Page 40 of Ship Outta Luck

I doubt I ever will be.

She taps her foot against the deck, starlight reflecting in her eyes as she considers me. “The only thing my dad did was take tourists fishing and diving, and look for the wreck with me.”

I still. The wreck.

Is it as easy as that?

“What? Why is your face like that?” She leans down to me, her nose crinkling as she stares.

“The wreck? You really think this is aboutthat?” Clearing my throat, I run my good hand through my hair. It’s hard to think straight with her close enough to wrap my arms around.

“So you’re telling me you know where I live, but you didn’t bother to look up all my research?” She sighs, then looks to the sky. “Will anyone ever read my research?”

I laugh in spite of myself, and her gaze finds mine, a slight smile on her lips. “Your father was looking for the wreck with you, right?”

“Yeah, and if I had gotten that grant today, I could’ve found it. I know I could have. I would have earned tenure, made a mark for myself in academia. Heck, I would havewrittenthe history book. But nooooo, nope. Charlie had to run over a guy with a gun, and then I went and threw tequila in his eyes, and now drug smugglers and the government think I know where a bunch of crap I have nothing to do with is!”

A lead weight settles in my stomach. “Did your father go out a lot to look for it without you? How often do you think he looked for it?”

It would be a good cover, and I silently berate myself for not considering it before.

“Sometimes. Especially when I taught evening classes. You don’t think he was looking for the wreck.” Her voice is thick with disbelief. “You’re saying when he was out there… when he was supposed to be looking for the wreck, he... he was running drugs. Or whatever. Working with them. The smugglers.”

“‘Whatever’ is doing a lot of work there,” I say slowly.

“It’s not funny,” she says. A hand scrubs down her face.

“He could’ve been.” I stand.

Our bodies press together in the small space, but she doesn’t step back, doesn’t make any moves to distance herself from me.

I clear my throat, ignoring the dull throb of pain on my side. “Any chance he dropped any coordinates to, ah, the wreck? Or maybe something else?”

Smooth as fucking sandpaper. I wince at myself.

“No.” The word is flat, final. She moves away, bracing herself against the metal deck railing.

“What was he like in the weeks leading up to his death?”

“Sure, why not interrogate me about that?” she says, throwing her arms up. “Let’s just make this day as crappy as possible. Maybe I’ll cry! Would you like that?”

“I would not like it if you cried. Not at all.”

She seems startled by that, freezing in place.

I blow out a slow breath. “Were there any changes to his routine?”

She pauses, searching the starry night sky as though it holds the answers. “He was crabbing more. Brought me blue crab every night. But they’re in season, that’s not out of the ordinary… Well, not by much.”

I step closer, her eyes now wider as though she, too, has the same thought.

“How many traps does he have out?”

“About thirty.”

“That’s a lot of crab.”

“He has… hehada commercial license.” The words turn thick. “It was a hobby. With crab as the result.” She levels me with a glare.

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