He rocked forward on the bike, nudging her with the wheel. The brim of his hat flopped down as he cocked his head to look at her. “What’s that face? I thought you’d be glad I’m adjusting. Are you worried I’m going to lose my keen fashion sense? Because I assure you, I can rock this T-shirt.”
She wanted to laugh, to assure him she didn’t doubt his fashion sensibilities. She wanted to tell him she was glad he liked it here, but she couldn’t because she wasn’t. If he’d been miserable here, it would be so much easier to tell him.
“Tom found me. He’s here.”
She watched the news sink in. Choo-Choo’s smile dimmed, then dropped, as did his foot from the pedal, making him stagger in place. He stared at her, open-mouthed.
“Where? How did he . . .”
Dani shrugged, not wanting to talk. She knew once she said it out loud, it would be real. “He’s in Room One. The one at the end, just on the other side of the bushes from my shack. He’s there right now. I let him in.”
He stared past her, toward the units, as if expecting to see Tom Booker materialize on demand. “Are you going to do something?”
“Like?”
“Call the police? The state police? Hell, the FBI. Why don’t you tell your boss to tell his Fibbie buddy about him? Tom’s here.” He gave up trying to balance on the bike and stood straddling the bar. “He killed all those people. The FBI has to know, right?”
She nodded, watching the understanding dawn on his face as she spoke. “Yeah, they must know. How could they not? I mean, he’s here. He’s out. He looks great. Not a single fucking scar on him. They patched him up nice and carefully, Choo-Choo. Not like us.”
“Not like us.” He sat back heavily on the bike seat, his hands dropping to his sides. The handlebars spun, the wheel slapping Dani in the leg, but they both ignored it. “They let him out.”
“I don’t think they just let him out. I think they turned him out.” Saying the words aloud fueled something hot inside her. “They fixed him up, made sure he was just fine, and they put him to work. Again. All that shit he told me on the phone about not knowing who hired him that night—maybe he didn’t know then, but he sure as hell knows now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to run.” It felt right as she said it. “I’ve got almost forty thousand dollars stashed around here, most of it in my car. There’s a tracking device in my car so we’ll have to ditch it once we get to the mainland but—”
“We?”
She gripped the handlebar before her. All those months ago, that lifetime ago when she’d been running for her life in DC, Choo-Choo could have left her but he didn’t. She’d repaid him by leaving him in that hospital. “He wouldn’t know you by sight.” She tried to laugh. “Especially in that outfit. You could stay. You could just leave on your own.”
Choo-Choo pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Because it’s worked out so well for me on my own these past few months. Fuck it.” He whipped his arm over his head, sending the phone sailing into the water behind Dani. “Fuck this place. Fuck Tom Booker. And fuck that fucking tracking device. Let’s steal a boat.”
“What?” Dani felt such a rush of relief that he’d go with her she could hardly follow what he said. “What boat?”
“Let’s steal that one.” He pointed over her shoulder, out to the open water of the channel. “We’ll take a kayak out, climb on board, and steal the son of a bitch before anyone is the wiser.”
Dani squinted out over the water into the glare of the lowering afternoon sun. She knew nothing about boats but she could tell this was little more than a tub. It rose and fell in the gentle tide, shifting until she could read the peeling paint.
“We can’t steal that boat. That’s the Pied Piper. That’s the Wheelers’ boat.”
2:43pm, 106° F
Caldwell poured his friend another drink, which Oren ignored. Vodka wouldn’t cut the bitter taste in his mouth. He didn’t know which would be worse—finding out for sure that Dani was playing him or finding out that he’d shut her out when she was really in trouble. He knew one thing for sure. For the first time in more than a decade, Oren Randolph yearned for something harder than vodka.
“I’m going to get out of here,” Caldwell said softly. Oren figured he wore his misery all over his face and the agent must be able to see it. “Let me head back to Miami, see what I can find out. Maybe I’m a paranoid old man who’s manufacturing drama where there is none. Maybe my SSA has a team coming down to bust the Wheelers as we speak. Hell, they may be doing me a solid and protecting you as my CI.”
“Yeah,” Oren said, giving in and grabbing the vodka, “because I know how high a priority they place on burned-out ex-cokehead bar owners. Shit, Caldwell, what if Dani was telling the truth? What if she’s in trouble?”
Caldwell clapped his hand on Oren’s shoulder. “Man, we are all in trouble. When the Wheelers are moving something this big and we’ve got a gun like Bermingham on site, we are all in trouble. My advice to you is to lay low. Keep your door closed. Let them do whatever the hell they’re going to do out there. If Dani is telling the truth, if there really is some psycho out there looking for her, odds are he’s going to get caught in the crossfire. Sometimes you get lucky and situations like this take care of themselves.”
“I don’t feel very lucky.”
“Then let’s make our own luck. Let’s up our odds and get out of here. Just for the night. I’m parked across the road on the other side of the hedge. Nobody saw me come in, nobody will see me go out. Give me five minutes, then you go around front. If they ask, tell them you’re taking your evening constitutional. Tell them they have the run of the place until you get back. Tell them you’ve got a date. Tell them anything, just get the hell out of there.”
“Bermingham’s not going to let that happen. He’s jumpy. He’s watching. And—oh no, is that a boat?” Oren cocked his head, years of experience letting him pick up the sound of a small motorboat approaching the dock.
“Bermingham isn’t going anywhere. You said he told you the deal can’t go down until dawn. He’s probably going to be spinning Dani around on his lap like a top—”
“Aw man, don’t say tha—”
Caldwell gripped Oren’s arm tight. “You don’t owe that little girl anything. Like you told her, she’s an employee, not your daughter. You gave her a job and a place to live; she does what you tell her. If she’s fucking you, leave her ass hanging. If she’s not, she’s a smart girl. Something tells me she knows how to get out of the way.” He loosened his grip and patted Oren’s arm. “And surely by now she knows how to collect fifteen bucks for the public dock, okay? I’m going. Five minutes, then you make your excuses. Then we get our asses up to Miami until the dust settles.”
Oren nodded, hating every inch of the plan and not just because he hated Miami. Caldwell downed the last of his drink and moved to the sliding glass door. He peered through the glass before sliding the door open slowly. He had one foot out the door when he turned back to Oren to give him an encouraging nod. He got half a nod out before the muzzle of a gun pressed against his temple.
2:59pm, 106° F
They heard Bermingham swearing before they saw him clear the hedge of bougainvillea at the corner of the walkway. Dani put her hand on Choo-Choo’s arm to still him as the Canadian charged past them without looking. He was shouting into his phone and then shouting at Juan Wheeler, who pulled up to the outside slip in a dinghy.
“The fuck is this, Wheeler? You’re early.” Bermingham didn’t wait for Juan to tie off the boat. He leaned down, shouting at the smaller man, who ignored him. “Vincente hasn’t said anything about moving this up. Is my cargo on board? Get Vincente on the phone now.”
Choo-Choo laid his bike down silently in the gravel and he and Dani crept toward the units, putting distance between themselves and the scene at the dock. Dani could tell by the light it had to be close to three o’clock. The sun wouldn’t be setting for a while. Th
at meant hours of hot, direct sunlight on whatever the Wheelers were selling to Bermingham. She didn’t have to hear all the words to pick up Bermingham’s opinion of the situation.
Choo-Choo whispered in her ear. “This might be an ideal time to put that ‘running for our lives’ plan into motion.”
2:30pm, 106° F
The first thing Booker did after Dani left was turn off the air-conditioning. The heat didn’t bother him but the inability to hear sounds outside his room did. He slid the old metal window open and surveyed the empty dock slips. He’d seen Dani follow the planked walkway back toward the main building and around the thick greenery that hung over the water. Was that where Dani lived? The thought of slipping into her private living space again sent a shimmer of anticipation along his skin.
First things first, however. Booker changed into something a little less conspicuous—the khaki shorts and a faded T-shirt he’d bought in Atlanta. The clothes made him feel silly. He liked long pants and button-down shirts. Anywhere else they helped him remain invisible, but blending in at a fishing camp in Florida required him to stretch his comfort zone a little. It would be worth it if it made Dani feel more at ease around him. He drew the line at sandals, however. He felt off balance enough as it was. He hadn’t gone without socks in over thirty years; he wasn’t going to start now. Again, while he preferred hard black shoes, canvas sneakers and white socks would have to do.
He didn’t look at himself in the mirror as he stepped into the bathroom. Memories of being a young boy in sneakers and a ball cap tried to distract him but Booker had more than enough experience to hold them back. It didn’t matter that this wasn’t technically a job. It was a mission, however undefined, and he had procedures to follow. Clipping the sheath of his new serrated knife onto the waistband of his shorts helped him relax so he went ahead and strapped his smaller blade to his right ankle, pulling his sock up to hide it. He probably wouldn’t need them but their presence helped soothe his nerves.
With a little effort, he finished the last step of his settling-in process. The screen in the small window over the toilet resisted him but a two-handed punch finally knocked it free of the frame. He’d pay the damage deposit if necessary. Stepping lightly onto the toilet seat, Booker slid through the small window, lowering himself to the gravel below. He always felt better with an exit plan.
He stayed close to the laundry bins and recycling dumpsters behind the units, moving into the shadows of the low palm trees that ringed the gravel lot, not to avoid the sun but to keep from casting too long a shadow of his own. He could hear voices across the narrow inlet and the faint chug of a motor out on the water but nothing really shattered the heat silence of Jinky’s. Still, Booker felt better in the shadows.
His breath caught when he saw Dani in that little dress leaning over the handlebars of some man’s bike. The guy was lanky, his face hidden under a straw hat, but something in his build triggered recognition. It wasn’t the big guy from the bar, but he’d seen him somewhere before. Booker made himself comfortable between a thick clump of bougainvillea and the sign listing the docking rules. With the sun heading toward the horizon over the open water, he knew the shadows would shift and lengthen, keeping him hidden for a while. He hoped Dani would stay right where she was.
Of course someone had to ruin it. Someone big. Booker stayed still as a tall man in a golf shirt stormed past him, swearing into a cell phone. That was the guy from the bar. He watched Dani’s reaction, seeing how she stilled herself and her companion, like a deer caught in the open. Booker couldn’t imagine how anyone wouldn’t notice her tan arms and black hair, how her skin shone in the sun, but the guy on the phone only had eyes for the dinghy motoring up to the last docking slip.
Booker had no interest in the shouting man or the greasy little fellow tying his boat up but he was fascinated by Dani’s reaction. She and her friend all but slithered toward him, their eyes glued on the fight breaking out on the dock in front of Jinky’s. Booker didn’t doubt there would be gunplay; tempers like that in this kind of heat usually led to explosive violence. What he wondered was how much Dani knew about the exchange.
She had certainly proven her knack for being in the thick of trouble.
Dani and her friend passed less than two yards in front of him, their backs to him while they watched the fight escalating on the dock. He almost risked ducking back into the thorny shrub but knew if he made any noise at all she might turn. How would he explain that? He felt stupid enough as it was wearing shorts in the first place. So he stayed still, watching her watch the men. He watched a rivulet of sweat slide down between her shoulder blades.
“Shit.” The word was a breath from her lips.
The men on the dock weren’t alone any longer. Two more men stepped out from behind the bushes that hung over the walkway at the edge of the water, the same walkway Dani had taken when she’d left him earlier. The two men, one in his late fifties, the other not much younger, didn’t look very happy to be taking their walk and it only took a second for Booker to see why. Behind them, holding a gun, walked a lumpy, leering man who, if possible, seemed even greasier than the little fellow who’d climbed from the motorboat.
“Huh,” Booker said under his breath. This looked interesting.
2:59pm, 107° F
Any doubts Oren might have had about the seriousness of the situation evaporated the instant he saw Joaquin Wheeler pressing the semi-automatic to Caldwell’s temple. The look in the greasy man’s good eye told him that Oren’s protected status with the Wheelers had officially come to an end. Joaquin didn’t have to speak. Oren rose and joined Caldwell at the door, letting himself be pushed toward Jinky’s. It was then he saw the Pied Piper anchored fifty or so yards out in the channel. That made it almost ten hours early.
One look at Bermingham’s red face told Oren how well the Canadian had taken the change in schedule. Juan leaned against the dock post smirking as Bermingham yelled at him and at whoever he had on the phone. The Wheelers might have been intimidated by Bermingham when the deal began, but something had changed. Vincente must have decided to throw his weight around, reassert his dominance. Oren heard Caldwell sigh.
This was going to end badly.
“You listen to me, you slimy little fuck.” Bermingham pressed the phone to his ear, bending a bit as if his height could intimidate just by voice alone. “We had a deal. You know what happens to this merchandise in the heat. You think you can fuck with me? You think I’m just going to sit here and watch that ship bake? I’m boarding. I’m boarding and I’m taking the shipment. Your money will be there.”
Oren couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation—Vincente, he assumed. The Canadian shut his eyes to what he heard, pressing the heel of his palm against his forehead as if holding back a massive headache. When he opened them once more and saw Oren and Caldwell at the end of Joaquin’s gun, he scowled.
“One hour,” he said into the phone, his glare moving over the crowd on the dock. “You have one hour to get this straight, you hear me, you little . . . Shit.” Bermingham stared at the phone and then shoved it in his pocket. “What the fuck is this?”
“This,” Juan said, waving his hands over his brother and his brother’s hostages, “is the reason we showed up ahead of schedule. You think you can screw with Mr. Vincente? Huh? You think this is the first time some two-bit player like you has tried to run us?”
Bermingham shook his head. “The fuck are you talking about? These guys are nothing. Randolph here was the set-up; I don’t know who the hell this other joker is. His boyfriend?”
“Let me tell you who this is.” Juan curled his lip. “That right there is Special Agent Daniel Caldwell of the FBI. Save your fake surprise. Mr. Vincente said you’d try something. Mr. Vincente thinks you’re a rat and when Mr. Vincente smells a rat, you know what he does?”
Oren could tell Juan wanted to insert a pause for dramatic effect. He’d seen the tweaker try it before. He failed as always, stumbling over his own
words with spastic chatter.
“He shoots them. He shoots the rats. Mr. Vincente shoots rats.”
Only Joaquin appreciated his brother’s delivery, wheezing out a giggle of approval. Oren felt an odd sense of resignation settle over him. He knew the Wheelers; he’d been unlucky enough to be present for enough confrontations to know how this played out. Someone was going to get shot and very soon. He only hoped it was Bermingham.
Bermingham looked from Juan to Joaquin and back again, his scowl changing into a look of disbelief. “You think I brought in a Fed? You think I hauled my ass all the way down here from Montreal to bring in a Fed to break up the deal I’ve spent a month setting up?” He smiled at Oren as if the two of them were old buddies. “Can you believe this guy, Randolph? I mean, I’m the outsider here. I’m the one with my ass on the line if this deal gets busted and this beaner thinks I’m bringing in the Feds. Hey Randolph?”
Oren really wished the Canadian would leave him out of this.
“Randolph, what do you think Vincente would say—”
“That’s Mister Vincente,” Joaquin said with enough spit to make Caldwell flinch.
“What do you think Vincente would say,” Bermingham continued, eyes on Oren, “if he found out that the man he brokered the deal with, the man he sent his two idiot puppets to, was keeping a Fed tucked away in his back pocket? Huh? Who do you think this is going to blow back on? Me? I don’t think so. Hey, maybe not even you, Randolph. No, I think if this blows back on anyone, it’s going to be on the guys who are running the deal, the flunkies, the lackies, the red shirts. You know what I mean?”
Oren didn’t bother to answer.
Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller) Page 16
