Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller)

by S. G. Redling

  “What are you going to do?” Oren asked. “What should we do?”

  “Hell if I know. One thing you have to do is keep an eye on Dani.”

  “An eye for what? All she does is run and clean.”

  “And invite strangers to stay with her.” When Oren swore, Caldwell nodded. “Yeah, regardless of which side she’s on, it can’t be coincidence that she’s got all these new friends out of the blue. Maybe the Charbaneaux kid is her connection to the agency. His family has a lot of connections way above my pay grade. On the other hand, he’s known as the family fuck-up so maybe he’s using Dani to take a walk on the dark side. And no matter how you slice it, her tie to Bermingham is no accident. Ain’t nobody going to believe that.”

  “So what’s her plan? How is this going to affect me?”

  “Whatever she’s going to do, she’s going to deflect. If she’s Bureau or she’s dirty, she doesn’t want you looking at her or either of her boys. If she’s smart, she’s going to create a distraction, some kind of snipe hunt to keep you looking one way while she or whoever she works for gets their job done.”

  2:30pm, 106° F

  Tom had the decency to stay quiet as she led him to his room. In all of her nightmares, in all of her worst moments of terror, Dani had never imagined a scenario so surreal.

  She was alone with Tom Booker once more.

  And damn it if he didn’t seem nervous again.

  So now she walked along the gravel path, hearing his light steps behind her. The sun pounded down like a hammer. The heat from the planked path made the air shimmer, and bugs droned in the bougainvillea.

  She wondered if she would die under one of these bushes.

  Whoever had checked him in had put him in Room One at the end of the unit. Past Bermingham’s room, separated from her shack by nothing more than a thick clump of sea grape.

  Of course.

  He didn’t talk. He didn’t stand too close. But she could feel his gaze on her as clearly as if he held her by the shoulders. He stayed back while she unlocked his door and Dani lost her nerve. She could not bring herself to step inside, to flip on the lights, and point out the refrigerator and show him how to keep the shower from leaking. No matter how disciplined her thoughts, her lifelong habit of being of two minds at once wasn’t enough to let her close herself into a room with Tom Booker.

  Maybe he sensed it because he gave her room to step away from the door before he went in. He hesitated in the doorway, looking into the dark space, the icy blast of air conditioning filtering out around him.

  Dani watched the set of his shoulders, long muscles clear under his still-crisp white shirt. How did he manage that? Was it her imagination? He hadn’t looked cold in the icy rain in DC; he didn’t look hot or wilted in the humidity of Florida. She could almost convince herself that she was imagining him, that he was a ghost or a vision, if it hadn’t been for that whole trying-to-kill-her thing.

  “Did they send you?” She didn’t know if she said it aloud.

  Tom sighed, not turning around. “No. They don’t know I’m here.”

  She believed him. One thing about Tom she knew, he didn’t lie to her. She was grateful he didn’t turn around. It felt easier to talk to him with his face out of sight.

  “Why are you here?”

  “To see you.”

  “Why?”

  His shoulders shifted, dropping a little as if exhausted. “Don’t you know?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He turned then just a little, just enough to see the fringe of his lashes, the slight downturn of his lower lip. She didn’t know that expression and he didn’t give her long to study it. “Oh,” he said again and stepped inside. When he turned back to face her, the sunlight landed squarely across his face, his eyes brilliant against the shadows. “Then thank you, Dani. I guess I’ll see you later.”

  “Sure.” Later. Maybe when the Wheelers moored their boat and transferred the dangerous cargo to Bermingham, and who knew what other mayhem would ensue. Why not throw Tom Booker into the mix? “See you later.”

  He closed the door and she stood alone in the heat, wanting to run.

  Instead she walked quietly, carefully, down the planked path. She walked past Bermingham’s room, stepping into the wet sand and gravel of the lot to keep her passage quiet. Bermingham waited for her, she knew. He expected her to wait with him for the deal to go down. How exactly he wanted to pass the time she didn’t know. She thought he’d wanted to sleep with her but now it felt more like he just wanted to collar her. Like a selfish child with too many toys, he didn’t want to share her with anyone, even if he didn’t want to play with her.

  Mental box open. Mental box close. This was not the time to dwell on that.

  She crossed the short end of the inlet, rounded the corner and passed the shuttered windows of the bait shop. Reggae still drifted softly from above, a few voices could be heard from the bar. Peg had that under control. For Peg it was just another day at Jinky’s. Choo-Choo was off making a new life for himself on Casper’s boat. And once again Dani was on the run. Dani had no safe place to hide, no asylum, nobody bigger than the monsters under her bed.

  But maybe she did.

  She walked the path to the water’s edge where it disappeared behind a hedge of sea grape that matched the one by her shack. She stepped without looking over the debris hidden there to get to the path to Mr. Randolph’s house. He didn’t know what the story was with Bermingham. He thought she’d lied to him, but Mr. Randolph would listen to her. Mr. Randolph had given her a job and a place to stay. He’d given her a place to belong. He knew about dangerous people and helpless situations, didn’t he? He would believe her. He might not know the same fears she did, but he knew fear.

  She climbed onto the porch, making a point of crunching the gravel and stepping solidly on the steps. Mr. Randolph was nervous. She knew this deal had put him on edge and she didn’t want to give any impression of sneaking up on him. This wasn’t the time for stealth. She called his name before opening the screen door. Guitar music played more loudly than she’d ever heard him play. Maybe he used music to get him through tense scenes like this.

  “Mr. Randolph? Boss? It’s me, Dani.”

  She heard footsteps, glasses clinking, and for a moment she feared he had company. She didn’t know what Mr. Randolph did in his private time. He never seemed to take any private time away from the bar. She waited outside the door, not looking in, and in a moment he appeared at the inside glass door. He opened it only a crack.

  “What’s up, Dani?”

  She clasped her hands, nervous at the distance he kept from her. How could she convince him she wasn’t the dragon to be kept at bay?

  “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Look, I acted like a jerk about Bermingham. You’re young; he’s good-looking. It’s none of my business what you do when you’re not working.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Is it your buddy, blondie? I already told you, he can stay with you. Again, it’s none of my business. Casper said he’d give him a job, and if you two can fit into the shack, then be my—”

  “It’s not that either. Mr. Randolph, can I come in?”

  His hesitation made the words that followed it unnecessary. “It’s not really a good time.”

  From where she stood she knew she could reach the carport in twenty seconds at a dead run. She could be in the car, get the keys from the rip beneath the passenger’s seat, and be halfway to Miami within the hour. She had thirty thousand dollars hidden inside the door panels; she could sacrifice what she’d left hidden in her shack. She had two driver’s licenses she’d swiped from the lost and found at Jinky’s. But she had someone she trusted less than two feet from her and she couldn’t make him listen.

  “I’m in trouble.”

  Mr. Randolph snorted an unamused laugh. “Aren’t we all? This is the day for it.”

  “No, it’s something else. It’s someone else. There’s a man. Here. H
e found me.”

  “A man? Here? You know, Dani, most people can’t find this place with a map and a GPS. Suddenly we have a lot of traffic. Why do you suppose that is?”

  Dani didn’t think she could answer him but the price of silence was too high. “Mr. Randolph, I know this looks really weird. I know you’re worried about the deal going down with the Wheelers; I am too. But this guy, this guy you rented a room to for the month? He’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. I know Bermingham has this reputation, but Tom Booker? I know what Tom Booker can do. I’m one of the people he tried to do it to.”

  Mr. Randolph looked down, rubbing the back of his neck, and Dani could see the signs of her boss reconsidering. She didn’t dare breathe.

  “Is he the one who shot you?”

  She wanted to lie. She’d never be able to explain about the CIA sniper and her old boss and Booker with his horrible knives. But if she lied now, if he saw her lie—

  “No.” He sighed and looked past her again and Dani rushed to explain. “But he was there. He was part of it. It’s hard. I can’t really . . . there isn’t any way I can tell you.”

  “So you can’t tell me, but you want me to help you. Help you do what, Dani? Keep an eye on him? Maybe tell my buddy Caldwell about him? I mean, you do know what Caldwell does for a living, right? You know who he works for, what he does. You’re a smart girl. You pay attention, don’t you?”

  It was so similar to what Bermingham had said to her just hours ago that Dani’s overworked internal alarm system set off yet another flash of caution. “It doesn’t seem like that’s much of a secret. Is it supposed to be? Do you think he could help me?”

  There it was. Oren had never thought himself any kind of genius but he’d always considered himself a pretty decent judge of character. He’d had the lazy addict’s keen sense of who would fuck with him the least and he thought he’d never lost it. Shysters and conmen and users and chiselers, he’d seen them come and go and lost very little to any of them. And he’d prided himself on handling almost all of them with a friendly, sun-and-vodka-soaked charm.

  But now this dark little girl with those serious brown eyes, who had crawled up into his life like some wounded wild animal that would suddenly permit him to feed her by hand, was turning out to be every inch the predator Caldwell painted her to be.

  Here was the misdirect. This Tom Booker, this dangerous man who just happened to show up on Redemption on the weekend Bermingham made his play for control. She wanted his help; she wanted Caldwell’s help, even though just a day before she wouldn’t have spit on the agent if he were on fire. She wanted both men to be looking at this new stranger, protecting the tiny damsel in distress, so she and the people she worked for could tee them both up to be in the absolute wrong place at the wrong time. That place could be at ground zero of a federal bust or it could be at the messy end of Bermingham’s cleanup. Either way, that place would suck and Oren didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to find out that his buddy Caldwell’s worst-case scenario could be far worse than either man imagined.

  Shit, he really didn’t want Caldwell to be right at all.

  He wanted to punch Dani and punch himself and keep punching until somebody made this situation right, but Oren hadn’t survived Jinky and his own wasted youth by ignoring very clear signs of obvious danger. He knew he could trust Caldwell; that was one thing he didn’t question. So Oren bit back his anger and his almost overwhelming urge to beg Dani to explain herself to him. If she was a liar, she was an excellent one and there was too much at stake to risk falling under her spell.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do, Dani. I’m your boss, not your dad.” The words tasted sour on his tongue so he spit them out as quickly as possible. “And I don’t need to borrow any trouble, especially not now. You want to call the law on that guy, be my guest. But don’t bring that shit into Jinky’s, you hear me?”

  She stood there as he slid the glass door shut, turned his back on her, and headed deeper into his house. She wanted to say that he was the one who rented the room to Tom Booker; he was the one who brought the killer to Redemption Key.

  But she didn’t say that because she knew that was a lie.

  2:43pm, 106° F

  She didn’t know how long she stood there. The sun beat down like it was trying to set the world on fire. It was a perfect day for it. This was a day when everything should burn. And the world didn’t even know it was coming to an end.

  Dani thought about how nice it would be to drive. She could drive north, over the hundred little channels, over the staggering expanse of Seven Mile Bridge, being blinded by the glare off the water until she hit the mainland. She could keep driving. She could ignore the ache she knew she’d feel in her shoulder from sitting so long, the throb of the gunshot wound in her leg, until she fell out of the car wherever she ran out of gas. More gas, more driving, chewing espresso beans to keep her awake until she cleared Florida, maybe Louisiana, maybe Arkansas.

  She could trade in her car, sacrifice her beloved little Honda for a head start evading the federal fuckers who would no doubt start looking for her. It would be a hard price to pay but it would be worth it to send those blunt-headed sons of bitches on a wild goose chase through the bayou or through Texas or Kansas. Let them think she’d gone back to Oklahoma.

  Like Choo-Choo had.

  Dani walked the planked path without looking. Of course they’d find her. Everyone who wanted to find her would and the one person she wanted to stay with would lose her again. Would Choo-Choo care? Would he understand or figure she had her reasons? Would he take her place at Jinky’s or settle in with Casper’s crew and figure she was just another shit friend using him when she felt like she needed him?

  Could she wait for him to come back from Casper’s boat? Take him with her? Would he go? He came to Florida. Dani tripped on a loose board at the broken corner of the old dock behind the hedge, turning her ankle against a rusted boat cleat. She felt the waxy sea grape stick to her skin as she bent to see blood drip down her foot. Who was she kidding? It didn’t matter if Choo-Choo was with her or not. It didn’t matter if Bermingham tied her up in the hull of his boat to a shipment of nuclear warheads bound for Syria or if Caldwell brought a battalion of Feds in to throw a net over her.

  Tom Booker had found her.

  Mr. Randolph couldn’t understand it. The Wheelers and Bermingham and all the badge-waving assholes who had and would surround her were nothing in the face of those wide blue eyes, that unblinking gaze that took Dani in like he owned her. No, like he’d made her, built her from scratch, like he knew her from the inside out. Even Choo-Choo wouldn’t understand. Her friend had seen Tom, had heard snippets of the long conversations he and Dani had shared on that endless night in DC, but Tom had been focused only on her. Choo-Choo hadn’t been pinned to the wall by those strong, steady hands. He hadn’t seen the force with which Tom had come at her with not one but two blades.

  He had asked her, “Are you going to kill me, Dani?”

  She’d told him yes. She had wanted to kill him and she’d relived that question over and over in a hundred nightmares. She’d thrown herself over a railing that night, willing to take her own life if it meant strangling Tom Booker, and what had she gotten for it? Scars and nightmares and a permanent federal tail. That psychotic son of a bitch didn’t even get a scratch. And he certainly didn’t get jail time.

  She stood on the little abandoned dock, looking out toward the spot on the channel bridge that she jumped from every day. She wouldn’t leave Choo-Choo alone to face whatever was coming down at Jinky’s. Bermingham and Mr. Randolph and Special fucking Agent Daniel Caldwell thought they had Dani all figured out, that they knew her place and had some right to put her there. But what had Choo-Choo said last night at the airport? He did nothing but want and hate.

  Choo-Choo was the only person who felt exactly the way she did.

  She didn’t know who she’d run into first—Bermingham or Booker—so she kept her head
down as she headed back to Jinky’s. She circled around the front, wanting to stay out of sight from anyone on the inlet as long as possible. The tinny sound of a bike bell made her jump. Throwing gravel to either side, a long-legged figure turned off the road, steering toward her. She saw long, brown shorts, a wide-brimmed straw hat, orange-rimmed sunglasses perched on a nose covered in zinc oxide, all of it eclipsed by the glare of a T-shirt in a shade of neon green found only on highway crews.

  She stared as Choo-Choo skidded to a halt, pulling the plastic sunglasses off to hang from their equally tacky neon orange string. He grinned at her.

  “I’ve decided to blend.”

  Dani squinted against the glare of his shirt. “With who? Wham?”

  He laughed. “Obscure, but I like it. I got the job. Casper hired me as first mate for his sunset cruise tonight. I suspect this will involve swabbing a good deal of tourist vomit.”

  “So he stripped you of all your clothes and dressed you like that?”

  “This?” Choo-Choo looked down at his shirt. “No, this was from a man renting one of Casper’s rowboats. It’s from someplace called”—he pulled the front of the shirt out to read the writing on the breast—“the Lizard’s Thicket in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. This guy admired my Black Dog shirt, said he’d always wanted to go to Cape Cod; I said this would get him closer, and we swapped shirts. Now I smell like fish heads and,” he sniffed the collar, “corn dogs, I think.”

  Dani shook her head. “I’m trying to figure out who got the better end of this deal. If there even was a better end.” Choo-Choo laughed again.

  “You’re right about this place, Dani. I don’t know if it’s the heat—and God, this heat—or the silence or the tiny little deer that are everywhere, but I love it.” He leaned forward on the handlebars. Sweat-glued blond strands against his face beneath the hat. “I feel like there’s this thing, this stone, that’s moving inside my chest. I always hated sailing. Hated it. Then when I climbed on that rust bucket tub of Casper’s and smelled all that sunscreen and recycled margaritas, I just thought, ‘I can do this.’ I’m going to do this.”