping by, then.”

She moved out ahead of me, then, seemingly unconcerned that we were headed onto some stranger’s property mere hours after we’d been shot at, without so much as a cell signal to allow us to call for help if we needed it.

I rested my hand briefly on the gun I kept at my side, reminding myself that it was there and taking solace in that fact before pressing on after Tessa.

At the top of the staircase, we were met by a beautiful, enormous front lawn that was clearly well cared for, stretching back and turning into a small forest around the house and in the backyard where the cliff turned into the mainland.

“Man, would I love to live here,” Tessa grinned, shaking her head at the house. “Wouldn’t you?”

She looked back at me, and I looked up at the place again, stretching out on the edge of the cliff, right next to the sea.

“It’s a bit big for my tastes, but yeah, I think I could manage,” I chuckled, imagining what it would be like to live in a real house so close to the water. That might be the only way I’d give up my houseboat, I decided, if I got to live on the water anyway, for all intents and purposes.

Together, we crossed the long, green front lawn and then stepped up to the door, which had a large brass knocker on it. I knocked on it, but before I even got to the second knock, the door swung open, revealing a short, mousy woman in a pink shawl who looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties.

“Oh, you must be Agent Marston,” she said, smiling up at me with off-kilter nervous energy. “Paulina called about you. We saw you coming up the stairs from the top floor.”

She gestured vaguely upward and then held the door open for us. Her voice was soft and quick, as if she was simultaneously afraid to speak yet anxious to get all the words out.

“Hello, yes, I’m Ethan,” I said, stepping into her front entryway. “And this is my friend, Tessa Bleu. You must be Mrs. Carlton?”

“Yes, yes, please call me Alice,” the woman said, ushering us out of the entryway and into a vast living room area filled with couches and comfy chairs. There was a coffee table set out in front of a green foam couch, decked with tea and cookies and other snacks.

“So Paulina did manage to get ahold of you?” I asked her as Tessa and I sat down on the couch. “We were worried you wouldn’t be expecting us because we walked here from the restaurant, and we lost our cell signals.”

“Oh yes, we spoke to her this afternoon,” Alice said softly as she sat down across from us in a similarly-colored chair and began to pour us all tea. “My husband is just settling the kids in for a movie upstairs so they won’t bother us. He’ll be down soon.”

“How many do you have?” Tessa asked, accepting her tea with a nod of thanks as I did the same.

“Just two,” the woman said, smiling instinctively at the mention of her children. “One girl and one boy, they’re six and eight. They’re a delight, and this really is a great place to grow up.”

“I can imagine,” I chuckled. “I would’ve killed for that backyard when I was a kid.”

“Oh, yes, that,” Alice said, her face falling at the mention of the yard. “Well, they used to love it, at least.”

“What does that mean?” I asked quickly. “Why don’t they like it anymore?”

The woman opened her mouth hesitantly as if trying to decide whether or how to respond, but right then, Alice’s husband came down the staircase tucked far back behind the couch that Tessa and I were sitting on.

“This is my husband, Tyson,” Alice said weakly, gesturing in the man’s direction as he made his way over to us. “Tyson, this is Agent Ethan Marston and his friend, Tessa, the people Paulina called us about.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” the man said, leaning over the spread on the coffee table and shaking Tessa’s and my hands each in turn before settling in a chair next to his wife.

The man was average height, probably around 5’9, and had shortly cropped blond hair that was receding faintly at the front. He also looked to be in his late twenties to early thirties. He had kind blue eyes, but there were bags beneath them, and there was a kind of weariness in his expression that looked like they had been there for some time.

“Thank you for welcoming us into your home,” Tessa said politely, giving the couple her best smile.

“So,” I said, clapping my hands on my knees. “Paulina said that you guys have been having some trouble with your new neighbors? Why don’t you tell us a bit about that? Or you can start with what you were saying about the backyard if you’d like.”

I’d gotten the sense from the wife that the backyard was a difficult topic, so I wanted to leave it open so that we could ease into that if it made them more comfortable that way. Even so, I was itching to find out what she meant by her original comment on the subject.

“Neighbors,” Tyson scoffed, shaking his head. “If you can call them that.”

“I wouldn’t,” Alice quipped, pursing her lips and taking a small sip from her teacup, which looked precarious to me in her dainty little hands.

“Oh?” Tessa asked, raising her eyebrows at them