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

acting so weird lately, but they definitely didn’t think that anything like this was going to happen.”

“Did any of them explain why they had a gun in the first place?” I asked, remembering the young security guard Jimmy’s heroics back in the library. “I wonder how that kid’s doing, anyway.”

“Oh, he’s out of the woods,” Tessa said brightly as we rounded our path so that we wouldn’t walk straight into the water and headed down along the beach toward the outline of the big house in the distance. “I made sure that the paramedics would text me an update on him. He had to have some surgery, and they airlifted him to a better hospital a ways away, but he’ll be okay.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said honestly, breathing a sigh of relief at this news. If anything had happened to that kid on my watch, I didn’t even know what I’d do.

“As for the gun, Pierce told me that Martha bought it a few months ago and made all the security guards take classes on how to use it if they didn’t know already,” she continued, her arm still linked pleasantly with mine. “That was part of the weird behavior she’s been having lately. Clearly, she was spooked.”

“And it was a good thing, too, at least in that respect,” I chuckled. “I don’t know what we would’ve done if Jimmy hadn’t shown up knowing how to use that gun.”

“Oh, I have a feeling that you would’ve found a way to get us out of it,” Tessa said, smiling wryly at me, and I noticed how her eyes glistened against the backdrop of the ocean. “You always do.”

“Holm sometimes says that one of these days, my luck will run out,” I said, only half-joking. “I worry about that.”

“That’s only the case if it’s actually luck getting you out of jams,” Tessa pointed out. “If it’s skill, it will only run out if you let it.”

“I guess that’s true,” I laughed, reaching over with my free arm and encasing one of her hands in mine.

We continued like that for a while, walking along the shore and enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes we talked, and sometimes we didn’t, just enjoying the easy silence between us.

I figured that if we couldn’t get a whole trip just to ourselves, at least this would have to do.

Eventually, the outline of the house up ahead began to solidify, as it had been blurred by mist over the sea before. When I finally got a good look at it, a chill ran involuntarily up and down my spine, and yet for some reason, I couldn’t tear my eyes off of the house.

It was tall and shrouded in darkness, despite the fact that the sun had yet to set. Somehow it seemed like it was overcast by a long shadow, perhaps because of the dark color on its exterior. The house was made of wood, but the wood was an almost blackened color.

“I can see why kids congregate there on Halloween,” Tessa remarked, and I noticed that we both had stopped dead in our tracks to look up at the house.

“You can say that again,” I said, giving a nervous little laugh.

“So I guess we’ve established that this is the Hawthorne house, not the Carltons,” Tessa smirked, taking a step forward and prodding me to move along with her.

“Yeah, I think that’s safe to say,” I agreed. “Though we’re not going there. Not tonight.”

“Alright, alright,” Tessa said dismissively, rolling her eyes.

We continued to walk until we were at the base of the small cliff on which the Hawthorne house sat. There was a small trail leading up to it from down below.

“Should we go up?” Tessa asked, eagerly taking a step toward the path, but I hesitated, pulling her back involuntarily since our arms were still interlinked.

“I don’t know…” I said cautiously. “I feel like this is private property, and we should keep looking for the Carltons. Paulina said their house is just across the bay from here.”

I looked out at the water, which had really folded into a small bay area from the main ocean as we walked. I couldn’t quite make anything else out in the area, though, as the mist was heavy there.

I took a few steps back toward the water, with Tessa following reluctantly behind me, and squinted harder, shielding a hand over my eyes in an attempt to see better. Finally, I managed to make out the outline of another house on another small cliff set down a bit from where we stood.

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Tessa’s hand and pulling her along with me faster now. “I think I can see it now.”

“Fine,” Tessa said with more than a tinge of annoyance in her tone. “But next time, we’re going up those stairs.”

I ignored this, thinking that I would have to find a way to get the police to come with me on any expedition to the Hawthorne house if I was going to get Tessa off my back.

It took us about ten minutes to reach the other house as we moved slowly through the fog, trying not to lose sight of it. Paulina also wasn’t kidding that the houses were a fair bit apart. I was surprised that the Carltons had anything to complain about, especially given that the sea fog no doubt obstructed their view of the Hawthorne house a fair amount of the time.

When we finally reached the other house, I was relieved to find that it looked much more normal than the first one. It was large, almost impossibly large, but there was nothing creepy about it. It was just a normal house, painted a typical off-white color.

There were steps leading up to this house, as well, but they didn’t appear as rickety or as foreboding as the ones leading up to the Hawthorne house.

“Alright, here goes,” I said, pulling Tessa along with me up the stairs.

“Have you heard from Paulina? Do they know we’re coming?” Tessa asked