Bayou Pirates Page 27

  Together, we made our way back down the stairs and into the long hallway leading across the ship where Madame Rosaline and I had been just moments before.

  “Isn’t there usually someplace below the ship?” Holm asked with a shrug as we stood there, looking around as if we were expecting to see something that I hadn’t before. “Like a boiler room or something?”

  “It was called a fire room, yes,” I confirmed with a nod. “It’s usually toward the rear and at the bottom.”

  “Let’s see if we can find one of those, then,” Holm suggested.

  “Alright,” I agreed. “It’s usually pretty small. Let’s see if there’s a way there.”

  We proceeded to look around every corner of the main ship to no avail, except for where I’d left Solomon and Beck in the captain’s quarters.

  “Only one place left to look,” I told Holm when we were done with the other areas. I then led him back in the direction of the main suite. “It is toward the back of the ship, though it would be unusual to find an entrance there, where only the captain could access it. Plus, Beck came up from behind me while I was in that room, so there must’ve been another entrance.”

  When we reached the main quarters, Beck was right where I’d left him, and he was out like a light.

  “Man, you hit him hard, didn’t you?” Holm asked, peering down at the stocky man.

  “I didn’t think that I hit him that hard,” I said, a little concerned as I looked at Beck. I reached down to make sure he was still breathing and had a pulse. “Still alive, but we should call someone.”

  “Already on it,” Holm said. “We called for backup ages ago. It should be here soon. They’re sending in helicopters since we’re way out in the boonies.”

  “Thanks,” I murmured, already hard at work, making my way around the room and trying to find some kind of secret entrance.

  I knocked on the walls to see if anything was hollow. Then, finally, right behind the bed, I heard something. By the look on his face, Holm heard it too. A hollow, ringing sound came out when I knocked there, in stark contrast to the hard, faint sound the other places I’d knocked.

  “I can’t seem to find a way to open it,” I said after investigating the area for some time.

  “Should we rip it out?” Holm asked, nodding in the direction of the wall.

  I grimaced, not liking the idea of harming a historical artifact like this in that way. But I didn’t see another option.

  “Very well,” I relented, still pained at the thought. “I’ll do as little damage as I can, and hopefully, someone can refurbish it again.”

  I grabbed Beck’s empty gun and began banging on the hollow spot with it. It took some effort, but finally, a hole appeared. It was dark on the other side, but I shone a light from my phone in to see that I’d put a hole in a locked door. I was able to reach down and unlock it from the other side, preventing more damage from being done to the ship.

  When it swung open, and light from the nearby lamps in the suite revealed the area behind it, I was nothing short of stunned.

  “Holy mother of God,” Holm whispered, clearly just as shocked as I was. “We’ve done it again.”

  Inside the small room, which had the remnants of an ancient boiler and engine lining its walls, were piles and piles of gold and old nautical items. There were anchors and brass ports, old lanterns, and ancient scuba helmets straight out of a Jules Verne novel, along with some old ship’s wheels and all the rest.

  And then there was the gold and the gems, lots and lots of gems. There was more value here than I could even wrap my head around. The piles and piles of loot stretched from floor to ceiling all over the place.

  “Holy moly,” Holm muttered, shaking his head as he followed me into the small room.

  “You could say that again,” I agreed, thoroughly floored by all the stuff. “Hey, look!”

  I pointed to a square hole in the ground into which I almost fell in my fascination with all the stuff.

  “I’ll be,” Holm said, crossing over to me and peering down at it. “That must’ve been how he got up behind you.”

  I shone the light from my phone down into the hole to show a ladder leading into a small tunnel.

  “Yeah, it must lead somewhere else in the ship,” I mused. “Pretty nifty.”

  “Hey, where do you think this all came from in the first place?” Holm asked, still mesmerized by all the treasure, though to me, the historical items were of even more interest. “How did these gangbangers get their hands on a ship like this?”

  “That’s what I was trying to ask Beck before he lost consciousness,” I said, shaking my head. “He said something about the Florida Keys. I guess I’ll have to ask him when he wakes up.”

  “Hey, aren’t a couple of our other agents in the Keys on a case right now?” Holm asked.

  “Yeah, Birn and Muñoz,” I confirmed with a nod. “Diane sent them out on assignment right before we left.”

  “Sounds like that’s where the money is to me,” Holm said. “We should see if we can get in on that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, staring around at all the piles of treasure. “Though I think there’s quite a bit of literal money down here.”

  “Not that we’ll get to keep it,” Holm chuckled. “Hey, do you think any of this stuff has anything to do with that old ship you’re always on about?”

  “I dunno,” I said, blinking at this suggestion. All of a sudden, this discovery seemed even more pertinent. “It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.”

  EPILOGUE

  “You’re ending it there!” Ty cried, banging his fist against the table in frustration and nearly sending his half-empty beer glass flying. “You can’t do that!”

  Mike grabbed the glass to steady it and laughed.

  “Them’s the breaks, kid,” he chuckled. “You’ll have to get the next part of the story some other time.”

  “He’s right,” I said, winking at the kid. “But that was a natural enough place to end it. The zombie drug case was closed that night, after all. And for good this time.”

  “You still haven’t answered why none of this ever made the news,” Jeff said, ever the thoughtful one. “If those people all died that night after taking the more dangerous batch of the drug, why didn’t the media ever latch on to the story?”

  “Excellent question,” I said, pointing at him approvingly. “The FBI managed to keep that whole thing under wraps. Nina and her boss made a good play at that. They didn’t want a bunch of widespread panic over real-life zombies. Although the heart of the story was more complicated than that, the national media no doubt would’ve had a field day with the story and left out many of the most pertinent details.”

  “As they often do,” Mike added with a grim laugh.

  “So, what happened? Were you able to stop the rest of the drug batches from circulating?” Nadia asked. The bar girl had stopped working entirely about halfway into my story, mesmerized by it. I didn’t mind. I’d come to love my little captive audience.

  “Yeah, Barrett and his team were able to round up the rest of what was out there and take it out of circulation pretty quick,” I said with a nod. “The gang was nothing without Beck and Williams. They didn’t stand a chance. And the Coast Guard managed to intercept the last ship carrying the drug on its way to New Orleans once we got the word out to them. Everything else was on the pirate ship.”

  “What about that girl at the hospital? Did she live?” Jeff asked.

  I nodded and smiled.

  “Thank God for small miracles,” I said. “She made it through, and the scumbag who put her in that position will never see the light of day again.”

  “And Agent Gosse?” Jeff asked, flashing me a grin. “Ever run into her again?”

  I just smiled slyly back at him.

  “Did Beck ever tell you how he found the ship?” Ty asked, leaning forward on the bar eagerly.

  “Unfortunately, the reason Beck was out so fast was that he had an underlying heart co
ndition he never knew about,” I said darkly. “He didn’t survive the night and never woke up again.”

  “But you had to have figured out where it came from,” Nadia said, aghast.

  “Now that is really a story for another time,” I laughed, my eyes drifting up to a small ship in a bottle hanging on the wall next to the voodoo doll from Madame Rosaline’s shop. “But I promise you that it’s one of my best yet.”

  Author’s Note

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