Page 32 of Acadia Falls
“Ha. My cousin’s a douche. It is embarrassing that he bailed me out.” Jack shrugged. “But no, that’s not what I’m talking about. I shouldn’t have gone after Trey like that. Not with you on board. That wasn’t safe, and I shouldn’t have made you vulnerable. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” I smiled at him. “But… Why’d you do it? What is it with you and this guy?”
Jack sighed. He looked rugged and muscled in his sweatshirt, too handsome and outdoorsy to be hunched over the Vejas’s marble countertop. As if reading my mind, he asked, “You want to go sit outside?”
“Sure.” I followed him to the porch. The sun was lowering in the sky, making the mountains shimmer a deep, pure green.
“I never sit indoors in the summer if I can help it,” Jack admitted. “We live for summer. Rest of the time, we’re freezing our asses off.”
“What do you do up here all winter?” I had a million other things to ask him, but I was genuinely curious.
“Tommy and I fish year-round. So that’s it. Nothing much else to do on this rock.”
I couldn’t imagine going out on the icy Maine water in the winter—it was freezing in late June! “Isn’t that dangerous?”
He laughed. “Are you just going to sit around worrying about me all day? It’s fine. We have it down to a science.”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like.” I shook my head. “But then again, I’ve spent the last three years in the law library. Not exactly exciting.”
“But do you enjoy it?” Jack sounded genuinely curious. “Do you like what you do?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“What do you like about it? I can’t imagine sitting in a library or working in an office all day.”
“I like that it’s competitive. I like to beat people.” I grinned at him. “Maybe you can relate to that.”
“Ha, I guess so.”
“So, speaking of beating people… Why do you keep beating this guy up, huh?”
Jack put his feet up and leaned back. “Trey and his crew keep messing with our lines. I’ve caught them three times now. I can’t be having that.”
“Why are they doing it?”
“They’re interfering with our haul. If Trey gets our traps out and empties them before we can check them, it messes with our numbers.” He had a sip of tea. “It’s stealing from my family.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Chris Cuddy’s an islander—a pretty fucking dumb one. He got drunk one night and ended up with his face all tattooed. Not the brightest bulb.”
Jack scowled out at the water as he continued. “Trey’s pretty new. Most of the fishermen on MDI grew up here. We all went to school together. But Trey inherited his rights from his uncle, who died a couple years back. He’d been living down in Massachusetts, fishing on some tuna boat. He thought he hit the jackpot when his uncle died. He hauled his ass up here and took over the route.”
He shook his head. “These new guys don’t respect the water the way the rest of us do. They’re just in it for the money. Trey heard about the manganese on our route, and now he’s trying to harass us, so we’ll either quit or sell. Thing is, he’s too dumb to understand that’s not going to benefit him.”
“Manganese?” I scrunched my nose up. “You mean the stuff they put in cell phone batteries?”
“That’s the one. You are pretty smart, Blondie.” Jack tipped his mug at me. “No one knew it was in the ocean floor up here, but lo and behold, it is. But we’ve been the only ones to find it. Once the word got out, corporations literally lined up to throw money at us.”
“And you’re taking it?”
“We’ve taken some. We did a deal with a healthcare company that makes medicine for sick kids. But everybody else just wants it for their cellphones.” Jack shrugged.
“Precious metals are used in a lot of new technology.” I nodded. “I bet a lot of businesses want it bad.”
“Oh, they do.” He snorted. “And the thing about the island is, everybody knows everything. So now all the fishermen heard about the offers, and everybody wants a piece. And I get it. But Trey’s an outsider, and he’s going about it the wrong fucking way. He’s going to get himself hurt.”
I had another sip of tea. “Trey thinks he’s going to scare you off? That doesn’t seem very likely.”
