Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16) - Matt Lincoln (reading tree .TXT) 📗

showing your faces here after the condition you left my officer in!”

“We didn’t do anything to him,” I bit back. “We’re here to interrogate the man who did.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” he sneered. “You’re not taking another step forward. Get out!”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” I scoffed. “That man is a suspect in a federal investigation. You can’t block us from speaking to him.”

“You Americans,” he snarled. “Always thinking you can just go wherever you want, do whatever you want. You might bully everyone else, but you won’t bully me!”

“Maybe you’d be a little more receptive to the MI5?” Olivia interrupted.

It seemed she’d struck a nerve because Turner’s face actually went pale at that.

“The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British territory,” she continued. “If the FBI doesn’t scare you, then maybe they will. I can assure you, though, that they’re going to be on our side. We’re going to speak with that man one way or another. How stupid you wind up looking to British Security Service once that happens is all up to you.”

His face twisted into an ugly grimace as she finished speaking. He was glaring daggers at all three of us, and I was certain he was shooting us murderous thoughts.

“Take them back,” he spat at the officer behind the desk before storming back off.

“Sorry about him,” the officer muttered once he was out of earshot.

“Is he always like that?” Olivia huffed.

“Well, sometimes he’s…” the man trailed off. “Yes, pretty much. You get used to it, though.”

“I feel for you,” Holm murmured.

The man just smiled awkwardly in response.

“I’ll take you back to the interrogation room, then.” He smiled awkwardly before leading us further into the station. “His name is Frank Phillips. He has a few prior arrests for drug distribution, as well as one for domestic assault. Oh, but don’t tell the captain I told you.”

“Not a chance,” I assured him. “Hopefully, we won’t see him again for the rest of our stay here.”

The officer smiled gratefully. I felt bad for the man. He seemed like a good guy just trying to do his job. It must be awful having such a piece of crap boss. It made me want to do something nice for Diane whenever we made it back home.

“The interrogation room is right in here,” the officer said as we came to a stop in front of a door. I could see the man through the little square window in the door, sitting at a table. “I’ll go and get Frank if you’ll just wait here a moment. One of you should stay out here, too. You need to push this button for the door to open. I would, but I need to get back to the front.”

“I’ll wait outside,” Holm offered. “That way, Olivia can be involved too.”

He made it sound like he was doing it for purely practical reasons since this way there would be both an MBLIS and FBI representative in the room, but I could have sworn I heard him snicker something about a “third wheel.”

“We have a monitoring room you can watch from,” the helpful officer informed us. “I can take you there as soon as I’m done fetching Frank.”

“Thanks,” Holm replied gratefully.

The officer left then, presumably to get Frank from his holding cell. For just a second, I was hit with the terrifying thought that the nice guy act might all be a ruse and that he might be letting Frank escape now while we waited here unawares.

However, my fears were proven to be unfounded just a moment later when he suddenly rounded the corner, his arm firm on Frank’s elbow as he guided him down the hallway.

Frank sneered at us viciously as the officer led him past us and into the interrogation room.

“Alright,” he announced a moment later as he reemerged from the room. “He’s ready now. I’ll show you to the monitoring room, then.”

I watched as he and Holm stepped into an adjacent room before I stepped into the interrogation room with Olivia.

Frank looked up at us as we walked inside, his face set into an unfriendly scowl.

“Hello, Frank,” I greeted him casually as I moved to take a seat opposite him at the table. He squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest, doing his absolute best to give off the best ‘tough guy’ impression he could. In my experience, though, the more intimidating a guy tried to look, the more of a pathetic coward he was. Maybe scaring him into talking would be the best angle to approach him from.

He ignored me completely and instead turned to look at Olivia. Just as I’d suspected. This guy was so big and tough that, of course, he would immediately go for the smaller female target than the man who had just spoken to him.

“You’re the one who shot my buddy,” he snarled at her, baring his teeth like a rabid dog.

“Yeah, that was me,” she replied impassively, clearly unimpressed with his ‘menacing’ display. “That’s what happens when you open fire on a beach full of innocent people.”

“You’re a coward,” he spat at her. “Shooting a man in the back is the lowest of the low.”

“Funny you should talk about cowards,” I hummed. “Tell me, how much courage does it take to shoot an unarmed woman? Or, how about we talk about your other friend? The one who took off as soon as things started going south and hid behind a young girl so that the police officer pursuing him wouldn’t shoot?”

His mouth twisted into a puckered frown as though he’d just bitten into a lemon.

“Now you have nothing to say, of course.” Olivia nodded.

“Of course, I have nothing to say to a couple of pigs!” he sneered. “I’m no rat. I’m not going to snitch on my own brothers.”

“Well, that’s a mistake,” I scoffed. “Because I can assure you, they won’t show you the same loyalty.”

“What do you know of loyalty?” he asked, his deep voice gravelly with anger.

“I know that criminals like you and your