by JA Huss
“The hostel, I guess. We can’t bring them here. Not with Tara and Belinda around.”
“Yeah. All we need is them getting suspicious. Do you think Tara suspects anything?”
“No. I highly doubt it. But Johnny Boston might be a problem. He says he’s got business tomorrow night too.”
“Believe me, I’ve heard all about it. I discussed it with Dad.”
“What’d he say?”
“Just… too bad, right? It’s our fucking dock. We pay those assholes down there a lot of fucking money to keep people away. And that includes Johnny.”
“Tara was spying on Jesse yesterday. Trying to figure out their biz. But… we got distracted last night and I never actually got her report.”
Tony makes a grunt of disapproval. “What do you think they’re up to?”
“Honestly, I have no clue. Drugs? Isn’t that what everyone’s into?”
“Could be anything with them. I looked into them too. And there’s nothing but dead ends. Jesse has the most info, but it’s all tabloid shit. Nothing real. Johnny has never even had a fucking job. Ever. Joey’s check comes back with huge gaps in the timeline. He hasn’t been in America much the past ten years.”
“Emma’s coming back from Europe this weekend so Jesse will go home on Sunday. I’m sure Belinda—”
“Jesus Christ, will you stop calling her that?” Tony is fixated on this. I don’t understand why. “Her fucking name is Rosalie.”
“Anyway. She and her little tattoo friend can’t stay here. We’ll make that clear on Sunday.”
“You don’t think she’ll go back to Colorado, do you?”
“Why would you care?” Obviously he’s not over his one-time girl yet. Or maybe he was, but now isn’t? Now that he’s seen her with another man.
“I don’t. I’m just wondering. It’s weird that Vann figured out that the witness protection program up there is bogus. Don’t you think?”
I shrug. “I dunno, Tony. I guess if you look close enough you always find something.”
“I don’t like it. I looked his family up—bunch of tattoo artist bikers. Why did we pick that town, anyway? It’s got a lot of weird shit going on behind the scenes.”
I shoot him a look. “It wasn’t us, remember? It was Dad’s dirty FBI friend. Barlow. Max Barlow. He’s the one who set it up.”
Tony shoots me a look back. “I wouldn’t exactly call them friends.”
“I guess not. But that town was his idea. Not ours.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s working out. We need a new town.”
“Hopefully we won’t need a town, at all, ever again.” I sigh. “Tara and Belinda are just… freak accidents.”
“Right.”
“What’s that mean?”
“How do you not see that this is all a fucking setup? I mean, what are the chances a girl from Long Beach and a girl from Key West would stumble into the same illegal operation on opposite ends of the country, then end up best friends in a new town, then one of them is your freaking fantasy girlfriend and shows up, out of the blue, during prep week, for an impromptu visit? Lonz, this whole thing reeks of a setup.”
“You think Tara is setting me up?” I almost laugh.
“Maybe not intentionally. But… yeah. I think we should postpone this job. I think we’re about to be busted.”
“We can’t postpone. That’s not going to happen. We are expected to pick up and deliver twenty live bodies. The consequences if we don’t? No. I’m not even gonna think about it.”
“Well, I hope your friend knows what he’s doing. Because it’s his fault we’re in this Tara and Rosalie situation in the first place.”
We cross the last street and I head into the marina while Tony keeps walking towards the dive shop to meet up with Dad. When I turn the corner near the marina coffee shop I can just make out Quint over near the office door. Waving to someone coming from the other direction.
And then the office comes into full view and I see who Quint is waving at.
Speak of the devil. There he is now.
I smile as I walk towards Quint and our partner from LA, extending my hand. “Diablo. Your name has come up in the most interesting ways this week.”
Diablo—my tattoo buddy from way back—takes my hand and gives it a firm shake, clapping me on the back and genuinely smiling with lots of teeth. “Lonz, my friend. Long time, man. Long time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - TARA
I’m dead asleep until I feel the coolness of a missing Lonnie snuggled up next to me. I hear him tell me he’s going to work. Half hear him, at least. I think I manage to mumble something back. And I hear the front door open and close.
But I feel his… missing-ness the moment he walks through it.
I try to ignore it. I tell myself truths.
Tara… you have lived twenty-seven years with no Alonzo Dumas. You have lived twenty-five of them with no Lonnie Derringer. You have felt the weight and presence of this man’s body for a total of two days. There is no possible way you can miss him.
But I do.
Terribly.
So five minutes after he leaves I decide I’m going to spend the day with him. I’m sure there’s room on his boat. And I’ll promise to stay out of the way. I just want to be close to him today.
I get up, shower quickly, throw on a pair of his shorts and a t-shirt from his closet—note to self, I really need to go shopping for real clothes. I bought that one outfit yesterday because Jesse Boston is a shopper and I was trying to be his new best friend. But his taste is kind of expensive. So I only got one outfit to play Miss Sunshine in with Lonnie. I deflected last night with the junk mail scenario because that pretty much describes the day I had investigating Jesse Boston. We went a lot of places and he talked non-stop the entire fucking time.
And the only thing I learned about the guy had to do with clothes, and food, and yachts. It’s almost like he was deliberately taking me into every store and restaurant on Key West just to keep me occupied.
There were a few hours yesterday there I really suspected that he might be doing that. But then he’d say something stupid and I’d change my mind.
I brush my teeth, slip on my sneakers, and run out the door. I’m not real sure where his boat is located because it was dark the other night and I wasn’t paying attention. But Lonnie is a local. Someone will be able to point me in the right direction.
The sun is just barely coming up behind me and it feels good on the back of my neck as I cross the already bustling streets and make my way towards the docks. I stop at the first office I see with people inside it and poke my head.
“Excuse me?” Several men look in my direction. “Can you tell me where Alonzo Dumas keeps his boat?”
“Sure,” one man says, walking over to the door. He points in a direction I vaguely calculate as northwest. “Just past dock three, on the other side of that trimaran. That’s where Lonz keeps the Precious Cargo. But he’s got an office and you’ll likely find him in there this time of the morning. Just look for the gray door that says ‘Dumas Deep Sea Charters’ on it.”
I smile, thank the sailor, and head towards his office. The office is easy to find, but when I pull open the door and go inside, it’s empty. I look back at the boats, wondering if I should go look for him out on the docks. But there’s not just one dock. There are dozens of them. And the helpful sailor didn’t tell me which one was home to Lonnie’s boat.
I’m deciding if I should stay in the office or go looking when I see Alonzo come walking down the dock. He’s looking over his shoulder, talking to another man, but then he stops and a third man appears.
My heart thuds inside my chest before I can even come to terms with what I’m actually seeing.
That… can’t be him.
It can’t be!
But the third man is shirtless, his t-shirt haphazardly tucked into the waistband of his jeans, and there’s no way to miss the ink on his chest and arms.
Devils. Demons. S
cenes of hell, and fire, and damnation.
Diablo.
It’s him. He’s followed me here. He found Alonzo and he’s probably threatening him. Probably planning on killing him if he doesn’t tell him where I am!
I’m just about to make a run for it, go back the way I came, gather up Belinda, and Vann, and get the hell out of here to keep Alonzo and his family safe from the retribution that is surely coming if this devil man figures out I’m staying with him.
But they turn in my direction and I quickly duck back inside the office and brace myself against the door.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Now what? What if they’re coming in here? I inch over to the side and peek out the window.
Holy fuck! They’re like a few feet away. I search the office for a place to hide, spy a door, sprint over to it, pull it open, and slip into a locker room. Just barely closing the door quietly behind me before all three men walk through the office door.
My heart is racing inside my chest. This isn’t possible. Why is he here? How did he find me? We were careful with my phone. I threw it away. Got a new one. Only three people have the number. So… how did he find me?
Talking in the other room snaps my attention back to the current dangerous situation.
Is that… laughing? Are they laughing?
I press my face into the door seal, then slowly, carefully, open it a crack so I can peek through.
Lonnie is sitting in a chair with his back to me, his feet kicked up on an old metal desk. The other guy is sitting at another old metal desk that faces Lonnie’s. But he’s got his chair swiveled to the side.
Both of them are smiling at Diablo, who is standing in the middle of the room, telling them… a fishing story?
All three men laugh.
What the fuck is happening?
Lonnie shuffles through some papers on his desk. “OK, Diablo. Let’s get down to business. Here’s the manifest for the package. Ten boys and nine girls under the age of twelve and one teen boy, age fourteen. The main route is highlighted in green, the alternate in red, and—”
Lonnie’s cell rings, cutting him off. He holds up a finger to Diablo, gets up from his chair, and accepts the call as he turns in my direction.
I close the crack in the door and hurry off to the side, looking around for a place to hide. I dart into a shower room, hoping for a shower curtain, but all I find is one open shower stall.
But Lonnie is already inside the locker room, talking. So I just crouch in the corner and try not to breathe so I can hear his conversation.
“What? No, I told you, Tony. He’s already here. Tell Dad it’s fine. We’ll be fine.” He pauses, listening on the other ends. “Look, Tara isn’t going to be a problem. She has no idea we’re connected to Diablo. And Belinda—fine, Rosalie—just throw her in a fucking truck, drive her up there, and dump her off. Problem solved.” He pauses. “Vann is a dumb kid, Tony. He’s only here because he has a thing for Bel—Rosalie. We’re smugglers, for fuck’s sake. Just smuggle him in with Rosalie and dump him off at the same place. I’ll take care of his truck. Don’t worry about the fucking Coast Guard. Quint’s buddy is working that sector tonight. Just… do what I tell you and everyone will be fine. I gotta go. I’ve got to go over the paperwork with Diablo so he knows which kid goes to which client.” Alonzo sighs. Like he’s stressed. “I don’t think it’ll be a problem. But I’ll come by your office as soon as I finish up with Diablo. Later.”
I wait, listening as the locker room door opens and closes. The voices in the other room rise and fall.
I should get up and go spy. Gather as much information as I can so I can take it to… to who? The FBI? The police? What if they’re all in on it, just like the Coast Guard?
But I can’t move. I’m not even sure how long I stay crouched in the shower stall. Long enough to make my legs cramp and my hope die.
He’s in on it.
Alonzo is part of Diablo’s slave smuggling network. Hell, for all I know Diablo is here to get me too. Lonnie is a known liar, after all. How hard would it be for him to convince me that he’s on my side? That he loves me?
Not hard.
Girls like me, we drink up that affection like it’s cool, clear water and we’ve been wandering the desert for a hundred years.
Girls like me. Who have nothing. Who were never loved by anyone.
We’re vulnerable to liars like Alonzo Dumas. Men who know the power they possess and how to wield it. No guns or knives required. Emotions are their weapon of choice.
After a while I realize that all the voices have ceased. I wasn’t paying attention to the smuggling conversation happening in the other room, so I didn’t realize they might’ve left.
I get up from the shower, crack the locker room door open, and peek out.
The lights are off. A good sign that they left and won’t be back any time soon.
I need to warn Belinda and Vann and we need to leave town right now. I don’t know where we can go.
Somewhere.
Anywhere.
I dart through the marina, sticking close to corners and generally looking like a paranoid freak to anyone who might be watching. When I get to the edge of the marina and can see the street filled with Friday morning traffic, I run.
It’s only a couple blocks back to Dumas Street, but I run hard. I consider going into Lonnie’s house and packing up what precious few things I have, but nix the idea and head straight for Belinda and Van’s rental cottage.
I knock. Hard. Several times.
But when no one answers I just open the door and slide in.
I almost piss my pants. Because standing in the middle of the room, holding Vann by the shirt collar like he’s about to kick his ass, is Johnny Boston. There’s a creepy little girl glaring at me from the kitchen, and another tatted-up man—just like Johnny, and Alonzo, and Diablo—in the middle of the room, holding Belinda by the arm.
And the icing on top of the mob-men cake? Jesse Boston is sitting in the arm of the couch with his arms crossed and a smug I-saw-you-coming-a-mile-away look on his face.
Johnny smiles at me and lets Vann go, giving him a hard push to create distance between them. “Well. Look who just saved us the trouble of hunting her down?” His grin falls into a flat line of stoic certainty. “Have a seat, Phoebe. We’re gonna have a little chat about your future.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - ALONZO
“Good to see you again, Lonz.” Diablo claps me on the back. “Last time we were together we were still getting ink.”
I laugh a little. “Yeah, well. I’m just about out of skin. And so are you.” He’s got some nice tattoos. That’s how we met. Quint’s cousin was a skin artist up in Miami. Quint was never into the tats himself, but he took me up there for my eighteenth birthday and that’s where I met Diablo for the very first time.
Funny how that worked out. Because when I got home that night of my eighteenth birthday, that’s when my father sat me down and told me the truth about who we were and what we really did. One street over Quint was getting the same talk from his father. Because our families have been smuggling people for two generations and now it was our turn to take over.
Diablo didn’t grow up on Key West. He grew up in an underserved Miami neighborhood. That’s where most of our cargo used to get dropped off back in the early days. We didn’t own Dumas Street back then. Emma was just getting her Bright Berry Beach Cosmetics company off the ground and hadn’t started sending money home yet, so there was no Dumas Deep Sea Fishing, no Dumas Sailing Tours and no Dumas Water Adventures. We had nothing back then. Hell, we were barely making ends meet with the dive shop.
Diablo looks at my arms. Checking out my tats, maybe. He might be looking at them, but that’s definitely not what he’s thinking about. “So Rosalie is back?”
I nod.
“And fucking Phoebe Covington is here?”
It’s so weird to hear her real name. This whole fucking thing is weird. None of this should be happening right now. B
ack when we were eighteen, Diablo was also a part of our little smuggling operation. He was in charge of receiving in Miami. Quint and I did the pickup, shuttled the cargo into a private marina just north of Diablo’s neighborhood, and he took it from there.
But eight years ago we ran into a snag at the tail end of normal operations. That’s where Rosalie comes in. Because she saw a whole lot of shit she shouldn’t have. Diablo’s hood was in the middle of a gang war so we talked Rosalie’s mom into letting us stash our cargo in her motel for a night. That turned into four days, someone reported us, all hell broke loose, and we almost went to prison for human trafficking.
But the FBI walked in at the final hour and saved our asses. Sent Diablo to the West Coast to run the operation on that end. And they gave us money to build the businesses. Emma’s company was taking off then. She had lots of cash and she was sending every month so we could fix up the dive shop and try to revive it. And when this FBI money came in, that was a real turning point.
Family fortunes are always rising and falling in America, remember? And we were suddenly on the rise. All we had to do was shut up and do our jobs.
Which seemed like a pretty cool deal.
Diablo is staring at me. Like he’s waiting for me to say something.
I don’t know what to say except for the truth. “Phoebe—Tara—she’s here. But I guess you already know that. Because you went to see her in Fort Collins. What was that all about?”
I didn’t mean for it to come off the way it sounds. Which is a mixture of jealousy and anger. But it does.
Diablo narrows his eyes. “Because suddenly people were looking into her background in Long Beach. And I wanted to make sure everything was OK. The more important point is this: How the fuck do two girls who grew up three thousand miles away from each other, end up seeing things they shouldn’t about the same operation? And then, years later, end up here, the very week we’re on a job? Explain this to me.”
“I can’t. We sent Rosalie to Colorado because the FBI contact told us to. How did Tara end up there?”
