“No, they weren’t,” I confirmed. “At least not lately. And I’m fairly certain that Joey guy was telling the truth. He was terrified of those people.”
“And his friend who attacked Robbie and your boss is on the run from them now, too,” Tessa remembered.
“Yes,” I murmured in agreement. “Yes, he is.”
I wished not for the first time that I could get some cell service and call Holm or Diane. But I knew that they had a handle on things there, and I would be able to update them when we got back to the bed-and-breakfast. I just wished that I could tell them what I knew about the Hollands, as hopefully, that would send them down the right track in their search for the nefarious couple.
Tessa and I sorted through several more blocks of pages together. It was a wealth of information, and I wasn’t sure that even our whole MBLIS office would be able to go through it in a reasonable amount of time. Hopefully, this would lead us to the Hollands, though I still had some concerns.
“It’s almost too much information,” Tessa remarked, practically reading my mind. “Right now, you have a smaller list, and you know that the Hollands were at that airport. Now, it’s almost like there are too many possibilities, each of which could lead you down a rabbit hole that gets you nowhere fast.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said, my tone and expression grim. “I mean, it’s great that we found all this stuff and everything, but I’m starting to get kind of concerned that there are too many options. We’ll have to bring other offices in on this, more FBI agents, maybe even the CIA. And getting three agencies in on one case is a real nightmare, to say the least.”
“I can imagine, though I don’t really want to,” Tessa said, her eyes widening at the thought. “And yeah, it’s kind of like the paradox of choice. People are happier when they get to choose from a smaller number of similar items, but not when they have so many choices that they’re overwhelmed. This has real-world consequences, though, not just picking what you want for dinner.”
“Right, which means it’s both better and somehow worse to have so many options,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair wearily. “Better because there’s a higher chance that one of the options is the right one, worse because we’re less likely to pursue it with limited resources.”
“Well, you’ll just have to put all your resources on it, then,” Tessa said, shooting me a small smile. “I guess this means that you’re going to be busy for a long time. No more vacations for a while.”
“Yeah, I suppose it does,” I said, returning the gesture. “We’ll be working this for a long while, along with whatever other normal cases come our way in the next few weeks. Or months.”
“Well, I’m glad we’ve had this time, then,” she said, reaching out and squeezing my hand gently where it rested atop the stack of papers.
“Yes, so am I,” I agreed, interlinking my fingers with hers and squeezing her hand back. “And I’ll be here for a few days wrapping things up here, so if you really want to stay, we’ll have some more time together.”
“Oh, I’ll be staying,” she assured me. “There’s no question about that.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
Eventually, I felt ready to move on to the older papers, the ones that may or may not be related to the Dragon’s Rogue.
“Do you want me to look for you again?” Tessa asked as we shifted down to the other side of the long, old wooden table.
I nodded. I wasn’t as nervous anymore, but I was afraid that I would be suddenly if I looked first.
“Alright, here goes nothing,” Tessa quipped as she sorted through some old papers as gently as she could.
I waited with bated breath as she carefully sifted through the pages.
“Here, these look like blueprints,” she said at long last, passing me a long, tall, framed sheet of old paper that was about the size of a standard world map. “Or really old blueprints, at least.”
I took it from her and studied it carefully, my eyes widening as I realized what it was.
“I think this is a rough sketch of what the Dragon’s Rogue is supposed to look like,” I said excitedly. “They must’ve been using it as a roadmap for the fake ship!”
“Will that help you find it, do you think?” Tessa asked eagerly.
“I doubt it,” I said as I studied the paper. “There’s nothing here that would indicate where it might be now. But man, it is cool.”
Tessa smiled over at me wanly, like she enjoyed seeing me so excited about something.
“Wait, what’s this?” she asked, grabbing hold of something off to her right on the table. “I think it might be those loose journal papers that that guy told you the Hollands had.”
Sure enough, when she handed the pages over to me, I recognized the handwriting immediately as belonging to Grendel.
“Yeah,” I breathed, squinting down at it. “This is them, alright. The same scrawl that he has later in the journal, based on the fake one. When he was starting to lose it, I guess.”
“Didn’t that guy say that it took them years to figure out what he was trying to say?” she asked, her brow furrowed together now. “Do you think you’ll be able to figure it out faster?”
“I certainly hope so,” I said. “I mean, I know what they figured out, that Grendel spent time here in Walldale, so I should be able to work backward.”
I turned around and leaned back against the table in a half-sitting position, squinting down at the pages as I attempted to decipher what the Hollands had uncovered in the midst of Grendel’s words.
Fortunately for me, the couple had left some of their work behind for me in the form of small post-it notes against the pages. I
