Chapter 18
Braden wanted to focus on the conversation, but Diggins was stalling, if he even truly knew anything. He clearly wasn’t going to say, and that could very well be because Braden was here. He remained suspicious of that bump on the man’s head.
Though he was no forensic pathologist, it looked to be in the wrong position to have happened from a fall. His instincts had already kicked into high gear.
He wasn’t operating with the same protocols he would have used while working in the DSS, but these circumstances were precarious at best. If he followed those rules, he probably wouldn’t even be here now.
So while he half listened to Cressida argue with Diggins about what he did or didn’t know about the Specter’s Bounty, Braden took in the cabin, the lack of dinner being warmed up like Diggins had claimed.
Braden hovered near the door to go above deck and slowly crept up those steps, his instincts telling him that danger lurked nearby, to add to the fact that Diggins said as much.
Cressida could hold her own and could very well get the answers she sought without Braden in the room. He was fortunate she chose to include him. And if he wanted to continue to be included, he needed to roll with it, let her do her thing.
The door to the lower deck remained open, and through the opening above him, Braden spied the skull-and-crossbones flag—a literal pirate flag—flapping from the mast. And yet a well-worn Bible rested on the counter, flipped open to the book of Psalms. While those themes seemed contradictory, Diggins’s flag wasn’t the usual call sign of a pirate but rather the banner of brotherhood of the people he’d taken under his wing.
Drifters, wanderers. Those who couldn’t afford a home on land but found life on the waves.
But tonight Braden would wager someone had hit Diggins on the head. Was the camaraderie, this tight-knit community, breaking up?
“The whole idea of a mysterious ghost ship, seen a time or two, and the warning that developed over stories told at campfires is what keeps the lore alive, that’s all.
” Diggins’s raised voice brought Braden back to the moment.
“People make up all kinds of stories. You’re trying to make it into something more. Why do you even want to know?”
Braden remained at the top step looking out above deck and listened.
“Why?” she asked. “I’m finishing the book my father wrote. He died, and I lost my job, and it just seemed that God opened the doors. The time was right. There’s more to the story or my father wouldn’t have added this boat.”
Braden stepped down again, getting a look at Diggins.
The man leaned in, shadows turning this friendly “pirate” menacing. “Your father is the only reason I agreed to see you, and then I told you not to come.”
“You said I deserved answers. And I’m here, but you’re not giving them to me. My father wrote detailed notes, and there’s no mention of you.” She shook her head, a slight frown showing her confusion. “But there were a few pages torn out of his notes after the last shipwreck he researched.”
Really? Interesting. Braden hadn’t heard that from her.
“I can’t explain why he didn’t take notes about our conversation, unless he wrote them on those torn pages, and in that case, he didn’t want anyone to see what he wrote. I enjoyed talking to him. He knows his history.”
“So you did talk to him. What did you tell him about the ghost ship?”
“Same thing I told you.”
“Which is nothing more than I learned at the museum. Malloy told me you knew something. He didn’t tell me to go to the museum.”
Cressida asked the questions whose answers she already had after going to the museum.
He supposed her tactic was to get Diggins’s perspective, which could be different from what the museum claimed.
Since her father had been a historian, she might have an insider’s view on published history versus the truth.
“I’m looking for the hidden truth.”
Diggins scoffed.
With the rocking of the ship and the constant creaks, Braden couldn’t be sure he hadn’t heard footfalls above deck, so he maintained his stance on the stairs, his hand pressed to his gun.
“You found me,” Diggins said. “You came for me, against the danger warning, so I give you points for that. But I don’t know anything. I think Malloy was just trying to appease your active imagination.”
“On that point, why is coming to talk to you dangerous? Or are you stonewalling me? And if so, why? Is it because you know something that I won’t find at a museum or anywhere else? Something you alone know?”
With that, Braden was duly impressed.
Cressida showed her true professionalism in refusing to be detoured from her goal.
Not surprising was her ability to coax words from people with her sincere expression.
“Look, my father died before he could finish. You said you met him. You met with me because of him. Help me to finish this book. It’ll be his legacy.
It’ll be this maritime historian’s tribute to those lost at sea.
I just want the truth about the Specter’s Bounty—it was important enough to him to include in his book.
I’m trying to do this for him and to do this tale justice.
” She leaned in. “Tell a story that possibly no one but a few have ever heard before.”
Watching Cressida, maybe Braden finally understood how Octavia coerced and manipulated so many people, and that should serve as caution for Braden to stay away from Cressida when it came to anything beyond this covert operation arranged by her mother.
And Diggins, too, might have fallen for Cressida’s gift, because he shifted forward. “I have a proposition for you. There’s something I need. You get that for me, and I’ll tell you what I can.”
Stalling again?
“You’ll tell me what you know about the Specter’s Bounty, something that I can’t find anywhere else?” Cressida asked.
Her father had not included his conversation with Diggins in his notes, then he’d taken the next flight out to DC. Diggins knew something, and Cressida had caught on to that from the start.
Diggins’s expression turned dark. “I will.”
“I have the feeling you think I won’t be able to meet your requirement. I promise you, if it’s not illegal, I’ll make it happen.”
A boisterous, incredulous laugh erupted.
“Name it,” Cressida demanded.
He cocked his head. “Don’t this feel a bit like you’re walking the proverbial plank?”
“Nobody’s walking a plank, metaphorical or otherwise.” Braden stepped down so he could see the two of them, warning Diggins he should avoid threats.
“Name it,” she repeated, her expression determined.
Diggins didn’t even offer Braden an acknowledgment but kept his piercing eyes on Cressida. “I need something from Evelyn Monroe. And if we’re abandoning plank metaphors, let’s shift gears—you’re Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.”
Cressida narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you want me to steal something from the Wicked Witch of the West? Evelyn Monroe is not a wicked witch.”
But Diggins? He was the man pulling the strings from behind the curtain.
Braden couldn’t have imagined this exchange and was riveted, but another noise up top drew his attention. The waves or the wind or something nefarious?
He wanted to hear Cressida’s response, but he couldn’t wait. He crept halfway up the steps again while trying to listen to their conversation. Intuition warned him of imminent danger, leaving their discussion behind to head above deck.
Bright pinks and oranges on the horizon stunned him like the sunrises had on the East Coast decades before when Dad would leave on his fishing expeditions.
Braden focused on his surroundings. Taking in all the sounds—the wind rustling through the boats, some with sails, the ocean lapping against the hulls. Seagulls and their endless calls.
Though they were anchored in the bay, the chop was rough as the wind picked up. Braden palmed his gun, and from the shadows, he took in everything. Others on the nearby boats hung around outside doing chores. Someone whistled an old sea shanty. The aroma of grilled fish wafted toward him.
He didn’t feel comfortable walking around the boat and leaving Cressida and Diggins exposed down below, so instead he would remain at the entrance. Let danger come to him. He was prepared.
A creak.
Then another.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
He held his handgun at the ready. The sun cast the last rays, and the shadows were long. He sensed movement and shifted to face his attacker, aiming his S&W. “Freeze.”
Pain sliced across his back. His knees buckled and he dropped, then rolled away from the dark figure standing over him with an iron rod. Braden fired his weapon at the same time the man dodged away, expecting to be fired upon.
Braden scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain.
Footfalls pounded on the steps, and Diggins and Cressida appeared above deck.
“Go back down,” Braden commanded.
Cressida took a couple of steps down, but Diggins came all the way onto the deck, holding a shotgun.
“I’m not going down below,” he said. “Come on. You and I will chase them off. Gotta get them off my boat.”
He growled. Determined, he stomped around, looking down the barrel of his shotgun.
On the horizon in the facing sunset, Braden spotted a speedboat slipping away. He couldn’t exactly go after them in his skiff. Was that the assailants getting away?
“They’re gone now. No catching that,” Diggins said.
Braden started for the skiff.
I can’t let them get away.
“Braden, wait,” Cressida called. She’d come above deck. “Are you okay?”
The care, concern in her eyes, when she looked at him pulled him back from the edge.
“Yeah. Just . . .” The throbbing in his back wasn’t something easily ignored, after all. He never should have allowed someone to get at him like that.
“We need to get you to the hospital.” She looked at Diggins. “I don’t know how far it is.”
“I can fix you up,” Diggins said.
Braden wasn’t entirely sure that was the best idea, but he’d take immediate attention and then deal with the rest later. “It’s just a bruise, but you can check it to make sure it’s not bleeding. And we’ll look at your head too, Diggins.”
“Fine,” Cressida said. “But what if they come back?”
“They’re not coming back tonight. Come on.” Confident, Diggins started belowdecks.
“They? You know who they are, then?” Cressida asked.
Braden wanted that answer too.
“If I knew, I would tell you. Didn’t I warn you? Didn’t I say it was dangerous? I wasn’t joking.”
Diggins continued down the steps, and Braden would have followed but Cressida had a look on her face. Something more had happened. Something else. The pure anger and hurt in her eyes rattled through him.
He gripped her arms. “What is it? What did he say?”
“He said . . . I’m not sure your father’s death was an accident.” She pressed a hand against the rail.
Coming from her, those words slammed into him.
He wanted to tell her everything. Right now.
His cell dinged, and maybe he should have ignored it, but it was his excuse to wait.
He had to think about this. Figure it out.
Convince Octavia that telling her daughter was for the best. He followed Cressida down the steps as he answered his cell.
The words he heard chilled him to the bone.