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

here to ask you some questions about your missing boat, Lucy.”

The old man shook my hand loosely, his veins sticking out in his wrinkled skin. I would have put him in his mid-eighties, at the very least.

“Hi, I’m Agent Nina Gosse with the FBI,” Nina added, shaking Mr. Samuels’s hand in turn. “I’m with Agent Marston.”

“Lucy!” Mr. Samuels exclaimed when he realized what we were asking about before swiveling to his nephew with a decidedly aggravated look on his face. “You went and reported me to the FBI over a missing motorboat, you ungrateful little brat!”

The old man swatted his nephew on the shoulder with his limp hand, though the interaction didn’t seem to me to be entirely mean-spirited. I had a feeling that these two just had this kind of teasing rapport, though I thought that Mr. Samuels was probably serious when he assumed we were here just because a boat was missing.

“Oh, no, sir, we’re not here about that directly,” I said quickly, suppressing a laugh, a feat made even more difficult by Nina’s failed attempt to hide a snicker next to me. “We think that someone stole your boat and used it to transport a missing child into international waters.”

“Hah!” Mr. Samuels cried, pointing wildly at his nephew. “I told you it wasn’t my fault! I told you!”

Danny chuckled and gave me a weak, apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “My uncle and I go round and round on this issue, so I suppose he has to take this as sort of a win for him.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not standing right here, boy!” Mr. Samuels cried, though he was smiling at the younger man. “Anyway, it’s me you should be apologizing to, not them.”

“Yes, uncle, I suppose you’re right,” Danny said, rolling his eyes. “I’m sorry for not believing you before.”

“Now was that so hard?” Mr. Samuels challenged.

“Yes, yes it was,” Danny told him.

I had to suppress another laugh, and Nina passed one of her own off as a cough.

“Do you need some water, my dear?” Mr. Samuels asked her.

“No. No, I’m fine,” she said, her voice coming out raspy as she waved him off and covered yet another laugh into her arm. “Thank you, though.”

I cleared my throat to wipe away my own laughter and turned back to Mr. Samuels.

“So, Mr. Samuels,” I started, but the old man cut me off.

“Please, son, I don’t know why everyone insists on calling me that, you just call me Dan, alright?” he instructed, and Danny let out a guffaw.

“You don’t know why?” he repeated incredulously. “You can’t be serious, uncle. You’ve made everyone call you that for as long as I can remember.”

“Yes, well, they’re with the FBI and that embell-a-what’s-it, so they can call me whatever they like,” Mr. Samuels snapped back, and Nina and I both had to suppress yet another storm of laughter. We really did meet some characters in this line of work of ours.

“Alright, yes, well, Mr… I mean, Dan, are you absolutely certain that you didn’t loan the white motorboat you call Lucy out to anyone else yesterday?” I asked. Then, to the nephew, “It was yesterday you noticed that the boat was missing, is that correct?”

“Yes, it was yesterday around ten in the morning,” Danny confirmed with a nod. “She was there the previous evening when I closed up shop.”

“And around what time was that?” Nina asked. “When you last saw this boat, I mean?”

“Around six in the evening, that’s when we tend to lock things up for the day,” Danny said. “And she was there, I know it for sure.”

“Alright, Mr… I mean, Dan, so are you sure that you didn’t give it to someone?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the old man to indicate that this was serious. “Your nephew and one of your customers—Marty—said that you do this fairly often. So I’m wondering if there’s any chance at all that you loaned Lucy out without remembering, or maybe someone thought you were giving permission, but they misunderstood you? Is anything like that possible at all?”

“No,” Mr. Samuels said definitively, shaking his head with some emphasis. “I don’t forget these types of things. You ask anyone, now I know I’m old, and I forget what I had for breakfast sometimes, but I never forget anything about my boats. Never.”

Nina and I both turned to look at Danny to confirm this, and he nodded begrudgingly, giving a shrug.

“It’s true enough,” he said. “Drives me bonkers, I’ll tell you that. He won’t remember the most basic bookkeeping practices or to tell me when he loans out one of the boats, but he never forgets that he actually did it.”

“You seemed quick to assume that he’d forgotten before,” Nina pointed out, arching an eyebrow at him.

“That’s because he wants me to be losing my mind, the ungrateful bonehead,” Mr. Samuels spat, swatting at his nephew’s shoulder again almost good-naturedly despite his words. “That would mean he could stop me from helping people so much.”

“Helping people!” Danny cried, throwing his arms up in the air in exasperation. “Uncle Dan, you’re going to drive us out of business if you keep just handing boats out to people. And I bet at least two-thirds of them could pay full price if they really wanted to. Maybe not Marty, and he’s a good guy, and I don’t mind that much, but the rest of them? Come on.”

“There’s no shame in being neighborly,” Mr. Samuels said, gesturing wildly in Danny’s direction again. “I thought your parents raised you better than that. I sure taught you better than that!”

“Okay, okay, I think this is kind of getting into the family dispute territory and no offense, but that’s not exactly what we’re here for,” Nina said, holding out a hand each to stop Mr. Samuels and his nephew from continuing with this.

Neither man seemed to be angry with the other, exactly. I got the sense that this was just the family dynamic they had going, and they