Page 41 of Ship Outta Luck

“Did he leave you anything, any letters, anything at all, when he was killed?” I ask it gently as I can manage.

“He was killed? I thought…” Her face crumples.

“Most likely.” No reason to lie to her. “June, I don’t know how to break this to you easier. I don’t know about you, but I want to make it out of this alive, and with any luck, find the lost sub before the smugglers do. We want it in the right hands, and not with them.”

She nods once. Twice.

I inhale deeply, breathing in rhythm with her.

“The crab traps.” She lifts her chin, her pretty brown eyes finding mine, wide with surprise.

“What about them?” I’m suddenly afraid to ask too much, afraid to ruin this momentary peace between us.

“For the record,” she holds up a finger, “I am not sure I buy what you’re saying about my dad willingly working with the smugglers.” She spits out the last word. “But what if hewasusing the crab traps to leave me a message? About the wreck?” Her lips purse. “He did seem more invested in talking to me about them than he usually was.”

“Then we’d have to find them.”

I don’t like that she doesn’t believe me about her dad, but denial is a helluva drug, and I’m the last one to judge her on that.

Regardless, she’s loyal.That means something to me. Always has.

“He might have left me coordinates for the traps. On his fishing spots list.” Her hands shake as she pulls the wad of papers out of her dress pocket. “I guess it’s a good thing you tried to steal it.”

“Crab traps.” Why not? It’s a better lead than anything else I have.

“He loved puzzles. Loved this kind of thing. It would be like him…” She’s talking to herself, riffling through the papers I tried to swipe off her fridge. “It would be like him to leave me clues and let me work it out for myself.”

“Okay.” I nod. “Then we need some sleep.”

“Huh?” She tilts her head.

“Gotta be well-rested if we’re gonna haul up traps all day tomorrow.”

“We should go now,” she says, her face pinching in irritation.

“Right. Because we want to pull crab traps into the boat in the dead of the night. That seem safe to you?”

She juts her chin up, then her gaze flicks to the bandage on my torso. “Fine. You probably do need your beauty sleep.”

“You sure as hell don’t,” I blurt out. “Couldn’t get any prettier.”

Her jaw drops, and she stares at me. “What?”

“What?”

“Are you trying to hit on me?”

“Babe, if I was hitting on you, you’d know it.” I am an idiot. Idiot.

“Right.” She scoffs, and I’m glad the moon isn’t any brighter, or she might be able to tell I’m flushing in embarrassment.

“I’ll sleep up here. You can have the cabin,” I offer.

“No.” Her face pales against the dark fall of her hair.

“What?”

“No. I’ll sleep up here.”

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