“Sorry, guys, I have to take this.” Jo answered a call on her radio.
Cressida waved goodbye. She and Braden exited the art studio.
The marina, huh? Not without him. “I can take you.”
“Detectives don’t usually chauffeur people around, do they?”
He adjusted his jacket, letting his gaze scan the surroundings. “I was going that way anyway. I thought we could talk about the case. Besides, I have a surprise for you in my car.”
Eyes wide, she sucked in a breath. “My laptop?”
Oh, he hated to disappoint her. “Not yet. But I do have your bag with your stuff. We’ve already searched for fingerprints and found nothing.”
He’d confirmed her ID—Cressida Valentine Dane—per protocol and for the record.
“Let’s go, then.” She walked with him back to the parking lot and to his car.
He handed her the bag, and she dug through, looking as thrilled as he would expect.
“Still want to go to the marina?” he asked. “My offer still stands.”
She glanced up at him, looked off, then back. “What if you get called out on another crime?”
“I won’t. This investigation and your safety are my priority.” Push too hard and she would get suspicious. In fact, those gears were already turning behind her gaze. Brilliant like her mother. She’d have his number before he knew it. But she wouldn’t find much about him in the usual places on the internet. Octavia had made sure to scrub what little was out there—for her own protection.
“If you’re sure, I’d love a ride,” she said. “I have some questions for you too, and I want to go first.”
Uh-oh. He hadn’t expected that. She’d pulled herself together quickly, and that impressed him.
With the forensic sketch tucked in a file folder in the back seat, Cressida Dane buckled in the front, and the information Octavia had shared with him last night rolling around in his head, Braden steered out of Cedar Trails Lodge and Resort.
He drove slowly to give them more time. “You said you had questions.”
“Captain Malloy suggested I talk to Diggins about theSpecter’s Bounty. Malloy says he’s one of a group of peoplewho live on their boats out in the bay that call themselves pirates.Pirates.” Her eyes grew big in exaggerated incredulity as she repeated the word. “Do you know about them? Do you know Diggins?”
Everyone calls themselves pirates around here.Braden had investigated the boaters after an incident last year and questioned them. “I know a few things about him. For one, Diggins is his nickname. His real name is Jonas Daggerty. The liveaboards call him their captain, or rather ‘pirate king.’ Their name is for fun, and it works really well with the upcoming Hidden Bay Pirates’ Bash. And he’s like a bazillion years old but gets around like he’s a very lively seventy.”
“How did he earn the name Diggins?”
Braden scratched his temple as he turned onto the picturesque descent into Hidden Bay. “I couldn’t tell you with any certainty, but it might have something to do with him digging into the past. It’s not something you can find on the internet. Decades ago, he captained a commercial fishing vessel, and his boat was impounded for allegedly smuggling illegal artifacts. He avoided jail. I don’t know all the details.”
“How did you find out?”
“Through law enforcement connections, archives.” He cracked a grin. “And he told me most of it.”
“That was really honest of him.”
“He claims he has nothing to hide, that everyone knows about it, so you have a good idea of what you’re going into.”
“You know, sounds like I could write an entire book on the characters who live in Hidden Bay, outside of this book I’m trying to finish for Dad.”
And once she learned about Braden’s background, she would either blast him in that book or erase his existence—to her—altogether. Like she’d done her mother.
“What else can you tell me?” she asked.
“He was the first one to live on his boat anchored out inthe bay and brought in others. Couldn’t afford the moorage, or didn’t want to pay for it. I’m not sure.”
“And who knows,” she said. “With his background, maybe he really was a pirate. Could still be.”
