He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Remi walked with Cressida to her room, and Hawk wasn’t far behind.
“Do you think Mrs. Monroe is going to take this too hard?” Cressida asked. “She had a heart attack today. All the stress. Everything that’s going on was too much. That’s understandable. But the loss here is unimaginable.”
“I think she’ll be relieved that you and Braden are alive. That’s the most important thing.”
When Cressida was finally in her room alone, she collapsed on the bed. Waiting on the deputy to return with her things was going to be excruciating. In the meantime, though, she could look at Evelyn’s journal and see what she had missed. But would reading without those missing pages, without the context, do any good?
But Cressida couldn’t look at the book. Not yet. It was too disheartening, so she stood on the balcony in the cool night. Mingling with salty ocean air was the slight scent of smoke—from the manor fire? Burning books? No, it smelled more like a campfire. In the distance, she saw a light out on the water. Someone brave enough to be out there in the fog.
A knock came at the door. “It’s Remi with your things.”
She rushed to the door and opened it.
Remi handed off the belongings that she’d sent over earlier that day. “Trent brought these from the house.”
“Thank you,” Cressida said with as much of a smile as she could muster and closed the door. She appreciated Remi being so accommodating to her needs with this room.
Cressida really liked the woman, had clicked with her, and could see them being friends. In fact, it felt like the start of a friendship already. She emptied the duffel and realized her clothes smelled like smoke. Still, she hung up the few clothes in the closet and left the door open. Maybe the smell would dissipate, or she could wash them later. She stuck the rest in the drawers of the dresser. After retrieving her laptop, she dug inside the case for Dad’s journal.
It was gone.
She let out an incredulous breath and sagged. Really? “Fine with me,” she said to the walls, but in her head, she was talking to the bad guys. “I already scanned in all the pages and loaded them into the cloud.”
Sure, a good hacker could eventually find the information, but at least now she had access to his notes and her notes. The main issue was that someone else also now had those notes, but she knew Dad’s journal held no answers to this ridiculous mystery.
She’d come here looking for the truth behind a derelict salvage ship and what had happened to the crew, and look where that got her. Look where it got her father.
This was beginning to feel like a major cover-up of an important news story, and Cressida understood about that firsthand. Before the fire, Braden had been asking about the article she’d been working on, the one that her mother had shut down. His question had seemed innocent. Casual.
“What did you work on before you took on your father’s book?”His line of questioning got her thinking—wasthere a connection between that article and what was happening to her now? Had Braden asked that question to find out if her previous job was in any way connected? He was sharp, and she wouldn’t put it past him, though he’d sounded indifferent in that conversation.
She needed to look up all her notes. The environment, fishing, and underwater wrecks leaking toxins. So far in completing Dad’s book she hadn’t come across shipwrecks leaking toxins into the ocean.
Another knock came at the door.
“It’s me,” Braden said.
At the sound of the deep timbre in his voice, her heart danced a little. She pushed down the ridiculous reaction. No need to overreact in front of him, but she was more than relieved he was here. Right now, he was the only one she could trust—he and his friends, Hawk, Remi, Cole, and Jo—and she hoped and prayed she hadn’t put her trust in the wrong person. The wrong people.
She opened the door, and in two steps he was in her room, gently gripping her arms like a desperate man. “Are you okay?” The question came out in a huff.
He was the one to overreact, and his concern and intensity had taken her breath away. She couldn’t respond.
“Cressida?”
Shake it off.“Of course. I’m here, aren’t I?”
He dropped his hands and paced the room. “You’re not safe in Hidden Bay. You need to get out.”
“I’m not going anywhere. But tell me what’s happened.”You’re scaring me.
“I don’t know how to tell you this.” He didn’t look at her but instead continued pacing.
“Just do it.” She rubbed her arms, fearing the worst. What could have gotten him so upset?
“We believe the man who broke into Evelyn’s room earlier today while we were there is Derek Harlan.” He flashed Cressida an image on his cell.
