Chapter 36
Braden had no time for games. He stalked past Evelyn—he’d explained it all in a nutshell to her over the phone, including why he needed to speak with Cressida.
The woman had immediately allowed him through the outer gate, though he wouldn’t assume that Evelyn Monroe was by any means on his side, even though she’d initially called him the nice guy.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Cressida said. “I thought I made that clear. You of all people understand that I can’t trust anyone. I made the mistake of trusting you. Believing you. Even liking you, whatever that means. Whatever it meant before, it means nothing now.”
“Rant all you want,” he said. “Scream at me, rage at me, but your mother has ended the treatments for Elise, my niece. This is about a ten-year-old little girl. I’m here for her.
She’s my whole reason for agreeing to this assignment.
I didn’t know what it was when I got here.
I simply worked as a detective and was told I would know. Then there you were on that beach.”
“You could have told me who you were from the start instead of taking me for a ride on your motorcycle, taking me to dinner. Making me trust you and believe in you.”
“None of that matters. Do you understand the predicament I’m in?
I knew that if I told you, you wouldn’t talk to me anymore, and then Elise could be in danger.
I don’t know how your mother does it, but she pulls strings like nobody’s business.
” He’d get down on his knees to beg if he believed that would make a difference.
“Please, Cressida. Please. Work with me here.”
He pulled out the image of Elise on his phone again and flashed it at her.
“You would use that to convince me? Use her like that?”
“Use her? I’m trying to save her life! Politicians control every aspect of our lives and the world.
From the safety of their desks, they send young men and women to war.
The list goes on. But in this small microcosm where Elise lives and has the chance to survive, your mother is withholding her lifeline, and I’ll do what I must to save her. ”
Cressida’s features were crestfallen. “What can I do to change that, Braden? Seems like the deal you made with her has already been broken. I know the truth now.”
“You have her skills. Her talents. You’re her daughter.” Braden’s voice might have cracked. “Call her now and tell her to do her thing and get those infusions going again . . . or else.”
Her features softened. “I’m not sure if that was an insult or a compliment.”
Evelyn stepped into view. He’d forgotten she was there. “Remember what I told you, Cressida, that I forgave my father no matter the wrong I believed he’d done. Even if someone wrongs you, you must forgive them.”
“That has nothing to do with this,” Cressida said.
“It has everything to do with it.” Evelyn turned and walked away, disappearing into another part of the house.
“She’s right, you know.” He rubbed his temples. “We could argue all day. Please, just make the call.”
She closed the distance and faced him, but the connection they’d shared was missing. She’d meant something to him, even before he met her, and she still did. Even if she forgave her mother, even if she forgave him, she would never choose to be with him after what she believed was a betrayal.
“For your niece, Braden, I’ll make that call. For my father, I’ll need your help to get him justice. To learn what happened. We work together, but when this is over, there’s nothing between us personally, if there ever was. Understood?”
Ouch.
She lifted her hand to dangle a necklace. “This locket has the coordinates, longitude and latitude, embedded in the image.”
“Where did you get that?”
“My father sent it to Evelyn before he died.”
“But how could he have had it created in that short of time?”
“I suspect he got help from a jeweler who supplied a museum store Dad once owned.” She pulled out her cell and took several photos. “I don’t know if she’ll let me keep it, but just in case someone steals it, then we have the images. This is what someone was after in her house.”
He looked at the locket closely as she filled him in on the rest. “Let’s see where this is.”
Braden entered the coordinates on an app. “It’s beyond the twelve-nautical-mile limit.”
“I figured it would be completely out of our jurisdiction and in international waters. High seas. But the contiguous zone gives the US at least limited authority.”
And why would that matter? He didn’t like where this was going. “What’s your plan?”
“We find out what’s there.”
“Cressida, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Your mother wanted me to protect you.”
A deep frown carved between her brows, and she blinked rapidly. “He said that he needed to do this ‘for his daughter,’ for me. That was his last communication to Evelyn. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes. Her beautiful, gorgeous eyes. He shoved away the torture. This wasn’t the time. Emotion would distract him from protecting her and finishing this.
“Maybe he, too, wanted to protect you. What started this? I think it could have started this entire chain of events.” He still wanted to know about the article Octavia had shut down.
“Evelyn started it. She was reading one of his books and thought he could solve the mystery of what happened to her son who was sent on a covert mission.”
“Okay, but your article hit a nerve. I pressed Octavia on it and she didn’t have a response. Think about it.”
“Mom became worried mostly when I started following the rabbit trail about shipwrecks that were leaking toxins into the ocean. I don’t remember the details of my research. I’d have to go back and look at my notes.”
“Shipwreck toxins,” he said.
“Cold War stuff.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “That was what Evelyn said.”
He stepped closer and stared long and hard at her. “What comes to mind, Cressida?”
“The list is long, so I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Does the list include radioactive materials? Did the covert mission include delivering materials to make a nuclear bomb?”
Cressida lifted her chin. “Maybe it’s worse than that, Braden.”
“What could be worse?”
“An actual nuclear missile could be worse,” she said.
“And you think one could be just lying around on the ocean floor?”
“It’s not a stretch,” she said. “There have been several incidents of nuclear submarines going missing, malfunctioning, whatever, in the ocean, even recently. Again, I’d have to look at my notes.”
“Your research took you that far, and then your mother shuts you down and you didn’t want to listen.”
“It was just research. Anyone can find the information if they look for it. And if this is what we’re dealing with, then we have to see it through. The world needs to know.”
Maybe Braden finally understood Cressida. Her mother was all about secrets, and Cressida had taken a completely different path in writing exposés. He might now understand why she hadn’t so easily dropped the story that she now very well could have the chance to complete in a way she never imagined.
If they survived this. They needed to report this to someone in authority, but he would talk to Octavia about it first—she had known all along but hadn’t been free to discuss it with him—that is, if he hadn’t gotten this completely wrong.
He needed to know with certainty what he was dealing with before he contacted someone in authority.
He needed to know with certainty whom he could trust, if Octavia’s own man she sent was now betraying her, searching for the location of a deadly secret.
He realized he’d been quiet much too long, lost in his thoughts, and Cressida was staring at him.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking,” she said, “we need to find Diggins first. He was in the woods when I drove up, and this locket is the truth he needs so he’ll tell me what I want to know.”
“Sounds like Evelyn has already told you.”
“Diggins could know more,” she said.
“You could be handing this over to the very people who killed your father.”
“And this is how we’ll find out.” Cressida gripped the locket and moved to look out the window, then turned her attention back to him. “Let’s end this once and for all. But from now on, I want the full truth from you.”
“I didn’t betray you, Cressida, in the sense of deliberate disloyalty.” He’d wanted to be a hero for his sister, for Elise. For the two who meant the most to him, and now he was floundering. “One last thing you should know . . .” And he was betraying her mother by telling her.
She arched a brow and stepped into his space. “What’s that?”
He glanced at his watch. She’d be here by late morning or early afternoon. If she took a private jet, she could be here within the hour. “Your mother is on her way to Hidden Bay.”