Character Interview-Rick Atwood Proprietor Seaside Cove B&B-Secrets Of The Treasure King by Terry Ambrose-Great Escapes Tour/Giveaway

Good Morning Mr. Atwood. I am so happy to get the chance to chat with you a bit. You have a lovely inn.

Thank you, Sherry. Keeping an old house like this looking good is always a challenge.

You inherited this lovely place. Did you not? Can you tell us a little about how all that happened? Was it an inn previously?

I had absolutely no experience when I inherited the Seaside Cove Bed & Breakfast from my grandfather. He’d run it as a B&B for years. Everybody knew him as Captain Jack, even me. And actually, I’d only met him a couple of times when I was a child. It came as a shock that he left it to me—until I learned he’d mortgaged it to the hilt for a massive remodel years ago. That in itself is another interesting story, but I’ll just say it involved a woman and an old man’s vanity. Let’s leave it there, okay?

No problem. So you weren’t the owner of a B&B in your previous career? Was it difficult to change gears so to speak?

I was a newspaper reporter in New York before this. I worked the crime beat during my last few years. Learning to run a B&B was a huge change, but one that’s worked out well for me and my daughter Alex. I was used to long hours and working independently. So, in that respect owning a B&B is much the same. The type of work is different, except for when I get drafted by the Chief of Police to assist on a murder investigation. To give you an idea how small our police department is, the evidence room doubles as a closet. They changed the lock and slapped a paper sign on the door. Voila. Instant evidence room.

I love your quaint little town. Was it a challenge settling in? Was moving from New York a hard change?

My plan was never to stay in Seaside Cove. When I quit my job and moved here with Alex, I was sure we’d sell the B&B and leave town within a couple of years. I was tempted to move that timeline up considerably when I discovered I was the town’s most eligible bachelor and was first prize in a marriage competition. There were twenty-two mothers in town who wanted me as a son-in-law. That was almost enough to make me pack my bags right then and there.

Wow. A marriage competition? That’s…unusual.

Very. Thank goodness that’s mostly over. There are still a few holdouts—the ones who just can’t give up on the idea of snagging me for their daughters. But my heart belongs to the woman who is our cook. Her name is Marquetta and she’s…well, not to be cliché about it, but I think she’s the love of my life. She’s also the one who taught me everything I know about running a B&B.

It looks like she’s done a great job. Isn’t that your daughter helping in the kitchen?

Yes, Alex is a great helper. Because she’s only eleven and is infatuated with Marquetta she catches on quickly. In fact, Alex has better knife skills than I do. She can dice an onion while I’m still trying to figure out which end to cut first.

I bet it’s hard to keep 11 year olds busy!

In Alex’s case it can be especially hard because I have to ground her for sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong—like in a murder investigation. You see, Alex is precocious and has curiosity in spades. She also has no fear and no impulse control. I blame myself for her fascination with solving murders. When we lived in New York, I’d let her sit on my knee at night as I wrote my articles for work. I didn’t realize what a mistake that was until the first murder occurred in Seaside Cove. When the police didn’t catch the killer within about ten minutes, Alex decided to start her own investigation. The bottom line is she runs her little shadow investigations in an effort to find murderers before the police. What’s worse is that she’s shown us up a few times.

I’ve also heard the rumors going around town about a sunken pirate ship. That is amazing. I just watched the 80’s movie Goonie’s. I bet Alex and her friends are itchin’ to find that pirate ship.

That’s the thing about rumors—they’re usually only about half right. Actually, the San Mañuel is a 400-year-old Spanish galleon that sank off our coastline when it was returning from the Far East. It’s cargo is probably worth millions, so that’s where the pirates come in. The treasure hunters who are racing to find the San Mañuel are really not much more than modern-day pirates. They want that cargo for themselves.

I am sure it is so easy to relax here at your lovely B&B and the town seems so peaceful. Is it always this quiet?

Always is a big word. We get a lot of tourists in the warmer months. Fortunately, business at the B&B has been good for more than a year now.

It looks like maybe things aren’t quite so quiet isn’t that the Chief of Police coming our way?

Yes. I heard this morning that the body of one of the treasure hunters was found floating in our marina. He’d been shot in the chest with a speargun. The chief is probably here to draft me into helping with the investigation. Which most likely means I should save some time and just ground Alex now. Why wait until after she gets into trouble? Right?

Well thank you for chatting. I’ll let you guys get busy. 

About the book 

 The Seaside Cove rumor mill is buzzing about the captain of The Treasure King. He claims to know the location of the San Manuel, a four-hundred-year-old sunken Spanish galleon with a cargo worth millions. And now, he’s dead, the victim of a speargun attack.

When the police ask B&B owner Rick Atwood to consult in the investigation, he has mixed feelings. Consulting for the police is not the problem. He’s done it before. The problem is his eleven-year-old daughter, Alex.

Alex is fearless, precocious, and fueled by a strong sense of girl power. She’s also convinced the cops will never find the killer without her help, so she launches her own investigation—and quickly becomes a candidate for Seaside Cove’s youngest felon.

Now, unless Rick can solve the case with the clues Alex found illegally, his daughter might face charges of breaking-and-entering, the treasure of the San Manuel will be lost to pirates, and a killer could get away with murder.

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