Diggins released Braden’s hand and dipped his chin, looking at Cressida. “I didn’t agree. You shouldn’t have come.”
The man rubbed the back of his neck, and his hand came back with blood on it. He grimaced.
Shock rolled through Cressida.
“What happened?” Braden and Cressida both asked.
Diggins glanced around the area, looking at the smattering of nearby boats floating with the setting sun as their backdrop. He glanced to the bay, then finally motioned them to follow him. Slowly, he led them across the deck, leaning into each step as if negotiating an unseen current, then down a set of short steps leading belowdecks.
“You need a doctor, man,” Braden said.
“Ain’t trusting no doctor. I’m fine.”
He gestured for them to take a seat, and Cressida followed Braden’s lead, sliding into the booth behind a table.“I’ll make coffee since you insisted on talking. We might as well make this conversation worth the risk.”
“What’s going on?” Cressida asked. “Why is it dangerous to talk?”
“I’ll get to that, eventually. Why don’t you ask your questions. The faster we’re done, the better.”
“Shouldn’t we take care of your head first?” Braden asked.
“It’s just a bump. I’ll handle it when we’re done.”
“You never said what happened.” Braden had shifted back to his detective tone.
“I don’t know,” Diggins said. “One minute I’m warming up leftovers, and the next minute I’m on the floor.”
“Did you slip and fall?” Cressida asked.
“Uncertain.” He frowned. “What did you need to talk about?”
He would shut down sooner than later, and she should make these moments count. Get to the point. “Captain Malloy delivered me to Hidden Bay and suggested I talked to you about theSpecter’s Bounty. What can you tell me that I didn’t learn about at the local museum? Do you believe the lore that say these waters are dangerous?” Shut up, Cressida, and let him talk.Did you meet my father?
He scoffed. “Just an old boat, like the museum says. Nothing more to know if...”
Diggins let his words trail off and gave her a look she couldn’t misread.
If you want to live.
18
Braden wanted to focus on the conversation, but Diggins was stalling, if he even truly knew anything. He clearly wasn’t going to say, and that could very well be because Braden was here. He remained suspicious of that bump on the man’s head.
Though he was no forensic pathologist, it looked to be in the wrong position to have happened from a fall. His instincts had already kicked into high gear.
He wasn’t operating with the same protocols he would have used while working in the DSS, but these circumstances were precarious at best. If he followed those rules, he probably wouldn’t even be here now.
So while he half listened to Cressida argue with Diggins about what he did or didn’t know about theSpecter’s Bounty, Braden took in the cabin, the lack of dinner being warmed up like Diggins had claimed. Braden hovered near the door to go above deck and slowly crept up those steps, his instincts telling him that danger lurked nearby, to add to the fact that Diggins said as much.
Cressida could hold her own and could very well get theanswers she sought without Braden in the room. He was fortunate she chose to include him. And if he wanted to continue to be included, he needed to roll with it, let her do her thing.
The door to the lower deck remained open, and through the opening above him, Braden spied the skull-and-crossbones flag—a literal pirate flag—flapping from the mast. And yet a well-worn Bible rested on the counter, flipped open to the book of Psalms. While those themes seemed contradictory, Diggins’s flag wasn’t the usual call sign of a pirate but rather the banner of brotherhood of the people he’d taken under his wing. Drifters, wanderers. Those who couldn’t afford a home on land but found life on the waves.
But tonight Braden would wager someone had hit Diggins on the head. Was the camaraderie, this tight-knit community, breaking up?
“The whole idea of a mysterious ghost ship, seen a time or two, and the warning that developed over stories told at campfires is what keeps the lore alive, that’s all.” Diggins’s raised voice brought Braden back to the moment. “People make up all kinds of stories. You’re trying to make it into something more. Why do you even want to know?”
Braden remained at the top step looking out above deck and listened.
