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

“I can call my director and find out,” she replied as she stood up from the table after me.

I walked to the door and knocked on it loudly so that Morris could let us out.

“All done?” the captain asked us as we filed out of the interrogation room one at a time.

“Yeah, we are,” I grumbled as soon as the door was closed behind us. “We didn’t get much, though.”

“Well, we found out that Frank was lying to us,” Holm corrected me encouragingly as we began to make our way back toward the entrance of the station.

“I guess.” I shrugged. “Though I wish we hadn’t had to get into a gunfight with an obnoxious old man to do it.”

“If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t have found the anchor,” Olivia noted.

“Good point.” I smiled. “I guess it was worth it after all.”

“That’s the spirit,” Holm snorted.

“Anchor?” Morris asked curiously.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I replied with a shrug. “Just something interesting we found while we were in the old guy’s shop. Anyway, now we need to go speak to that snake, Frank.”

“I’m sorry I was not able to be of more help to you,” Morris apologized.

“Don’t be,” I replied. “You were a lot more helpful than the last police captain we had the pleasure of dealing with.”

“Let me guess,” he frowned, “you are talking about David Turner?”

“You know him?” Holm asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Morris muttered. “I figured you must have run into him if you were in Kew before. That man is as corrupt as they come.”

“No surprise there,” Olivia muttered.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“He’s an embarrassment of a police officer!” Morris growled. “Turns a blind eye to everything that goes on in that town! We were in the academy together, him and me. I knew from day one that he was a rotten egg. I’d be careful around him, agents.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I replied.

“Of course.” He nodded. “Please don’t hesitate to seek me out if there is anything else you might need.”

I thanked him again before making my way back through the bullpen and the short corridor that led to the main lobby, Olivia and Holm not far behind me.

“Well, I guess that explains why Turner was so uptight about having us snooping around,” Olivia scoffed as we stepped through the doors and into the sun. “He probably has some kind of connection to the traffickers.”

“That would explain how they’ve been able to operate for this long,” I replied in agreement. “Turks & Caicos is a small place, and it’s not all that densely populated. It would be almost impossible for them to carry on for this long unless they had law enforcement covering for them.”

“I guess that means we’ll have to be careful of who we speak to,” Olivia sighed. “So far, we’ve managed to get more assistance from a self-confessed drug dealer than from the local authorities. Let me call my director and find out where Frank is.”

She stepped away to make the call, and I took a moment to look out over the horizon. I could see the ocean from where we were standing, which was unsurprising, considering pretty much every town and city in Turks and Caicos seemed to be situated right on the coast. The sun was already high in the sky and beating down on us, and all around us, people were going about their daily business, completely unaware of the heinous crimes that were going on right beneath their noses.

“Hell of a way to start our investigation, huh?” Holm asked me as he stretched his arms up over his head. “Feels like we’ve been running at full speed since the moment we landed.”

“No kidding,” I snorted. We’d been shot at twice in the span of just two days, and already we’d discovered that the local cops appeared to be tangled up with the traffickers. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, though. It still beats sitting behind a desk at an office all day.”

“I have no idea how Diane does it.” Holm shook his head. “I think I’d go stir-crazy.”

“You and me both,” I replied.

“Okay!” Olivia announced her presence with a curt outburst. I could tell just by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. “So it turns out that there was a mix-up. Someone arranged for Frank to be transferred to one of the FBI’s international branches… in Barbados.”

“Barbados?!” I exclaimed, my eyes going wide with shock. “He’s in Barbados?”

“No,” Olivia replied. “The good news is that the FBI moves slowly, so he’s still here. The bad news is that he’s still back at the police station in Kew, which means that--”

“We get to deal with Turner again,” Holm groaned. “I bet he’s going to be thrilled to see us after the last conversation we had with him.”

“Well, we’re going to have to play nice,” I sighed.

“To hell with that,” Olivia scoffed stubbornly. “I’m not going to take any crap from that jerk.”

“Listen,” I sighed, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we need to be smart about this. It’s clear that he doesn’t like us, at best. At worst, he might even be involved somehow. The last thing we want to do is antagonize him even more.”

“You’re right.” Olivia frowned. “As annoying as it is, so long as we’re on their turf, we’re at a disadvantage. We need to make sure we’re ready before we do anything rash.”

“Alright,” Holm agreed reluctantly. “Let’s go see what Frank has to say. Oh, but first, we seriously need to get a car.”

19

Ethan

It pleasantly surprised me to discover that Grace Bay had an Enterprise rent-a-car location smack in the middle of the city, probably a result of seeing so many tourists year-round. I’d thought this myself, but Holm had finally suggested that we get our own car in order to facilitate ease of movement. So far, we’d done fine just walking everywhere, but if we were going to be traveling between towns more often, it only