Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller)

by S. G. Redling

  Dani laughed again, making a point of not looking at the scowling man out on the deck. Mr. Randolph wasn’t checking on her; he wasn’t asking Caldwell to. He had a meeting to oversee and a bar to run. He had problems of his own that had nothing to do with her. As far as he was concerned she was just another housekeeper, another bartender. He must have seen her relax because he draped his arm over her shoulder in a paternal hug.

  “I’m getting too old for this, Dani. These meetings and these worries.” He turned her so they both stared out over the drunken room. “One of these days I’m just going to get on my boat and sail to distant shores. I’ll just be gone and this will all be yours. What do you think?”

  She knew he had no intention of ever leaving Jinky’s. “Do I get to keep Peg and Rolly?”

  “Do you have the firepower to get them out?”

  He hugged her closer and Dani let herself relax against him. His arm felt warm and heavy on her shoulder. She could have stood there forever. The feeling of solidity, of safety, of belonging, blew in on the hot tidal breeze. Mr. Randolph swayed gently with her, rocking them side by side.

  “It’s good to have you here, Dani. The customers like you. The locals like you. Hell, even Peg likes you, and she doesn’t like anyone.”

  “She hasn’t sprayed me with the hose in months.”

  “See? You’re practically sisters.”

  She smiled at that, watching as Casper threw a plantain chip into a young woman’s mouth. “I like it here, Mr. Randolph.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad.” They stood together in easy silence watching the old captain flirt with his drunken passengers. Finally he patted her arm. “We’ve got until tomorrow for the meeting. Why don’t you run down and tell Peg to help you out up here? Peg needs to burn off some steam, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s ready to quit drinking. Have Rolly whip you up some conch fritters, okay?”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll just do another pass of drinks first.” She swung her bucket and ducked back behind the bar. She felt mellow and loose, like she’d just had a good cry or a long nap. Two girls near the deck cooed at a tiny Key deer that strolled out from the bushes below and Dani smiled. She liked it here.

  Oren watched Dani move through the crowd picking up empty glasses and wiping down tables. He’d just given her part of the day off and she still wouldn’t stop working. The rental units had never been cleaner and the plumbing hadn’t backed up seriously since Dani had taken over maintenance. He’d never had an employee work that hard. He wasn’t entirely sure what motivated someone like that.

  She took a picture of a couple at the bar, saying something that made them laugh just as the flash went off. Maybe he’d read her wrong earlier. Maybe that smile she’d flashed to Caldwell hadn’t been off. Hell, maybe she’d even been flirting with the agent. Stranger things had happened. But Caldwell wouldn’t have missed a flirtatious move, even a strange one. He had radar that put the military to shame when it came to reading women, and Caldwell’s reaction had been anything but flattered. Oren swirled his ice, a nervous habit he couldn’t kick. There couldn’t be anything to worry about if his buddy ran a background check, right? What could Dani have done that would be so horrible to unearth?

  She pushed past him just then with two margaritas and a bucket of beer. He grabbed her towel and she glanced over her shoulder at him.

  “What did I say?” He took the glasses in one hand, the bucket in the other. “You—stop working. Get Peg up here. Drink. Laugh. Shake that little ass you’ve been running all over hell and back and let Rolly fill you up with some greasy fried food. I own this place, remember? I can serve a drink.”

  She surrendered the drinks and started pointing out who was expecting what. He leaned down close to her face. “I own this place,” he repeated slowly. “Remember?”

  “Yes, boss,” she said, smiling up at him.

  “That’s right, I’m the boss. You’re the employee. Now sit down and start ripping me off. You’re making the rest of the staff look bad.”

  She giggled at that and headed down to get Peg. More than one man watched the swish of her skirt against her short, tan legs as she headed past them. What could a little thing like that have done that could be so terrible the FBI would have a file?

  99° F

  Dani hadn’t realized how tense she’d been since meeting Caldwell. A sense of lightness filled her chest. Maybe she hadn’t really relaxed since she’d arrived on the island, maybe even since she’d left DC. The sensation left her a little dizzy in a champagne kind of way. That moment with Mr. Randolph, when he’d put his arm around her the way her father used to do, the same soft voice, easy swaying, made her feel safer than she had since her father’s death. Dani felt her need to be on Redemption Key, at Jinky’s, ache deep inside her, only now the ache didn’t feel like fear but like hope.

  12:40pm, 99° F

  Dani knocked on the metal kitchen counter. Rolly whistled into the fan that blew hot greasy air right back at him. “Hey, can I get a scavenge?” Mr. Randolph had told her to eat, but she knew the cook preferred to think the food was a personal favor. A scavenge was when Rolly would pick a piece or two off of several outgoing orders and heap them on a plate for her or Peg. Conch fritters, shrimp, some slices of fried plantain—whatever the crowd was ordering, that’s what they got to eat. Dani liked the surprise and she liked the pleased look on Rolly’s hangdog face when he would present her with his feast.

  “Got one all ready for ya, small fry.” He tossed up a plate loaded with fried oysters, grilled shrimp, mango salad, and fried plantains. He scraped a thick wedge of butter on a long slice of cornbread and laid it on top of the food. “You looked hungry. Don’t tell Peg I gave you the last of the mango salad. And don’t let Casper eat all your plantains!”

  Dani laughed, letting the kitchen door swing shut on his orders. With no stools at the bar available, Casper offered to give up his but she waved him off, making the old man smile by jumping up to sit on the bar itself right beside him. He made a show of admiring her legs—without any attention paid to the glimpse of scar that peeked out before she settled—and helped himself to an oyster. Peg slung drinks around her, splashing her with ice and froth, and more than once shouted very near her ear at a waiting customer, but Dani didn’t worry about being in the way. If Peg wanted her off the bar, Dani knew she could make that happen.

  Casper was entertaining a couple of tourists and she’d come in midway through a story too outlandish to bother catching up with. Instead she laughed and swung her feet, leaning backwards over the bar to make herself a gin and tonic. She ignored the surreptitious glances up the back of her skirt when she reached for the fountain nozzle.

  The crowd from the Lady of Spain had settled in nicely, happy in their new temporary home. Binge drinkers tended not to enjoy Casper’s cruises very much or very long. The people that got the most for their money were those savvy drinkers who could pace themselves to last an hour or an afternoon. There was just no telling how long the captain would stay put in any port. Today looked like it was going to be a long one, and the partygoers seemed up to the challenge.

  Dani spied a couple more locals who had drifted in. The heat seemed to be demanding liquor today. Even the old couple, the Emersons, who had the little bungalow down the road, had managed to get up the steps to the bar, Mr. Emerson’s walker be damned. Dani scanned the room to see if Angel Jackson had come in. The hard-eyed pilot was the only one Mrs. Emerson would trust to carry her husband down the steps should the Tanqueray get the best of him.

  The Texans from Room Five were trying to get Peg’s attention, probably to settle their bill and check out, and were having as much luck with that as the Australians were in getting another round of drinks. The fishermen took the delay in stride, settling in at a table against the wall and kicking their feet up like they lived there. Dani thought maybe she should jump down and pitch in, but she saw Mr. Randolph leaning against the bar talking to Angel Jackson like he had all the time in t
he world. If Mr. Randolph wasn’t in a hurry, neither was she.

  Casper slapped her thigh at the punch line to some joke she hadn’t heard, and the crowd around him cackled. Dani didn’t bother to catch the joke, watching instead a thick-muscled man with sandy hair and narrow eyes trying to get Peg’s attention. He didn’t wave dollar bills around like the Australians, he didn’t hold up an empty glass like most of the tourists did. He just leaned on the bar, taking up a lot of space at the crowded rail. Dani sipped her gin and laughed, watching Peg ignore him.

  He looked behind him, gesturing to someone she couldn’t see about his frustration with the service. With a shrug of surrender he turned back around, watching Peg, hoping to make some kind of eye contact. He must have noticed Dani watching him because he leaned heavily on his forearms and looked up at her.

  “Is there a trick to this?”

  “Yeah,” Dani had to shout over a rash of laughter. “Don’t be too thirsty.”

  “If I had known it would be this hard, I’d have brought my cooler in.”

  Angel Jackson had slid into the space on the other side of the muscular man and snorted at that. “Glad you didn’t, pal. Can’t you read?” He pointed to a sign taped to the bar mirror:

  Empty coolers will be filled for a price.

  Full coolers emptied for free.

  Coolers you bring in with beer from outside

  Will be chucked to the bottom of the sea.

  “Very poetic,” he said, shaking his head. “What’s her name?”

  “What difference does it make?” Angel asked. “She won’t answer you.”

  The sandy-haired man sighed and straightened up. Dani tapped his arm with her foot. “Watch this.” She leaned backwards on the bar and shouted, “Hey Peg! I’m eating the last of the mango salad.” Dani barely straightened up before an uncut lime went whizzing by her head, smashing into a napkin holder at the far end of the bar. Someone shouted in protest, and Peg answered the complaint with a lemon thrown even harder. Angel turned his back on the flying fruit, leaning against the bar and toasting Dani with his beer.

  “See?” Dani nudged the scowling stranger. “It doesn’t help to know her name.”

  “What does help?”

  “The trick is,” Angel said, “to be here when Dani’s behind the bar.”

  “Dani?” The man leaned back, looking from her to Angel with interest. “And when would that be?”

  “That depends.” Angel drank the last of his beer and handed the empty bottle over the shorter man’s head to Dani. “It depends on who you know.”

  Dani tossed the empty into the garbage can behind the bar and bent backwards to reach into the cooler for another. She popped the top and smiled, passing the icy bottle slowly past the newcomer’s envious gaze. He shook his head as Angel drank, then looked up at her with a smirk.

  “You must be Dani.”

  “I must be.”

  He studied her face for a moment with a look she couldn’t read. A huge hand came down on his shoulder and he didn’t jump.

  “Come on, Ned, what are you doing? Growing the wheat? Where’s the beer?” The man’s accent was miles away from Florida—Wisconsin or maybe the Dakotas—but when Dani looked up, the smile she saw was nothing but sunshine. He was tall; even from her perch on the bar she had to look up to see wide brown eyes and deep dimples that were way too cute to be on a grown man’s face. He wore his brown hair a touch too long and he stood just a little closer than she usually allowed.

  Ned tipped his head toward her. “It seems Dani here is the key.”

  His eyes widened, his dimples deepening, as he leaned closer into her personal space. As was her way, Dani didn’t back off. Only this time it felt less like a challenge, more like an invitation. And she wasn’t sure exactly who was inviting whom.

  He was night and day from his buddy. Everything about Ned was dense and thick, from the muscles in his neck to the thick, close-cut hair on his head. Where Ned kept his movements small and controlled, Dani saw this man moved with a loping sort of ease and grace. She’d been hit on by a lot of guys since coming to Jinky’s. She felt her face warm at the possibility of letting this lanky northerner break her drought. She couldn’t even blame the gin. Yet.

  “Oh now, you see,” Casper interrupted, patting Dani’s knee, “Dani here has what we call special dispensation. The rules simply do not apply to her, am I right?” A drunken rumble of agreement rose from the surrounding crowd. The newcomer smiled at Dani as Casper went on. “Which is the very reason why our friends here feel so at home after only just arriving this afternoon on a long journey from Madison, Wisconsin. Isn’t that right, Steve? Tony? Chuck?”

  “Tucker,” he said, winking at Dani. “And this is Ned. We just flew in from St. Paul.”

  “Exactly,” Casper said, raising his glass. “A toast, to Ted and to Michigan!”

  “To Michigan!” The crowd roared along. Dani laughed when she saw Tucker raise his empty bottle along with them.

  Casper went back to whatever convoluted tale of mayhem he was spinning for his audience, and Tucker somehow managed to get his large frame into a narrow space between the cluster of drunks and Dani’s crossed legs. He moved so easily, so comfortably, people just gave way to him. Dani knew that required a certain interpersonal skill that not many people could manage. Tucker made it look easy. Ned surrendered his spot at the bar, letting his friend try his luck at getting them a beer. From the little smile Dani could see on Angel Jackson’s profile, the body cues must be pretty clear. Tucker had a much better strategy in place.

  “So what is it about you, Dani,” Tucker said with a crooked smile, “that gives you the dispensation? That makes you the person who can make these beers magically appear when nobody else can? Do you have some kind of special connection to the owner?”

  Dani shrugged, trying not to smile too broadly. Those dimples kept distracting her. “It’s not exactly a conspiracy. I work here.”

  “She works here too,” Ned muttered, glaring at Peg, who sat on a cooler ignoring the thirsty patrons down the bar.

  “Don’t let her hear you complain,” Dani warned with mock gravity. “You’ll never get a beer. Ever. She has ears like a bat.” She twisted backwards once again to dig into the cooler beneath the bar. From the corner of her eye, she could see Ned and Tucker share a glance after checking out her backside. She straightened back up with two Coronas.

  Ned huffed. “Don’t you have Sam Adams?”

  “I can’t reach the Sam Adams. Or would you rather wait and ask Peg?”

  Tucker took the beers from her, passing one to his scowling friend. “Don’t mind Ned. He’s just grumpy. Doesn’t like the heat.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Ned complained, drinking half the bottle down in one chug.

  Tucker didn’t drink from his bottle right away. He waited until Dani had settled and handed her her gin and tonic, clinking his bottle against it. “Here’s to Dani, and to discovering Jinky’s secret weapon.”

  Two drinks later, Tucker’s odds of picking her up were looking better and better and still not because of the gin. Dani paced herself, and either Tucker had great instincts or he was a natural gentleman because he kept his flirtation steady but casual. A few times Dani could feel that old urge to run and hide, to disconnect from anyone who looked too closely at her, but he made a point of keeping Ned and Angel in the circle, letting the passing drinkers and drunks come and go, and keeping Dani from feeling cornered. But he never let her go too long without a private smile.

  She was just starting to wonder about the coming evening when Tucker looked up from checking a message on his phone and caught her watching him.

  “Business. Yuck.” He shoved the phone into his pocket.

  “What business are you in?”

  He leaned in against the bar, coming the closest to her he had all afternoon. “The kind of business I hope keeps sending me to Florida.”

  “You don’t like Minnesota?”

  “Oh you know.”
He shrugged. “Nine months of winter, three months of bad sledding.” He gave a quick glance to the crowd before whispering in her ear. “But I’m a little worried. I’ve heard the women down here are trouble.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah, real bad news, I’ve heard. Take you, for example. You seem awfully cute and sweet, but what’s going on here?” He flicked his gaze down and quickly back up to her face. “That looks like it might be trouble.”

  He’d looked at her legs crossed on the edge of the bar. She could feel that the hem of her skirt had ridden up. She didn’t want to look to see the edge of the scar he must have noticed.

  She’d pulled back slightly when she felt his fingertip trace her thigh. “What’s this?” he whispered and she forced herself to look. Her scar was still hidden. His finger was moving through moist splatter on her skin, sliding through tiny orange chunks.

  “Oh, that’s mango salad. I must have spilled.”

  When Tucker slipped the tip of his finger between his lips, Dani’s breath was part shiver, part giggle. She tried to look worried when Mr. Randolph stomped behind the bar and poured himself another vodka.

  “Everything okay, boss?”

  He swallowed the drink in one gulp. “For now, yeah. The Wheelers are finally gone. Casper’s pulling out in a few, too.”

  “So do you need me to work tonight?”

  He must have heard the hopeful tone in her voice or noticed Tucker’s hand on her thigh. “Sure, take the night off. Hell, we could all be dead tomorrow.”

  Dani grinned at Tucker.

  Then Angel Jackson shouted to someone down the bar and threw a wrench in Dani’s plans. Tucker’s hand was warm on her thigh and those dimples were really cute, but Angel Jackson was making an up-and-back flight tonight to Boston. That was close to one of the locations on her list. She waved the black-eyed pilot over.

  “Any chance you could drop me at Martha’s Vineyard?”