by Jack Hardin
“Brett, twenty teeth lie along each track, each representing a two-millimeter width. Six clicks represent just over a centimeter.”
His words now issued from an icy voice. “And your point?”
Still speaking into a context where you couldn’t see your eyelashes for the dark, she said, “Being that your wrists could pass for a couple of dry twigs, I would say you owe me another five clicks per cuff.”
“Well, if you don’t like how I do it, why don’t you come over here and do it yourself?”
She heard the creak of a floorboard as Brett began to walk toward her, followed by the cuffs rattling together, a clear indication that he still had not put on the cuffs. Her conclusion was confirmed by the clatter of loose metal on the floorboards.
“Stop,” she warned.
“If you were going to shoot me, you would’ve done it by now.” But what happened next made him stop in his tracks.
A light flashed on, streaming from a small LED flashlight that was pointed upward and reflecting off the low tin roof. It illuminated the outline of a person seated in his only chair—a rickety old thing he’d made from driftwood years ago. She was wearing a red ski mask, a tank top, and jean shorts, her hands encased in thin black gloves.
Brett curled his fingers into fists and continued toward her. As he neared, he threw his right foot out, swinging it around and sending it toward her face. She put up a forearm and set her shoulders, blocking the kick. She stood as he brought his leg back and regained his balance. She let the flashlight clatter to the floor where its beam now reflected off the far wall.
“I don’t know who you are,” Brett said, his head bobbing around like an overeager boxer, “but you shouldn’t have come here. This is my place.” He whipped his right fist toward her face and stepped in. Just as his knuckles were about to make contact, she pivoted, leaned back, and his fist rocketed past her. She used that as an opportunity to send a knee swiftly into his abdomen. Brett sputtered and collapsed at her feet, all the air having abandoned his lungs. She pushed him to the ground where his mouth connected with the dirty floor and his upper lip split on the wood. Temporarily incapacitated, Brett felt the cuffs enclose around his wrists.
She spoke. “I saw that there was a warrant for your arrest. Something about assaulting a dancer at a club a couple of nights ago.”
After he gained his breath back, he lifted his head off the floor and spat out a loose wad of blood. “I’ll post bail and be out before lunch. Then I’m gonna find out who you are and pay you a little visit.”
“Are you now? I think you’re forgetting about all the back child support you owe. I think that will have to get paid before you post bail.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll still get bail. I got the money.”
“Mhm. And that would include the backpack full of cash I found beneath the floorboards?”
Brett twisted hard beneath her, but she dug her knee deeper into his lower back. “You’re gonna die. That’s my money.”
“You know, it might be, Brett. But now, it’s mine.”
“I’ve been saving that money for three years.”
“Maybe that’s why your ex-wife isn’t getting any child support payments. Didn’t I see somewhere that her name was Sally?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“You’re right. All I know is that I could really use fifty thousand clams about now. I have bills too, you know.” After retrieving her flashlight, she reached into Brett’s pants pocket and retrieved his cell phone.
“What are you doing with that?” he asked.
But she ignored him and stepped outside the door. Pressing the home button, she looked at the service icon. There were no bars, and tiny words against the backlight read, “No Service.” But she knew that a caller within a specific proximity to any provider’s cell tower could connect to the nearest emergency center. She dialed 9-1-1, and when the dispatcher answered, she put her wrist to her mouth and spoke into it to muffle her voice. “There is a recent warrant for a Brett Riggins.” She gave the dispatcher the location and hung up before he could ask any questions. Before walking back inside, she tossed the phone further into the mangroves where she heard it clatter against several branches and land with a splash in the shallow water.
Walking back into the shack, she grabbed up a roll of duct tape she had brought with her and spent the next minute wrapping Brett’s hands, running the tape all the way up his arms and stopping above the elbows. Then she wrapped his ankles and legs. Finished, she moved to the front corner of the shack and grabbed up a backpack, shouldered it, and walked back to Brett. “Oh. Before I go.” She tapped the backpack. “That little stash of meth you had in here? I went ahead and put that in the cabinet. I’m sure the police will be happy to find that with your fingerprints all over it.”
As he cursed her, tiny bits of red-tinged spittle flew off his lips. She leaned down and gave him a patronizing pat on the back. “Hang tight.”
“Wait. Where’re you going?”
“I have breakfast plans. You can tell the police they’ll find your boat tied off a couple hundred yards closer to the Pass.”
“What? You can’t leave me here like this.”
But the sound he heard next was the door scraping against the floor as it opened and then shut. Outside, a couple of boards creaked before the familiar sound of a small outboard puttered to life. In less than a minute the engine’s drone had drifted further away until it was gone altogether.
Brett entered into a futile struggle with his bonds, finally giving up and yelling out in frustration, a thick vein pulsing down his neck as he mindlessly screamed for someone to help.
But the nearest soul within three miles was driving away in his boat.
Chapter Three
Ellie O’Conner slowed her Bayliner to idle speed, reducing her wake as she made her approach into Matlacha. The sun had crested the horizon an hour ago, staining her bright blonde hair with waking shades of red and orange before continuing its ascent into the high arc of the sky.
She pulled into a temporary slip on the south end of Matlacha Community Park and tied off. The backpack lay at her feet. She grabbed it up and tossed the ski mask into the glove box, removing a blank piece of paper and pen before shutting the compartment door and locking it. Disguising her handwriting with standard block print, she wrote:
Sally, Brett is going to be locked up for a while. I’m sure he would want you to have this. He’s sorry for all the times he missed his child support payments.
She signed it:
A Friend.
P.S. Probably best if you didn’t mention this to anyone.
She shouldered the backpack and stepped off the boat onto the floating dock. After cutting through the park, she came out onto Pine Island Road, the only thoroughfare in and out of the island it took its name from.
At eighteen miles long and two miles across, Pine Island registered as the largest island in the state of Florida. Sanibel Island lay but two miles off its southern tip, laying claim to miles of sugar sand beaches that were noticeably absent on Pine Island. Rigorous zoning and development regulations ensured that Pine Island remained a geographical and cultural heirloom in a state that was becoming over-commercialized and overrun with seasonal tourism.
Driving west out of Cape Coral and into Matlacha made you think a gentle breeze had somehow blown you back in time to a place that still held a small town charm, that spoke softly to you and said, in some way, that you were home.
Ellie crossed the two-lane street and walked behind a long, narrow building that sat in front of a stub-nose canal. She picked out an old Nissan Sentra in the narrow crushed shell parking lot and tugged on the driver’s side door handle. It opened. Moving quickly, she set the backpack on the floorboard, tucking it close to the seat, and then placed the note upside down on the seat. She locked the doors and went around to the front of the building.
She pulled on the front door to The Perfect Cup, and smells of freshly
brewed coffee, blue crab omelets, and morning muffins swirled in her nose. Looking toward the far wall she saw a tall man, his back toward her, filling up his mug at one of the many coffee dispensers. He wore a beige t-shirt that fit snugly around a muscular frame and blue jeans whose cuffs slipped over ostrich-skin cowboy boots.
Ellie navigated her way past a few tables and stepped up behind him. She slipped her arms around his waist. “Whoa, there,” Tyler said, trying not to slosh his coffee. Without turning around, he put his free hand over hers and gave a gentle squeeze. “You’d better stop that, Jackie. Ellie’s meeting me here in a little bit, and it’d be best if she didn’t see us like this.” Ellie pulled away, raising her brows as he turned around.
His radiant green eyes looked like tiny blades of spring grass spun together. They met hers, and he feigned alarm. “Ellie. Uh, hi.”
“Stop it, you goof.”
He winked down on her, then leaned down and gave her a kiss. They had been dating for over three months now, but whenever his lips touched on hers it still felt like the first time, still made her stomach flutter. He pulled back and grinned. “I’ll take that over a cup of coffee any morning.”
As her gaze moved to his head, she frowned. “Where’s your hat?” His sandy brown hair fell just over his ears and the top length, which wasn’t quite right, was finger-combed to the side. Ellie had known Tyler for over a year, and she struggled to remember a time that he had appeared in public without his red, sun-faded ball cap. Something was truly out of place, the world tilting slightly off axis.
“Couldn’t say,” he said. “I’m starting to think someone snuck in my place last night and stole it.”
“And left your television and all your guns?”
“Precisely. That hat is the best thing I own.”
“Where do you think it is?”
“Not a clue. I thought maybe I left it at your uncle’s bar yesterday.”
“Did you call Major about it?”
“I did. He said it hasn’t turned up.”
“Well,” she said, “if it doesn’t show soon, then you, sir, need a haircut.”
Tyler ran his hands over his head. “Is it that bad?”
She grimaced. “Think late 90s boy band.”
“Ouch.” Tyler looked up toward his hairline and self consciously moved some hair off his forehead. “Noted,” he said.
“Nick and Tiffany here yet?” she asked.
“In the anteroom,” he said. “In and to the left. I’ll be right over.”
Ellie found their friends talking over cups of coffee. Nick Barlow was nearly as tall as Tyler’s six-foot-two frame but slimmer, and his black hair was cut close to his scalp, reminiscent of the seven years he spent in the National Guard. Nick and Tyler had been best friends since high school and roomed together at Texas Tech fifteen years ago. Tiffany had grown up in Naples, a half hour south, and the Barlows had recently relocated to Fort Myers to be closer to her family, with Nick working as a subcontractor for a local construction company.
Ellie pulled out a chair. “Hey, guys.” Tiffany stood and gave Ellie a friendly hug across the table. Tiffany’s short brown hair was cut just above her shoulders, and her lively, hazel eyes never failed to convey her zest for life. Nick and Tiffany had one child, Kayla, who was the same age as Ellie’s niece, Chloe. Both six-year-olds were already best friends, co-conspirators in all things rainbows, unicorns, and sparkles.
Ellie took her seat as the waitress appeared and placed an empty mug in front of Ellie. “There you are,” she said. “They said you would turn up at some point. Sleep past the alarm?”
“Something like that,” Ellie smiled.
“What can I get you?”
Tyler returned to the table and took his seat next to Ellie while she ordered Irish Eyes: poached eggs on a bed of seasoned spinach, with feta cheese and diced tomatoes on the side. The waitress’s rosewood lipstick and powdered cheeks could not conceal the melancholy that resided in her narrow face or hide that her mind was somewhere else, far away from coffee, omelets, and muffins.
Ellie reached out and touched her hand. “Sally. Everything okay?”
Sally straightened while her mind rode an invisible path back to the present. “I just got a text from a friend down in Everglades City. She said Brett just got arrested for drug possession. Someone had wrapped him up in a cocoon of duct tape and called the cops on him.” She shook her head angrily. “I thought he was done with all that.”
Everyone at the table expressed how sorry they were. “It doesn’t matter much, I guess,” Sally said. “He’s always been as bent as a fish hook. Just would have been nice if he could have helped with some of the bills. You know?” Sally tapped her paper pad. “Let me get this in for you, Ellie.”
“That’s too bad,” Tiffany said after Sally left. “She’s such a sweet lady.”
Nick leaned back and tried to stifle a large yawn. “You awake over there?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. Just trying to wrap my head around some things at work. You know how a new job can be.”
“He hasn’t been sleeping well these last few nights,” Tiffany said. She reached around her husband and ran the flat of her hand across his upper back. “He has meetings at a construction convention in Miami the next couple days and has been up late prepping for them. I told him if this job is going to keep him this amped up, then we need to have a talk.”
Tyler said, “Well, as my mama used to say, work the work, don’t let the work work you.” Tiffany took a sip of coffee and set her mug down. Looking at Tyler, she said, “You know, you need a haircut.”
Tyler sighed. “Good grief. I lost my hat, okay?”
“Well, you’d better find it quick. Or get another one.”
Tyler shot a glance at Nick, looking for backup, but Nick only shrugged. “I’m with her on this one. Your hair. It’s not right, man.”
“Ellie,” Tiffany said. “Have you given Jet an answer yet?”
After spending the better part of a decade with the CIA, Ellie had stepped away from fighting global terrorism a year ago and come back home to Pine Island with no pressing plans to find a new career. When she was presented with an opportunity to join the Drug Enforcement Administration, she had been slow to accept. But she finally had and over the next several months experienced the satisfaction of bringing down three local drug organizations. But a tangled mess of bureaucracy and lies ultimately led to them letting her go.
Now she was back to helping her uncle at his bar and marina, The Salty Mangrove. At thirty-six Ellie had already learned what most people don’t until late in life, and what some never do: that life doesn’t always have to be run at full throttle, that you’re not wasting your life if you step back and enjoy the sand between your toes and the wind in your hair. In this new millennium the tyranny of “being productive” was a real thing, and Ellie was fairly certain she wanted no part of it.
Tim Jahner—“Jet” to many—had put in over three decades with the DEA. He had recently retired from the agency, stepping away from his role as the head of Fort Myers’ Special Response Team, and was in the process of opening up an investigative agency. He had been courting Ellie on a professional level, trying to convince her to join him.
“Not yet,” Ellie replied. “I haven’t ruled it out, but I’m not in a hurry to jump into anything either.” She excused herself and went and filled up her coffee mug. When she came back to the table, Tyler and Tiffany were laughing hard. Nick, on the other hand, was rubbing his forehead with his fingers, shaking his head.
“What’d I miss?” Ellie asked.
Tiffany was holding a small piece of paper, dogged-eared with a crease down the center. She handed it across the table. Ellie took it and turned it around. It was a picture: a clearly much younger Nick was wearing gym shorts and no shirt. His skin was shiny with sweat, his arms spread eagle. And across his chest in thick black marker were written two sloppy words: Not Tom. The same was written across his foreh
ead. He was looking up at something.
“What is this?” Ellie asked.
“I was rummaging through an old box and found that gem,” Tyler said. “Nick, you want to tell her?”
“Go ahead, old buddy. Just remember turnabout’s fair play.”
“So,” Tyler said. “Tiffany, Ellie, you want to take a guess at what that’s all about?”
“A hazing,” Tiffany said.
“Nope.”
“A dare?” Ellie offered.
“Not a hazing. Not a dare. This, good ladies, is a picture of Nick Barlow trying to win the heart of one Jenna Price. That was, let’s see, sophomore year at Tech. Jenna was a senior, and Nick was infatuated with her. He’d done everything to try and get her to date him, even though she had been dating Tom Ellis for the last year. This particular night he got a little toasted on bourbon and conceived a bright idea.” Tyler looked at Nick. “You want to finish?”
Nick sighed, trying to keep back a smile. “Sure.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So I told Tyler to find a marker and write ‘Marry Me, Jenna’ on my chest. I didn’t bother to check it, and Tyler told me to let him write it on my forehead too. Then…” Nick rolled his eyes and motioned for Tyler to finish.
“Then he runs a half mile across campus and stands in the grass outside Jenna’s dorm room balcony. Turns out Jenna wasn’t there. But her roommate was and wasted no time getting her camera. That picture was taken about three seconds before Nick emptied his stomach on the lawn.”
“You wrote ‘Not Tom’?” Ellie laughed.
“Yep,” Tyler said. “Nick hated Tom. But the best part was that picture right there made the front page of The Daily Toreador, the campus paper.” Tyler held up a hand, indicating he wasn’t finished. “To top it all off someone started taking in donations and within two days had like a thousand t-shirts made up that said ‘Not Tom.’ The rest of the year you’d show up to class and see some random student wearing their Not Tom shirt. If it had happened today, he would have had his own hashtag trending.”
