Chapter 31
Cressida remained in the back seat of the county vehicle, watching from a distance, taking in the terrible images, while Deputy Riker spoke with two of the volunteer firefighters.
She tugged the journal out and placed it on her lap, ran her finger over the worn leather.
Was it possible the arsonist hadn’t noticed the diary because the bound leather easily blended in with the desk?
At least she’d gotten it, but what more had she missed in Evelyn’s library?
Maybe another book contained important information that Cressida missed.
But it was too late now. The entire library was up in flames.
Her fingers dug into the journal as she squeezed, grief and anger washing over her. Before arriving in Hidden Bay, she had imagined it to be a quiet escape while she finished research for this one last vessel. Instead, death threats and chaos had overrun her.
But that wouldn’t stop her from getting the answers she needed. She cracked the door so the interior light would come on. Then Cressida gently flipped to the last page she’d read. She still had quite a bit to read before she was done and hoped answers awaited her.
Her heart and emotions were drained, but that didn’t matter. She had to finish reading this diary in case someone else got to it and stole it from her. She thumbed through to the end . . . the sight stole the oxygen from her.
What? No. No, no, no . . .
Cressida stared long and hard at the ripped pages. Just like her father’s notebook. The pages were there before the fire. If they’d already been torn out of the book, she would have noticed. Why not take the entire diary?
And where was Braden? Cressida tore her gaze from the diary and stared at the manor. The window to the library was dark now rather than lit up by flames. How many volumes had been destroyed? What would Evelyn’s reaction be?
Cressida needed to talk to Evelyn, but the woman had a mild heart attack already. How was she going to talk to her and get the information she needed for Diggins now that her library was destroyed, which would only add to her stress?
Deputy Riker strolled toward the vehicle, and Cressida swiped at the errant tears on her cheeks, then sat up taller. He got in and started the vehicle, as if his intent was to drive away from the manor.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Where’s Braden?”
She wanted out and opened the door to step out.
“Ms. Valentine . . . or is it Dane?”
Did she detect a bit of snark in that question? “Deputy Riker, where’s Detective Sanders?”
“He radioed that he’s on the beach in pursuit,” Riker said.
“Are you going to help him?”
“He instructed me to take you to the Cedar Trails Lodge. I’ll take your statement as well.”
“But all my things—”
“Will be brought to you.”
“Look, Deputy . . . I can just get them now.”
“It’s a crime scene. Someone set fire to Mrs. Monroe’s Driftwood Manor, with you inside.”
She wasn’t going to win this argument, and she shut the car door.
Cressida had the feeling the fire hadn’t been intended to trap them inside, but it was set to destroy whatever Cressida might learn.
Deputy Riker steered out of the estate. Cressida couldn’t do anything to assist the firefighters, nor could she stay in the house now like Evelyn had wanted. She sat back in the seat and stared out the window at the black night, and Deputy Riker drove her back to the Cedar Trails Lodge.
After taking her statement, he escorted her inside, where she was met by—no surprise—Hawk and Remi, concerned expressions on both their faces.
Remi rushed forward. “What happened? We heard there was a fire.”
Cressida’s shoulders sagged with exhaustion and grief. “Someone set fire to the library to burn all those journals and possibly the answers I was searching for.”
Remi covered her gasp, her own eyes filling with tears as she pulled Cressida into a hug.
Cressida had already shed enough tears, and now she felt stone-cold numb.
Except that wasn’t true. A newer, stronger passion kindled inside.
Whoever was trying to bury the truth didn’t understand who they were dealing with.
This only made Cressida more determined.
I’m going to get those answers.
She stepped from Remi’s embrace.
“I’m so glad that you weren’t trapped or caught in the flames,” Remi said.
Who else had known that Cressida was there? Everyone here knew, including her mom’s “dog” she sent to watch Cressida. “I’m tired. I just want to go to my room—it’s still available, I hope.”
“Of course!” Remi gently pressed a hand on Cressida’s shoulder.
Cressida glanced at the deputy. “You said you’d bring my stuff. I hope that’s not going to take long.”
He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Remi walked with Cressida to her room, and Hawk wasn’t far behind.
“Do you think Mrs. Monroe is going to take this too hard?” Cressida asked. “She had a heart attack today. All the stress. Everything that’s going on was too much. That’s understandable. But the loss here is unimaginable.”
“I think she’ll be relieved that you and Braden are alive. That’s the most important thing.”
When Cressida was finally in her room alone, she collapsed on the bed.
Waiting on the deputy to return with her things was going to be excruciating.
In the meantime, though, she could look at Evelyn’s journal and see what she had missed.
But would reading without those missing pages, without the context, do any good?
But Cressida couldn’t look at the book. Not yet.
It was too disheartening, so she stood on the balcony in the cool night.
Mingling with salty ocean air was the slight scent of smoke—from the manor fire?
Burning books? No, it smelled more like a campfire.
In the distance, she saw a light out on the water.
Someone brave enough to be out there in the fog.
A knock came at the door. “It’s Remi with your things.”
She rushed to the door and opened it.
Remi handed off the belongings that she’d sent over earlier that day. “Trent brought these from the house.”
“Thank you,” Cressida said with as much of a smile as she could muster and closed the door. She appreciated Remi being so accommodating to her needs with this room.
Cressida really liked the woman, had clicked with her, and could see them being friends.
In fact, it felt like the start of a friendship already.
She emptied the duffel and realized her clothes smelled like smoke.
Still, she hung up the few clothes in the closet and left the door open.
Maybe the smell would dissipate, or she could wash them later.
She stuck the rest in the drawers of the dresser.
After retrieving her laptop, she dug inside the case for Dad’s journal.
It was gone.
She let out an incredulous breath and sagged. Really? “Fine with me,” she said to the walls, but in her head, she was talking to the bad guys. “I already scanned in all the pages and loaded them into the cloud.”
Sure, a good hacker could eventually find the information, but at least now she had access to his notes and her notes. The main issue was that someone else also now had those notes, but she knew Dad’s journal held no answers to this ridiculous mystery.
She’d come here looking for the truth behind a derelict salvage ship and what had happened to the crew, and look where that got her. Look where it got her father.
This was beginning to feel like a major cover-up of an important news story, and Cressida understood about that firsthand. Before the fire, Braden had been asking about the article she’d been working on, the one that her mother had shut down. His question had seemed innocent. Casual.
“What did you work on before you took on your father’s book?
” His line of questioning got her thinking—was there a connection between that article and what was happening to her now?
Had Braden asked that question to find out if her previous job was in any way connected?
He was sharp, and she wouldn’t put it past him, though he’d sounded indifferent in that conversation.
She needed to look up all her notes. The environment, fishing, and underwater wrecks leaking toxins. So far in completing Dad’s book she hadn’t come across shipwrecks leaking toxins into the ocean.
Another knock came at the door.
“It’s me,” Braden said.
At the sound of the deep timbre in his voice, her heart danced a little.
She pushed down the ridiculous reaction.
No need to overreact in front of him, but she was more than relieved he was here.
Right now, he was the only one she could trust—he and his friends, Hawk, Remi, Cole, and Jo—and she hoped and prayed she hadn’t put her trust in the wrong person. The wrong people.
She opened the door, and in two steps he was in her room, gently gripping her arms like a desperate man. “Are you okay?” The question came out in a huff.
He was the one to overreact, and his concern and intensity had taken her breath away. She couldn’t respond.
“Cressida?”
Shake it off. “Of course. I’m here, aren’t I?”
He dropped his hands and paced the room. “You’re not safe in Hidden Bay. You need to get out.”
“I’m not going anywhere. But tell me what’s happened.” You’re scaring me.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.” He didn’t look at her but instead continued pacing.
“Just do it.” She rubbed her arms, fearing the worst. What could have gotten him so upset?
“We believe the man who broke into Evelyn’s room earlier today while we were there is Derek Harlan.” He flashed Cressida an image on his cell.
“The man . . . my stalker? But I thought . . . I thought my mother sent him to spy on me.”
“She did.”
“What? What . . . are you saying?” Nausea erupted inside. “How do you know?”
“She sent him to watch over you, she says. I don’t know what he’s up to now, but you’re in more danger than you can imagine.”
Confusion erupted in her brain, with the sledgehammer hitting away at her temples. Her throat grew so tight she struggled to speak. “Wait. You talked to my mother?” That doesn’t just happen.
“I’m a detective, Cressida.” His brows knitted, and his voice rose, if only slightly, as if his explanation should have been obvious to her.
“You . . . you can’t just call her up to talk to her. It doesn’t happen like that. It’s not that easy.”
“I learned who the guy was. Followed the leads. Made the connections.” Pursing his lips, he shook his head, then said, “I communicated.”
Braden let out a huff, clearly upset that he had to explain this to her, then he stepped closer and gentled his tone. “But I haven’t talked to her about why the man she sent is committing crimes.”
Her brain might just be shutting down. She eased into the chair next to the small table and rubbed her temples.
He grabbed the other chair and pulled it close. “Cressida, listen . . .”
“I don’t want to listen. Give me a minute, okay?”
She needed space and moved away from him, stepping out on the balcony.
He followed, as she knew he would. But this time she wasn’t sure if she wanted him there.
A cool mist coated her face, and she wished the clouds would move out so she could see the stars—metaphorically speaking, so she could see the truth. What is happening here?
“Cressida.” He sounded nervous. “Tell me more about the article. You said your mother had shut you down and made it impossible for you to work for some venues through which you’d built your career.
I can’t imagine any mother would do that without a good reason.
I’m saying, maybe that article has to do with what’s happening here. What was it about?”
Cressida wasn’t ready to respond yet. She wanted answers of her own and went back into the small room. She lifted Evelyn’s journal. “Someone took pages from this journal. Didn’t take the whole thing, just pages. Then when Deputy Riker returned with my things, my father’s journal was gone.”
With one hand on his hip, he nodded, his eyes focused on the leather-bound book she held. Then he flicked his gaze to hold hers, his eyes as intense as they’d ever been. “And you’re still in danger.”
He dropped his hand and paced the small room. “Please, can you be specific about the article?”
“Are you asking as Braden, the guy who likes me? Or as a detective?” And why did she even care? But . . . I do care. Because she was missing something here, and she needed to hear the truth from Braden, the man.
“Right now, I feel like that’s one and the same.”
“How did you talk to my mother exactly? Because you can’t call her or just get through. You have to go through a layer of fifty people to get to her. I don’t think you have the resources, Detective.”
“Just what do you think is going on here?” he asked.
“I can get to her because you’re her daughter, and this has everything to do with you.
Why are you acting like I’ve committed some crime?
I’m doing my job.” He grabbed her hands and pulled her closer.
“I’m worried about you, but not because it’s my duty. I care about you, Cressida.”
“Okay, okay. It was about environmental impacts and international waters. Fishing and sunken vessels possibly leaching contaminants and toxins.”
“That’s it? That doesn’t sound like a reason she could have to . . .”
“To what? Braden . . . what aren’t you telling me?
” She pulled her hands away, and he let her.
Part of her wished he hadn’t. “I’m . . .
I’m tired and confused. I don’t know who I can trust.” She rubbed her forehead.
“Of course, I shouldn’t have accused you.
” Cressida softened her voice, her heart open and raw.
She didn’t want to need him, but . . . I need you.
“You’re the only person that I can trust.”
Cressida held his gaze, looking for reassurance. She would take that hug now, if he would give it.
Instead, at the look on his face, a fist gripped her heart and squeezed.