Chapter 10
Waiting, Braden stood next to a tree near Jo’s cabin. He assumed that she and Cressida were still at work on the composite sketch. Remi had explained they left the lodge less than half an hour ago. So he’d give the two the time they needed.
After what he’d learned from Octavia last night, he’d been furious. He’d taken a ride on his bike on the dark, rain-slick roads. Even then, he’d still needed to cool off.
Octavia had known that eventually Cressida would show up in Hidden Bay for the simple reason that Cressida had taken on her father’s project.
Though Octavia hadn’t told Braden, he fully expected that she had somehow been following or keeping track of her daughter.
She’d tried to warn Cressida away from this project, but after sinking Cressida’s career over an exposé she’d been working on, Octavia had no more say in her life.
Cressida refused to speak to her mother.
The only connection Cressida still wanted was with her father—and he was dead.
Braden understood that she’d thrown herself completely into finishing this book for him as a way to get through the hurt and pain.
Still, he couldn’t imagine, for any reason, not speaking to family. But what did he know about it?
Octavia Dane was brilliant. Manipulative and powerful. A force to be reckoned with. He wanted to ask her why sinking the exposé had been worth risking her relationship with Cressida, but he’d cross that bridge later.
He thought back to the conversation.
“I’m concerned that her father was killed because he ran across delicate information.” Octavia had sounded like she might choke up with tears.
Braden didn’t know if that was an act or if she could actually show sincere emotion.
“Delicate?”
“Dangerous.”
“I’m going to need more,” he said.
“He came back to see me. Cut his trip short, leaving Washington state. But he died before he could talk to me. I think it was about whatever he discovered in Hidden Bay.”
“You think. There’s nothing that you know?” Why had the man believed he needed to talk to Octavia about his discovery?
“Braden, please, just trust me.”
Trust her?
“Cressida’s caught in the middle. I was right to listen to my instincts and send you there. I’m so relieved that you . . .”
Complied. Like he had any choice. “I’m here. What more can you tell me so I can navigate this and protect her?”
“I’ve told you everything I can. Protect her, and maybe seeing this through with her will help you to discover what it’s about.”
“Everything I can.”
Braden had instincts too. And his instincts told him that Octavia Dane already knew exactly what it was about, but she had to stay hands-off and keep her distance while she let him get his hands dirty.
After the call and the ride, he’d worked late into the night, following what few leads he had.
Captain Everett “Salty” Malloy had delivered Cressida’s father, Alaric Dane, to Hidden Bay.
He’d also delivered Cressida with a warning.
Braden had learned that Malloy had previously been a Navy guy who specialized in salvage operations, which didn’t send up any red flags, but Braden would continue to dig and also try to get ahold of the guy so he could question him about his warnings to Cressida.
Braden also learned by looking at Malloy’s social media that he belonged to a Facebook page for a group who dressed up like pirates.
Not to be confused with the Hidden Bay liveaboard pirates.
What had happened on the Mariner’s Gambit per Cressida’s statement regarding Malloy’s almost run-in with a speedboat?
The door opened, pulling his thoughts to the moment. Fiery-haired Cressida stepped out, along with Jo, both still deep in discussion.
Braden started toward them. He ignored that awkward feeling that suddenly rose in his chest at the sight of Cressida.
Uncertainty gripped him, which he also ignored.
Was his unease because he might be a little bit taken with her, which was ridiculous, or was it about the secret that weighed him down?
A secret that, if she found out, would be the end of them.
He shut down the thoughts. Get a grip. I’m a cop. A detective. Former DSS agent.
And he was just doing his job. Mid-conversation, Cressida tore her gaze from Jo to look at him.
Her striking pale eyes grew wide, then a warm, hesitant smile brightened her face.
In that one look, he caught something he hadn’t expected.
She was glad to see him . . . on a personal level.
Or was he reading her wrong? He shoved the utterly unprofessional thoughts away and approached.
“Ms. Valentine.” He nodded with a grin, then looked to Jo. “Jo. It’s good to see you.”
“Just Cressida, please. We talked about this,” she said. “I don’t like anyone to call me by anything else.”
He hadn’t wanted to be that personal in front of Jo. “How’d it go?” he asked them both.
“Come inside and see the sketch.” Jo led them back inside to her art studio, where she handed off the sketch.
He took a picture of it with his cell. “I’ll make sure this image gets out to law enforcement. Can you stick this in an envelope for me so the hard copy gets to the office and you get paid?”
“Sure.” While Jo found an envelope, Braden studied Cressida, who was taking in Jo’s amazing art.
She lifted her face and caught him.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “It can’t be easy having to go through the details of the man who attacked you all over again.”
“I’m one step closer to justice,” she said.
And you’re a survivor. “What do you have planned today?”
She angled her head so that her long, curly hair fell to the side. “I thought I’d find my way down to the marina.”
“Sorry, guys, I have to take this.” Jo answered a call on her radio.
Cressida waved goodbye. She and Braden exited the art studio.
The marina, huh? Not without him. “I can take you.”
“Detectives don’t usually chauffeur people around, do they?”
He adjusted his jacket, letting his gaze scan the surroundings. “I was going that way anyway. I thought we could talk about the case. Besides, I have a surprise for you in my car.”
Eyes wide, she sucked in a breath. “My laptop?”
Oh, he hated to disappoint her. “Not yet. But I do have your bag with your stuff. We’ve already searched for fingerprints and found nothing.”
He’d confirmed her ID—Cressida Valentine Dane—per protocol and for the record.
“Let’s go, then.” She walked with him back to the parking lot and to his car.
He handed her the bag, and she dug through, looking as thrilled as he would expect.
“Still want to go to the marina?” he asked. “My offer still stands.”
She glanced up at him, looked off, then back. “What if you get called out on another crime?”
“I won’t. This investigation and your safety are my priority.
” Push too hard and she would get suspicious.
In fact, those gears were already turning behind her gaze.
Brilliant like her mother. She’d have his number before he knew it.
But she wouldn’t find much about him in the usual places on the internet.
Octavia had made sure to scrub what little was out there—for her own protection.
“If you’re sure, I’d love a ride,” she said. “I have some questions for you too, and I want to go first.”
Uh-oh. He hadn’t expected that. She’d pulled herself together quickly, and that impressed him.
With the forensic sketch tucked in a file folder in the back seat, Cressida Dane buckled in the front, and the information Octavia had shared with him last night rolling around in his head, Braden steered out of Cedar Trails Lodge and Resort.
He drove slowly to give them more time. “You said you had questions.”
“Captain Malloy suggested I talk to Diggins about the Specter’s Bounty.
Malloy says he’s one of a group of people who live on their boats out in the bay that call themselves pirates.
Pirates.” Her eyes grew big in exaggerated incredulity as she repeated the word.
“Do you know about them? Do you know Diggins?”
Everyone calls themselves pirates around here.
Braden had investigated the boaters after an incident last year and questioned them.
“I know a few things about him. For one, Diggins is his nickname. His real name is Jonas Daggerty. The liveaboards call him their captain, or rather ‘pirate king.’ Their name is for fun, and it works really well with the upcoming Hidden Bay Pirates’ Bash.
And he’s like a bazillion years old but gets around like he’s a very lively seventy. ”
“How did he earn the name Diggins?”
Braden scratched his temple as he turned onto the picturesque descent into Hidden Bay.
“I couldn’t tell you with any certainty, but it might have something to do with him digging into the past. It’s not something you can find on the internet.
Decades ago, he captained a commercial fishing vessel, and his boat was impounded for allegedly smuggling illegal artifacts.
He avoided jail. I don’t know all the details. ”
“How did you find out?”
“Through law enforcement connections, archives.” He cracked a grin. “And he told me most of it.”
“That was really honest of him.”
“He claims he has nothing to hide, that everyone knows about it, so you have a good idea of what you’re going into.”
“You know, sounds like I could write an entire book on the characters who live in Hidden Bay, outside of this book I’m trying to finish for Dad.”
And once she learned about Braden’s background, she would either blast him in that book or erase his existence—to her—altogether. Like she’d done her mother.
“What else can you tell me?” she asked.
“He was the first one to live on his boat anchored out in the bay and brought in others. Couldn’t afford the moorage, or didn’t want to pay for it. I’m not sure.”
“And who knows,” she said. “With his background, maybe he really was a pirate. Could still be.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything. He’s a nice guy. Warm and friendly. He’s an old guy, and what’s past is past. He could have been innocent.” Why had he told her that story? To win points?
“I hear you,” she said. “As for living out in the bay and not paying moorage, he’s a bit of a rebel?”
“That’s my opinion. Nice guy and rebel.”
“I usually don’t do this,” she said.
“Do what?” he asked.
“I usually like to walk into a situation knowing very little about a person so I can make my own judgments,” she said. “I’m sure that’s atypical for journalists.”
“I don’t like to talk about people either, especially sharing their background,” he said.
“Sounds like the voice of experience. I don’t know why I asked you, because what you’ve told me will color any opinion I have.” She angled her head, a smirk in her eyes.
“An experience we’ve all been through.”
“I agree one hundred percent.” She offered a soft smile.
“You know the bad, now let me share the good. Diggins mentors those who can’t afford to live on the land.
Teaches them how to live on their boats.
I admire that about him. He’s helping others.
Sometimes the laws of the land are just too much, too hard, and a burden for the little guy.
There’s a group of liveaboards in Puget Sound as well.
Marinas have rules and restrictions, and a lot of the boats, well, frankly, don’t measure up to the required standards.
Expensive insurance. No one wants to insure a wooden hull, that sort of thing. ”
“Is that your opinion too? They don’t measure up?”
“No, I’m sharing what I’ve heard from the locals, though honestly, there aren’t a lot of people who complain.
Hidden Bay is probably a perfect spot for the liveaboards.
Only a couple of mansions looking out over the ocean, and they’re both situated on either end of the bay, almost like sentinels.
Bottom line is that, at the end of the day, these people are certainly not pirates in a criminal way. ”
“But in a character way? Like maybe a salt-of-the-earth kind of way?”
“Maybe in a salt-of-the-ocean kind of way.” He cringed. “Bad, huh?”
She chuckled. “You get points for trying to make me laugh, because it worked.”
“I can come with you to talk to Diggins if you want.”
“No offense, but you’re a cop, and I don’t want him to withhold information.”
He frowned as he parked at the marina. “I’m exactly the person from whom people should not withhold information. But I get it. Unless he’s at the marina or comes ashore for some reason, you’ll need to take a boat out to talk to him. After what happened, do you really think it’s safe?”
“Of course not. I admit that I made a mistake even going out for a simple walk on the beach. Don’t hold that against me. I’m not stupid.”
“I would never say that. You’re a survivor, and you’re on a mission.”
“I have an idea,” she said. “Malloy said that Mavis at the chandlery could tell me how to talk to Diggins. I’ll find out from her, then I’ll come back and tell you.”
“Mavis is also the unofficial harbormaster, so don’t let her tell you she doesn’t know how to reach Diggins.”
Cressida tilted her head just so and smiled, her eyes so serious. “Thank you for that.”
You’re welcome. “Once you find out, then we’ll talk about how to proceed. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said. “Maybe we can talk about it over dinner.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Except the dinner part.
He could never have a personal relationship with her because, one, he was investigating her case, and two, he was working for her mother, unofficially, and once she found out, she wouldn’t speak to him again.
And if he told Cressida all of it . . . would Octavia discontinue her assistance with Elise? Braden simply couldn’t risk it.
The woman had put him in a precarious position.
That was her modus operandi, and if he didn’t watch out, her daughter would do the same to him. He had the feeling she was trying to do just that without having a clue.