Chapter 35
Evelyn was the reason Dad had added the Specter’s Bounty and Hidden Bay to his book.
Cressida understood what Braden meant when he’d mentioned needing a crime board.
She could use some assistance connecting people with current and past events to see where they all intersected.
In this conversation with Evelyn, Cressida felt it deep in her bones—at last she had arrived at the intersection where all the threads would converge.
Evelyn had been gone so long that Cressida was beginning to wonder about her phone call when the woman finally returned to the living area. Considering their important conversation, Cressida couldn’t imagine what call could have trumped that. But she had waited, her patience running out.
And she wanted to repeat her question—had her father known the cost before he’d taken on Evelyn’s project? This whole thing had belonged to her. That news had shaken Cressida.
“My apologies, dear. I know we were in the middle—”
Cressida stood. “Did my father know the danger—the cost—of taking on this project?” Cressida tried to stifle her frustration. She respected this woman. Admired her.
“You’re upset. I understand.” Evelyn sat again, calm and composed.
Cressida remained standing, shaking. Tears blurring her vision. God, help me . . .
“I told him everything that I knew, which wasn’t much, really, and I don’t think any of us knew the cost. But now perhaps we do.” Evelyn closed her eyes. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Cressida had to get her act together. She couldn’t blame Evelyn if what she said was true, and she had no reason to believe otherwise. She slowly sank onto the sofa again. Drew in a calming breath.
Evelyn opened her eyes. “The vessel on which my father sent my son was meant to conduct a normal operation as far as anyone knew. But it was part of a covert operation.”
“A covert operation involving what?”
“That, I’m not entirely sure. I believe your father discovered the truth. He . . . he told me as much before he left, but he didn’t tell me the details. He promised to get back to me—that it was dangerous to even speak of. Then I learned he’d been killed.”
“What did you think I would read or learn from looking through everything in your library? You can just tell me now since it’s probably all gone. Whatever the fire didn’t destroy, the water must have.”
“I had hoped you would discover something that I missed. I know the answers were there, but now they’re lost. Apparently, someone else believed the answers were there too.”
“You said you could tell me about my father and what happened—is that all you have? A covert operation? Dangerous to speak of? That’s not proof of anything nefarious happening to him.”
“This is the taxi driver who struck and killed your father in the alleged accident.” Evelyn thumbed through images on her cell phone and then showed a picture to Cressida.
She stared long and hard at an image of the man who’d attacked her on the beach. At the man whom Evelyn had shot and killed. What? No. That can’t be. She shook her head.
“Now you see why I didn’t hesitate to shoot the man in my house,” Evelyn said. “I believe he was using an alias as the cab driver, and the connection wasn’t made to the incident at my home.”
“He was the taxi driver who struck and killed my father.” Cressida struggled to wrap her mind around it. “Then his death really wasn’t an accident. How did you make the connection?”
Evelyn lowered the cell, and her face inched closer, her expression serious.
“Because I was suspicious of your father’s death all along.
I researched every detail I could find, and I was able to secure the picture of this man.
Of course, I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t an accident, but with so much at stake, I couldn’t dismiss that he was murdered.
I apologize that I wasn’t up-front with you. I . . . I was afraid for you.”
Cressida wanted to curl into herself and sink deeper into this plush white sofa, but she sat taller. Had to be stronger.
“One thing I thought curious,” Evelyn said, “and I didn’t understand.
After I shared what I knew with him and invited him to research for one of his books, he said .
. .” Evelyn hesitated and stared out the window at the clouds inching forward to once again mask the bluest of skies.
She turned her gaze on Cressida again. “He said that he needed to do this for his daughter.”
For me? “But why? I don’t understand.”
“Only you can answer that. But I knew that I had to meet you. I’m glad that I did.”
“I tried to meet you too, but Madeline was there. Someone planted her, and then she was murdered. Someone wants to keep this all under wraps,” Cressida said. “You’re in danger too, you know.”
“No one is afraid of an old lady,” Evelyn said.
Cressida suspected whoever was behind this wanted Evelyn alive, or else she would already have been silenced. Think, Cressida. Ask the right questions.
“What were the pages ripped from your diary about?”
Evelyn picked up the diary and flipped through to find the missing pages. “What I’ve already mentioned—the covert operation. Since Harborstone Shipping already had a reputation for conducting covert operations during the Second World War, I believe it was tapped for a Cold War operation.”
“The Cold War. Interesting. You hadn’t mentioned that earlier. A covert mission during the Cold War. But Caleb went missing after the Cold War. I’m still at a loss to understand what the connection is. What was the name of the vessel Caleb was assigned to if not Endeavor Spirit?”
Evelyn pursed her lips. Did she know more than she was willing to share?
“Did my father go through your library to learn whatever you missed? Where did he go to learn the truth that I haven’t already been? I have to get justice for him and expose the truth. That was my job before. Writing exposés.” And maybe Diggins could tell her more, after all.
Evelyn rose and moved to look at the window, then opened the door to step out onto a veranda built over the cliff face. Cressida followed and wished she hadn’t. Below her, breakers pummeled the rocky beach. The wind tore at her light jacket and whipped her hair into her face.
“I don’t know what it’s about,” Mrs. Monroe said.
“Three investigators couldn’t tell me. Your father, however, sent me a trinket.
I got it in the mail. I wore it and never took it off, but that day that Madeline tried to kill me, I hid it under the mattress in that room.
Silly, I know, but . . . I was shaken up by her assault, and I’d shot that man.
I wondered who else would come for it. So I hid it well, and the day of the intruder—while you and Detective Sanders were present—I feared the worst and that it had been taken.
When Deputy Riker positioned me on the floor next to the bed, I slipped my hand under the mattress to retrieve it without anyone noticing.
I think Madeline was there at my house for the sole purpose of finding it. ”
She lifted the “trinket” from beneath the collar of her sweater.
Cressida looked at the beautiful mother-of-pearl in the shape of a whale. “Why would he send you this? What is it?”
“Look closer.”
Cressida peered at the pendant. Evelyn finally took the necklace off.
“This is what someone was searching for in the house. I keep my jewelry hidden away in a safe in that room where Madeline and Collins were arguing. Madeline had learned that much but never found this because I hid it under the mattress in the guest room. But I retrieved it, keeping it with me, even in the hospital.”
Someone could have easily stolen it from her while she was sleeping. Cressida gently handled the necklace. “Do you mind if we go back inside?”
They returned to the living room, but Cressida remained near the window so she could look at the pendant in the light, and when she turned it at a certain angle, she could barely make it out . . . “Coordinates. These are coordinates.”
“Yes. Your father found them, but I don’t know what’s there.”
“A sunken ship—right? Surely you guessed that much. You contacted my father. He must have understood that you were looking for your son, and he found your son.”
“True, I did so he could unravel the mystery.”
Which he might have done, or come close, but lost his life in the process. The pain of his death could knock her over again.
“The missing pages in his notes must detail how he learned the truth and what he found, but he ripped the pages out, realizing it was much too dangerous. The question is, what was the covert operation? What had Caleb been assigned to—meant to save his life but ultimately getting him killed?”
Evelyn winced at Cressida’s words.
“You haven’t shown this to anyone else, have you?”
“No, but someone must know your father found the coordinates, and they’ve obviously been searching. Collins, the man who murdered your father, knew. The question is, who was he working for?”
Because the hunt is still on. The danger is still present. “And this locket . . . is this the ‘truth’ that Diggins wants from you? He claimed that he would share what happened to my father if I got the truth from you.”
“It’s possible.”
“But who is Diggins to know about this, even, and to want it? He could be working for the very people who killed my father.”
An alert went off somewhere, and Evelyn glanced at her cell. “The nice detective is standing at the door.”
“What? How did he get that far?”
“I gave him the code for the gate. He called to talk to me right after that initial call that interrupted us. He had quite the story. I think you should listen.” Evelyn winked.
The nerve. What did Evelyn know about Braden and his relationship with Cressida’s mother?
Evelyn moved to the door and opened it.
Cressida didn’t feel like facing Braden—a traitor and a liar. Just how was she going to deal with this new information and the arrival of a man she didn’t want to see again? Evelyn clearly liked him. Maybe she didn’t fully understand that Braden was working for an enemy of a different kind.