Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I replied placatingly. “Anyway, yeah, I took the stuff down to Coins and Things. Apparently, the coin isn’t actually a coin at all. It was a charm.”

“Like, for good luck?” Holm asked.

“Exactly like that.” I nodded. “Apparently, those kinds of charms were believed to bring good luck during long voyages. Same with the earring, actually. Gold hoop earrings were considered good luck.”

“Obviously didn’t do the dead guy any good,” Holm remarked.

“Yeah, I guess not,” I muttered. “This is just a theory, but Tessa thinks they might have been gifts from Grendel.”

“Why does she think that?” he asked.

“Well, Grendel’s journal did mention something about helping a ‘friend’ plan for a trip to Scotland, right?” I explained. “We can’t be sure since the entry was pretty vague, but it would make sense if part of his preparations had included giving the dead guy the charm and the earrings. It would have meant that he wished his friend a good voyage, and it would explain why the guy was keeping the charm safe inside the satchel and why we found that envelope with Grendel’s seal on it.”

“That does sound plausible,” Holm replied thoughtfully as he took another sip of his beer.

“Right?” I replied. “It’s all speculation, though, since we don’t even know if the dead guy was the ‘friend’ that Grendel was referring to.”

“If it was,” Holm replied, “then Grendel must have been pretty pissed off about his friend’s death.”

That was true. The skeleton we’d found had a bullet hole straight through his forehead, which meant that someone had executed the poor sucker. Based on what we currently knew about Grendel, I could only imagine that his reaction to his friend’s death would have been bloody.

Just the thought of it got my blood pumping, and I felt a renewed determination to get to the bottom of whatever had really happened on board that sunken ship.

4

Olivia

Agent Hastings bit her lip nervously as she prepared to contact the person their forensics team had managed to track down. This entire case was so unusual that it was setting her on edge. She preferred to always have a solid plan before she acted, as well as several contingencies in mind for whatever might happen. That just wasn’t possible in this case, though.

They’d managed to track the woman down by cross-referencing the kid’s DNA against a database owned by one of those ancestry tracking companies. Olivia had never been interested in that kind of stuff, so she’d never given it much thought. She had no idea that those companies stored their clients' information even after they’d sent out the results or that they would hand it over to the FBI so easily.

Of course, she was glad they had since this bit of information was going to make locating Eddy’s family significantly easier. Still, she couldn’t shake the unsettling way the whole thing made her feel. Did the people who sent their DNA off to these companies realize that they were basically giving them permission to do whatever they wanted with it afterward? Personally, she didn’t much like the idea of some company handing her genetic information out like that, but this wasn’t the time or place to ruminate on that.

The match was only partial, distinct enough that it might not actually be a relative, but close enough that it was better than anything they’d managed to dig up so far. What was peculiar was that the woman’s address was listed as being in Pennsylvania, several states away from Miami. If she was related to the kid, it meant that the boy had made quite the journey in getting here.

She dialed the number they had on file, once again feeling chills at how easily the company had handed all the woman’s personal information over, even if it did benefit her.

“Hello?” a confused-sounding voice answered after a few rings.

“Hello,” Olivia began calmly. “My name is Olivia Hastings. I’m a federal agent with the Special Victims Miami Division of the FBI. Is this Christina Newark?”

“Um, yes,” the woman replied stiltedly. “Wait, did you say FBI? Are you serious? Is this some kind of joke or something?”

“I’m afraid not,” Olivia replied. She really hated doing this in such a sloppy manner, but this was the only lead they had so far. “Is it true that you submitted an ancestry search a few months ago?”

“Umm… yeah?” the woman answered nervously. “Why? Am I related to a serial killer or something?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Olivia assured her. “The fact is that we’re attempting to locate the relatives of the lost child. The DNA you submitted came up as a match for him.”

“Whoa, really?” Christina asked. “Is he okay? I mean, do you think he’s like my cousin or something?”

“It’s possible,” Olivia replied vaguely. If this woman, Christina, was the boy’s mother, then the DNA would have been a closer match. As it was, a cousin would make a lot more sense.

“Wow, that’s crazy,” Christina sighed. “So, like, what did you want from me, exactly?”

“Well, to be honest, I was hoping you could tell me more about him,” Olivia replied. Unfortunately, it sounded as though Christina was completely clueless about the boy. “As it is, we have no idea who he is or where he came from.”

“Aw, that’s so sad,” Christina responded. “I don’t really know anything about a kid, though. I mean, no one in my family’s ever mentioned a--”

She suddenly cut herself off with a gasp.

“Ms. Newark?” Olivia called. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, crap,” Christina muttered. “Maybe my mom knows something about it.”

“Why do you say that?” Olivia asked a little impatiently. She just didn’t have the same calm demeanor with adults that she could maintain when speaking with kids.

“Well, I don’t really know,” Christina answered. “The thing is, I’m pretty sure my mom had another kid at some point. I found some old baby stuff in our attic a few years ago. I thought it was mine, but when I