Chapter 12 #2
Sheryl read the tale out loud to them. “‘Specter’s Bounty carried cargo valuable enough that men would kill for it. In 2010, she sent out a single, garbled distress call and then vanished without a trace. No wreckage. No bodies. Just silence. Some say she was hijacked; others believe she was lost to a freak storm. But the strangest stories came later. Fishermen claim to see her massive hull on foggy nights—just beyond the breakers. Some even say they’ve heard distorted radio transmissions—an eerie SOS from the long-dead crew.
If anyone dares to go after the ghost ship, their instruments fail and the Specter’s Bounty disappears before they get too close.
So word is that she is still out there, trapped between worlds, the crew searching for something—or someone—to set them free.
The warning is that if you see her lights in the fog, turn back.
No one follows the Specter’s Bounty and lives to tell about it.
’” Sheryl’s face had grown serious as she put all her energy into the tale, then she smiled and winked.
“Fishermen love their tall tales and superstitions.”
“That they do,” Braden said.
Cressida was here to learn the truth about the Specter’s Bounty so she could add that to her father’s book.
But how did they cut through all the fiction?
More distressing was the prospect that her father could have been murdered over information he’d learned while on this last part of his trip—per Octavia.
He had to ask, though. “Hold on, an entire crew simply lost at sea, and no one knew about it?” Braden wished he hadn’t said the words because he just sounded incredulous and much too emotional. His father had in fact been lost at sea, and he still grappled to understand it. To believe it.
As a kid he was given all kinds of explanations.
An entire crew vanishing in a severe storm wasn’t unheard of.
The more sinister explanations had tortured him as a kid—piracy or hijacking gone wrong.
In the case of older vessels, stories of mutiny and foul play took hold.
Someone could have kidnapped the crew and left the ship behind.
“I know it can be hard to understand,” Sheryl said.
“This is a bit of what my father dealt with in his research,” Cressida said.
“He shared a story with me about a more recent cargo ship carrying rare earth elements. It reported navigation system failures, then it went completely radio silent. When they found it, the crew was gone. So was the cargo. On international waters, getting answers can be a big problem.” Cressida suddenly looked away.
He knew exactly where her mind had gone—to her mother, who was all about international waters.
Octavia Dane started out as a protocol officer working in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs.
Basically, the State Department. She worked to coordinate and facilitate meetings involving officials who worked with the IMO—International Maritime Organization—an agency most people had never heard of and had no idea the role it played in creating global shipping laws, safety protocols, and environmental regulations.
Octavia eventually worked—or manipulated—her way into becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary for Maritime Affairs.
That put her in the perfect position to call in favors using the secrets she’d collected.
Given Octavia’s position and Cressida’s research, maybe there was something to be discovered here after all—something related to a lost ghost ship.
Cressida shuddered slightly, then focused back on Sheryl, who glanced at the clock. “I’ve been working on my father’s book, and not all the so-called ghost ships have an end to their story. This one fascinates me.”
“You’re looking for the end, then? To solve the mystery?”
“If it’s possible, yes. I don’t understand how it can be left to just drift out there and endanger other boaters. Isn’t the Department of Natural Resources involved?”
“I’m sure it’s a complex issue, but you’re better off asking the DNR.” Sheryl looked at her watch. “I’ll tell you what. You come back again this week, and you can get in for free, no charge. Do all the research you want, but I really have to go. I’ll see you out.”
Cressida seemed preoccupied as they exited the museum, and she got into his vehicle. She turned to him, clearly wanting to talk out her thoughts, and he welcomed that.
“What is it?”
“I’m just thinking through the possible reasons the Endeavor Spirit, or Specter’s Bounty, is still floating around. It wouldn’t be the only recent abandoned boat. I could list a few.”
“Please don’t. I believe you.”
“Supposedly it was already towed and escaped during a storm. Weather patterns could have sent it out to the high seas and out of reach. Dense fog could keep it hidden. You name it. The Coast Guard patrols a specific region with their goals in mind—capturing drug runners, for instance. With their priorities, their resources are probably stretched thin, and if Specter’s Bounty didn’t pose a threat, it would be a low priority. ”
“You mentioned the DNR.”
“Yes. If other agencies can’t solve an issue surrounding a vessel, they often reach out to the DNR, but that’s more local—state, county, and harbor kind of local. It doesn’t sound like the Specter’s Bounty has stayed local long enough for the DNR to be called in.”
“What’s really bothering you?”
“My overactive imagination, that’s all.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“I was thinking, what if someone doesn’t want it to be found?”
“You mean someone intentionally sabotages the discovery? Or provides false leads? Why?”
“Like I said. Overactive imagination.”
Try, she was more aware of the world in which her mother operated than she was willing to admit.
“At any rate, maybe it’s not considered a big threat,” she said. “And it’s not a pressing concern.”
“Not a pressing concern? People are missing,” he said. If he ever got closure on what happened to his father, it wouldn’t be soon enough—but that mystery would never be solved.
“I know this topic is a reminder of what happened to your father. I’m not sure the authorities—whoever towed the boat to begin with—don’t know what happened to them. We should keep digging.”
“And in the meantime, we have the folklore surrounding a ghost ship warning people about the dangers out in the deep sea. I’d say that authorities could even dismiss any sightings of it, except for Remi’s pictures.
” He’d admired her photographs the first time he’d seen them at the Cedar Trails Lodge.
Cressida nodded and turned to stare straight ahead as if dismissing their conversation.
“I should get you back.” On the drive, Braden gave Cressida her space.
The same space he needed to process the information they’d learned.
Octavia had insisted he see this through, but to what end?
What could he and Cressida discover that her father, Alaric, might have also uncovered—something dangerous enough to get him killed?
Octavia’s request confused him. She had to know some of the truth, if not most of it, and she had to realize that continuing on this path could put him and Cressida in more danger—and Cressida was already there.
Same as her father.
And Braden was walking a very thin line, keeping what little he knew from Cressida.
Finally, he parked at Cedar Trails Lodge. He was unsure how to inform her he planned to stay at the lodge tonight, or if he even should.
She looked at him. “Thanks for today, Braden. The rental company is bringing me the car tomorrow. A day late, but at least they’re bringing it. So you don’t have to babysit me.”
Her smile seemed forced.
And her words were not what he wanted to hear.
“I need to get a new laptop tomorrow, so I’m going to town,” she added.
“Please be careful. I’m still concerned for your safety. Someone tried to kill you. Aren’t you concerned at all about what you’re digging into?”
“You’re going to let what Sheryl said creep you out?”
Well, it was more than that, and he needed to tell her, but the problem was, he didn’t exactly know what he needed to tell her. Had her father stirred up danger that somehow got him killed? He would contact a friend in law enforcement and see what he could learn about Alaric’s death.
But before he did that . . . “Have dinner with me tonight?”
Yeah. He went there. She’d brought it up earlier, after all.
“Dinner?” She twisted her lips around as if exaggerating that she was thinking hard on the question. “You have more questions about this investigation? Or is it something . . . else?”
If only it could be something else. He was playing with fire. “I want to hear more about this book you’re writing. You have to eat. I have to eat.”
“I’m tired. Too many thoughts rattling around in my head. Rain check?”
“Tomorrow night, then?” he asked. “I might know more by then, too, that I can share with you.”
“You’re an unconventional detective.” She got out of the vehicle.
He did too, and she stood there, her bright-red curls frizzing around her face in the humid Pacific Northwest. Freckles and striking bright-green eyes. He shouldn’t notice them . . . in the way he noticed. This wasn’t the first time he’d had the thought, and he feared that it wouldn’t be the last.
I am losing my mind.
“I’ll have dinner with you, Detective, tomorrow evening. You can take me there on your motorcycle.”
He had no words.
“Meet me here at six,” she said.
She left him to stare after her as she headed into Cedar Trails Lodge. He couldn’t breathe. He rubbed his jaw hard, then his neck. She had so much of her mother in her, and that terrified him, but in just a few short encounters, this woman had him tumbling around on the inside.
Her father might have been murdered.
She could be in danger.
And his niece’s life could also be on the line. He had zero business getting involved with her. Zero. Business.
Braden started the car and drove all the way back to the sheriff’s office at the county seat almost an hour away instead of his apartment so he could look into how her father died.
Put some distance between them—that should work.
He texted Remi to ask her and her helicopter-tour-guide husband, Hawk, to keep an eye on Cressida for him.
They’d gone through a few things together, and he could consider them friends, in the loosest sense. They didn’t eat together. Or talk much.
But weirdly, they had each other’s backs. He could trust them.
Unlike other people.
When Octavia had asked Braden to stay here and wait and work undercover so he would be in place for .
. . something, that had been in the vaguest of terms. Octavia could have led with the possible murder of her ex-husband because of something he’d learned in Hidden Bay about a derelict boat.
She could have led with how she feared her daughter might fall victim to the same fate.