Coastal Fury Boxset (1-3)

by Matt Lincoln

  “MediWaste Removal Services,” Clyde told me. “The CEO is Devon Cole, and they have contracts with several hospitals and medical centers.”

  Muñoz walked up while holding half of Bonnie’s mobile lab. “Hey, you gonna stand around shooting your mouth, or are you gonna help us unload the boat?”

  “Uh, sure…” Warner eyed the catamaran and grimaced. “I mean, I’ll carry stuff to the cars from the dock, but I am not stepping on that boat.”

  “So, why did you two come out here to report the big news?” I picked up a case and pushed it into Warner’s chest. “You could’ve called.”

  Clyde rubbed the back of his head. “I needed to get out of that lab.”

  Everyone but Tessa looked at him in various states of shock.

  “Hey, I don’t live in our lab at HQ,” he insisted. “I like it down there, but this one smells like Lysol and dirty clothes, and it’s too warm in there. The air conditioning is weak. I don’t like it.”

  Bonnie brought her water sample case off the boat and handed it over to Clyde. He raised his brows.

  “Tessa found something,” Bonnie told him. “I’ll take it and relieve you at the lab. Go do something not-boring.” A wicked grin spread across her face. “Like using my mobile lab to test the twenty water samples I brought back from the Hole. Good times, buddy!”

  Clyde stared at the carefully packed case in his arms. The stricken look on his face should’ve been caught on camera. He was wearing the first version of his Lab Rats shirt, with anime-style caricatures of both he and Bonnie. That, with the box and his face with the look of shocked misery, would have made a great meme for their Facebook Page.

  Yes. Bonnie and Clyde had a Facebook Page. I wasn’t on social media often, and even I heard of their posts.

  Just like that, I heard a click. I looked to my left and saw Tessa snap a photo of the priceless moment. She’d removed her camera from the diving rig, and it now hung around her neck.

  Clyde mouthed something along the lines of “why?”

  “I’ll blur your face, if we use it,” Tessa told him.

  Bonnie set a metal case on the dock next to Clyde’s feet. “I kid, Joe. We’re going in together.” She pointed at Warner. “You, too. We have another find to inspect. If we can discover its origin by tonight, they can do something about it tomorrow.”

  I cocked my head at Bonnie. “Yeah. Make sure to get the location so we can plan a trip if it’s not too far from Cliffside.”

  Clyde made no complaint when he accepted the metal case with the radioactive fabric. He set it in the trunk of one of the borrowed Audis. Soon, he, Bonnie, and Warner left for their temporary lab in a seldom-used military building.

  “We’ll have a briefing in the morning,” I updated everyone. “Robbie and Tessa, I’m going to see if Director Ramsey can get us a mid-morning flight to Tampa to interview MediWaste’s CEO. Unless something comes up, everyone has tonight off.”

  “Well, I’m going to go work on reports,” Holm said with a fake yawn. “I’m going to head back to the house and work on that.” That was not the guy I knew, and I wasn’t the only one to give him a funny look. “How about you, Lamarr, Sylvia?”

  “I saw some artist gallery or another when we drove through the other day,” Birn mused. “It looked familiar, and I want to check it out tomorrow.”

  “While he's doing that, I’m going to do a little shopping at the market,” Muñoz admitted. “I have nieces and nephews who complain that I don’t bring them souvenirs from my worldly travels.”

  “Both of you watch your sixes,” I warned. “Belize City isn’t the safest port in the world, and we still don’t know who we’re after.”

  “Don’t need to remind me,” Muñoz muttered. “I’ll go wait in the car. I’m ready for dinner. You all decide what you’re doing.”

  Birn went to the parking lot ahead of us, and Muñoz followed in his wake.

  “I’ll eat in so I can get to those reports,” Holm said.

  “You okay, Robbie?” I stepped closer and spoke in a quiet tone.

  He wagged his eyebrows at me, ignoring my question. “What are you two going to do?”

  “Us?” Tessa’s voice squeaked a little. I didn’t blame her. It felt like the team was manipulating us into talking. “I don’t… We don’t have plans, as far as I know.”

  “How about we change that?” I suggested. “Let’s find a quiet place where we can talk and eat. Have you ever tried chimole?”

  “I’ve heard of it.” She tapped her lower lip and smiled. “I’d be happy to go try it with you.”

  As Holm chuckled and left for the cars, I held out a hand. Tessa grasped it with both of hers.

  “So, date night in a couple hours?” I asked.

  “You better believe it.”

  She kept my hand in hers as we left the dock. The evening was looking up.

  15

  Tessa and Ethan only stopped at the villa long enough to change into casual evening wear. She chose an off-white shift with a jade floral scarf around her waist. Her sandals were new, with a slight wedge and cream straps that went with her outfit.

  Most of the team went out for dinner, but Robbie sat in his room with the door open. On her way to meet Ethan, Tessa knocked on the doorframe. He looked up as he closed his laptop.

  “Going out now?” he guessed. “Have fun.”

  “Why aren’t you out with the others?” Tessa asked.

  He shrugged as he tapped a finger next to his laptop. “I had a lot of paperwork that I put off until the last minute. Which was about a week ago. The brass are getting pissed that I haven’t caught up yet.”

  Tessa had a feeling there was more to his story than late reports. Call it reporter’s intuition. She thought about asking more about it, but it wasn’t her place. He was Ethan’s partner and friend, not hers. That didn’t stop her from wondering, though. Instead of pushing, she smiled and moved back into the hallway.

  “Good luck, then. I’ll bring your partner back before the car turns into a pumpkin.”

  Robbie chuckled. “Cool. See you later.”

  As she went down the hall to the stairs, she heard his door shut. He was definitely up to something. Had he told Ethan what he was doing other than finishing overdue reports? She shook her head to clear it. No, it wasn’t her business. Ethan trusted the guy, so she did, as well.

  The villa’s teak handrail and stairs gently curved from the second to the first floor. The stairs landed in the living room, across from where they’d entered through the garage’s mudroom. Ethan occupied a barstool at the open kitchen’s counter that looked into said living room.

  “Wow,” he breathed. “You look great.”

  He didn’t look so bad himself. His khaki slacks moved freer than the usual pleated, heavier material he wore. The pale blue button-up shirt was short-sleeved, casual yet dressy. Ethan looked every inch the sharp-dressed man.

  Tessa took a deep breath and held a spike of anxiety in check. On the way to Belize, she’d worried that either she or Ethan might not feel the same as they did when they were together for such a short time all those months ago. Those doubts dissolved as she was caught up in those eyes. Damn, those eyes could carry a mountain on a feather, they were so clear and blue. His hands were warm and firm as he wrapped them around hers.

  “There’s a little place by the beach I want to take you to.” His voice was rough, as though he was holding something back. “They tell me their chimole is the best in the city.”

  She gently extracted her hands. “That sounds like a plan.” Her stomach growled in agreement. “I might be a little hungry.”

  “Chimole it is,” he said with a laugh.

  The short drive took them a little out from the city where there were fewer lights, and the waxing moon shone off the water. He parked in a small lot with cracking asphalt. As she got out, she spotted dolphins playing and leaping in the moonlight. She itched for her camera, but this was one of the rare times she hadn’t brought it a
long.

  “It’s not fancy, but when Robbie and I had business here last, the people were good and the food even better.”

  The restaurant was small, and the siding had the appearance of, well, a small restaurant that faced a sea that could punish coastlines and beyond. Colorful light strands invited them to the front where several tables were arranged on a tidy patio surrounded by a wrought iron fence.

  They entered through a screen door that screeched as screen doors were wont to do. Aromas surrounded Tessa, teasing her with cumin, cinnamon, annatto, and garlic. Other wonderful scents mingled into a warm invitation to dinner.

  Tessa’s mouth watered as they entered and were shown to the patio where all the tables were empty. It appeared to be a slow night, but it was in the middle of the week, so that fact spoke nothing about the restaurant’s quality. A soft breeze teased at her hair, which she’d left down for the night. Ethan must have noticed because he reached over to tuck her hair behind her ear before they took their seats. Their server lit a candle that rested in a hurricane glass at the center of the table and then left them with menus.

  “Bring many girls here?” Tessa teased.

  The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Only the one. I’ll see what she says after dinner is over.” He nodded toward the inside. “During the day, it’s beer and chimole or beer and fry jacks. They have great tamales, too.”

  “You’re stuck on the chimole,” she observed. “Must be good stuff.”

  “It’s different, but yeah, it’s good.” He shrugged. “If you don’t enjoy it, order anything else off the menu. These folks know how to cook.”

  Their server returned a few minutes later. Ethan placed his order, and Tessa decided to try the chimole as well. When they were alone, Ethan’s smile faded, and he caught her gaze with a sense of concern.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. Considering what happened during the dive, she had a feeling of what was coming.

  “I don’t know that ‘wrong’ is the right word.” He looked out at the sea, where lightning flashed across clouds far to the east, and then back at her. “You know we have to talk about the dive, right?”

  There it was. It’d been naïve to hope Ethan wouldn’t bring it up again.

  “Yeah.” She fiddled with the napkin at her place setting. “I should’ve said something, but if I had, Donald wouldn’t have sent me here.” Her chest tightened at the very thought. “It was the only excuse I’ve had since the Cobra Jon thing to see you.”

  Ethan reached across the table and cupped her hands in his. She hated that it made her feel warm and protected. Modern women were supposed to be above needing big, strong men to make them feel better, but she wasn’t above it. She was strong in her own ways, but he was strong in ways that made her feel safe.

  “You never need an excuse to see me,” he promised with a gentle squeeze of her hands. “Tessa, the last thing I want is to lose you like that. When you started to freak out, it scared me far more than collecting radioactive evidence. I’ve seen divers panic, and it doesn’t always end well.”

  She looked at their hands, her smaller ones clasped within his larger palms and fingers. Calluses roughened his fingertips, and tiny scars laced his knuckles and palms. She ran her fingers over the marks as she thought about what he’d said.

  “You’re right.” She shook her head a little. “It was stupid to go diving today. I pretended it wasn’t a problem, but I lied to myself.”

  “It wasn’t stupid. Reckless, maybe, but not stupid. You’re trying to do your job, and you got scared.” A smile touched his lips. “Whatever you’ve been learning to handle, it worked.” The smile faded. “It worked today, Tessa. You can’t go on deep dives like that until the problem is gone.”

  “If Donald finds out, he won’t assign me to any photo dives.” Tessa closed her eyes, saw nothing but her uncle’s worried face, then opened them again. “I don’t live for it the way you do, but I do love finding new ways to frame reef life. My other job is to document how bleaching hits a reef and whether or not it recovers. Some manage it to reclaim areas, some don’t.”

  “Preaching to the choir, sister,” he said. “That doesn’t change the fact that if you have panic attacks underwater, it could kill you. I don’t want that to happen. I like you alive.”

  His half-hearted smile almost broke her heart.

  “I’m sorry I scared you,” she whispered around a sudden frog in her throat. “For what it’s worth, I scared myself a lot more.”

  Their server appeared with a tray that contained two wide bowls of steaming chimole. At first glance, it was a surprise to see the stew was black, but the presentation of the boiled chicken pieces with tomatoes and onions centered around sliced boiled eggs was as inviting as the intricate aroma of the seasonings, only some of which she could identify. A bowl of white rice and a plate of fresh, warm corn tortillas were set between Ethan’s and her dishes, next to the candle. Their server produced tall bottles of the house favorite beer, one for each.

  “Enjoy,” the server told them. “You will be able to wave at me through the window, should you need anything before I come back.”

  Tessa thanked their server and tried not to think about the conversation she and Ethan had been having about her diving situation. When she said earlier that she was working with an instructor, she’d been telling the truth. The man was doing all he could think of to help with the semi-random panic attacks when she was diving.

  “We don’t have more dives planned for this trip,” Ethan told her. “If we had, I wouldn’t have allowed you to go.”

  “I wouldn’t, either.” Eye contact would have helped, but she wasn’t so sure she spoke the truth. “That’s not a position I’ll ever put you in again.”

  She sipped at her stew, at first to avoid speaking, and then because it was a fabulous dish. The light lager added a crisp note to the recado flavoring, which also gave the dish its distinctive black coloration.

  “I have good news,” Ethan said as he smiled and handed her a napkin to catch a dribble that tickled at her chin. “The day after tomorrow, we’re going to have a small sub to take to the bottom. It’s allowed up to four passengers, but there’ll only be three. Since it’s not a dive per se, I thought maybe you’d like to go with us. You can take your camera and get footage of anything we find.”

  A chill trickled through her body. “Will we be exposed if we get too close to some of that material?”

  “Unlikely. We’re not lifting anything out. Jake made clear that the sub can only pick up a few things. Once we find ground zero for the debris, we’ll mark it for the military to clean.”

  Tessa held a spoonful of broth halfway to her mouth. “So we might find something, but you don’t know what or how much?”

  Ethan snorted. “That’s the sum of it. Any new information is worthwhile, especially if we confirm the site as a dumping ground.”

  Tessa nodded and worked on her stew. She wanted to be as comfortable around the evidence as Ethan, but the images she’d seen and stories of acute radiation poisoning terrified her. Cancer patients she’d know had gotten cancer from the radiation used to treat their first cancers.

  “I’m scared to go,” she blurted out. “Maybe if I understood nuclear science, it wouldn’t be so frightening.” It wasn’t that she was ignorant, but that she had excelled at the fine arts more than the advanced sciences when she was in school. “I want to understand this stuff, but it’s not how my brain works.”

  Ethan cocked his head and smiled. “It’s okay, really. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I couldn’t write a great book if my life depended on it, but I can teach you how to dive, fight, and tie knots. Honestly, I only understand what I need to work this case. That’s why we have Bonnie and Clyde. They break the science down so we can use it in our investigations.”

  “I need to walk,” Tessa said as she put her spoon down. “This food is good, really it is, but I can’t eat.”

  Ethan paid their bill and led her down
to the beach. The moment they reached the sand, she removed her sandals. Her toes sank in, and she wiggled them in contentment. Without saying anything, she made her way to the water and let it wash over her feet. The surf was gentle, as the coast was protected by a series of atolls and caves that broke up the larger waves.

  Ethan removed his shoes and rolled up his slacks to walk with her. He gave her time to collect herself. It meant everything just to have him there, next to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she eventually said. “I didn’t mean to ruin dinner.”

  “Hey, you’ve had a difficult day.” He stepped in front of her, and she looked up. “You’re doing your best in a situation you didn’t ask for. It’s not ideal, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I am, too.”

  She leaned her forehead into his chest. This assignment was supposed to be exciting and reunite her with Ethan. Well, that was how she had seen it. Donald wanted more, a headline that would generate readership while keeping true to the magazine’s ethos of preserving the environment.

  “We could talk about something fun,” Ethan suggested. “Name something.”

  Tessa straightened and felt a smile beam right out of her.

  “I want to know everything you ever learned about the Dragon’s Rogue,” she told him. “You said there’s an old woman who has records that actually go back that far in time?”

  Ethan laughed. “Yes, and you’d love her. We learned to call her ‘Aunt Esme’ while working that trafficking case a few weeks ago. There was a young woman we helped during that case. She ended up moving in with Esme in exchange for helping her to preserve the files before they disintegrate.”

  “And she had information about the ship?”

  “Yeah. There was an old log entry that led us to the location of the cannonball and silver coins we found.” He found her hand and gave it a squeeze. “If we’re lucky, there may be more pages in that house somewhere.”

  “That’s terrific!”

  Tessa considered telling him about the contact she had in Charleston. As of his last email, the man who Tessa was paying to search records believed he was close to what he was looking for. No, she’d wait until she had confirmation before breathing a word to Ethan.