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He shook his head. “Saltwater and old beer.”
“I may have called you down here for nothing.” I stepped onto the deck of the Lucky Lady and raised my voice. “Jonas? I just want to talk.”
I sniffed again. Fear had a pungent smell like rotten eggs and sweat. I would’ve caught it if there was someone hiding on this boat. The human scent here was faint. He hadn’t been on board in a while.
The tension drained from my shoulders as I turned to Wyatt. “I think he’s long gone. My client wants some treasure this guy found. He said the man doesn’t matter; they only want the talisman he recovered from the Whydah shipwreck.”
“You think he took it with him?” Wyatt asked.
I shrugged. “I haven’t done much digging into his background yet. It’s possible he got a better offer on the relic from someone else and skipped town with the money.” I scanned the deck. “It doesn’t look like there was a struggle. The motor is up.”
“I’ll go check below.” Wyatt disappeared into the midship helm and down the stairs to the hull.
I walked up to the bow and looked over the side at the anchor line disappearing into the bay. I backed up, but my tow kicked something free from the edge of the anchor turnstile. I knelt down and frowned as I picked up the small shell casing. It was a .22 caliber. But there wasn’t a trace of blood on the deck.
This had to be a professional hit.
Shit. Could my client have killed Jonas, thinking they already had the trinket they wanted? I straightened as Wyatt’s heavy steps came up from the helm.
“Did you find anything?” I asked as he approached.
“Hard to tell.” He wiped his nose. “There’s a single bunk down there and it’s a mess, but I can’t tell if your guy was just a lousy housekeeper or if someone ransacked it. There’s a bait tank down there, so all the scent I could get was the muck water and dead shrimp.”
I showed him the bullet casing. “Unless he was shooting fish, I’d say someone already paid Jonas a visit.”
“Any idea who?” Wyatt looked over at the dock.
“Not yet. I need to do some more background work on Jonas and see if he had any enemies.” But my gut was telling me my client, Jim Bloodstone, was well aware that Jonas was dead. Did he order the hit? I couldn’t be sure.
The sun dipped behind the tree line on the other side of the bay, casting long shadows across the water. I slid the casing into my pocket and gripped Wyatt’s shoulder. “Thanks for covering me. Sorry it was for nothing.”
He cracked a smile. “I’m cool with not being shot at, so we’re good.”
I chuckled. “Thanks, man.”
“You coming back to the farm?”
Munro Manor Farm was the hub for our pack and a few of my packmates worked there. Mathias Munro, our previous Alpha, founded it, but these days he was the resident storyteller for the school field trip groups. No one would ever guess he was in his nineties. Werewolves didn’t show their true age like humans, but he didn’t have the stamina for farming anymore.
And I’d never been attracted to that life. Growing fruit and flowers and working the land had never been my calling. Solving mysteries was where my passion resided.
I shook my head. “Not tonight. I’m heading back to the Crow’s Nest to help Winter find a missing witch.”
He arched a brow. “I’m not even going to ask how the coven lost a witch.”
I grinned. “She was apparently a baby, but she’s probably grown now.”
“Better luck finding her than this guy.” He scanned the ship. “He hasn’t been here in while.”
“Thanks. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
Wyatt walked down the dock and I took out my cell phone. I jotted some notes about the casing and frowned when Jim Bloodstone’s name lit up on my screen. I sighed and accepted the call. “I don’t have any news for you yet.”
“He wasn’t on the boat?” He asked, but he didn’t sound surprised.
I didn’t advertise that I was a werewolf, and when Jim hired me, he hadn’t mentioned that his firm was aware of supernaturals existed, but according to General Sloan not all their employees were human. “Why don’t you save us both some time and tell me why I’m billing you for searching a ship you knew damned well was already empty?”
He chuckled. “I may have had some of our team search the vessel for the talisman, but they didn’t have your…abilities. I was hoping you might have better luck.”
