The Paradise Key (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 5)

by Nick Thacker

  I gave it a stir and brought it to my lips, then noticed that the brother, Daniel, was gone.

  “Went to get a hotel,” she said. “We were just driving through, but someone at the airport mentioned we should check this place out if we had time.”

  I frowned. Both because there weren’t many outsiders who actually recommended stopping in Edisto, but also because we were at the end of the map. No one is ‘just driving through.’ Edisto Beach is a town of about 400 situated at the end of highway 174, which itself is a meandering small highway stretching twenty miles down from 17 that bends out of Charleston. I told her as much.

  “We flew into Charleston and were going to try to make it all the way to Hunting Island, but the rental car company at the airport was about as competent as TSA at the airport. But we saw a sign for a bed and breakfast, and we didn’t know how far it was to town.”

  I nodded. I’d seen that sign off the side of 17, just before the exit onto 174. “Yeah, that place is old Marley’s and his wife’s. Decent stay, I hear.”

  We let the pleasantries die and suddenly I felt the weight from her gaze.

  “Are we… are we going to talk about that?” she asked.

  “I just want to know if you knew that guy.”

  She shook her head, looking down. “No, I’ve never seen him. I thought — I thought he just came out to smoke or something, but then…”

  “Hey,” I said, “it’s okay now. I’m going to take care of it.”

  “You called the police?”

  I scoffed. “Hell no.” Realizing I’d picked my voice up a few too many notches, I glanced around to make sure the oldies were still satisfied with their brews and looked back at her. “Sorry. No, I didn’t. And I won’t. Something like that happens around here, in a town this size, it’d be the end of this place.”

  “But —“

  “But nothing. I’m not asking for your input on this one. I said we’re taking care of it, and —“

  “You said you’re taking care of it.”

  I sighed. Dammit. “Yeah, Joey’s helping. He’s… good with this stuff.”

  “He’s done this before?”

  “No, I — I meant…” Shit, this girl’s going to break me. “I meant he was in the Navy, and had a rough background. I don’t know, I guess he’s just not as uncomfortable with stuff like this.”

  “And you?” she asked.

  “And me what?”

  “Are you ‘comfortable?’ with stuff like this?”

  I squeezed one eye closed just a bit as I stared at her. I didn’t want to give her anything, but it seemed like she’d already pulled it out of me.

  “No. You’re never comfortable with shit like this. You just do it, because, well, that’s what you do.”

  “That’s what you do.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  She studied me for a few more seconds, then smiled. “You were good out there.”

  “Well, good thing, or we’d both be dead.”

  “No, I mean, did you see the way he fought? It was calculated, like he was… like he was a professional.”

  I stopped, putting the drink back down.

  “Yeah, I picked up on that. Wasn’t as easy to put down as some of the stray dogs we get.”

  “You do this a lot?” she asked.

  She was in now, and she knew it.

  “I do. More than I’d like, but I’m good at it.”

  She nodded slowly, processing. She brought the cosmopolitan up to her lips and took a deep, long sip. “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay,” she said again. “You’re hired.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, confused. “I’m what?”

  “You’re hired. This is what you do, right?”

  “I don’t think you really know anything about what I do.”

  “That guy was going to kill me. You stopped it. Then you said you’d take care of it, and you won’t get the cops involved.”

  “Yeah…” I said.

  “So,” she replied quickly, “I’m looking for someone like you. Someone who can help me. And I’ve got money.”

  I took in another swig of the cocktail, enjoying the perfect balance between the ingredients. Even the ice tasted great, releasing the water into the drink at just the right tempo. Man, what I wouldn’t give to just sit here and drink these for the rest of my life.

  I sighed again, then looked longingly into the top of the glass. “I’m not for sale.”

  “I have a lot of money.”

  This time I looked at her, trying to figure her out. She winked at me.

  “Not interested. I don’t even know your —“

  “Hannah,” she said, interrupting. “Hannah Rayburn, and you already met my brother Daniel.”

  I smiled. “I like that. Always have liked that name. We used to think… maybe if we’d —“ I stopped. I didn’t know her too well, so I didn’t want to get into it now. Hannah had been the top of our list of girls’ names, but we’d never had a chance to settle down and procreate.

  She smiled back, seemingly knowing what I was trying to say. “Thanks. My father, Bradley Rayburn, apparently loved that name. He liked word games, puzzles, things like that, so he wanted me to have a name that reminded him of that. ‘Hannah.’ It’s a palindrome. Spelled the same backward and forward.” She choked up a bit, but kept plowing ahead. “That’s actually why we’re passing through. To get to his funeral.”

  “Sorry to hear about your old man,” I said.

  “It’s okay. I mean, we weren’t too close. He and Daniel were closer, and they worked together. He — my dad, I mean — he wasn’t the best role model, I guess.”

  “Yeah, seems like that’s one thing we got in common.”

  “Yours is still alive?” she asked.

  “Yeah, for now.”

  I stood there, across from this gorgeous woman, drinking together and just sitting in the… whatever it was we were feeling, for another five minutes. There were questions I had, like why they’d really stopped here on a whim, coming all the way down from 17 instead of plowing on another hour and getting to Hunting Island. Or, for that matter, why there was a funeral on Hunting Island. Last I’d checked, the island was nothing but a state park, no houses or private property anywhere on it. I kept silent, trying to maintain a bit of distance. It was an old habit I had, and it had worked out for the best more often than not.

  She almost dropped her glass, as if realizing that her brother might return at any moment and catch us in the act of catching up.

  “Listen,” she started again, “you can’t say anything about this to him. To Daniel. It’ll crush him.”

  “I don’t make a habit of sharing the details of my moonlighting gig.”

  “Good. Thing is, and this is what I want to hire you for, I think… I think my father was murdered.”

  I cocked my head to the side a bit.

  “He was in with some people I don’t think he trusted. It was kind of the nature of his work, but I always just thought no one at that level trusted anyone else. It was sort of the cost of entry.”

  “And what was his line of work?”

  “Importing.”

  I waited, expecting her to continue. She didn’t.

  “So will you do it?”

  “What exactly do you want me to do? I’m not a private investigator, Hannah. I can’t just — just start looking around and hope to find some guy that killed your dad.”

  “I know,” she said. “I know that’s not what you do. But if we could find them, if we could just figure out who did do it, then you could…” She looked at me those damn eyes again.

  “Yeah,” I said. “If we find them, then I could.”

  7

  DANIEL CAME BACK IN FIFTEEN minutes later, ready to collect his kid sister for their trip to Marley’s B&B for the night, but she met him at the door. They exchanged animated whispers for a minute, then she came traipsing back over to the bar while he departed.


  I raised an eyebrow.

  “He wasn’t terribly enthused about my staying out late,” she said. “But I told him you and I wanted to catch up a bit.”

  “How’d he take it?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how much she told him, or how she pitched it. I didn’t want to push it, but I also wanted to play the part.

  “He thinks something’s up,” she said.

  I raised the eyebrow even farther, adding a little head cock to underscore my confusion.

  “He think’s something’s up with us,” she said. “I didn’t tell him anything about that body in the back.”

  I knew Joey would have cleaned up the body by now and would be just about to the center of the bay, ready to fishbait the sucker, but something else she’d said caught my ear. “Something’s up with us?”

  “Stop. I let him believe that. You know, old high school flame or something. Younger gal takes an interest in a much older guy. Never was okay back then, but now? It can pass.”

  “No, you stop. Much older? And what do you mean, ‘it can pass?’ If I wanted…”

  This time she played the part of confused bystander. “If you wanted to what, mister…”

  I realized I hadn’t told her my name. I thought for a moment, wondering if I should give her a ruse, just to make sure we were safe. I examined her face once again, looking for any tell that she wasn’t who she said she was. Like I explained, I’m really good at figuring this stuff out. So when the ‘examining’ became nothing more than ‘checking her out,’ I decided to go with the real deal.

  “Mason. Mason Dixon.”

  She waited. “Wait, really? Mason Dixon?”

  I nodded.

  I thought she might launch into a tirade about my name, but she loosened her expression and went on. “And I didn’t mean anything by it, I just don’t appreciate the ‘old guy’ jokes. You don’t even know how old I am.”

  “I’m going to guess you’re thirty-eight.”

  I almost spit out my drink. For one, she was ten years off. Second, I knew I looked ten years older than thirty-eight. Hell, I might even look older than forty-eight. I had pockmarks from long-ago scars, scratches that even lit napalm couldn’t smooth, and a nose that could sink the Titanic. And that was just my face.

  “So, no?”

  “No. Not even close. But thanks.”

  I took a moment to take stock in what was happening. There was a girl, a woman, a lady with the southern charm and common decency I typically find lacking in modern society, apparently with money, apparently with a request only someone like me could fulfill, and she was standing in my bar. In a town of 400 people, interested in me.

  Interested in me.

  That’s when I knew I was off-base. I was assuming things that weren’t true — they couldn’t be true. She’d said it herself: I was way too old for her and the only reason she’d stayed behind after her brother left was that we’d had a shared experience. That experience, of course, had been a potentially life-changing and traumatic one.

  I backed it down a notch. No one’s ever accused me of being a ‘nice guy,’ but I’ve definitely been labeled a flirt. It’s just my nature, though. I’m going to joke with the waiter or waitress, and I’m especially going to appreciate any attention tossed my way by the opposite sex.

  “You want to guess mine?” she asked.

  “Not really, no.”

  She scrunched up her face in a way I assumed she thought would make it uglier, but it backfired horribly.

  “I have a rule that I don’t guess ages and I don’t guess if they’re pregnant.”

  “I’m not pregnant.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you were.”

  “Come on,” she said. “Give it a shot. You’ll be surprised.”

  I listened to her voice and watched her eyes. Of course I wanted to guess; I’d already started. I just didn’t want to guess out loud, as that’s when we get into the most trouble. But the voice and the eyes usually tell you everything you need to know about a person — not just age.

  Her voice wasn’t high like the schoolgirls, or thin like the city chicks, but somewhere deeper and thicker than those. It sounded like she was from somewhere nearby, like she’d grown up in this hellhole and escaped at a young enough age to go have a life and experience the world.

  And her eyes — those eyes. My God, if my nose could push a laser-guided missile off course her eyes could correct it. They were big, fluffy, and brown in a way that I didn’t know brown could be. They had a sadness to them, not surprisingly, but they also had a sharpness. A wit I knew I matched with my own baby blues.

  “Twenty-five,” I said.

  “You’re an asshole. Give me a real guess.”

  “Twenty —“

  “No,” she said. “Come on.”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “Thirty… three?”

  She laughed. “I’m thirty-nine.” She said it and then looked away and peaked her upper lip in the corner like she was disgusted with herself. “Ugh. Thirty-nine. Almost forty. Can you imag —“

  She cut herself off, but I was laughing. “Yeah, I can imagine. It’s not so bad, really. Feels a lot like the other ones. It’s really about who you’re with.”

  “Who were you with that prevented your midlife crisis, then?” she asked.

  I took a sharp stab at the remaining old fashioned in my glass, then mopped up an invisible spill with my trusty rag. “My wife,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything, so I thought I should clarify a bit. “I buried her on my fortieth.”

  She opened her mouth, but then closed it quickly. I liked her; she didn’t like to be rude. She came up to the bar and sat; I hadn’t even noticed that we were standing close to each other, on the side of the room, until she started moving. She pulled up and dropped her head down a tiny bit, just enough to let me know.

  “It’s not a —“

  “It’s a big deal,” she said. “I’m so… I’m so sorry.”

  “Really,” I said. “I’m over it.” That was true. “I’m a different man because of it.” That was not true.

  She pushed her glass out and toward me. I guess without even realizing it I’d come across the bar and took up my post, the drink sentinel once again. I grabbed it and started mixing.

  “Wait,” she said. “What’s that — what are you drinking?”

  “Old fashioned.”

  She frowned.

  “Historically it was just whatever spirit the bartender has on hand, sweetened up a little, with a dash of bitters thrown on top and some cool water. Folks would come into the tavern and ask for ‘their medicine’ — the bitters — but they’d need it smoothed out a bit to help it go down. I like them, but I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit from the good ‘ol days, since we’re working with far better spirits. And we have ice. Still, it’s a good drink. ‘Sposed to be medicinal.”

  She smiled at me again. “I could use some medicine. I’ll take one of those.”

  8

  I POURED THE DRINKS AND we spent the rest of the night at the bar, just talking. Talking in a way that brought me back to the first days I’d opened, fifteen years ago, when the oldies weren’t nearly so old and they’d come in asking for drinks that made my soul grow.

  ‘Whiskey Smash’ meant something back then, and it wasn’t just a name on top of a description on a menu. It had oomph, real impact, a true drink that meant something. ‘Martini’ came with a set of preferences. James Bond would have gotten an earful trying to get me to shake his vermouth and gin, but he’d have eventually listened because I would have made him listen.

  The conversations back then were as pure as the drinks. Even ten years ago. They would come in, heading right toward me — they never knew me — but they knew what they wanted, and I respected that. They had it in mind and on taste buds already. I could see it in their eyes. They salivated, knowing I could whip it up ‘just the same way so-and-so used to,’ and they tipped me well for doing it that way.

  It was never abo
ut the money. It helped, but money was always a grace note to the larger orchestra hit. Seeing them swoon over a perfectly poured cocktail after I’d slaved over it, never grabbing for the unopened bottles of mixers (cheaters) that lay within reach, never allowing even a minuscule piece of pulp through my juice strainer into the glass, was what I did it for. I knew they’d appreciate the taste, even if they couldn’t understand the process, but back then a few of them even asked about that, too. They wanted to know how I did it, how I took an egg white and some fruits and made them mad about a new whiskey I’d just gotten in.

  Talking to Hannah brought me back to that. I knew I’d help her even before we discussed price. Most people can’t afford me since I’d never done this sort of thing, but something told me she could, even if I changed my mind and did decide to charge her. She brought me back to the days when I could just stand at my tower and look out, talking to those who understood, ignoring the idiots who didn’t.

  Most of the marks were idiots, and I told her that. They came in confused, not really sure how they’d gotten there, but that was to be expected. I knew, but they didn’t. Simple as that. They’d walk in, frown a bit as their eyes adjusted to the brighter light than outside, then they’d sit down and start drinking. Or talking. Sometimes both, if I was really unlucky.

  But I didn’t tell her about the token.

  I couldn’t — how could I?

  The token was the coup de grace of it all; it was the last piece of the puzzle. The requisite designation that told me what I needed to know, even though I always tried to verify it for myself. Most of the time they’d slump it onto the table like it was an archaic gold piece, capable of getting them whatever they wanted. In their minds they lived in a world in which they could get what they wanted, and this was just another form of currency.

  I didn’t tell her about it because I was terrified of it. The token hadn’t been on the mark’s person. That was a first. It was always on their person. Somewhere, even if it was wedged between a sweaty sock and the sole of a shoe, it was always there. They sometimes forgot to ‘spend’ it with me, but they always had it.