Maritime Caper (Coastal Fury Book 12) - Matt Lincoln (have you read this book TXT) 📗

main mock submarine area, which was now packed with tourists as it was getting on into the late morning.

Tessa couldn’t help but notice that Ethan seemed a little torn. She knew that he wanted to be here with her, and even more that he wanted to figure out what was going on with Grendel’s journal. But it was clearly killing him not to be with his partner and colleagues right after their office had been attacked, and she could tell that he was a little disappointed not to be in Miami with his colleagues during such a tense time.

Tessa admired this about him, though she wished that the whole of his attention was there with her right then. He cared for his colleagues and hated to be away from them when they might need him. That was a good thing.

At the same time, she couldn’t help but be secretly glad that they’d arranged this trip at the exact moment they did. Otherwise, he might’ve stayed back in Miami when news of the Holland sighting in Atlanta came through, and they wouldn’t be together now.

Martha led them through another door that she used her key card to unlock, leading them into a vast library area packed with bookshelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling.

“Whoa,” Ethan breathed as they walked past the bookshelves, realizing no doubt that they were all packed full with old documents and books related to seafaring.

“Is this area open to the public?” Tessa asked, not seeing anyone else around.

“Only by appointment,” Martha explained as she led them to the back of the large room. “And we bring some private tours in here, especially Henry when he does them.”

“I imagine that this is where Henry did most of his work,” Tessa pointed out, and the old woman nodded.

“Yes, he found almost every document in this library, and he selected the books himself,” she confirmed. “He liked to work in here, too, as opposed to in his office. He said it was nice and open in this area, and that being surrounded by all the books and documents kept him grounded and inspired.”

The museum manager gave a small, wistful smile at this memory, and Tessa felt another pang of pity for her. It must have been very difficult to think that her friend was the victim of the mysterious people she herself had feared for so long.

Martha led them all the way to the back of the vast library, to a wall of drawers tucked away in the corner away from where any wandering tourists were likely to find it.

“What’s this?” Ethan asked when the three of them came to a halt in front of the drawers, raising his eyebrows at them.

Tess noticed that there were little keyholes in the centers of all the drawers.

“This is where Henry likes to keep our oldest and most sensitive documents,” Martha explained, shuffling around in her pockets and pulling out an enormous keyring peppered with what seemed like a hundred small keys.

Though all the keys looked identical to Tessa, the manager picked one of them out without too much trouble and opened a drawer near her in the lower left side of the wall.

Then she gasped and moved backward quickly, dropping the keys so that they clanged against the metal drawer and dangled there in the keyhole where she’d left them.

“It’s… it’s not possible,” she stammered, shaking her head and staring wide-eyed at the drawer. “I left it right here. I checked. I triple checked! I just don’t understand.”

Tessa moved quickly over to the drawer and peered inside. It was empty, which was no doubt what had alarmed the museum manager.

“There’s nothing here,” Tessa said quietly, looking back at Ethan, who looked almost frozen himself as he stared at it from a few paces away from Martha.

The MBLIS agent was ashen-faced, and Tessa knew then just how much he’d gotten his hopes up since Martha had told them that she still had the original journal tucked away in the museum. Tessa couldn’t blame him. He’d been looking for it for so long and had so many false starts in his search already that to be within such close proximity to the journal only to have it ripped away once more must have been awful.

“We’ll figure out what happened,” Tessa said soothingly, crossing over to him and placing a hand comfortingly on his elbow. “We’ll track it down, don’t worry.”

But Tessa was worried herself, regardless of what she told her companions. Martha had said that the journal had been there not that long ago, which meant that someone was watching the museum as well as her home.

“When did you say that you checked the drawer last?” Ethan asked. He shook his head to clear it and turned his attention to Martha, after practically having to rip his eyes off of the empty drawer.

“Right after you called, maybe three weeks ago?” Martha conjectured, unable to tear her own eyes off of the drawer. “I don’t know why I haven’t checked it since then. I thought about it, but if I’m honest, I think that a part of me was afraid of what I might find. Or not find, if you will.”

Her shoulders slumped as she leaned back against the wall opposite the drawers, slipping down into an awkward sitting position on the floor.

“It’s alright,” Tessa said, crouching down beside the old woman and thinking that Martha was in good shape for her age, to be able to sit like that. “No one blames you for this. You were scared. It’s not your fault. The important thing is that we’re here now, and you’re talking about it with us. Telling us everything, right?”

“Yes, yes, I’m telling you everything,” Martha assured her, her voice starting to quiver again. “But how do we know that they’re not watching us now?”

A chill ran up and down Tessa’s spine as she considered this possibility. She looked back at Ethan and saw the worry on his face instantly.

“We don’t