“Why?” she asked. “I’m finishing the book my father wrote. He died, and I lost my job, and it just seemed that God opened the doors. The time was right. There’s more to the story or my father wouldn’t have added this boat.”
Braden stepped down again, getting a look at Diggins.
The man leaned in, shadows turning this friendly “pirate” menacing. “Your father is the only reason I agreed to see you, and then I told you not to come.”
“You said I deserved answers. And I’m here, but you’re not giving them to me. My father wrote detailed notes, andthere’s no mention of you.” She shook her head, a slight frown showing her confusion. “But there were a few pages torn out of his notes after the last shipwreck he researched.”
Really? Interesting. Braden hadn’t heard that from her.
“I can’t explain why he didn’t take notes about our conversation, unless he wrote them on those torn pages, and in that case, he didn’t want anyone to see what he wrote. I enjoyed talking to him. He knows his history.”
“So youdidtalk to him. What did you tell him about the ghost ship?”
“Same thing I told you.”
“Which is nothing more than I learned at the museum. Malloy told me you knew something. He didn’t tell me to go to the museum.”
Cressida asked the questions whose answers she already had after going to the museum. He supposed her tactic was to get Diggins’s perspective, which could be different from what the museum claimed. Since her father had been a historian, she might have an insider’s view on published history versus the truth.
“I’m looking for thehiddentruth.”
Diggins scoffed.
With the rocking of the ship and the constant creaks, Braden couldn’t be sure he hadn’t heard footfalls above deck, so he maintained his stance on the stairs, his hand pressed to his gun.
“You found me,” Diggins said. “You came for me, against the danger warning, so I give you points for that. But I don’t know anything. I think Malloy was just trying to appease your active imagination.”
“On that point, why is coming to talk to you dangerous? Or are you stonewalling me? And if so, why? Is it because you know something that I won’t find at a museum or anywhere else? Something you alone know?”
With that, Braden was duly impressed.
Cressida showed her true professionalism in refusing to be detoured from her goal. Not surprising was her ability to coax words from people with her sincere expression. “Look, my father died before he could finish. You said you met him. You met with me because of him. Help me to finish this book. It’ll be his legacy. It’ll be this maritime historian’s tribute to those lost at sea. I just want the truth about theSpecter’s Bounty—it was important enough to him to include in his book. I’m trying to do this for him and to do this tale justice.” She leaned in. “Tell a story that possibly no one but a few have ever heard before.”
Watching Cressida, maybe Braden finally understood how Octavia coerced and manipulated so many people, and that should serve as caution for Braden to stay away from Cressida when it came to anything beyond this covert operation arranged by her mother.
And Diggins, too, might have fallen for Cressida’s gift, because he shifted forward. “I have a proposition for you. There’s something I need. You get that for me, and I’ll tell you what I can.”
Stalling again?
“You’ll tell me what you know about theSpecter’s Bounty, something that I can’t find anywhere else?” Cressida asked.
Her father had not included his conversation with Diggins in his notes, then he’d taken the next flight out to DC. Diggins knew something, and Cressida had caught on to that from the start.
Diggins’s expression turned dark. “I will.”
“I have the feeling you think I won’t be able to meet your requirement. I promise you, if it’s not illegal, I’ll make it happen.”
A boisterous, incredulous laugh erupted.
“Name it,” Cressida demanded.
He cocked his head. “Don’t this feel a bit like you’re walking the proverbial plank?”
“Nobody’s walking a plank, metaphorical or otherwise.” Braden stepped down so he could see the two of them, warning Diggins he should avoid threats.
“Name it,” she repeated, her expression determined.
Diggins didn’t even offer Braden an acknowledgment but kept his piercing eyes on Cressida. “I need something from Evelyn Monroe. And if we’re abandoning plank metaphors, let’s shift gears—you’re Dorothy inThe Wizard of Oz.”
