The Redemption Lie

by Amanda J. Clay

  The morning rush had been intense—the usual Lake crowd with the added bonus of three big top tables of squealing teenage girls in town for a high school cheer competition. She’d be sweeping up the glitter for days.

  Poor Brooklyn had gotten the disapproving stink eye from the accompanying parents who apparently thought boobs and tattoos were far worse than their daughters dancing seductively in miniskirts on a gym floor, and she now stood glaring at her measly tip.

  Nina was counting the bar register drawer, grateful for the small respite of the afternoon close between the lunch and dinner shift when she heard the bells of the front door jingle from across the silent and now empty restaurant. Dammit. She hadn’t locked the door yet.

  She popped her head around the corner.

  “Hi, we’re actually closed for lunch but we reopen at five,” she started to say. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the suit standing in the doorway. Something in his stance, in his stoic observing expression, gave her pause.

  Tall broad shoulders, dark hair. He scanned the room meticulously, curiously, as though he were assessing the place, not in search of lunch. Health inspector? No, he wasn’t due until the end of the month.

  Nina swallowed hard, a slight sense of unease washing over her for reasons she couldn't identify. There was something in his energy that set her on edge, made the base of her spine tingle.

  Nina walked closer and cleared her throat loud enough for the suit to look over at her.

  “Hi. Can I help you with something? As I said, we’re closed for lunch but reopen in a couple hours.”

  He was youthful but not young, mid-30s perhaps, but there was an old world quiet confidence radiating from his person. He had the kind of eyes that drove into someone's soul, coaxing it, stroking it, until it told all its secrets. The kind of presence that leaves traces of smoke on the air where he’s been.

  At first he said nothing. His eyes darted just slightly down her figure—an instinctual move his species couldn’t prevent. She used to judge men for it before she realized it couldn’t be helped. Now she used that weakness to her advantage.

  The man’s lips played with a slight smile before he regained himself.

  “Hi there. I'm looking for a Nina Sullivan,” he finally said, his tone firm, commanding without demand.

  Nina’s stomach turned over. Sullivan. The name felt wrong, foreign. She didn’t deserve to be Nina Sullivan anymore.

  “Yes, that's me. Well sort of. It used to be me. It's Nina Anderson now.”

  The suit took a few steps forward and instinctively she jumped backward, bumping into the counter. She flung her hand back to balance herself and knocked a Ketchup bottle to the floor. She fumbled to put it back in its place.

  “You changed your name?” he said.

  Nina shrugged. “Um, yeah. Just for…personal reasons. I’m sorry, what can I help you with?” Her words came out warbled, her nerves climbing up her throat.

  He smiled—the kind of smile that peeled clothes off a body, that melted little girls’ hearts, turned men gay.

  He reached into his pocket and for a second Nina's heart skipped a beat. She clutched the counter. He retrieved what looked like a wallet and then flashed a badge—shiny and brass.

  “I'm Special Agent Graham. With the DEA.”

  The room spun. Nina choked on her own breath. She barely heard the next few words out of the agent's mouth. Memories came back to her with a vengeance.

  Chapter 2

  Nina vividly remembered the first time she'd seen that flashing badge; the glint of gold reflecting in the agent’s eye.

  We have you on charges of drug trafficking and conspiracy, tax evasion and money laundering. The snide female agent had read the list like Nina was a character in a Sopranos episode. How did a good girl from an upscale neighborhood in a wealthy mountain town end up facing down the brass?

  Nina snapped her attention back to the agent standing in front of her. She cocked an eyebrow. “A little nicely dressed for a fed.”

  He smiled thinly. “Appearance is everything.”

  “I'm sorry, what's this about?” Nina said, trying to collect her nerves. Trying not to appear as frazzled as she suddenly felt.

  Special Agent Graham lowered his badge and straightened his spine.

  His broad shoulders tapered down into a perfectly tailored waist accented by a well-tailored suit—the bespoke cut something she’d recognize from across a crowded room. Not the usual costume of ill-fitting off-the-rack and rubber-soled shoes they hoped you wouldn’t notice. This one had a bit of dash to his otherwise conservative demeanor.

  “I have something we need to discuss. Do you have a moment? Could we sit down?” Graham said.

  Nina’s heart palpitations sped up, but she forced an easy smile. “Yeah, sure. That booth ok?”

  Graham nodded and followed her into the restaurant to where she led him to a corner booth.

  “Can I get you anything? A beer or something?”

  Graham smiled thinly. Nina fought the urge to facepalm herself.

  “I'll just take a coffee if you have any,” he said.

  Nina scrambled to fetch two cups of coffee, resisting the urge to tip a little Jamison in her own.

  She sat and handed Graham his coffee. “So, how can I help you”

  “You seem pretty calm,” Graham said.

  Nina’s heart sped up. “Should I have a reason to be otherwise?”

  “Well normally when a DEA agent comes strolling in asking questions, people get a little jumpy.” Graham had an air of confidence about him that teetered on the right side of arrogant.

  Nina laughed then. He was trying to get her twisted up. “Agent Graham, as I'm sure you're well aware or else you wouldn't be here, this ain't my first rodeo with the DEA. I’ve faced down bigger wolves than you.”

  “Is that how you see us? Wolves?”

  “Calculating, ruthless pack animals? Something like that.”

  “You make us sound downright criminal,” Graham said, the ghost of a smile at his lips. “But yes, I do know all about you, Miss Sullivan. Anderson. Whatever.”

  “Just call me Nina.”

  Graham nodded. “Nina. I’ve read your file.”

  “So then why don't you stop playing nice and just tell me what it is that you want?” Nina said.

  “I appreciate your directness. All right, well the truth is, we have a new lead on your old game.”

  Nina’s stomach tightened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What I mean is there’s some new information that tells us the old pipeline is up and running again. And that the top players are back at the table. Obviously that’s bad news for us. Maybe for you too. But the silver lining is that it gives us the chance to take down some of the guys we missed the last time.”

  The lines and colors around her blurred. She wasn't hearing him correctly. That life was supposed to be behind her. Nina closed her eyes against the assaulting memory. The gut-wrenching nerves slicing away at her as she sat in a safety room, waiting for the news. Suffering relief and grief at the same time…

  “No, I paid my dues. My debt to society is done.” Nina stood.

  “Miss Sullivan—”

  “Am I under arrest? Do I need a lawyer?” Nina said.

  “Of course not—"

  “Then I don't have anything more to say.” Nina turned her back to Graham.

  “Miss Sullivan, you can't just walk away. That's not how this works.”

  Nina spun around and glared at the agent. “I know very well how this all works. You guys change the rules as we go along as best suits your hand. And then you get mad at us for cheating at the game. But I'm not getting involved in that shit again. I put it all behind me.”

  “Don't you want to at least hear me out? Don't you even want to know what it is that we have?”

  “No! I don't I want to hear it, I don't want to know anything about it. And in fact, I don’t want to see you ever again in my restaurant.” />
  “Your restaurant? You own the place?” Graham said, his tone incredulous.

  Nina folded her arms over her chest. “Yeah, is that so crazy that I would own a restaurant?”

  Graham shrugged. “Actually, kinda. Ex-cons don't usually rebuild their lives so quickly. You’ve been out, what, three years? How’d you manage it?”

  Nina chewed her lip. Ex-con. Would she ever get used to hearing that?

  Nina's heart raced and her palms clammed up, but she'd been prepared for this question. Beck wasn't the first person to ask how a young con managed the startup capital. She knew the paperwork was in order, but there was still that sliver of doubt in the back of her mind that somebody might go digging deeper than she’d filled in the dirt. But there was no way to trace the money. She’d been meticulous, ciphering the money carefully, washing it bill by bill, knowing that one day she might need out.

  “I got a small business loan,” Nina said.

  “A woman with a criminal record got a business loan?” Beck eyebrows went up with a look that teetered between amused and incredulous.

  Nina shrugged as nonchalantly as she could manage. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I had collateral. My grandmother left me a house. And I had some savings, a little bit of inheritance money, and money I'd saved from working.”

  “Drug money?”

  Nina subtly wiped her dripping palms on her jeans and glared. “I'm not that stupid. You don't think I know that money can be traced? No, I had a savings account before I ever met Luther. I had a job, I managed to put away quite a lot actually. And I had a tiny bit of business acumen—my dad taught me a lot growing up—so I let that money sit in an account and grow. You know, three years behind bars is a long time to not be spending any money. Turns out you don't have to pay for food and board on the inside.”

  Graham smiled and sipped his coffee. “The coffee is pretty good.”

  Nina blinked at the sudden shift in topic. “Would it not be?”

  “Diner coffee usually leaves something to be desired,” Graham said.

  “This isn’t a diner.”

  Graham looked around, taking in the décor it would seem, and nodded approvingly.

  “No, it sure isn't. It suits the town well, from what I can tell anyway. I’m not from around here.”

  “I noticed,” Nina said.

  “You've done well.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, agent, but save your breath. I don’t need your sweet nothings.”

  Graham smiled—foxy, coy, slightly smug. “Don’t you owe it to the people you’ve hurt? What about the families of Luther’s victims? What about your own family?”

  Nina glared, hard. The truth of it sliced right through her and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from wincing.

  Nina sighed and sat back down. “Ok, fine. You have two minutes. Tell me what you want from me.”

  “A woman who gets right to the point, I appreciate that.”

  Nina leaned back and folded her arms, waiting. He was gnawing on her last nerve.

  “Ok. We need your help. Plain and simple,” Graham said.

  Nina snorted. “The DEA needs my help? Sure thing. Have you already started happy hour?”

  “I'm serious. We’ve got a strong case going here and we think that you might be able to help us break it.”

  Sensation pricked at the base of her spine. In the distance, she heard the familiar siren song of danger.

  “Why would you think that? I’ve been out of it for years,” Nina said.

  “You were a pretty valuable source at one point.”

  “A valuable source, is that what they're calling me? I think you've got your information confused, Agent Graham. I'm nothing but a dumb criminal who went to jail for her vanity.”

  “Come on now. You and I both know your role was a lot bigger than that. Nina, the Cat.”

  Pride and shame warred inside her. She couldn’t allow herself pride about who she was back then.

  “What does it matter? That life is far behind me. And I’d really like the past to stay right where it belongs. I’m not feeling particularly nostalgic.”

  “Not even to do the right thing?” Graham said.

  “The right thing. Sure, because that's always what you're trying to do, right? Everybody thinks they’re doing the right thing. Right is a very relative term, agent.”

  “You can help save lives, Nina. You can be a weapon against a societal plague.”

  It was like she was listening to Luther all over again, his words poetic and accented..

  These feds of this country, they don’t care about the people on the streets. They are a rot that will eat away at your so-called civilized society.

  “I’m already doing that. That's what I'm doing here. The girls that work in this restaurant? They all have records. I'm giving them a second chance, something to live for. A way to rebuild their lives. And in my opinion, that's doing a hell of a lot more than you guys are busting addicted hookers and kids hustling dime bags on street corners.”

  Nina stood again but Graham grabbed her arm.

  She looked down at his fingers wrapped around her forearm, felt the warmth of them. It fanned the dormant anger at her core.

  She met his eyes; dark gray pools. Dangerous.

  “Please, sit down. Just a couple minutes more. Let me at least explain,” Graham said.

  Nina glared but complied.

  “Fine. Go.”

  “We have it on good authority that Luther’s organization is back at it. It’s been relatively quiet these past six years, so we figured they’d all closed up shop and moved on. But—”

  “Luther’s dead!” the words lashed out from her throat in a thick whisper. Her stomach turned over. Luther was dead and she’d put the nail in the coffin. She’d killed the man she loved and suffered that grief.

  Graham blinked. “Yes, we know that. But his organization didn't die. Someone else has taken up the reins. And it looks like they've kept everything going for the last six years under the radar.”

  “I don't know anything about it,” Nina said. Her palms were clamming up. Her lungs were tight.

  “Nina, calm down. I'm not here to question you, I'm here to solicit your help. I know you’ve been clean these past years. But there are some things that you know that could help us get to these guys.”

  “I already told you guys everything I knew back then. I know you’re a little green in the gills, agent, but I testified, I rolled, and I served my time.”

  “But you didn't really tell them everything did you?”

  Nina's throat felt thick like cement. Her fingers trembled. She grabbed her coffee mug to occupy them.

  “You don’t know what you're talking about. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll drop this case and high tail it back to wherever it is you come from. Go back to busting private school drug rings. Something cushy. You're far too pretty for this one.”

  Graham smirked. “Do you always underestimate everyone?”

  “Only those who deserve it. I’m a good judge of character, Agent Graham. Byproduct of the trade. And you are in way over your head with this one. These guys are so out of your league.”

  “C’mon, Nina. These guys aren’t criminal masterminds. They’re pathological liars on the path of least resistance.”

  Nina laughed incredulously at his utter naivety.

  Nobody in the organization knew she’d cut a deal six years ago, at least she had to believe that. That was part of her terms. She gave the DEA what they wanted for a reduced sentence, but she was going to serve time and the organization needed to know she’d been convicted. That was the only way she could show the rest of them she hadn’t ratted, hadn’t turned. She went to a trial, she plead innocent, she named no names publicly. The prosecution claimed they just didn't have the same amount of evidence against her as the rest of them, so she went away on a lesser charge. Cut and dry. Case closed.

  But she already felt like she’d rolled th
e dice once turning on her old game. If the DEA dragged her into this again, there was no way to guarantee her safety. It was only a matter of time before the new guys put two and two together and realized Nina was helping the feds. The organization wasn’t stupid, despite what the authorities thought. These weren’t ghetto corner slingers. These were sharp businessmen who simply preferred a more nefarious trade.

  She shook her head. “It’s your funeral, agent.”

  “So I take it you're not going to help us?” He said with a touch of mirth that ignited Nina’s anger.

  “No, Agent Graham. I’m not going to help you. Go find yourself another rat. My cage is small enough.”

  “Can I at least leave you my card?”

  Nina's whole body shook with anger. She snapped around. "No, you can't fucking leave me your card! Or leave 10 cards. I don’t care. Nothing you can do or say is going to change my mind.”

  “Okay,” he said far too calmly for Nina’s taste.

  “Okay?”

  Graham shrugged casually. “Yeah, okay. I at least had to try. I appreciate your time, Miss Sullivan. Thanks for the coffee. Have a good rest of your day.”

  He left a business card along with a twenty on the table and stood.

  “Oh, and it’s Beck by the way.”

  He smiled and left, leaving Nina slack-jawed.

  She picked up the card. Agent Beck Graham, Special Agent, DEA.

  Chapter 3

  After Agent Graham left the restaurant, it was everything Nina could do not to scream her frustration at the top of her lungs. Instead she settled on a draft beer and mindless busy work around the restaurant. She started cleaning the pile of dirty dishes left in the bar sink, haphazardly clanging the pint glasses. One shattered on the counter, slicing open her finger.

  “Dammit! Dammit fucking to hell!” She folded over, clutching her bleeding finger, her breath flowing in and out in rapid staccato.