Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller)

by S. G. Redling

  Juan picked something black from under his fingernail as he listened. Oren looked away when he wiped the gunk on the tabletop. Dani returned with their drinks in time to spot the smear. “Yeah, yeah, Mr. Vincente is well aware of your time issues. We’ll do the deal in the morning. We’ll discuss the—hang on.” He pulled the phone away from his mouth and smiled. “Thanks, Dani. Two cubes, just the way I like it, babe.” He slurped a loud drink and went back to the phone.

  Oren noticed that even Dani couldn’t completely hide her opinion of Juan’s ridiculous big-shot gesture. He also didn’t miss the way Joaquin managed to brush his fat hand over Dani’s left breast reaching for his drink. He really needed to give Dani a raise.

  8:59am, 88° F

  Dani wanted a raise. She didn’t care about the illegality of whatever deal the Wheelers were putting together. She didn’t really even care about Joaquin’s clumsy attempts to feel her up. He was big and armed and nasty, but he was also stupid and hungry for attention. Dani didn’t have any trouble at all keeping Joaquin in his place. She let him cop his little feels, his greasy thumbs brushing against her here and there. It was like letting steam out of a pipe—little bits here and there kept pressure from building up.

  No, Dani wanted a raise for keeping her mouth shut about Caldwell.

  That wasn’t true either. She wanted for Caldwell to never have existed.

  She wanted to slap Mr. Randolph on the side of the head with her tray until he truly understood the depths of her hatred for any agent of law enforcement.

  Instead, she went back into the bar and fished his laptop out from beneath the cash register. Mr. Randolph never remarked on the fact that someone kept erasing his internet history. Maybe he didn’t notice; it wasn’t the kind of thing most people paid attention to. Dani did, though. She not only erased hers after every search, she made a point of checking his. Mostly Mr. Randolph checked weather reports and liquor prices; occasionally did a little online shopping for fishing gear. If he did use any search engines, he did it in private browsing or erased his cookies. But judging from the notes he had taped to the machine—ctrl+alt+delete = 911 shutdown—he didn’t give the impression of being especially tech savvy.

  Then again, he didn’t need to do any searches himself, did he? He could just call his buddy in the FBI.

  Dani glanced around to be sure nobody watched her type. Charbaneaux. The name brought up the usual list—the senator, the executives, the charitable foundations. Dani scrolled through the list for anything new. Typing in Sinclair and Choo-Choo brought up only older entries on gossip sites like Page Six. It seemed her friend and coworker had kept himself out of the gossip sheets after taking the job as audio analyst with Rasmund.

  Or Rasmund had removed him from the pages.

  Dani didn’t feel safe trying to call Choo-Choo on any of the jillion numbers associated with the Charbaneaux name. Nobody had told her contact was forbidden, but she suspected the lurking eyes that tracked her life now wouldn’t smile upon fraternization. They might not want two damaged witnesses to the government’s covert crimes getting together and swapping stories. She didn’t know what lengths they might go to in order to prevent a reunion, but she knew altogether too well what they were capable of.

  It didn’t keep her from looking for him though.

  All of this—all of this running to the Keys and hiding in plain sight, all the Fed shakedowns and intimidations, all the nightmares, especially the nightmares—all of this made her want to talk to the one person on earth who knew what had really happened, who knew she was never a spy or an interrogator or a torturer. She wanted to just sit and be quiet with the one person who wouldn’t wonder about the scars on her body because he had scars of his own.

  But there was no sign of him. She made note as she always did of any current location for family members. Someone was hosting a gala in New York City next weekend; a Charbaneaux was mentioned in an article about Martha’s Vineyard. There was a campaign fundraiser in Philadelphia and a charity auction in San Francisco. Who knew there were so many Charbaneauxs in the world? Dani didn’t care about any of them. She wanted only to see her friend Choo-Choo, to make sure he was okay.

  She saw Caldwell’s glass sweating on the bar.

  She smelled Joaquin Wheeler on her clothes.

  She wanted Choo-Choo to tell her that she was okay.

  9:08am, 92° F

  Oren tried to be optimistic. The presence (and smell) of Juan and Joaquin Wheeler would do nothing but hurt his business. The upside? He told himself that this time of year and this heat wave would combine to keep his business at a minimum, so losing a day like today wouldn’t kill him. He then told himself to avoid any thoughts that included things that would kill him. Wishing he’d brought a napkin so he wouldn’t have to make skin contact, he reached for the thick envelope of cash Juan had set between them.

  Oren was a practical man. Cash helped.

  “Well”—he rose from the chair, willing Juan to do the same—“I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Same time? No reason to stick around in this heat.”

  “I like the heat.” Juan didn’t rise; he didn’t reach for his drink. Oren glanced at Joaquin, who didn’t seem to share his brother’s enthusiasm for the weather. Joaquin’s shirt clung to him, sweat soaked through every inch of it. But Oren knew that until Juan gave the sign, Joaquin would stay put. He was actually glad the tourist season was low.

  Then he heard the tinny chimes of “Lady of Spain.”

  Hoping it was just a sail-by, Oren leaned over the edge of the deck, looking out to the open water. He saw a ratty pontoon boat decorated with Chinese lanterns and enormous plastic parrots puttering into the inlet. Over a dozen people aboard laughed and waved, toasting Oren and Joaquin with plastic margarita glasses as the boat bumped against the dock.

  “Fellas, I hate to put you out, but I’ve got customers.” When Joaquin didn’t leave his spot at the top of the stairs, Oren looked to Juan. “Would you mind? I have to make a living, and so does Casper.”

  Juan stared at him for several seconds and Oren began to worry that the sadistic little thug would tell him that Jinky’s was officially off-limits for the day. It was exactly the kind of petty power trip the Wheelers were famous for. Instead, Juan shrugged and reached for his drink.

  “No problem. There’s plenty of free tables. Yo, bro,” Juan kicked out a chair beside him and Joaquin hauled himself off the stair railing that he’d been squeezing himself against. “We’re just going to hang out here for a while and discuss the arrangements. You do your thing, Randolph, we’ll do ours. After all, we’re businessmen, aren’t we? Professionals, right?”

  Oren didn’t trust himself to answer convincingly. He turned to wave the guests up.

  The captain, Casper van Dosen, tooted the horn. Someone yelled from the far end of the inlet and Oren saw the Australians from Room Six staggering out into the heat, lured by the siren call of the Lady of Spain. Like Jinky’s, Casper’s party boat had a reputation among the neighboring keys and their visitors. The Lady of Spain smelled bad, kept an unreliable schedule, and charged far too much for its services. It was also a guaranteed, if not legendary, good time if one could hold one’s liquor. Some days it ran sunset cruises; some days it ran sunrise cruises. And on days like today when the open water was just too hot—or Casper felt like having a plate of fried plantains—the Lady of Spain would dock at Jinky’s, giving Oren a captive and thirsty audience for the day.

  Oren really hoped the morning party crew was already drunk because the way the temperature was rising, the Wheelers would soon smell bad enough to choke on. He headed back into the bar to give Dani a heads-up and get himself the next of what would be many drinks.

  11:20am, 96° F

  The third vodka helped the most. Oren felt that hard knot of tension between his shoulder blades give just a fraction. The crowd from Casper’s boat settled in around the bar and the surrounding tables, claiming the sun was just too strong. Nobody came out and said
it but the presence (and smell) of the two greasy men outside played a part in bringing the party indoors. Oren didn’t care where they sat or where they drank as long as they paid. And didn’t get shot by the Wheelers. Sometimes you had to take things at their most basic level.

  Dani ran the bar with her usual composure. Compared to Peg, she was downright bubbly, but Oren watched her with new eyes. What was it about her that had made Caldwell curious? He hadn’t really put much thought into who she might have been before arriving on Redemption Key. Sure, he’d seen the bullet wound and noticed that weird focus with which she did almost everything—running, fixing windows, pouring drinks. It was like she was studying everything. Or maybe it was like she was waiting for everything to explode in her hand. Or like everything was a trick she wasn’t going to fall into.

  Maybe the fourth vodka was a mistake.

  Too late now. Oren sucked on an ice cube and stared over the crowd. The party boat folks clustered near the bar with bandy-legged Casper and his plate of plantains performing like the master of ceremonies. Angel Jackson showed up at some point, slipping back into the kitchen to meet with Rolly. God only knew what the cook and the black-eyed pilot were up to. An elderly couple who lived down the street from the fish camp strolled in after their morning walk, and another table was filled with guys he hadn’t seen come in. Fishermen, probably. The heat did funny things to people in Florida. You just never knew if everyone was going to go to ground or come roaring out for relief.

  He watched the Australians try for the millionth time since their arrival to make small talk with Dani. One of them, Nigel or Rigel or something—Oren couldn’t make heads or tails out their impenetrable accent—flipped his nasty dreads over his shoulder and pointed to the scar peeking out from below the hem of Dani’s dress. Oren chuckled and leaned in to listen; Casper looked up from his plantains. This should be entertaining.

  “ ’S quite a scar you got there,” Nigel/Rigel said.

  Dani said nothing, just nodded once and garnished a gin and tonic.

  Nigel/Rigel said something else unintelligible, and Dani cocked her eyebrow. “Want to try that in English?” she asked.

  “I am speaking English,” he said, spinning on the stool so his similarly dreaded friends could hear him. “The problem with your culture is you think everyone ought to sound just like you. What you fail to take into account is that the rest of the world would rather hear cats having a naughty than listen to that American shit. You got it all in the nose, you know?”

  Dani handed the gin and tonic to Casper, who gave her a wink. She graced him with a friendly flicker of recognition before turning back to the younger man. “Is that what you came all the way from Australia for? To tell me what’s wrong with my culture?”

  “Nah, came for the good ganja. We’re just hoping to get out of here in one piece. You know, not shot to pieces like Butch and Sundance. A sight better than you, eh?”

  Dani’s face revealed nothing. “What do you mean?”

  He nodded toward her leg. “I been around. That there’s a gunshot wound. Pretty big one too.”

  Nigel/Rigel and his friends didn’t seem to notice how quiet the bar had gotten during the exchange. “Where did you learn that?” Dani asked. “CSI: Melbourne?”

  “Like I said, I been around.”

  “Not enough, apparently.” Dani’s eyes flitted over the locals nonchalantly leaning in. “That’s not from a bullet.” The Australian made a disbelieving sound, and Dani poured herself a shot of tequila. She tilted her head back, telling her tale to the ceiling, which Oren knew made it easier for everyone pretending not to listen to hear her. “I was a pole-vaulter. A good one. Headed to the Olympics. I’d qualified and everything. One day at training, I was up and almost over. The pole snapped, I fell, and the jagged end went right through my leg. Hurt like a son of a bitch. And that was the end of my Olympic dreams.”

  Casper let out a loud sigh. “Damn shame about the Olympics.” He raised his glass to her and Dani toasted him with her shot.

  No sooner had the glasses hit the bar than Rolly leaned out the window between the bar and the kitchen and shouted, “Twenty-three!”

  “Twenty-three!” the locals shouted back, high-fiving each other as Oren waved his finger in circles over his head. Dani started lining up shot glasses and pouring tequila. That was the twenty-third time someone had asked her about the scar on her leg, and that was the twenty-third original version she had answered with. The locals had never asked and only the stupidest tourists ever did and Oren had promised Casper and friends that for every original answer Dani could create, he’d buy a round for the entire bar. Excluding, of course, the askers, something that sat very badly with the Australians.

  Dani slid Oren’s fifth vodka before him, the lime squeezed to death exactly the way he liked it. Whatever her story was, there was no denying that Dani Britton fit right in at Jinky’s.

  12:15pm, 98° F

  Dani climbed out from behind the bar with an empty bucket on her arm and a white bar towel draped over her shoulder, bright against her black knit dress. She stopped by a table of sunburned women and started collecting empty beer bottles, dumping them into the bucket. A breeze caught the hem of the short dress, raising it almost high enough to reveal the scar on her thigh, but Oren noticed she kept the bucket strategically placed. After giving the table a quick pass with her towel, she hoisted the full bucket and headed back to the bar.

  “Stop back here after you take care of them,” Oren said, and Dani nodded. She delivered a half dozen beers in her bucket for the women who cheered, and came back to Oren.

  “Room’s ready,” she said. “Need it tomorrow?” She banged the empty bucket against her leg, ignoring the water that dripped down onto her red flip-flop.

  Oren nodded, sipping his drink. “You turned on the fan, right? I can smell Juan from here. God only knows what they’ll smell like by tomorrow.” He didn’t wait for her to answer, knowing she had taken care of everything. “Crank the AC too. This Bermingham’s a Canadian. Word is the farthest south he’s come is Miami. I can’t imagine he’ll be a fan of this heat. You don’t know Bermingham, do you? Ever heard of him? No, you wouldn’t, would you? You didn’t work in Miami, did you? No, you were in Key West, weren’t you? Not that you would know someone like him. I mean if Caldwell doesn’t know him . . .”

  Oren knew he was rambling. The vodka wasn’t soothing his nerves but it was certainly loosening his tongue. Dani stood by, swinging her bucket, waiting for him to either dismiss her or ask her a question she could answer.

  “It’s funny you haven’t met Caldwell before today, isn’t it? How’d that happen?”

  Dani shrugged, scanning the bar to see if anyone needed drinks.

  “He says he’s seen you around but he hasn’t had a chance to meet you. He says you’ve been ducking him. Have you been ducking him?”

  She looked up at him, her pretty, tan face clear and smooth. “Usually when someone tries to get my attention by the units, it’s to unstop their toilets or to get a rat out of their room.”

  She said nothing else, just shrugged as if that explained everything. Oren supposed it did, although couldn’t help but think that her excuse sounded an awful lot like an explanation of the bullet wound on her leg.

  Dani felt a dribble of water slide down her right leg where the bucket bumped against her. She loosened her grip on the plastic handle to dry the sweat that coated her palm. If Mr. Randolph was asking about Caldwell, Caldwell had been asking about Dani.

  Caldwell and Mr. Randolph were more than just drinking buddies or acquaintances. They trusted each other. That’s why Dani had kept her distance from the agent. If Mr. Randolph went to Caldwell for background information on Dani, Caldwell would go to his bosses at the FBI. Who knew what story the powers behind this whole mess would tell about her? It probably wasn’t a good one, she would bet. She did bet. She was betting what little shred of normalcy she had carved out here on the generosity of a nameless autho
rity.

  Mr. Randolph thought the Wheelers were bad news. The people she had worked for made the psychotic drug dealers look like a Little League team.

  The couple at the end needed another round of margaritas, and Dani nodded to them. She could run. She could walk off the deck and climb into the car and be halfway out of the state before sunset. But where would she go? She had her money, but they had everything else. They had the roads and the law and the cameras and the manpower to find her anywhere she went. They could say anything about her they wanted; they could give her a criminal record and put a warrant out for her arrest. They could make her disappear. They could make jail look like the best-case scenario. They could—

  “Damn it, Dani.” Mr. Randolph broke her downward spiral of thought. “Is it just me or does Juan look nervous?”

  “What? What?” Dani didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath.

  “Juan Wheeler! Look at him. This deal is bad. I can feel it. I mean, even worse than a regular Wheeler deal.” Mr. Randolph gnawed on his lime peel. “Or am I just crazy? Having some kind of midlife crisis?” He arched an eyebrow at her in comic seriousness. “And don’t you dare tell me I’m way too old for this to be midlife.”

  She laughed, relieved to be knocked off her train of thought. “I’ll go ask him what cologne he uses. I’ll tell him I’m looking for a Christmas gift for you.”

  Mr. Randolph scrunched up his face in a passable rendition of the smaller Wheeler’s scowl, making his eyebrows twitch. “It’s the smell of power, chica. Power and women. And money. And my mother. Power, women, money, and mother—and not in that order.” He let his scratchy falsetto disintegrate into Wheeler’s familiar chittering giggle.