Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  While Gillian talked, Vivian wrapped up her biscuit and stuck it back in the bag. “Put this in the drawer and hide it. I don’t want those bossy nurses throwing it away. I’ll eat it later.”

  Gillian nodded and stashed the bag in the drawer of the bedside table. “You promise not to tell?”

  Vivian nodded. “Not Jimmy or anybody else. Now talk to me, Gillie. You’re making me nervous.”

  So she told her all of it, then felt guilty when she felt lighter and saw the burden on Viv grow heavier. But Vivian had been used to control Gillian once already, and she needed to be on her guard or, better, out of sight.

  She held up another bag from Hardee’s. “This is money, Viv. A lot of it.” Almost a third of Shane Burke’s bribe money. “You and Jimmy are both retired. Take a vacation. Don’t tell anybody where you’re going, not even me. I’ll call you when this is over and I know you’re safe.”

  The longer Gillian talked, the more Vivian’s frown deepened. “Let’s all go away for a while. Or get the FBI involved. Somebody.”

  “You think I haven’t considered all of that?” Gillian felt the tears threaten and she swallowed them down in one hard lump. There would be time to cry later. “I mean, this still might turn out to be some mean prank, or these guys might be bluffing. But you did have the accident. And I can’t take the chance with Holly. You know why.”

  Ethan. Sam. And Holly was the only child her sister Gretchen could ever have, not that one child could ever take the place of another anyway.

  “I know, baby girl.” Vivian patted her hand. “I’ll tell Jimmy I inherited the money from a dead aunt back in Cartagena. He’s seen so many movies about Colombian drug lords that he’s convinced I’m related to one anyway.”

  She paused, then asked softly, “What do you think are your chances of finding that cross, Gillie? I’m thinking next to none, or worse.”

  Gillian nodded and thought about Shane Burke, and all that was riding on his broad, bourbon-soaked shoulders. “Probably worse.”

  She left Vivian with a quick hug and a refusal to cry, at least until she got in the hallway. Once in the pickup, she waited five minutes with her phone in her hand, waiting to see if Tex would call to tell her there would be ugly repercussions for telling Vivian the truth. But the phone remained silent. She’d asked his permission to visit Vivian this morning when he’d called with his instructions, and he hadn’t objected. Guess he’d overestimated her ability to keep her mouth shut.

  He also didn’t seem to have the hospital rooms bugged. She couldn’t say the same for her trailer with certainty, although she’d gone through everything in the early hours this morning. She’d taken radios apart, looked on the undersides of tables and chairs, felt behind picture frames. Nothing looked or felt out of place.

  Tank, her Heinz 57 dog that was part boisterous retriever and part reticent, surly chow chow, had known something was up. He’d clung to her heels like an eighty-pound toddler. And had still been barking at her in protest as she pulled out of the drive to come to the hospital this morning.

  Now, as she drove the two-lane back to pick up Tank and head to Cedar Key, she tried to anticipate what she might need to do in order to convince Shane Burke that he wanted this job. Sure, he’d looked tempted by the money yesterday, but his green eyes had also harbored a lot of suspicion and he hadn’t tried to keep any of it. Maybe she should tell him the truth, too, except if she did, he might start up The Evangeline and sail off to parts unknown, leaving her to her fate. And she wouldn’t blame him one bit.

  After her wasted trips to Bronson yesterday, she’d gone home and done as she’d been told. She’d arranged a hasty thirty-day leave of absence from the state, claiming a family emergency; it helped that she’d never taken as much as a sick day in five years. All they’d needed was a written request, and she’d been able to submit the paperwork online.

  The gator problem was stickier, but she’d finally convinced two licensed trappers in the Gainesville area to split the next month’s Levy County calls.

  She’d packed up a week’s worth of clothes, and all of Tank’s gear and food. He was going with her, whatever happened. She needed to know there was at least one trustworthy soul around.

  The phone conversation with her mom had been awkward as she fabricated an elaborate spur-of-the-moment cruise vacation for herself and Vivian. No phone contact would be possible, but she’d call as soon as she got back. She wasn’t sure her mom bought it. Fortunately, Lila Campbell had always been easily distracted. As soon as Gillian changed the subject to the matter of Duncan Campbell and the family curse, she had been off and running on the new topic.

  Unfortunately, the few details Lila had remembered were the same things Gillian already knew. “That’s it? We don’t have any documentation?”

  “You’d need to talk to your dad, although I doubt he could tell you any more because…Wait a minute.” Gillian had chewed on her nails while her mom carried on a stage-whispered conversation with her father in the background. Finally, Lila had come back to the phone. “Dad says the person you really need to talk to, if you want to learn more about Duncan Campbell, is your great-great-uncle that lives up in Paducah, Kentucky. Zeke Campbell. Your granddad’s youngest brother. He’s been doing the Campbell genealogy for years.”

  Gillian had vaguely remembered the name from old family pictures, accent on old. “He’s still alive?”

  After more consultations with her dad, her mom had confirmed that, as far as they knew, old Zeke was still breathing. “He’d be at least ninety, though. Who knows what he can remember.”

  It beat nothing. Gillian had written down the last address they had for him and figured she could find a phone number later.

  Her final task of the night had been renting a cottage on Way Key for the month. She’d finally found a spot on a secluded street that backed onto the short runway of the biggest island’s tiny airport.

  After a quick stop at the trailer to pick up Tank, she drove toward the cottage, the back of the truck piled high with book boxes and a wooden trunk of old family papers and memorabilia she’d rescued from her grandmother’s attic after she died. Lila came from the scorched-earth school of housecleaning, which meant anything of grandma’s that Gillian thought she might need to save from the garbage dump needed to be grabbed fast.

  That had been five years ago, before everything had fallen apart in her life. She’d stuck it in the back of the closet when she’d moved to the trailer, and there it had stayed until now.

  Tank snored happily from the passenger seat, content now that he knew he would be part of whatever Gillian was up to. She just hoped Shane Burke liked dogs.

  With water encroaching close on either side of the highway, she crossed the series of short bridges leading onto Way Key, the “big island” closest to shore. This was “Cedar Key” the village, where about seven hundred residents lived year round and clamming drove the local economy, as opposed to “Cedar Key” the chain of islands, one of the country’s oldest protected wildlife areas.

  Gillian navigated the pickup around the small downtown area until she found the rental office and held her breath until she was sure her credit card would clear. She didn’t know when Tex might decide to “get her attention” again.

  Once she had the key, she followed the winding, narrow road along the coast, passing massive live oaks weighed down with Spanish moss, sheltered bays with shards of sunlight glinting off the still blue water, and then the Gulf of Mexico beyond.

  Tank stood in the passenger seat with his head out the window, his nose turned toward the water. Gillian knew from experience that the retriever part of him liked the water while the chow part wanted to watch it from a distance. How he’d react to being on a boat, she wasn’t sure. Taking him along was probably selfish and maybe she’d rethink it, but right now she wanted him with her.

  She found the mailbox with “NO. 8114” painted on it and turned onto a drive of sand and shells that led between two oak trees. The
moss scraped across the top of the truck like fingers as she passed beneath the tree’s bent and gnarled branches, but just past them she saw the cottage and wished it was hers for real.

  It was a squat, flat-roofed building fifty feet from the water, painted the color of orange sherbet except for its sage-green window and door trim. The back side of it was all glass and looked out on a private wooden dock into water that made up for its muddiness by its still calm. Beyond the tuft of marshland that enclosed this little cove, Gillian could see the Gulf, bright and blue.

  Tank didn’t stop to appreciate the serenity—or the privacy. He took off after a critter of some kind and stopped at the water’s edge, willing to go no farther.

  By the time Gillian had unloaded the truck and spent a few minutes exploring the cottage—essentially one big room partitioned off like an efficiency apartment—it was almost noon and time to meet Shane at a place called Harley’s. She’d passed it on C Street on the way through town.

  Gillian pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a white button-front sleeveless shirt. Neat, but too geeky to be a tourist.

  She pulled out some dog treats and left them on the floor of the kitchenette as a peace offering. “Hold down the fort, Tankmeister.”

  Tank looked at the treats suspiciously and barked at her when she closed the cottage door behind her. He’d get over it soon enough. With all the glass in back, he had plenty of things to watch. She’d already spotted great white herons on the marshland nearest the end of the dock and frogs splashing around the shallows in front of the house.

  The drive to Harley’s took less than five minutes, and she found it as unassuming as most of Cedar Key—a raised rectangle of aqua-painted wood with dark shingles and a giant clam on a cedar stump out front. Gillian stopped inside the door and blinked to adjust her vision to the dim interior. The mingled aromas of fried seafood and beer gave it a corner-bar feel, and the folks seated at most of the tables had older, more weather-beaten faces than the ones she’d seen at the marina yesterday.

  Locals ate and drank at Harley’s, not tourists. Gillian liked that.

  “You the one meetin’ Shane and Cal for lunch?”

  She turned to see a middle-aged man behind the bar, pulling glasses off the polished wood with one hand and wielding a wet dishcloth with the other.

  “Yeah, well, Shane anyway. Who’s Cal?” Maybe Cal was a dog.

  “Calvin Mackie’s boy and general ne’er-do-well who likes to call himself Jagger. You find Shane, you find Jagger nearby. Anyway, take that table over in the corner.” He opened a Miller Light and slid it across the bar. “On the house.”

  “Thanks.” Gillian took the beer and made her way to the corner, sitting in the seat that gave her the best view of the door.

  In all the scenarios she’d imagined of how today’s meeting might go, she’d never factored in the possibility that Shane might bring someone with him. This Jagger guy was just one more thing to make Tex nervous. One more person being put in harm’s way. One more voice of reason who might try to talk Shane out of taking the job.

  The door opened, and at first Gillian thought the man silhouetted in the doorway was Shane, but once the door closed behind him, it was easy to see the guy was too short, his hair too dark. His blue sports coat and neat khakis looked more tourist than local, though, and he took off his mirrored sunglasses and scanned the room, much as she had when she arrived.

  When his gaze met hers he paused only an instant, but it was enough to send a chill over Gillian’s skin. She reached for the beer bottle without looking, tipped it over, and made a quick mid-air grab to keep it from spilling.

  When she looked back at the newcomer, he’d taken a seat at the bar on the far end, ordered a soda, and pulled out a cell phone. When he reached for the phone his jacket fell open enough for her to spot a shoulder holster tucked under his left arm.

  He watched her as he made his call, talked for only a few seconds, and gave her a small, cold smile when he stuck the phone back in his jacket.

  Gillian couldn’t prove it, but she knew it all the same—he’d been reporting in. Calling Tex.

  Or was he Tex? And if she got her hands on his phone, could she find who he worked for?

  CHAPTER 6

  Harley’s had the best air conditioning in town. As soon as he entered the doorway, Shane’s stress level dropped just from the sweep of cold air across his skin. In a pathetic stab at being socially acceptable, he’d worn jeans instead of shorts and a polo shirt instead of a tank. He’d even worn shoes. Gillian Campbell should be impressed. It was practically his version of a tuxedo.

  “That AC is sweet.” Jagger gave a mock salute to Harley, who once upon a time had fished with the Mackies, father and son, before Calvin Sr. died from the big C. “I’ll get our sandwiches and beer—the usual?”

  Shane spotted Gillian in the corner and waved. She jumped like he’d shot her, then smiled with a faint upturn of her mouth. Very faint. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a day or two. “Yeah, and order half a sandwich for our friend over there. And a bowl of chowder. Might calm her down; she looks twitchy.”

  Jagger leaned around Shane and grinned at Gillian, who did not grin back. In fact, she didn’t look amused in the least. “Ouch. She’s cold.”

  “Most women react that way to you, my friend.” Shane slapped him on the shoulder and headed toward the back table, glancing at an uptight, buttoned-up guy at the end of the bar who’d obviously wandered onto the wrong end of C Street.

  “You weren’t supposed to bring anybody.” Gillian’s voice came out in an unhappy blend of a hiss and a snarl.

  “Is that so? Why not?”

  Uh-huh, he thought so. She didn’t have an answer but just looked pissed off and drank her beer. Because the answer was probably I don’t want you to tell anyone because what I want you to do is illegal, Shane. Or maybe, I want to keep this a secret so people won’t realize you took a dangerous and illegal job out of greed, Shane. Take your pick.

  “Look, if I’m going to take this mysterious job of yours, I’ll need an experienced person to handle the boat while I do the dive. Someone I trust, and I trust my friend Jagger over there.”

  She blinked once. Twice. He found himself studying her eyes. They tipped up slightly at the outer edges in a shape that was almost almond. They were dark, warm brown. They were narrowing at him beneath lowered brows.

  He cleared his throat and looked at the bar, relieved to see Jagger threading his way through the tables with two beers and a basket of chips. He was in need of both, not to mention a social bailout.

  Jagger set the chips in the middle of the table, handed Shane his beer, and slid into one of the two vacant chairs next to Gillian. Shane had to look down to avoid laughing at her not-quite-discreet attempts to move away. The woman was wound tighter than a Timex.

  “I’m Cal Mackie.” Jagger held out a hand to Gillian, who stared at it a second before shaking it. “Everybody calls me Jagger because I not only move like the master but am the world’s foremost expert on the Rolling Stones. Anything you need to know about the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, I’m the guy to ask.”

  Gillian gave him a deadpan look. “That skill must be in great demand in Cedar Key, Florida.”

  After a moment of silence, they all laughed at once, even Gillian, and the tension lifted from the table and dissipated. “Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t resist. It’s nice to meet you.”

  She sounded as if she meant it, but Shane saw the evil eye she cast in his direction when Jagger looked away.

  For the next few minutes, they talked about the idle things strangers focus on when they don’t know what else to talk about: weather, tourists, jobs.

  “How many tours do you take out on The Evangeline?” Gillian asked. “Will it hurt your business if you take some time off to…uh…”—she looked at Jagger and faltered—“do a private job?”

  Shane smiled. “It’s okay. Jag knows about your dive offer so anything you can s
ay to me, you can say in front of him.” He pulled a big salt-laden chip from the bottom of the pile and crunched into it. “No, it won’t hurt business. I don’t run a steady tour service. I just pick up some extras when Harley over there has more than his people can handle.” Or when Shane got desperate and needed a quick bailout.

  “Did I hear my name?” Harley wound his way toward them, deftly balancing three glasses of water and three paper plates laden with oversized po’boys and coleslaw. He set them on the table and pointed to Gillian’s bottle. “You want another?”

  “Better not, but thanks.” This time, her smile was genuine. Warm, even. What did a guy have to do to earn one of those smiles? Ply her with beer, maybe.

  “Harley has never brought our food to the table.” Jagger slid the plates around until they each had one in front of them. “Never. Gillian, I think he has a crush on you.”

  This time, Jagger got the warm smile. Shane was starting to get a complex. He sank his teeth into four inches of fried grouper stuffed between slabs of homemade bread and chewed while he pondered why the woman disliked him and, maybe more importantly, why he cared.

  “What do you do for a living, besides hire guys for tough dives?” Jagger asked.

  Shane chewed and listened; he’d wondered the same thing but knew that if he’d asked that question, she’d have given him the cold-bitch glare and not the laugh directed toward his friend—that would be the friend she’d been angry about him bringing here a few minutes ago.

  “I’m a biologist over at Scrub State,” she said. “Mostly, I keep an eye out for new wildlife that might have come into the area to upset the balance of things, make sure visitors don’t feed the animals junk food, that kind of thing. And I’m the nuisance-gator trapper for Levy County.”

  “Seriously?” The word slipped out before Shane could stop it. “You catch them and relocate them?”