Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller)

by S. G. Redling

  “I was just going to say the same thing.”

  “About not thinking this through?”

  “About not sleeping much.” He smoothed the cheap sheets along the aluminum frame. “Beds are just sort of a prop for me these days.”

  “I sleep on the kayak dock.” She tipped her head out toward the inlet. “Well, I lie on it and close my eyes for a while at least.”

  He lay back, unfolding himself and stretching long, the old cot barely creaking under his graceful motion. He stared up into the low ceiling beams. “It’s weird, isn’t it? This? Me being here. When you think about it, we hardly even know each other and yet you are the only person I’ve wanted to see for months. I have a confession to make.”

  Dani didn’t trust herself to speak. She crossed her legs, folding herself up small, and waited for him to keep talking. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry and when he did speak, she could barely hear him over the calls of the birds and rustle of the hot breeze through the date palms.

  “When I couldn’t find you, when I couldn’t find anyone with your name in Oklahoma”—he closed his eyes and Dani had to lean forward to hear him—“I thought . . . I started to think that maybe you were in on it too.”

  She nearly fell forward, her disbelief coming out in a short, hard breath.

  He draped his arm over his eyes. “I didn’t know what to think. I knew I had to be careful. I couldn’t go on a full-blown search for you. Feds were watching; my family was watching. I was busy kicking that whole brain-melting drug slavery thing they’d gifted me with. Maybe that’s what made me paranoid, but I kept thinking about Rasmund and how we’d worked in that building where they were torturing political prisoners. Torturing them right under our feet. Right under our noses and we never knew. I never knew.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I know. I know that now. I knew it then.” He raised himself up on his elbows and looked at her. “I did. It’s just that I was in there for so long and you were gone. They kept asking me these questions about you. I don’t know if they were trying to plant seeds in my mind, playing some sort of fucked-up game to keep us from connecting again, or if I was just pissed off and needing someone to be mad at. Someone who didn’t hold my life in their hand. And then I couldn’t find you in Oklahoma. You said you were going back to Oklahoma, and I couldn’t find any trace of you there. I thought either you’d lied to me or that they’d done something to keep you from getting to Oklahoma.” He dropped back down on the cot, shaking his head. “And I can’t even tell you which one of those two was a worse thought to dwell on.”

  “I couldn’t find you either.”

  He nodded. “But I didn’t see you get shot.”

  He let the words hang there. Dani watched him lie still, his breathing even, his beautiful face smooth. Of all the things she’d expected to feel with Choo-Choo, anger wasn’t one of them.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means the last thing I saw was our boss ordering someone to pull the trigger. And I keep going back to those long phone conversations you kept having with Tom, the man our boss hired to kill us all. We were running for our lives and I heard you tell Tom that you trusted him. He was hired to kill us and you chatted with him over and over again that night.”

  “I didn’t ‘chat’ with him, Choo-Choo.” She gripped the edge of the counter, lowering her feet toward the ground. Ready to pounce on him. Punch him, pound on him, erase his suspicion with blood and broken bones. “You have no idea what happened that night.”

  “Tell me.”

  So she did. She told him everything.

  She told him how Tom Booker, with his crisp white shirt and beautiful blue eyes, had shot their boss in front of her, then bantered with Dani like that cold, bloody night was a date. She told him how she’d run, her leg wounded from a ricochet, until he caught up with her at the Tidal Basin, pinned her against the wall. She spared no detail about the heat coming off of his body and the look in his eyes and the weird, hideous sense of seduction he’d given his threats.

  She told him about the knife he thrust at her, stopped only by the Kevlar pouch she’d refused to leave behind, and how he’d then wrapped that pouch’s strap around his neck to give her a chance to kill him before he killed her. She told him how soft his lips had felt underneath her thumb when she’d touched him, how he thought she had surrendered. And then she told him about throwing herself over the railing into the Tidal Basin to break Tom Booker’s neck.

  Then she stopped talking.

  Choo-Choo sat up straight, his eyes wide. “You killed him?”

  She dropped her gaze. “I thought I did. I wanted to. Maybe I did, but they told me I didn’t. They told me he lived.”

  “They lie. Do you think he’s dead?”

  When she looked back up he was staring at her, leaning forward toward her. “It doesn’t feel like it when I try to sleep. Or when I walk into the bar and there’s a crowd and anyone has dark hair. Or when I hear footsteps behind me at night. Or when a cell phone rings.”

  He smiled. “So sleeping arrangements won’t be a problem then.”

  8:10am, 89° F

  “You cannot expect me to call a grown man Choo-Choo.”

  “Why not?” Dani looked him in the eye. “You call a grown man Rolly.”

  “That is not even in the same crazy-name ballpark, and you know it.” Rolly, watching through the kitchen window, appeared to take some satisfaction in this. But then Rolly held up an egg sandwich for the pretty boy, and Oren surrendered. Why did he always feel like he had the least authority of anyone at this bar? “Sure, why not? Let’s feed him. Let’s give him a home and a job and maybe I can write him into my will.”

  He wanted to sound angrier, but the smile on Dani’s face made that impossible. That was her real smile, not like that whatever-it-was with Caldwell. Of all the employees he’d ever had, she had done the most work with the least trouble. She wouldn’t even let him improve the shack she slept in. If Dani wanted to find a way to cohabitate with some slick-as-snot pretty boy, so be it.

  “But I’m not calling him or anyone Choo-Choo.”

  “That’s okay, boss.” Dani grabbed the plate. “He probably wouldn’t answer anyway.”

  He watched her slide the plate before her friend, the two of them leaning over the food close enough to nearly touch foreheads. “You’ve still got to work my meeting this morning,” Oren reminded her. “Ten thirty. I may need you to do, you know, what you do.” She looked up long enough to nod. “Because this is all getting weird, you know? Something isn’t right. This Bermingham is—” Rolly turned up the radio in the kitchen, and Oren sat back and looked around the bar. “Is anyone listening to me?”

  8:14am, 89° F

  Dani set Choo-Choo up with a gin and tonic. She knew Mr. Randolph wouldn’t mind the tab, and Choo-Choo reasoned that the quinine would keep him from getting malaria. The idea of morning cocktails didn’t seem to strike him as unusual at all. He looked relaxed at the bar, that weird hardness she’d seen on his face on Martha’s Vineyard slipping just a shade. Maybe it was because she was relaxing for the first time in months. Here at Jinky’s, now with Choo-Choo safe in her sights, it felt like she might just be able to plan on something other than running and hiding for the rest of her life.

  When she saw the tall silhouette in the doorway off the deck, she felt that optimism grow. Tucker didn’t look directly at her as their paths met at the far corner of the bar, but she could see those dimples trying to open up where he worked to keep his face neutral. She slid a napkin in front of him.

  He settled on the barstool with an awkward arrangement of long legs and arms and elbows and knees that made Dani laugh. He pointedly didn’t look at her, instead perusing the liquor shelf, but his dimples finally broke free. She had to resist the urge to push a soft lock of brown hair back from his forehead as he leaned in and whispered.

  “So what do they drink on Martha’s Vineyard?”

  “I don’t know. I di
dn’t stick around to find out.”

  “Oh, just took your excuse to dodge me and ran with it?”

  Dani leaned forward on her elbows. “Really? You think that’s what I did?”

  “I don’t know.” He finally looked her in the eye, his smile teasing. “You were in a pretty big hurry to get away from me yesterday.”

  “I had to do something important, and last night was my only chance to do it.”

  “Something important, huh? Important enough to fly all the way to Massachusetts? Must have been really important. So I take it that there’s more to Dani Britton than just good legs and cold beer. What?” He leaned back from the bar. “Did I say something wrong?”

  She glued a smile in place. “How did you know my last name?”

  “Uh, you told me?”

  “No.” She tried to keep her tone casual, the fact-checker in her brain running through their conversation yesterday. She forced her fingers not to grip the edge of the bar. She knew she hadn’t told him her last name; her habit of keeping personal information to an absolute minimum was a hard-worn habit. “I didn’t tell you.”

  Tucker covered his eyes with his hand, squinting as he rubbed his brow. Dani’s neck tensed to the point of aching until he lowered his hand and stared seriously at her.

  “There is a better-than-average chance that I might be stalking you.” He held up his thumb and forefinger. “Just a little bit.” When she didn’t laugh with him, he looked embarrassed. “Okay, I asked your boss, the guy with the white hair. Is that your dad? Because he didn’t exactly gush information about you. I asked him if you were seeing anyone and he said if I didn’t have the stones to ask you myself, I probably didn’t have the stones to go out with you. I’m not really sure what that means. Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Divorced? Crazy ex?”

  “No.”

  Tucker leaned in. “Are you gay?”

  “What? No.”

  “Are you a man?” He leaned in closer. “Were you a man?”

  Dani laughed. “No. I’m not a man.”

  “Whew.” Tucker rested his chin in his palm, considering her. “Then why would it be so scary to go out with you? Hmm? Or were you doing something incredibly wicked in Boston?”

  “It was Martha’s Vineyard and it was no big deal. I just had to get a friend of mine.” She tipped her head in Choo-Choo’s direction. “A friend.”

  He squinted at her with mock seriousness. “Good, because I think you’re really cute. And I’m not good at this, you know. I work all the time. I’m always traveling. All the women I meet are clients or coworkers and everyone’s got business cards and resumes. And yours is the first thigh I’ve ever eaten mango salad off of.” Dani felt her face warm. “And it would really, really suck if you were shady. Or a guy.”

  Dani shook her head. “Well, speaking of cute, you are very cute. And you’re here very early. I thought you rode in on the Lady of Spain yesterday.”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “My buddy Ned and I were just checking out the Keys between client calls. We decided to crash here last night.”

  “Here? At the camp? Uh-oh. That means I didn’t make up your room.”

  Tucker made a scary face. “No, that biker chick did. Well, she handed us a key and threw a stack of sheets at us. I figured we were lucky to get out alive.”

  Dani laughed. “Have a beer with me. Beer for breakfast. My treat.” She grabbed two Coronas from the cooler, ignoring Tucker’s flicker of disapproval at her choice. “Drink it. It won’t kill you. You don’t even have to have the lime if you don’t want.”

  He sighed dramatically. “The things I do for you.” They clinked bottles and drank deep. “So you flew all the way to Martha’s Vineyard for what? That guy? Who’s not your boyfriend?”

  “He’s a friend and he needed me so I went to get him.”

  Tucker leaned forward on his elbows once more, coming close to Dani’s face. “So if you and I become friends, will you come flying in to save me?”

  Now it was Dani’s turn to be coy. She rolled the bottle on its edge. “I don’t know. He and I are really good friends.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “We could be really good friends too, right? I mean, I’m only here until Friday so we’ll have to get kind of serious about, you know, getting to know each other.”

  “Until Friday, huh? Tomorrow? That’s not very long. And don’t you have to work?” When he shrugged, she nudged his hand with hers, letting her knuckles rest against his. “What is it you do, anyway, that sends you down here and calls it business?”

  “My job? Look, when I say I want to sleep with you it doesn’t mean I want to put you to sleep. Oh my God.” He set his bottle down hard. “Was that rude? I totally didn’t mean for that to come out like that. I am so sorry.”

  Dani’s stomach tightened with a delicious twist as she giggled. This guy was absolutely adorable and she had never really cared for adorable guys before. He looked so embarrassed by his comment and she started to wonder how long it had been since she’d seen anyone show anything like modesty or decorum or even just social nicety. For years she’d worked with spies—she’d thought they were just corporate spies, but nonetheless—watching people who were probably committing corporate espionage. Before that had been skeevy bars in Oklahoma and before that summers in a truck with her dad. No scenes in her life had ever been populated by long-legged, floppy-haired, dimple-faced sweet guys who blushed at being too forward.

  She could get used to this.

  Tucker struggled to get the conversation back on track. “Yeah, so my job—I guess you could say a lot of it is data analysis.”

  “Oh!” She caught herself before blurting out that she used to have a similar job. That wasn’t a conversation she wanted to start. She started to say something instead about how interesting that sounded when she saw movement at the other end of the bar.

  She could only manage one word.

  “Shit.”

  Agent Crawford had his arm around Choo-Choo.

  8:45am, 91° F

  “I’ve got to keep Dani out of this meeting.” Oren pushed his empty glass between his fingers. “She’s got a good head on her shoulders but I think these guys are just too unpredictable.” Caldwell made a strange humming sound. “I know that sound. That’s your bullshit-on-the-horizon warning.”

  “I’m not saying bullshit, Oren.” The agent kept his voice as low as Oren’s so they wouldn’t be overheard by Dani’s blond friend sitting several seats away. “I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there’s something not one hundred percent aboveboard with your girl.”

  “What did you find? I know you ran a background check. What is it?”

  “Nothing.” Caldwell looked Oren in the face. “Nothing.”

  “And? The absence of evidence proves what?”

  The agent sighed. “If I do a check on you with the Bureau, I’ll find your arrest records. I know because I’ve checked. There’s also all the other stuff—employment history, contact info, driver’s license stuff. The usual, but your file gets a special little flag because of your checkered history. We have tons of files like that.”

  “And Dani?”

  “Danielle Kathleen Britton, twenty-eight, of Flat Road, Oklahoma. No arrests, no convictions, no felonious associations.”

  “Sounds treacherous.”

  Caldwell seemed to measure his words. “Sounds perfectly harmless. I’m just thinking about a good girl like that finding this impossible-to-find place and working so hard for so little. I know how much you pay, you cheap bastard, yet here she is. Loyal and good. And well-established when a new bad guy decides to move in on Vincente.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Bermingham, the new big gun coming down from the north. Nobody knows him. He seems to get into places nobody gets into and leaves untouched. Your girl shows up and so does Bermingham.”

  “Six months later.”

  “After you’ve
exposed Dani to most of your usual business associates.” He nodded at Oren. “I know about you using her to work your meetings. I’ve heard some stories. It seems like she has some other skills besides bartending. All I’m saying is be careful. Watch for things that don’t add up. Like the deal being moved down here instead of going down in Miami.”

  “Vincente changed the plans, not the Canadian.”

  “And you know this how?” Caldwell asked. “Because you overheard Juan Wheeler say so? How informed do you think the Wheelers really are? And just out of curiosity, was Dani around during that phone call? When Juan passed you money?”

  “No.” Oren shook his head. “I mean, she brought us drinks. It’s her job.”

  “Uh-huh. Okay. Then you have nothing to worry about. But watch for signs. Don’t let your guard down because she’s little and cute. Little and cute can still pull a great big trigger, or get one pulled, and I can’t always protect you.”

  Oren wanted to throw Caldwell out. He wanted to yell at him that he was a suspicious old prick who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. He wanted to say that Dani was becoming like a daughter to him.

  Instead he said, “What signs?”

  “A willingness to stick around a situation any sane person would avoid.”

  “Like a meeting with the Wheelers.”

  Caldwell nodded. “I was thinking more about living in that shitty shack, but yeah.”

  “What else?”

  “New people hanging around because of her.”

  “This is a tourist bar on a tourist island in the biggest tourism state in the country.”

  Caldwell’s gaze rested on the sullen blond nursing his drink in the middle of the bar. “People who are here because of her. People you don’t know but that she vouches for.”

  Oren put his head in his hands. “Shit.”

  “Let me see what I can do, Oren. Let’s see what this kid’s made of.” Caldwell downed his drink and grinned. “A little friendly bar chat. This is a friendly bar, after all. Let’s be friendly.”