One Tequila

by Tricia O'Malley

  This is what happens in the ocean, I reminded myself. You know this. Now put your big girl panties on and turn around so Trace doesn't have to do this himself.

  Turning, I flashed the OK sign to Trace and then moved to where he had positioned himself by the chain connected to the anchor. Pulling out his lift bag, he attached one end to the anchor. Then he motioned to me and I pulled my lift bags from where I had tucked them in my BCD and turned to look at Renaldo. Gulping a little, I reached out to gingerly touch his pant leg, moving my hand up until I found his belt. I swallowed tightly, unable to look up at his face as I secured the two lift bags to his body. Two lift bags was probably overkill, but I didn't care if we lost the anchor. There was no way I was racing after Renaldo's body if it dropped from the bag and sunk into the abyss.

  I moved back as Trace swam to my two lift bags and pulled a pony tank from his side. Pony tanks are small emergency tanks with a mouthpiece attached to the tank. They are useful to have in emergencies, as the tank is easy to transport or be brought down to someone who ran out of air. In this instance, Trace was slowly filling the lift bags attached to Renaldo's belt. I shuddered as the body jerked, bowing backward from the waist as the lift bags pulled it towards the surface.

  Trace moved back, floating towards the feet where he repeated the process of filling the bag at the anchor. Once he clipped the chain, we'd each be responsible for getting our burden to the surface. I'd been assigned the anchor as it weighed slightly less than the body, and also because there was a high probability of me vomiting if I had to hold onto Renaldo's sea-ravaged body for more than a few seconds.

  Grabbing one side of the chain, Trace wrapped it around his arm and then positioned the bolt cutters to do their job. I grimaced as I heard the snap and then moved to grab the anchor, waiting as Trace snagged Renaldo by his belt and together, we swam towards the surface.

  And brought Renaldo's body to the light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next hour fell into a rhythm of routine and procedures. The banality of death struck me as I watched the police work – taking pictures, making marks, and writing in little notepads. Crime shows seemed to glamorize the procedure, but now I realized how painstakingly slow and unexciting it could be. No detail could be missed, everything must be cataloged. One slip on their part and a killer could be out the door and on his way to Mexico.

  Trace moved to sit next to me, his shoulder bumping mine. I leaned into him, appreciating just how solid he had been today.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “For being you. For not letting me fall apart down there,” I said, waving at the water. I turned to meet his eyes. “I was close, you know.”

  “I know. I could see it in your eyes. You rallied though,” Trace said, his gaze holding mine. The moment lengthened between us, time suspended as I stared into the blue of his eyes, lost in the abyss much as I had been hours before.

  “Hey, lovebirds,” Chief Dupree called out and I jumped, heat rushing to my cheeks as I turned to glare at the police officer.

  “You're all cleared to go. I've got your statements. Don't plan any sudden trips, hear me?” Dupree tugged on his mustache and I rose, my hands at my hips.

  “And why is that? You think we murdered this poor man and then helped you bring him up? That's ridiculous!” Fury made my voice shake and tears threatened at the edges of my eyes.

  “I didn't say that,” Chief Dupree began.

  “You listen up, Dupree. I'm going to find this killer and serve him up to you on a platter,” I spat out, turning as Trace pulled my arm.

  “What? He's an idiot,” I seethed.

  “Just let it go,” Trace said, running his hands down my arms, forcing me to look up at his eyes. “He's got to follow up on every avenue.”

  “Please, he wants to hang this on someone and I'm telling you right now, it's not going to be me.”

  Turning, I looked at Chief Dupree again.

  “You'd better be on the ball with this one, Dupree. It's not going to go away however much you would like it to.”

  Chief Dupree's shoulders went back and I swear his nostrils flared as though he was sniffing out a predator.

  “I'll be the one giving orders, Ms. Rose, and the order is that you stay in town until this is all settled,” he bit out before turning to jump back onto his boat.

  “Jerk,” I seethed to Trace as he started the engine on his boat.

  “Just get the buoy, Thea. It's been a long day and you need to get your shit together because you still haven't told Luna about this.”

  Luna.

  My heart froze as I thought about how I would tell Luna that her most recent lover was now in a body bag, tucked under a bench on a police boat currently speeding towards the docks.

  I couldn't call her, I thought as I unhooked the boat from the buoy and walked back to pack my dive bag. I'd have to go find her, tell her in person. It was the only thing I could do.

  We sat in silence as the boat approached the wharf. There wasn't much to say after a day like today. The police boat had already reached the main dock and I could see a crowd beginning to form. In a small town like Tequila Key, a police boat at the dock was like throwing a match on kerosene. The word would be across town in seconds.

  Trace moved his boat onto a dock further down from where the crowd with the police boat was. There was no point in becoming involved with that little circus, as people would sniff out our involvement in finding the body soon enough.

  “Run!” Trace joked, bringing some levity to the situation and I smiled at him as I pulled the straps of my bag over my shoulders.

  “Trace, I really do need to run. I have to tell Luna about this before word gets to her.”

  “Go, go, I've got this.”

  I stopped in front of him and leaned up, wrapping my arms around him and kissing him softly on the cheek.

  “I love you, you know,” I whispered in his ear.

  Trace pulled back and looked at me, his lips hovering inches from mine.

  “You too. We'll continue this later,” he said, before turning at the last instant and kissing my cheek. My stomach tumbled over at the brush of his lips and I wondered what this would mean for our friendship or if we had crossed into something more.

  My life was so messed up right now, I thought as I stepped off the boat, lifting my eyes from my feet.

  And looked into familiar gray eyes.

  I froze as I looked at Cash, huddled on the back of a fancy fishing boat with Theodore Whittier, who was taking a delivery bag out of Luca's hands, along with two other men that I didn't recognize. The group reeked of money and prestige and something about it made my lip curl. I wondered what Cash had seen of my embrace with Trace and if he was jealous at all. I waved my hand at him, and he nodded at me, not moving. Theodore turned to see who Cash was looking at and then glared when he saw it was me, leaning in to whisper something in Cash's ear.

  A wave of evil slapped me in the face, so powerful that I almost doubled over. I whipped my head around, trying to use my sixth sense to see where it was coming from. Ignoring Cash, I closed my eyes for a moment to concentrate, turning my head towards where I was certain the man responsible for Renaldo's death stood.

  And opened my eyes to see that I was staring at Cash and Theodore, both of whom were cocking their heads at me like I was crazy.

  Unable to breathe, I put my head down and moved one foot in the front of the other as the truth settled, much like the anchor chained to Renaldo's leg, onto my shoulders.

  The killer was somebody I knew.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I hopped on my bike and tore away from the wharf, wanting to leave the sadness and intensity behind me as I struggled to understand what I had just learned on the dock. Keeping my eyes on the ground in front of me, I rushed my bike down the street toward our shop, hoping that Luna was still at work.

  “Shit,” I said, and whipped a quick u-turn and raced my bike down anoth
er block, sweat beginning to trickle down my back beneath the dive bag on my shoulders. I skidded to a stop in front of a ramshackle house with a wide wrap-around porch.

  “Miss Elva!” I yelled, not caring who heard me. “Miss Elva!”

  “Shoosh, girl, you gonna get the whole neighborhood running out here,” Miss Elva called from around the side of her house. I got off of my bike and walked over to where she stood behind her chain-link fence, a vine of flowers intertwined amidst the links. A thin sheen of sweat covered Miss Elva's face and she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, the moisture dampening the gardening gloves she wore.

  “You were right,” I said stoically, coming to stand against the fence, intertwining my fingers among the links.

  “Sure, I could have told you that, child,” Miss Elva scoffed and then took a closer look at my face. “There's death on your face, honeychild. There's death right there that I see. Who was it?”

  I told her everything, as I pressed into the fence, tears streaming down my face again as the aftershock of what I had been through hit me.

  “It's gonna get worse before it gets better, child,” Miss Elva said, reaching out to smooth my hair back from my face.

  “I know it is,” I whispered, “it's one of us.”

  “You come back to me after you tell Miss Luna what's what. We'll figure this out together,” Miss Elva promised.

  “Thanks, Miss Elva,” I said, and pushed away from the fence, feeling marginally better.

  “You wear that gris-gris now, girl,” she called after me and I turned, smiling at her.

  “Don't think I won't. I learned the hard way today,” I said.

  “Hmpf, that's right you did,” Miss Elva said, shooing me on my way, already focusing back on her garden.

  Moments later, I skidded to a stop in front of our shop, only to see that the lights were off. Unsure if Luna was hunkered down inside, I tried the door to find it locked. Sliding my key in, I opened the door and poked my head in.

  “Luna? Are you here? It's an emergency!” I called, knowing that she would never ignore those words. Silence greeted me and I eased back out, locking the door after me.

  Next stop, Luna's condo, I thought as I eased myself onto the bike and began to pedal towards Luna's side of town, wishing I had eaten more today as my energy was beginning to lag.

  Tired, I pulled up to her sleek unit and, not even getting off of my bike, opened my mind to scan her building, looking for her brain signature to see if she was inside.

  “Shit,” I swore, knowing that she wasn't inside. With little else to do, I turned my bike towards home, wanting to be on my couch with a stiff drink before I picked up the phone to tell Luna that her lover was dead.

  A sticky wall of heat pressed against me as I rode through town, keeping my eyes trained ahead of me as people began to call out my name as I passed. Match to kerosene, I thought again as I ignored another person shouting at me, knowing that they had heard by now that I was one of the people who had brought Renaldo's body up.

  Finally – finally – I reached my house, delighted to see that the press hadn't come knocking at my door just yet. Tilting my head, I looked at my house. Something was different.

  No Hank's ears.

  I jumped off my bike and ran to the door, finding it open.

  “Hank!” I shouted, rushing inside only to come up short, my hand at my heart as Hank raced joyously to me from where the back door stood open to the outside.

  “I'm back here. With tequila,” Luna called and my shoulders slumped. I should have known that Luna would have heard the gossip by now and come to my house. We had exchanged keys to each other's homes years ago when we'd failed to secure a long-term significant other in our lives.

  I wondered briefly if Luna was my significant other before I grabbed a glass from my cabinet and walked outside, unsure of what I would find.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said, bending over to tug a stick from Hank's mouth and toss it into the yard before turning to assess the damage.

  Luna reclined on my outdoor couch, her linen dress a cacophony of wrinkles, her hair tied back in a messy bun. Mascara streaks under her eyes indicated recent tears, though her eyes were dry when they found mine.

  “It was Renaldo, wasn't it?” she asked, her voice shaky.

  I wanted to deny it, to save her from this pain, but I couldn't.

  “Yes,” I said simply, moving to drop wearily onto the couch next to her.

  “I knew it. As soon as I heard that a body was found, I knew it was him. That's weird, isn’t it?” Luna said dully and I just shrugged, leaning over to pour a shot of Don Julio from the chunky bottle that sat on the table. Squeezing a lime into it, I added a few ice cubes and brought the glass to my mouth, savoring the taste of the tequila, so sharp and sweet against my tongue.

  “Not really. We do have some help in the extrasensory department,” I said as I sat back, turning to put my arm around her. “I'm sorry, hon.”

  Luna returned my hug, holding me for a moment as a shudder wracked her thin frame.

  “I wish I could make this better,” I said against her hair.

  Luna took a deep sigh and sat back, pushing a lock of her hair from her face.

  “It's okay. I mean, it's totally awful and absolutely not okay, but it's not like he was my husband or something.” Luna shrugged one dainty shoulder and leaned over to pour more tequila into her glass. I reached down to throw the stick again for Hank, allowing the day's events to catch up with me.

  “Trace and I found him.”

  Luna gasped and turned, immediately pulling me to her chest, so that my drink sloshed over my glass.

  “I didn't know. I hadn't heard that much. I just heard that the Coast Guard was bringing a dead body in. I swear I didn't know,” she gushed, patting my back vigorously as I struggled to hold my drink.

  “Luna, I'm spilling,” I said gently and she eased back.

  “Sorry. Oh my God, were you diving?” Luna said, her eyes wide, concern etched across her face.

  “We were. I almost lost it at 120 feet,” I said, launching into the story, grateful that this time my voice held as I recounted it.

  “Murdered,” Luna breathed, hanging on my words.

  “Why, what do people think it was?” I asked, curious what the rumor mill was saying.

  “Drowned,” Luna said, leaning back to put her head on the cushion and stare up at the ceiling where my plantation fan made lazy swoops.

  “Luna, this is bad. It's one of us. Someone here,” I said, nervously tracing my hand up and down my glass, drawing lines through the perspiration on the side.

  “Who is it?” Luna gasped, leaning forward to stare at me.

  “I don't know. I just got a sense that the killer was on the dock. I…I…” I couldn't bring myself to say that it might be Cash.

  A knock at the door stopped me.

  “Shit, that's going to be reporters,” I said, bringing my palms up to wipe at my eyes, knowing that I was going to look like crap on the front page of our weekly newspaper.

  “I will handle this,” Luna said firmly, standing up and marching – well, wobbling just a bit on her wedge espadrilles – to the front door.

  Murmured voices reached me, but I was too tired to try and listen. Instead, I leaned back, resting my head on the cushion and smiling when Hank jumped up to curl next to me. I stroked his fur, taking comfort in his presence, and wondered why anyone would not want to own an animal. They just made life better.

  “Alright, baby girl, I've got food,” a voice called and I raised my head to smile at Beau.

  “Beau! Shouldn't you be working?”

  “What's the point in owning the place if I can't take off a night or two?” Beau said cheerfully, but I could read the worry lines in his face. His style was on point today with a loose linen button-down tucked lightly into faded seersucker shorts, his ancient topsiders on his feet.

  “You heard.”

  “I did. And I'm coming to support yo
u and keep anyone away from your house that you don't want here,” Beau said, easing a platter covered with tin foil onto the table.

  “You brought food. I could kiss you,” I said and did just that when he plopped beside me to wrap his arms around me.

  “It's going to get ugly,” Beau said against my ear, referring to the town gossip.

  “How bad is it?” I said, drawing back to study his face.

  “Well, details are slowly trickling in. First we heard drowned body. Then we heard murder. Later on, suspicion was put on you and Trace.”

  I gasped.

  “Chief Dupree!” I spit out. “That bastard was trying to pin it on us when we were on the boat.”

  “Well, that yummy Coast Guard Petty something or other set us all straight pretty quickly on that one. You should've seen Dupree's face when he contradicted that silly story. So, it seems we all know Renaldo was murdered and that you and Trace found the body.”

  “You were there? How's Trace?” I asked, guilt rushing through me as I thought about him dealing with the horde of gossips at the wharf.

  “Trace is fine,” a voice said and I started as Luna and Trace came out onto the porch. Hank jumped up and wiggled over to Trace, one of his favorite people.

  “Oh God, Trace, I'm sorry I left you. I had to tell Luna,” I said.

  “I know, I told you to go.”

  “Was it bad?”

  “Besides me almost punching an officer of the law? It was typical small-town excitement,” Trace said, plopping down in a chair across from me. His face showed the strain of the day and I felt more connected to him for what we had been through as a team.

  “Thanks, Trace. You saved me today,” I said, meeting his eyes, feeling heat rush through me as he held my gaze.

  “You held your own. I'm really impressed,” Trace said.

  I blushed a little, enjoying the compliment from him.

  “Hmm,” Beau said, looking between us.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I'll handle this,” Beau said, popping up.

  The three of us stayed silent as we strained to hear who was at the door.