by Jack Hardin
“It that who’s in that old picture over the bar?” she asked quietly. “The picture you won’t ever talk about?”
“Yes. It is.”
“I’m so sorry, Major.”
“My grandfather saved my life. Somehow, though, I didn’t get the gene. It seems that I’m never able to save those I love.”
“You don’t talk about your early years very much. Is that why?”
A long span elapsed before he answered. “Ellie, sometimes you don’t want to sift through all the sewage to find the gem. Today though, I wanted to.”
“I’m glad you wanted to.”
They started walking again and slowed as they neared a pelican perched on the railing. It eyed them suspiciously and, deciding that they had come close enough, finally took flight toward Monroe Canal, the tips of its wings fluttering in the breeze. Ellie ached to tell Major about her father, but she knew she couldn’t. For now, it was enough that one day, they would all be back together.
“I’m going to get away for a couple weeks,” Major said.
“Didn’t you just go to the Bahamas or something?”
“Yes, but when you’re my age you get to go on vacations whenever you want.”
Ellie’s smile faded as she looked east and saw a thick finger of smoke several miles out. “That must be that mansion in Iona they were talking about on the news,” she said. “That’s a large fire to still be making that much smoke.”
“Yes...I suppose it is.” He sighed.
“Can I ask you a question that may be none of my business?” Ellie asked.
“Sure.”
“I met Kyle Armstrong for the first time at Mango Mania. He and his daughter were working his table.”
“Yes. She’s a good little ballerina from what I hear.”
“When I told him I was related to you, he got this look in his eyes.”
“What kind of look?”
“Honestly?” She turned to look at her uncle. Their eyes met and held. “Fear.”
Without pulling his gaze, he said, “I know.”
“What’s that about?” She looked back over the water. A pod of dolphins were chasing a school of mullett, competing with greedy gulls who were following hungrily overhead.
He continued a leisurely pace. “You’ll have to keep it between us.”
“All right.”
“Kyle borrowed a fair amount of money from me to move his operation to another level. Between you and me he was over-leveraged and couldn’t get the banks to relax. I thought his business was in a strong enough spot to loan him the money, but I had to do so at a fairly steep interest rate. It made things harder on him than I thought it would.”
“So,” Ellie said, “my uncle is a loan shark.” She laughed. “‘You pay me the vig, Kyle.’ Is that how it was?”
“Not quite. I think he was scared I would call the loan due. It was really weighing him down. After reviewing his financials I told him I could cancel the loan if we became percentage partners. With his new handicap and our combined business acumen, I think we can take this rodeo to the next town over. He’ll still maintain the lion’s percentage, but I think it will work well.”
“You’re a good man, Warren Hall.”
He shrugged.
“Gloria’s right, you know. You should think about letting your hair grow. It would suit you. Maybe a hat too.” She stepped back and eyed him. “A fedora perhaps. Dad used to wear a white one in his off hours, remember? That one with the black band.”
He smiled fondly. “I do remember that.”
And one day, she thought, we’ll all see him wear it again. “I hope things settle down for a while,” she said aloud. “I could use a break.” Especially from people trying to kill me.
Major wrapped a protective arm across her shoulders. “I think they will, kiddo.” He leaned over and kissed the top of her head, then looked back to the smoke billowing out in the distance. “I think they will.”
Epilogue
One Week Later
Somewhere in the Lesser Antilles
The rum was good. But not as good as Kyle Armstrong’s. That stuff slid down your throat like liquid glass, warmed your insides like grandma’s homemade apple cider. He set the glass down. It hit the wooden bartop with a gentle thump.
His bare feet punched into the sand as he walked away from the tiki hut.
The beach was empty today. A vacant shore forming the contours of a bare and lonely paradise.
“Hey, mister! You left your hat!”
He turned, looked at the fedora. The white fedora with the black band. He locked his eyes on it and stared, almost longingly. He sighed, shook his head at the bartender, and jammed his hands in his pockets before continuing to walk away.
A line from John Milton crossed his thoughts. From Paradise Lost, he was fairly certain: “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.”
He’d left the hat behind.
And all that it represented.
It was right, letting it go. Letting it all go.
His way ahead now led only to the light.
Get ready for Book 5...
Ellie, Major, Tyler, Fu, Gloria, and Citrus will return in Breakwater, the 5th installment in the Pine Island Coast Suspense Series. It will be a standalone and will be available in January 2019.
This fall you can expect to see the first of three Ellie O’Conner/TEAM 99 prequel novellas. Each will be about 20K words / 70 pages, and will feature different missions Ellie was sent on during her time with TEAM 99 and the CIA.
Also, it’s a ways off, but in the second half of 2019 expect to see the first couple installments of a spinoff series with Brian Carter/Voltaire as the lead. These will be full-length novels and each installment will have Brian in a different city/location in the world. The first book (“Voltaire”) will deal with the events surrounding Frank O’Conner, Mortimer, and Scott Reardon, as touched on in Vacant Shore.
Reviews
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What to Read Next
If you haven’t gotten into Don Rich’s Mid Atlantic Adventure Series, I would highly recommend you do so. You can grab them up on Amazon. Just tap the cover below to get started with the series.
Once you’ve enjoyed those head back to Amazon and grab up J. D. Dudycha’s Gage Finley Caribbean Adventure series.
Silent Ripple, an Ellie O’Conner prequel novella, is available on Amazon, and occurs before the events in Broken Stern (Book #1).
By the time you’ve read all those, I should be back with Book 5 in the Pine Island Coast Series. And don’t forget to sign up to be notified for when the first TEAM 99 prequel comes out.
