Shadow Code: A Brock Finlander Novel (Coastal Adventure Series Book 2) Page 2

  “I’m off to Jessa’s, Mom.” Finn walked past her.

  His hand was still on the doorknob when she stopped him. “I thought you were coming with me to the store?”

  Finn’s shoulders sagged, and he let his hand fall listlessly from the door. “But I already told Jessa I was coming.”

  “So you’ll keep your word to your girlfriend, but not your mother?”

  “Jessa is not my girlfriend,” Finn grumbled. Despite his protests, a bright shade of pink flushed his cheeks, and he cast his gaze to the floor.

  “You can see Jessa when you get back,” Katie said, sliding out from behind the table at which she was working. She grabbed her keys and gently tousled her son’s thick, dark curls. “I need a man by my side. You know, to keep me safe.”

  Finn rolled his eyes, clearly not convinced. “Now, I’m a man. But when I wanted to watch Death Raptor 4, you said I was too young.”

  “Come on.” She laughed softly. “It’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t think so, I’m being taken to the store against my will. I just want to see Jessa. We are working on an important experiment.”

  Every maternal instinct in her body rose to life. Concern twinged her curiosity, and she raised an eyebrow upward. “Oh?”

  Had this been any other child, she might not have been so worried. But Jessa was smart, and both she and Finn had played a role in defeating the crabs. Maybe they still craved doing something as dangerous and wild as they did then. Something to give them that rush of adrenaline that Katie knew all too well.

  Maybe they missed the adventure. Katie sure did.

  “I don’t know the details.” Finn shrugged. “Jessa’s gonna explain it to me when I get there.”

  Katie simply stared, recalling a time when things felt simpler than they were now. She nudged a chin in the opposite direction. “Go make sure Chum is inside before we leave.”

  Finn groaned, knowing he’d lost the battle, and dragged himself toward the direction of the backyard.

  An experiment. Maybe that’s what Katie needed. She had snagged a research job at the University of Maryland Institute of Marine Technology a few weeks ago, something to occupy her time during the summer months before she planned her lessons for the next school year. The job only required her presence once a week, but she could add more time if she felt there was something important to research.

  The only question was what?

  The incident with the crabs left more than enough questions to last her a lifetime, but without a viable sample to conduct her research there was no way to come up with the answers she needed. She had water samples of the bay, of course, but the pollution did little to affect any of the other creatures still in the water. It was as if the crabs emerged entirely on their own. Though she would never know for sure unless she broke into one of the heavily-guarded government facilities and stole a crab for herself.

  The thought held merit.

  She cleared the dishes positioned around her laptop and placed them in the sink to wash. She hadn’t even turned the faucet on before she saw him.

  The kitchen window provided a perfect view of the bay, one of the many high points for settling on the house to begin with. The small dock at the edge of her property was the perfect place for her father to store his new boat, the one she’d given him after her relationship with her ex, Kent, ended in disaster. Though to be fair, Kent received all that he deserved after he unleashed an angry army of crabs on the inhabitants of Claw Island.

  Those who live by the sword may die by the sword. But death by crabs was a hell of a way to go.

  Brock’s boat careened to a stop, throwing a swell of water that splashed up over the dock surface. He hopped off, landing on the deck with a giddy sort of pep in his step and tethered the boat. Katie hadn’t thought anything of it when she didn’t see his boat in the morning. Brock often spent all day out on the water, returning late, then heading right back out again. He took the family with him as often as possible, doing justice to the boat’s name of Family Time.

  Katie smiled, musing to herself as she watched her father. She’d spent half a lifetime hating him, convincing herself she was better off without him. That Finn was better off without him. Now she couldn’t imagine their lives without him.

  If any good came from the crab incident, it had been that it somehow patched their broken little family back together.

  Brock tied something off and hoisted a rope over his shoulder. The boat tipped against the weight of whatever he was hauling, and Katie squinted in the sunlight to make out the figure on board.

  What was he dragging? She leaned forward until her face was practically pressed against the glass. The click of Chum’s nails on hardwood signaled his entrance just before Katie felt the Chesapeake Bay retriever’s snout against her leg. She reached down to pat him on the nose, still intently focused on the image before her.

  “I’ve got Chum, Mom,” Finn said. “Are you ready?”

  Recognition flashed within Katie’s gaze as the object in her father’s possession suddenly materialized.

  “Oh, hell no,” she said and rushed toward the back door. She called out one last command to Finn before she disappeared outside, “Go to Jessa’s.”

  4

  Getting the crab from George and Liam cost me fifty dollars, while another fifty bought me their promise not to mention any of this to the Coast Guard. It was a steal, in any case. I’d have gladly paid five-hundred for a closer look at the thing that stood between me and a good night’s sleep.

  I hauled the crab carcass out from the boat and let it spill out onto the sand surrounding the jetty. I hadn’t even dragged it any distance when I saw Katie stomping toward me. Her brow formed a deep “v” at the center, and her eyes whispered a silent warning as if I had only ten seconds to formulate a plan of defense before total annihilation.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Learning to tango. Perhaps you’d like to be my new dance partner. My last one was a little stiff.”

  She squinted, unsure of how to take my candid response to a seven-foot crab being dragged off the front of my boat. “Very funny. What are you doing with this?”

  “George and Liam found it when out fishing today,” I explained. “Naturally, they called me. It’s much smaller than the ones we faced a few months ago, but I can’t think of any other anomaly in the marine world that would cause a crab to grow this big. Do you?”

  Katie shook her head. Her eyes locked onto the crab, though her thoughts appeared to drift elsewhere. A vacant stare supplanted the questioning eyes I’d seen only moments ago. My stomach wrenched. An instinct awakened, and I worried I’d made a mistake bringing the crab here in the first place.

  I had nowhere else to bring it. And if anyone would know what to do with it, it was Katie. All her years as a marine biologist meant she would know whether this was the residual effects of the crabs being introduced into the water or…

  …or resurrection of problems we handled months ago.

  Perhaps there were others out there. More people who shared Kent’s beliefs and power to create these ungodly creatures. It was possible the government had not been as thorough in their removal of these animals as we thought. After all, the bay was huge.

  Again came that niggling sensation twisting deep within the pit of my stomach.

  My instincts rarely ever led me down the wrong path, and something was telling me we were heading into round two of another apocalyptic take over.

  Katie jolted suddenly, shaking off the images haunting her thoughts, and grabbed one of the ropes I wrapped around the crab legs.

  “Let’s get it onto the jetty,” she said. “I need to examine it.”

  We moved the crab onto the hard planks of the wood, shell facing upward. Under normal circumstances, there would be nothing abnormal in the animal’s structure to set off any warning bells. None other than its enormous size, of course. Everything else about the crab looked entirely the same, a conclusion
Katie seemed to arrive at just as quickly as I did.

  “Come on,” she said, motioning toward one side of the crab. “We’ll turn him around. See if there’s anything unusual to look at there.”

  I hooked an arm around one of the legs, grappling for a foothold to flip the mighty beast over. Even with help, it took every ounce of strength to flip it. Luckily, the crab itself was relatively hollow, comprising more of the exoskeleton than it was of heavy, dense meat.

  It landed on its back with a thud, rocking back and forth for a moment before Katie stopped it with her palm. All emotion left her face, replaced with a cool, analytical stare that was almost unnerving.

  “So, how are you feeling?” I asked.

  Her eyes slid to the side, casting me a confused stare without even turning her head. “Dad, this really isn’t the time for this.”

  A warmth bloomed within my chest. Hearing her refer to me as “Dad” instead of “Brock” still bore with it all the means to disarm me. I waited years to hear her call me that, and every moment I heard her call me “Dad” felt like winning a battle all over again.

  Somehow, this whole mess with the crabs brought us closer together. I couldn’t say I regretted what we went through, not when it gave me back my family. Not when a little part of me still craved the adventure. Maybe that was why I was so adamant about inspecting the crab. A part of me felt like we were merely scratching the surface.

  That roiling gut instinct crept up into my throat, lodging itself in place until I had no other choice but to compel it outward. I would suffocate without answers, without knowing the whole story. And we were far from the end of the narrative.

  “You seem… stressed,” I said, finally.

  A smile formed at the corner of her mouth. “You just dragged a giant crab onto my property.”

  “It’s more than that. What is it?”

  She worried her lip, still inspecting the crab despite the rush of thoughts seizing her. “I don’t know. I thought teaching would be more rewarding.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I mean, it’s great.” She stopped and rocked back on her heels. Her hands fell to her lap, and she faced me with eyes filled with a hollowness I knew all too well. “I feel like I have an impact on the children and the future. I just…”

  Need more. I understood that more than I cared to admit. I guess, I wasn’t the only one who needed answers, who craved adventure and destiny in a world that seemed to have slowed down too soon.

  “Well, you don’t have to teach,” I said. “You can always do something else for a while.”

  Katie did not lack funds or opportunities. She had an impressive resume that made her an ideal candidate for any job she wanted to pursue. She simply didn’t want to uproot Finn and the life they had created here. So she was resigned to the area and whatever scraps it sought to throw her way.

  Financially, she was set. Her mother invested in Rook Sugar decades ago, when Roland was still building the company from the ground up. With Jacqueline’s passing, Katie converted some of those investments into cash, reinvested them into other companies, and built an impressive portfolio that would set her up for the rest of her life if she so wished.

  She didn’t. And therein lay the problem.

  “It’s fine.” Katie waved a hand in front of her face, dispelling any doubts still swirling about her head. “I have my job with the university for now to kind of round things out. It’s just…”

  “It feels like something is missing?” I finished the sentence for her.

  A crack of a smile teased across her lips. Those knowing eyes captured mine, soft and vulnerable. Two souls coming to an agreement. “Yeah.”

  Maybe I had made the right choice bringing the crab here. Maybe she wasn’t as haunted by the past, I thought. She needed a new mystery to unravel, a new purpose to dive into. And there was no better way to do that than by investigating this monstrosity.

  “What’s that?” She pointed to a series of bluish numbers on the crab’s stomach.

  “It’s a serial number, carved right into the shell. George pointed it out to me on the boat when I picked up the crab. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

  The numbers formed a curious pattern. Not just odd, but they were strangely familiar.

  “What do you think it means?” she asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t even know where to begin.

  “I’m going to head up to the house,” Katie said. “Grab my magnifying equipment and see if I can get a better look at it.”

  I nodded, though my eyes never left the crab. Why did those numbers look so familiar? Like phantoms from a dream, they appeared in my memory just out of reach of distinction. I knew them from somewhere. I just couldn’t place it.

  I read the numbers over and over again. They formed a pattern, a very definite structure and rhythm. All at once, it hit me.

  5

  Wesley hurried across the street from the grocery store, keenly aware of every living, breathing creature within a fifty-foot radius of him. His eyes scanned the buildings, seeking out curious glints of light from a windowpane. Anything that signaled a sniper.

  Not that it would do him any good.

  It would all be over before he could even come up with a chance to defend himself, to get out of the way. The people hunting him were ruthless. They would seize any advantage they found to kill him, erase his memory from history altogether.

  His disguise fooled most, he supposed. A little prosthetic cartilage, a beard, and a hat were all it took to confuse most people, even those who had known him for years. All the others, he shied away from, chose a different grocery store, a different walking path. Anything to prevent being recognized by the wrong person.

  How long had he been hiding? One year? Five? It all seemed to blend together in one giant, twisted illusion. Somehow this game of hide and survive became his life. As if he were some falsely-accused criminal on the run for his life.

  He made it to the mainland once a month to collect supplies he wasn’t able to smuggle to his island hideaway by some other means. No one knew how to find him. And if Wesley had things his way, no one ever would.

  This was his life now, from now until forever. Hiding like a rat in the sewers, away from prying eyes, away from civilization, until his dying days.

  At least he was alive. For now.

  Everyone else was dead. Friends, coworkers, rivals. It didn’t matter who they were to Wesley, death did not discriminate when it came to them. The evil men who trapped them there had not seen Wesley. It took everything within him not to rush into the room as they slaughtered each and every one of the scientists he worked beside on a daily basis.

  There was nothing Wesley could do to save them. Other than die alongside them. He could still hear their screams, their sobs as they pleaded for their lives.

  Those sounds would haunt him for the rest of his.

  Wesley choked down the lump forming in his throat. He fought back the prickling at his eyelids. Crying was not an option. He long surpassed any feelings of that nature, replacing them with a cold, hard fury that demanded vengeance.

  No, this was anger. Pure and simple. The red hot fire welling within his veins launched a full-scale attack against every nerve-ending in his body. Heat climbed up his cheeks, his neck. His chest tightened, stilling his breath with a paralysis made to kill.

  These feelings made him stronger, more alert. A shot of adrenaline that fed his senses and reminded him he had escaped death all these years for a reason.

  He was a survivor. A cold-hearted, suspicious man who left nothing to chance when it came to making it to see another day.

  His eyes shifted from one side to the other so quickly, anyone watching him might have thought they were ready to come loose from their sockets. The jetty appeared before him, his boat just a few feet from a pair of fishermen. One’s booming voice was the only thing to be heard for miles, even over the raucous sounds of traffic, passing ships, and the shrill cry of seagulls overh
ead.

  Wesley recognized them instantly. The one talking was named Liam. The group was fairly harmless, though it was always best to steer clear of anyone. Even the most innocent of people might one day turn him in, whether to make a profit, spare their lives, or without even knowing they’d done so.

  “The thing was as big as a Buick,” Liam said. “Tell them, George. Tell them how big it was.”

  “How am I supposed to tell them anything with your incessant yammering?” George’s voice came, much softer and calmer than Liam’s animated tone.

  The group of fishermen burst into laughter, engaged in the fish story despite its obvious exaggerations.

  Big as a Buick, indeed. Wesley climbed onto his ship and ran a quick sweep to ensure no one else had snuck on board. There was no creature that size in these waters besides whales and sharks. Both of which were either unlikely for the two fishermen to come across or highly illegal.

  Unless…

  “I’ve never seen a crab that size,” George added.

  Wesley paused. He glanced over his shoulder, attempting to hide his sudden interest in the story to little avail.

  “Really?” One of the other fishermen laughed. “We’re supposed to believe you guys found anything that large? Where is it then?”

  “We gave it to Brock,” Liam explained. “He handles that sort of thing.”

  “Right,” the fisherman said. “Convenient.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Liam asked, closing the distance between him and the other fisherman.

  George tugged the angered man back. “Just let it go. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it either.”

  But Wesley did. He’d seen the monsters first hand, the destruction they could cause, the lives they could claim.

  He knew because he helped create them.