Echoes From The Water: (A Dangerous Waters Thriller Series: Book One)

by David Banner

  I turned to see a man walking out from inside the house. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, with blue-jean overalls and short-cropped gray hair. It was about that time that I thought maybe I needed to stop assuming what people looked like or how things were going to turn out. Because like just about everything from the past few days, he was not at all what I pictured.

  "Hey," Hope smiled, stood and wrapped her arms around him. "How've you been?"

  "What can I do for ya?" he answered, leaning against a large wooden column.

  "I need a couple new faces,” she said.

  "You," he said, pointing to her, "no problem. But not him."

  "What?" she said.

  "Mr. Waters here is all over the TV, all over the papers. The whole damned state is searching for him. Too much heat, I don't want that. Get him out of here,” he said, motioning his head toward the road.

  "Listen," she said. "I know its not your problem and I know you don't like this kinda thing. But we're desperate here."

  "Not my problem,” he said.

  "I'm asking you," she said. "Just this once."

  With that he lifted his rifle and pointed it right at my head. "Do you really wanna tell Sonny you had to clean this boy’s brains up from my porch, little darling?”

  "I can't tell Sonny anything,” she said. "And neither can you."

  The large man stood motionless for a long moment staring into Hope’s eyes. It was becoming clear to me they had some sort of history together, something that involved Sonny, I just wasn't sure exactly what that was.

  "I've got some fresh oysters," he said. "Had 'em delivered early this morning. Go up stairs, get yourselves looking right. We'll have a late dinner."

  "So, you'll do it?" Hope asked.

  "I'll do it, but you’re gonna have to do something for me in return. Something for me and for Sonny. By the way, the name's Jeff Halson,” he said to me, then turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A FEW MINUTES LATER I FOUND MYSELF IN A BEDROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF JEFF'S HOUSE. Hope had handed me a robe and told me to shower up and wait for her in the room. It wasn't until I got into the shower that I remembered the cabin. Running onto the porch and pushing Hope out of the way had caused the flames to lick my back. The hot water from the shower sent waves of heat and pain across my body to the point that it had become almost unbearable.

  That’s when I finally broke down and for a moment let the stress, both physical and mental, overtake me. The salt of my tears streamed down my face, mixing with the piping hot water. I thought about my mom, my dad, and my brother. About the promise I had made to Micah, the promise that I would do everything I could to free him, to get him out of that hell-hole he was currently trapped in for a crime he didn't commit.

  In a way, it felt good to give in, to finally allow myself to be upset. I had been so closed off to emotion for so long that I had almost forgotten what it felt like to actually feel. To actually miss my mom and dad, to actually look at my brother as his own person and not just an extension of me.

  I allowed my emotions to flow over me, every one of them. Then tried my best to let the water wash away the bad and for a little while at least, it worked. Stepping out and wiping the steam from the mirror I looked at my face, really looked for the first time in a long time. There was a little bit of every one of them in me. And that’s what I needed to keep reminding myself of. That was the fuel I needed to keep myself going and figure out the truth of all of this.

  I wrapped myself in the robe and sat on the edge of the bed waiting for Hope to come in and tell me what it was we were supposed to be doing. I knew our appearances needed to change, I just didn't know how drastic it needed to be or how exactly to go about it. But something in the way Hope spoke made me think she had been down this road before. Probably more than once.

  A short time later she came walking through the door and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The beautiful long-legged brown-haired woman I had spent the last day with was gone. In under an hour Hope had managed to change her appearance so drastically I barely recognized her. That is— until she spoke.

  "Hey," she smiled. "Feeling okay?"

  "Yeah," I said. "The shower helped."

  "We needed that." She smiled again.

  "You.. Look like a totally different person,” I said.

  "That’s the plan, right?" She sat on the bed next to me.

  No less beautiful, she looked plainer now, her long brown curls had been replaced with a short blond bob. Her makeup wasn't sexy anymore, instead her face somehow looked softer, younger. She looked like a college student, the kind of girl you'd see studying by herself under a tree or something.

  "We gotta get you looking a little better too,” she said waving a pair of scissors and an electric clipper in the air. "That hair... pretty as it might be has gotta go. Then we'll bleach whatever's left."

  "Okay,” I said.

  She grabbed a small stool from the bedside desk, pulled it into the bathroom and instructed me to sit down. It felt nice, having her fingers dance across my scalp as she pulled and folded my hair between her fingers. I watched her reflection in the mirror as she hummed a tune, a few times I even thought I saw her smile.

  Time passed easily for the next little while, with her slowly clipping away at my black hair and watching it fall to the floor all around me. She had a calming aura about her, more than I noticed the first time we met. And for a moment I let myself find comfort in it.

  "Lean forward,” she said. "I need to get the back of your neck."

  "Sure," I said, lowering my robe down to my waist.

  "Oh my God!" she said in a low voice. "Is that from—”

  "The cabin, yeah,” I said, realizing she must be looking at the burns I'd received during that whole ordeal.

  "From when you pushed me out of the way?" she asked, grazing the burns with the tips of her fingers.

  "Ah," I said, flinching a little. "Yeah. It's from the door."

  "You didn't have to do that you know!" she said, her eyes starting to tear up a little. "You didn't have to jump in. I would have been—”

  "You would have died,” I said. "I can heal from the burns. You can't just come back to life. Doesn't work that way. Its okay... We're both okay..."

  "What am I gonna do now?" Hope said, cupping her hands over her face and breaking down into a mess of tears. "He's gone, and he's not coming back."

  I didn't know what to say or what to do. "You don't have to come with me,” I said again.

  "Yes, I do,” she said. "I have to see who it was that thought it was okay to just take someone's life like that. He meant too much to me."

  "I know the feeling,” I said, a flash of Micah's face running through my mind.

  "And I know how much you meant to him too. I'm coming. What else am I going to do anyway?” she said, drying her eyes and walking back to me.

  I watched her in the mirror as she finished trimming my hair, she was sad and it wasn't hard to see. I watched her eyes keep darting down to my singed back but looking up and seeing me she always turned them away.

  "There are clothes in the closet,” she said. "I'm sure some of them will fit you. Jeff usually keeps a good bit of stuff on hand. I need to get all this hair swept up."

  "Thanks,” I said, making my way over to the closet.

  Riffling through I found a few shirts, a couple of hoodies, and some jeans. I pulled out a pair of the jeans and tossed them on the bed. Then I grabbed a brown t-shirt with a faded Chevrolet logo and a hoodie. I placed them on the dresser so I'd be ready to go in the morning.

  Walking to the bed I removed my robe and slid the jeans over my legs. I turned to Hope only to see her quickly avert her eyes as though she had been watching me and didn't want me to see her looking my way.

  "I feel bad about your back,” she said.

  "It’s fine,” I said.

  "I'm sure Jeff has some aloe in here somewhere or something,” she said, walking closer.
<
br />   "I'm fine, I'm telling you. I've been sunburned enough living in Florida to be able to handle it. It'll probably just start to peel off in a couple of days,” I said.

  "Did you ever stop to wonder what would happen if you had a normal childhood?” She said, running the tips of her fingers across my chest.

  "Not really. I did, for the most part. I mean by the time my parents vanished I was fifteen. It's the second half of my childhood that got hard. But you..." I said. "I can't imagine being alone from the start like that."

  "I wasn't always alone, I was usually pretty good at making friends and keeping myself busy,” she said, her finger tips tracing my navel.

  "I'm kinda seeing someone,” I said, taking her hand in my own. "A girl back in Miami."

  "You seem really sweet. She must be a smart girl,” she said.

  "She used to be a nurse,” I said. "But she quit after... Doesn't matter."

  "Right..." She smiled. "I wasn't trying. I just really don't wanna be alone tonight."

  "You don't have to,” I said, taking a pillow and tossing on the floor. "I call bottom bunk."

  For as shitty as the past few nights had been, that one passed by pretty easily. Hope and I stayed up half the night just talking about nothing. She told me about her wild times in her youth and I told her about raising my brother. We found common ground in the unusual days of our youth. It was nice to just stop for a minute and talk to someone, to really open up.

  But it was even better to see Hope do it. It was true I had only known her a couple of days, and half of that time had been spent running for our lives, but I had started to care for her. I had started to care about her wellbeing and what happened to her from there on. Hours passed with each of us just listening and learning about one another. But the longer the night went on, the reality of what was ahead of us began to set in.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  A S THE MORNING SUN BEGAN TO STREAM IN I WOKE TO FIND HOPE GONE. The bed was made and the hoodie I had set out the night before had been replaced with a full suit. A note sat next to it on the counter reading '”wear this”. At that point I had only worn a suit a handful of times, living in Florida, spending your days on the beach and your night eating oysters and drinking Coronas didn't really lend itself to a full-suit kind of lifestyle.

  It wasn't the best fitting thing I had ever worn in my life, but I guess that was to be expected for something Hope just pulled out of a closet. The shoulders were a little loose and the crotch was a little tight, but I could make it work if I had to. At least the shoes were the right size, I guess that was just dumb luck.

  "Looking good,” Hope said as I walked down the stairs.

  "Thanks," I smiled.

  The smell of bacon wafted through the air and I could hear the pop and sizzle coming from across the room. She was cooking my favorite breakfast and for whatever reason that made me stare at her just a beat too long.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Nothing,” I said. "I guess we need to get going."

  "Nope,” I heard Jeff’s voice echo from behind me. "I told you these didn't come for free."

  Jeff threw two manila envelopes on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. It had somehow managed to completely skip my mind, the fact that we had come here to get new identities. I guess I slept better than I had realized seeing as how it made me forget about the man completely.

  "I'm going to make this easy for you. The both of you are heading to Anna Maria Island, right?" he asked.

  "Yes," I replied.

  "Well, I just need you to make a quick stop. There's an attorney there by the name of Johnathon Hall. He's in the middle of building a case against me, been doing a lot of snooping around. I need you two to get into his office and destroy those files,” he said.

  "Files?" I asked. "Like from a cabinet."

  "No," he said more than a little irked. "Not from a cabinet, they're digital files. I know he uses come kind of cloud-based backup system." He turned to Hope. "I need the whole thing wiped. Clouds, servers... whatever. Anything that he can use for leverage against me."

  "What do they have on you?" I asked.

  "There was a property dispute with a neighbor of mine,” he said. "Didn't end so well for him. Now his sister in Virginia is paying that douchebag lawyer to look into the whole thing. I heard he's been poking around, talking to a lot of my old contacts and asking a lot of questions. I can't have him doing that, but I don't want any unnecessary blood on my hands if I can help it and since you two owe me a favor I thought it'd be perfect for both of us."

  "Yes," I said. "First let me—”

  "No," he interrupts. "First this. And it has to be done during business hours. They're using some kind of new security that disconnects from the network after business hours. The first guy I sent wasn't able to do it. But I have faith in Hope."

  "Can we do it later I just need to figure out—” I said.

  "You come into my house, asking me for favors, then tell me you can't do them when I need them done?" he said in a low, angry tone. "How about this. You have forty-eight hours to get this done, or I come looking for you too."

  "Okay," Hope interrupts.

  "Hope, you understand, baby." He smiles at her. "Business is business."

  "I know..." she said, looking at me. "We should get moving."

  "I packed you a bag,” Jeff said.

  He picked up a small black duffle and sat it on the table. Hope unzipped it to find a few pistols and knives along with a bottle of chloroform and some rope. In that moment I got the sinking feeling that maybe I had gotten myself in a little too deep, but there was no turning back now. A few minutes later we were out the door and on the road, only this time Hope drove and I road shotgun.

  I knew it would be long until we reached Anna Maria Island and the thoughts of crossing over that bridge again made me nervous. Hope had done her best to change my appearance, but I wasn't sure how much good it would do. I was still me, just with shorter lighter hair and an ill-fitting suit. There was nothing I could do but hope they had stopped looking for me.

  But with a woman dead on the kitchen floor of the house I now owned I doubt they had given up just yet, especially given the fact that Micah was still in jail. I wanted so badly to tell her to stop and let me call him, or at the very least, Rachel. But I knew that was a bad idea, at this point they were probably waiting for me to contact my brother. I wouldn’t even doubt them keeping an eye on Rachel.

  Not that I could blame them. In their eyes we were nothing more than two brothers who, at the news of their parents being declared dead, immediately lost their shit and murdered two innocent women for no reason at all. If I were them I'd be upset too. But I still couldn't imagine who on Earth would try to frame me and my brother for murder, or why.

  What I did know though was that the police wouldn't try and figure it out. They had already made their minds up about Micah and I, and I knew the only way to change that was with proof of what actually happened. I needed proof of who was actually responsible for all of this.

  "What are you thinking about?" Hope asked.

  "Everything,” I said. "Everything and nothing all at the same time."

  "How's your back?" she asked, likely trying her best to shake me loose from the thoughts she could obviously see weighing me down.

  "It's beginning to numb out a little bit, I wouldn't worry too much about it,” I said. "How 'bout you, how you doing?"

  "I'm okay, but I'll be better once we find the assholes that blew up my cabin,” she said.

  "So I guess that’s why we're dressed like this?" I said, looking at the navy-blue suit she was wearing.

  "Yeah," she said. "He told me before you came downstairs. But he was a lot easier to talk to than I was expecting. I guess the news about Sonny mellowed him out a little. But I'm sure it won't last."

  "Were they close?" I asked.

  "Been friends as long as I can remember,” she said.

  "Yeah,” I replied. "I can imagine."<
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  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I T WASN'T LONG BEFORE WE WERE CROSSING THE BRIDGE ONTO ANNA MARIA ISLAND. I had given Hope specific instructions to stay clear of my house. I couldn't be sure, but I bet someone still had eyes on that place. I just wasn't sure which side of the law was keeping it guarded. I looked down each alley and around every corner as we made our way down the small streets. But I didn't see any police officers, no black SUVS with dark windows, nothing. It all looked pretty calm, but somehow, I doubted that was actually the case.

  Hope pulled the car to a stop and, just down ahead of us, I could see the sign for the Johnathon Hall Law Firm. It didn't look like much, not very fancy. But nothing on Anna Maria Island did really. Had the island not been so small, we probably would have overlooked it, but from what I could tell it was the only law firm in town so we were bound to stumble across it whether we were looking for it or not.

  "Here's how we're gonna play this,” she said. "I'll go in, copy the data onto this flash drive then wipe the server. Depending on the security and encryptions it should take between one and five minutes. From the look of this place though, I doubt it will be much of an issue. "

  "And me?" I asked.

  "You've gotta get Johnathon out of that office. There's a side door, just make sure you get it open first. Here, take this. It’s a chloroform soaked rag. In case things go south,” she said.

  "Okay," I said. "Just tell me when you're ready."

  "Ready,” she replied.

  Getting out of the car and walking toward the law firm I felt just the smallest bit out of my element. I had lied to people many times, tricked people into believing something was true. I had taken thousands of dollars in pool games and dart competitions, all from convincing people. I had no idea what I was doing while in actuality I had been playing for years.

  But this was different, this had the weight of the world on its shoulders and my actions and the repercussions from them meant more than a few bucks. They meant the chance to free my brother, not to mention clear my own name.