Desire on Deadline

by Lucy Lakestone

  “May I see your license and registration?” asked the officer, a young woman with tattoos and a take-no-shit attitude. She was a county deputy. She probably knew Jimbo, but Roz didn’t want to pull that card.

  Alden pulled out his wallet and handed over the paperwork while Roz looked out the windshield and over the hedge at Seguro Trucking. Two trucks in its lot were all lit up, next to what looked like a private gas pump. She gasped, touched the lever on her seat and zoomed from reclining to sitting straight up, overcome with excitement. Alden scowled at her. The cop was glancing at the documents. Wait, there were two cops — in the side mirror, Roz could see another car was parked back there, too, blue lights flashing. Great.

  “Wait here. Stay in the car,” the officer said. She disappeared for a minute. Roz and Alden didn’t say a word.

  “What are you two doing here?” the officer asked Alden when she came back.

  “We’re staying over at the resort on Mimosa Key. We were enjoying Naples today and got lost, and we were so tired, we thought we’d take a nap. I guess we overslept.”

  The cop looked as if, one, she didn’t buy a word of it, but two, didn’t see any real reason to complicate her evening with a couple of clueless tourists.

  “You can’t stay here,” she said, handing him his IDs. “Do you need directions?”

  “Uh, no, I’ll see if I can get the GPS on my phone working,” Alden said. “I’m hopeless with technology.”

  Roz tried not to laugh as the cop frowned. “I’ll help him,” she said. “He wouldn’t let me help earlier.”

  The cop grunted. “Typical male. We’ll escort you out of the neighborhood.”

  “I’ve got this, ma’am,” Roz said, holding up her phone, the map already queued to Mimosa Key. “Let’s go, honey,” she said to Alden.

  He shot her a sideways glance. “Right, sweetheart.”

  The cop looked from one to the other and shook her head. As she walked away, Roz heard her mutter, “Dumbass tourists.”

  The two cop cars backed up, waiting for Alden to leave.

  He backed up, too, and Roz smacked his arm.

  “Ow!”

  “You said you were going to keep watch!”

  “Nothing was happening.” He spun the wheel, pulled out of the lot and drove down the street.

  “It’s happening now,” Roz said, looking back at the Seguro trucks, “and we have to leave!”

  “We’ll come back,” he said confidently.

  “Turn right here.”

  “We are not going back to Mimosa Key.”

  “No,” she said, “but we want them to think we are. By the way, how did you convince them you’re a tourist? Your address is Mimosa Key!”

  “I haven’t changed my license yet. It still says I live in South Florida.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Alden was turning into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. “I’m hungry. It’s almost eight o’clock.”

  “But we have to go back!”

  “Chill,” he said, pulling into the drive-through. “Let’s give the police a chance to get out of there, and then we’ll go back. We’re not going to miss anything.”

  “How can you know that?”

  Alden turned and grinned at her, ignoring her question. “What do you want, honey?”

  Roz rolled her eyes. “Cheeseburger meal, with a Coke.”

  He ordered the same thing for both of them and rolled to the next window. This time, she let him pay.

  “I’m still mad at you,” she said when he grabbed the bag and cups at the next window and handed them to her.

  “Eat something and you’ll feel better,” he said, reaching into the bag and stealing a fry.

  “You’re impossible. What are you doing now?”

  “Parking. I have to pee. You?”

  Roz had to admit that she did, especially since he suggested it. They hastened inside the restaurant, did their business and ran out.

  “I’m heading back,” Alden said once they were in the car and munching on their burgers. He drove out of the parking lot. “I’m going to go around the other way once we hit the main entrance road. Look for our friends with the flashing lights.”

  It was difficult for a hot little convertible to creep unnoticed down an empty road, but Alden drove so slowly through the industrial park, it almost seemed as if they might get away with it.

  “This is the corner,” Roz said, looking at her map app. “Hold up.”

  They paused at the stop sign and looked down the street in the direction of the warehouse.

  “I don’t see any cops,” Alden said.

  Roz frantically scanned the area. “I don’t see any trucks, either!”

  Alden made a hard left and accelerated, no longer skulking. “We’ll catch them. One of them.” This time he didn’t sound so sure.

  “Go! There’s only one way out of here.”

  “Wouldn’t we have seen them?” he asked.

  “Not if they didn’t go past the restaurant. Turn the other way at the stop sign. Hurry, Alden,” she said, unable to keep the anxiety out of her voice.

  “Just keep your eyes peeled. It’s a truck. It’s probably heading for a main road.”

  He glanced at the digital map on her phone, then navigated quickly from one stop to the next as Roz strained to see in the dark.

  “Damn trucks have no signs on them,” she muttered as they got into more traffic. “How are we going to pick it out?”

  “The ones that were ready to go had cooling units on the top. Look for that.”

  “That’s weird,” she said. “Do drugs need to be kept cool?”

  “It could be just to throw people off. Or maybe they’re shipping ice cream.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “You’d like that, ice cream with your cop friend, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

  Roz laughed. “You can’t possibly be jealous of Jimbo.”

  “At least he’s convenient,” Alden said in clipped tones. “He’s not always trying to scoop you on a story.”

  “Are you?” she asked, taken aback.

  “No, my dear, or why would I be driving you on the wild goose chase du jour?”

  Roz caught sight of a truck and almost screamed. “There’s one!”

  Alden jumped. “Easy, girl. Where?”

  She pointed, and he turned.

  “That might be one of them,” he said. As they got closer, he sounded more interested. “I recognize that sticker.”

  “You saw a sticker in the dark?”

  “I saw it earlier on one of the parked trucks. See it?”

  Roz saw it. It was small, a black-and-white decal that showed a hand holding a gun with the words “BACK OFF!”

  “That’s comforting,” she said drily.

  “Look where it’s going,” Alden mused. “Mimosa Key.”

  Now Roz was really interested. “Don’t lose it.”

  They had just started over the causeway amid light traffic. “I won’t lose him now unless he transforms into a boat and plunges off the bridge.”

  “And don’t let him see you.”

  “That’s a little harder,” Alden said, but he backed off as the truck drove onto the island and continued west.

  “Maybe he’s just delivering supplies to the resort or the Super Min.”

  “A little late for deliveries.”

  “You’re right,” she said, a bit giddy. “They could be here for anything. I’m starting to get kind of excited.”

  “Hold that thought, sweetheart,” Alden said, shooting her a seductive smile as he turned left on Center, following the mysterious truck.

  ≈≈≈

  Alden enjoyed calling Roz “sweetheart.” Let her think it was a joke, a flashback to old-time newspaper lingo. Anyway, it was better to flirt than to admit he’d fucked up by falling asleep for so long.

  He allowed more distance between them and the truck as it trundled south on Center Street. There really weren’t that man
y places to go here on Mimosa Key, and it rolled through the businesses downtown, pausing only at the stop signs. In a few minutes, it was in the residential area, still heading south. After a couple of miles, it turned right. He kept going straight.

  “Alden, it’s turning!” Roz almost shouted.

  “I know. I don’t want him to know we’re following him. He might be testing us. There aren’t any other cars on this road.”

  “But we might lose it.”

  “The island gets narrower as we go south. I don’t think we’ll lose it.” Don’t fucking lose it, he told himself. He sped up, then stopped at the next stop sign. “Look right. Tell me if you see him.”

  They waited for a minute. “I see him, looks like three blocks over. He’s still going south.”

  “Good.” Alden waited a minute, then turned right, went two blocks and turned left. “We’ll parallel him. Keep your eyes peeled in case he doubles back.”

  They didn’t see the truck for several blocks, despite Alden ignoring speed limits. Finally, they saw it just ahead of them, still one block over, still heading south. They were getting into the Pleasure Pointe neighborhood, in the narrowest part of the island, where the roads began to curve, meandering past bigger lots with more palatial homes.

  “Where’s he going?” Roz asked.

  “We’re running out of road.”

  “Pleasure Pointe harbor, maybe.”

  “Maybe. I’m going to switch back to the main road,” Alden said. “If that’s where he’s going, he’ll have to switch, too.”

  “Hold up at the stop sign,” Roz said as he turned left and covered the short distance back to Center. They sat at the intersection and waited and watched. In a couple of minutes, a few blocks south of them, the truck turned right, heading toward the harbor. “It’s going to meet a boat!” Roz said excitedly as he turned.

  “Maybe.” Alden found himself more nervous than he cared to admit. If these were drug dealers, they wouldn’t take kindly to being watched by a couple of journalists. Or anyone, for that matter. “If it’s clear it’s going to the harbor, I’m going to park on the street a block away so we’re not so obvious.”

  “Good idea.”

  The truck headed into the marina, and Alden went south, then west again, and found a parking space on a shady street. He and Roz walked toward the harbor, entering on the northwest side through the pedestrian gate.

  “Where is it?” Roz whispered after they paused behind the sundries store, peering out into the poorly lit docks.

  “There are a couple slips down at the end that bigger boats use for loading. It probably went down the access road.”

  “Let’s go,” Roz said.

  “Carefully,” agreed Alden. “Let’s get over to the far side of the parking lot and walk from there. It’s darker, and we can still spot the truck.”

  They slipped into the grassy area under the palms and live oaks. Cautiously, they made their way deeper into the bushes and shadows, paralleling the parking lot until they spotted the truck. It was backed up to where a commercial fishing boat was docked. A couple of guys were opening the truck’s back door.

  “That makes some sense,” Alden said quietly as they paused behind a dense cluster of bamboo.

  “What?”

  “The boat looks just as nondescript as the truck, so it’s probably not from Consummate Catch,” he said, “which we might expect, since we saw one of these trucks actually delivering stuff to Consummate’s truck.”

  “But Consummate could be delivering the goods by sea, too,” Roz said.

  “I don’t think so. Look.”

  A handful of rough-looking guys had appeared on the deck of the boat, carrying a large box out of the hold.

  “What the hell is that?” Roz exclaimed.

  Alden grabbed her by the arm as one of the guys looked in their direction, and they ducked lower into the darkness. After a moment, the curious boatman went back to helping his mates carry the box into the truck.

  “Sorry,” Roz whispered.

  Alden couldn’t help himself. He kissed her cheek and put an arm around her. He really didn’t want her getting killed.

  “Are they speaking Spanish?” Roz asked after a minute as the men moved more boxes from the boat to the truck.

  “I think so. Not really a surprise in Florida. You thinking something more nefarious?”

  “You always hear about Mexican drug dealers. Just a thought.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Alden admitted. “This could all be completely innocent.”

  “Except they’re doing it all in the dark, in unmarked trucks and unmarked boats.”

  “So they suck at marketing,” he said.

  Roz clapped a hand over her mouth and made snuffling noises as she smothered a laugh. Alden felt like laughing, too, only there was that whole thing about not getting killed.

  “They’re closing up the truck,” she whispered. The boat was already revving up and heading out into the gulf.

  “I guess the show’s over,” Alden said.

  “Wait.” She grabbed his arm.

  The two guys from the truck were both standing by their vehicle, looking into the night. Toward them.

  Alden badly wanted to curse. Instead, he stayed very still, holding Roz, willing her to be still, too.

  One of the guys pulled a gun out of his waistband and walked toward them.

  Roz pinched Alden’s arm, and he could barely keep from crying out. He glared at her. She pointed frantically toward the road. That might be their only option for escape, but they would have to move through the trees to get there.

  The gunman was getting closer. The other guy was walking the nearby docks, looking around.

  Alden dearly hoped the trees and bushes would provide enough cover as they crouched and moved as quickly and quietly as they could toward the edge of the road. The only problem was that the road, though dimly lit by a street light, was still lit. But if they could get across it, they could disappear into the wild scrub on the other side.

  Roz froze, and he bumped into her. Her eyes were wide. He looked over his shoulder. The gunman was no more than ten yards away, peering into the darkness, almost looking right at them.

  A raucous cry broke the night as a shape crashed out of the underbrush. The gunman whirled and fired in the direction of the noise, away from the reporters. Alden yanked on Roz’s arm, and they sprinted across the street and into the shadows as the cacophony continued. Alden pulled Roz down into the foliage in the well of darkness on the other side of the road and looked back, breathless. A great blue heron was flapping wildly around the dock, screeching, and the other trucker — the one without the gun — was yelling at the gunman, gesturing emphatically toward the truck.

  The gunman took one last look around. Then, in apparent disgust, he took one more heedless shot at the poor heron, which shrieked its displeasure and flew off. The shooter trotted back to the truck to join his buddy. In moments, the vehicle was rolling out of the marina and back north.

  “Fuck me, that was close,” Alden said, sitting hard on the leaf-covered ground after the truck was out of sight.

  Roz panted as she dropped down next to him. “And we didn’t find out a goddamned thing.”

  “We found out that a truck connected with a company that has a connection with Consummate Catch picked up unknown cargo from an unknown boat.”

  “Well, that,” Roz said, “but that’s still not 1A material.”

  He laughed. “Oh, you want to actually write a story about this three-ring circus?”

  “Eventually, yeah.”

  Alden found this adorable. He found her adorable.

  He put an arm around her and kissed her warm lips, a light, tantalizing kiss that made him want so much more. But with rocks and branches under his ass, he was uncomfortable and not a little freaked out, and she was actually shivering. He brushed a strand of her escaped hair back behind one ear, and she granted him a small, tremulous smile.

  �
�Let’s go home,” she said.

  Home. A consummation devoutly to be wished, he thought, though Shakespeare was talking about something else entirely, a place they were a hair’s breadth away from tonight when they faced down that gun. He wasn’t ready to travel into that undiscovered country just yet.

  But home with Roz? That would be just fine.

  ≈≈≈

  When Roz got out of the shower wrapped in one of those fluffy Casa Blanca robes, Alden was slouching on the couch. With his ruffled wet hair, in a matching robe, he seemed especially handsome in the warm glow of the Moroccan-lantern-style lamp on the end table. He looked completely at ease, tapping on his phone, his feet perched on the coffee table. His soles sported scratches from their hike through the swamp. Funny she hadn’t noticed how big his feet were before — just one more detail she hadn’t had the time to take in. She barely knew him, and yet, she’d fallen into his hands like a baseball in a glove, snug, as if she knew she fit there.

  Though, she mused, she was certainly far from his first catch, given his Ivy League good looks and manifest sensuality. Plus there was the charm, charm she wasn’t quite sure she could trust.

  And then he glanced up from his phone, and his face broke into a wide, warm smile that made his gray eyes sparkle, and Roz allowed herself to forget her reservations.

  Alden put down his phone and poured her a glass of deep red wine from the bottle on the coffee table, then topped off his. She sat next to him and took the proffered glass, savoring the first sip. Definitely a higher quality than she was used to buying.

  “What is this?” she asked as he sipped his own.

  “One of my favorite cabernets. You like?”

  “Mmm.” She leaned back against the soft couch and closed her eyes. “So what was happening in the harbor tonight?”

  He chuckled. “You’re always working, aren’t you?”

  “In this case, working means trying to figure out who’s trying to kill me, so yeah, it’s kind of a priority.”

  “You’re safe here,” he said.

  “You sound so sure.”

  “I’m sure. Some kind of supermaid stopped me when I tried to ask questions around the resort earlier. If anything dangerous is in the offing, I feel confident the security staff will nip it in the bud.”