by Jack Hardin
Ellie reached out and squeezed Tyler’s forearm.
Fu, still smiling, head still bobbing, was wearing a red, sun-faded ball cap. Stitched in gray lettering was the word “Hornady,” Tyler’s favorite ammunition company.
“Hey…uh, Fu?” Tyler said. “Where’d you find my hat?”
“Oh,” Gloria answered. “It was on the bar the night before we went on the cruise. Fu thought you didn’t want it.”
“Thought I didn’t want it?” Tyler repeated, like maybe Gloria had just said she thought he didn’t like brisket. Or Ellie.
Fu shrugged and removed the hat, handed it to Tyler.
“Thanks,” Tyler said. He turned his hat over in his hands the way a treasure seeker might an ingot of gold.
“Pictures,” Gloria said. “Here we are.” Ellie and Tyler stepped in behind her. “This one is right after we tried snorkeling. I didn’t like it, but Fu nearly blistered his back. He was out there for hours.”
In the picture, holding a frozen drink in his hand and smiling broadly at the camera, was Fu, wearing Tyler’s hat. Tyler shot a look toward Ellie and raised his brows to her when he saw that she was grinning
“And, oh, you guys,” Gloria was saying. “This was when we rented a couple ATVs in Belize. I nearly fell off half a dozen times.” She tilted the camera to show a clearly drunk Fu standing on an ATV, his tongue out, Tyler’s hat turned backward on his head.
“Good lord,” Tyler sighed, and looked down at his hat like he was apologizing to it.
Gloria took a sip of her drink, and Tyler asked if he could see the phone. “Oh sure.” She handed it over, and Tyler started thumbing the glass. As he quickly reviewed the photos, he shook his head.
“Fu, you wore my hat the entire time?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Sunbathing...swimming...cave tubing,” Tyler muttered to Ellie. “Unbelievable.”
Fu leaned over and said something in Chinese to wife.
“What’d he say?” Tyler asked Gloria.
“He asked if you want to know what else he did when he was wearing it.”
“Um…”
Fu waggled his eyebrows at Tyler and followed it with a coy wink. Gloria flushed red.
Tyler cursed under his breath. “You…didn’t.” Beside him, Ellie had her fingers over her mouth, trying to stifle her laughter. Tyler slicked a hand down his face. “This can’t be happening.” He reached behind him and brought his hat out. He handed it to Fu. “It’s yours.”
“Tyler,” Ellie whispered, and put a hand on his arm. “You can’t do that. That’s your hat.”
“You heard what he just said.”
She laughed freely now. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Fu took it appreciatively and set it comfortably on his head. He nodded a thank you to Tyler, who now looked like tears were in his immediate future. But his grief was interrupted by Nick raising his voice from the other end of the bar. “If everyone could give me a minute,” Nick said. “I have something I’d like to say.”
“He’s going to thank us,” Tyler whispered to Ellie. “Because we found the people who wanted to kill him.”
“We?”
Nick mentioned for Tyler to come join him, and Ellie followed behind. “You all know,” Nick began, “that Tyler is my best and oldest friend.” Nick nodded across the bar to Major who pressed a button on a remote control. A flat-screen television hung over the bar, and it changed from surfing on ESPN to a picture of a much younger Tyler. He was in a locker room, leaning against a bench, wearing only his underwear. He looked sicker than a hazed freshman.
“Oh, no,” Tyler moaned. Beside him, Ellie had returned to her laughter.
Tyler shot a glance at Major. He tossed his hands out, feigning betrayal. “I helped you rebuild this place after the hurricane,” he said.
“True,” Major said. “But you didn’t pull off your own version of Easter morning like Nick did.”
“How do I compete with that?”
“You don’t. That’s why your picture is on my television.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Tyler,” Nick called out. “You want to explain this or should I?”
“I can—”
“Great,” Nick interrupted. “I’ll be glad to.” Everyone around the bar hushed as Nick took another pull off his beer and used it to motion toward the television. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is our distinguished Tyler Borland when he was a junior at Texas Tech. You’ll notice him here in his tighty-whities. This was before he moved exclusively to Speedos.” The crowd roared with laughter.
“I don’t wear Speedos,” Tyler murmured.
The crowd suddenly groaned and shifted as one in Ellie and Tyler’s direction. “What was that?” Ellie asked.
“I think Fu just showed everyone that he wears Speedos himself.”
Ellie cringed.
“This particular moment in Tyler history,” Nick continued, “occurred at the end of a Red Raiders basketball game.”
“Don’t do this,” Tyler said, but Nick paid him no mind.
“As you can imagine, Tyler had worked his way through a few beers. He even snuck a flask of whiskey into the game. Mike Jessup was Raider Red—the college mascot—and as soon as the game was over and Raider Red finished his final few antics, Tyler tackled him on his way to the locker room. Tyler stripped Mike out of the costume, then with great speed for someone in his inebriated state, slid into the outfit. But,” Nick continued, “you see him here in his tighty-whities, so I’m sure you’re all asking yourselves what changed between the time he turned into Raider Red and the moment this picture was captured.”
From the other end of the bar, Fu started chanting: “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Tyler ran back out to the stadium and started slapping any and every girl he passed on the butt.” Nick paused to take another sip of his beer. Tyler looked down at Ellie.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Nope. Nick has my undivided attention.”
“After about three or four minutes of this,” Nick said, “Tyler draws up on the edge of the court and sets his hands on his knees to catch his breath. I hear him repeating, ‘Too hot, too hot.’ He rips off the mascot’s face and grabs his stomach as he runs to the locker room. Thankfully, he made it there before throwing up. But the problem was he ran into the girls’ locker room and peeled off the rest of the costume and his pants before he realized he was standing in the middle of a bunch of half-dressed cheerleaders. Then he barfed on two of them. And…about five seconds later, this picture was taken.”
“I think I’d like to be on a boat right now,” Tyler said. “Way out in the Gulf.”
“I’ll bet you do,” Ellie said. “But you had that coming. Now go buy your friend a beer.”
“Fine.”
After Tyler walked away, Ellie found Jet still sitting at the picnic table. She took a seat across from him, and he motioned toward the television. “You sure you want to be associated with him?” he asked.
“He’s still a keeper,” she smiled. “So, this squad. We’d be going after some bad apples?”
“The baddest.”
“And you’ll be on it?”
“And I’ll be on it,” he said.
She nodded thoughtfully. “Tyler and I are enrolled in a long-range shooting tournament this weekend up in Ocala. Why don’t I call you when I get back, and we can set up a time for you to introduce me to the people behind it?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Jet smiled. “We’re going to make a good team.”
Ellie raised her beer and clicked her bottleneck to Jet’s. “I’m pretty sure we already do.”
THE END
Human trafficking is a serious problem. It’s the fastest-growing organized crime activity in the United States and includes both sex and forced labor trafficking. More details and how you can help are included at the end of the book.
For those of you just entering the series with Bre
akwater, you can catch up with Ellie from the beginning with Broken Stern. The first four books in the Pine Island Coast Series all form one larger story arc which finds its resolution in book 4. Breakwater is the first stand-alone in the series.
Silent Ripple (a prequel novella)
Broken Stern (Book 1)
Shallow Breeze (Book 2)
Bitter Tide (Book 3)
Vacant Shore (Book 4)
Breakwater (Book 5)
Be Super Cool. Leave a Review.
If you enjoyed Breakwater, would you consider leaving a review? As a self-published author, reviews truly help to get my books in front of other potential readers. You can do so by visiting the book’s sales page on Amazon, right HERE. Thanks so much.
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Fun Footnotes to Breakwater
While creating a world of fiction, I root as much as I can in reality. So, should you be interested, you’ll find a few links below that offer more detail on what you saw in several of the scenes:
Miami-Dade County’s process for using iPads to assist families in identifying a body HERE.
For Ellie picking a lock with a bobby pin: Bobby Pin
For Ellie dusting for fingerprints: Fingerprints
Proper positioning for a vehicle rollover: Vehicle Rollover
Get Involved
Most Americans don’t realize that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year. Globally, it generates profits up to $32 billion every year. When it comes to children getting pulled into trafficking, perpetrators are looking for vulnerable children that they can easily control and manipulate. Lonely children who don’t have a good relationship with friends or family are prime targets.
Below is a link to Florida Abolitionist, an organization based in Florida that works tirelessly to fight human trafficking in the U.S. I would urge you to visit their site, become informed, and perhaps donate or find a way to get involved.
https://floridaabolitionist.org/the-problem/
Gratitude
A special thank you to all of you who have corresponded with me through email, Facebook, and reviews to let me how much you love Ellie and her world. It means a lot.
I’m off to work on the next Ellie installment. Be blessed!
— Jack
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