Trigger

by S. G. Redling

  “Honey,” she asked, casually oblivious to their distress, “is this yours?” She made a show of yanking the plastic envelope from the sticky spot on the deck. The groans and cries of relief rose like a mushroom cloud as Dani set the envelope on the table. “You better be careful, ladies. You have a lot of drinking to do here at Jinky’s. You be safe, okay?”

  She didn’t wait for their thanks. Instead she headed into the bar, listening to their drunken recounting of the near disaster that wrapped up with a solemn pronouncement from the table.

  “Oh my God, you guys, she totally saved our lives. She gets a HUGE tip.”

  Dani smiled.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Redemption Key, Florida

  Forty bucks on a hundred-dollar tab. Dani tucked the cash into the pocket of her shorts and finished clearing the table. Drunk math and happy customers made life so much better for everyone. Plus, the odds were excellent those women would roll back into Jinky’s at least one more time during their stay. People rarely tipped less the second time around.

  Dani swung the bucket of empties off the table and glanced around the deck. A couple of kayakers in the shade were taking too long to figure out what they wanted from the limited menu, wrestling with a little math of their own – limited vacation funds versus exercise-induced hunger. No point in playing them for a tip.

  A white-haired man watched her from the table by the steps. When had he come in? Dani felt that familiar twist of anxiety at being watched by anyone. He didn’t smile; he didn’t scowl. He just looked at her, as if she were on a stage and he had paid admission. Dani held his gaze as she walked his way, dropping the bucket with a clatter near his foot.

  “You snuck up on me,” she said with just enough warmth to avoid outright rudeness.

  “You were busy,” the man said, white teeth shining from his golden-tanned face. “You were saving those women from losing all their money.” Dani didn’t need to look back to know the old man had been perfectly positioned to see her little trick. He chuckled. “I’m sure they were grateful for your sharp eye.”

  Dani made no move to join in on his fun. “Are you going to order?”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Ordering.”

  He laughed a real laugh, his face opening along well-worn laugh lines. Dani studied him as he studied the menu on the table. The man had to be at least in his late seventies, but he had a handsomeness that aged well. Good bone structure, good breeding. Dani took in what she could – expensive clothes said real money, nothing flashy. His posture was flawless and relaxed: he was a man used to being respected. This was no cop or Fed; and despite his boating shoes and just-so rumpled khakis, he didn’t give off the vibe of a tourist.

  Whoever he was, he needed to get on with his order – whether it was for a beer or to have her arrested. At this point, nothing would surprise Dani. If he thought twinkling his old brown eyes at her would spark a reaction, he would be bitterly disappointed.

  “A Heineken, please.”

  While retrieving his beer, Dani heard the same old argument ping-ponging in her head. She was too suspicious of everyone. Why wouldn’t she be? He was just an old man. Bad guys got old too. Maybe he was just being friendly. How well had that been working out for her lately? She listened to the logical volley in her mind, letting the thoughts fall where they would. Dani knew better than to try to corral them. They’d fall back into their cages on their own.

  He didn’t look up when she returned with his beer. Instead, he stared out over the inlet, his gaze passing over the cinderblock unit across the water and around to the four little cottages scattered at the end. She didn’t know what he was looking for but something about the pull of his mouth read as sadness to her.

  “Anything to eat?”

  He seemed startled, as if he’d forgotten about her. “Oh, I don’t, um…”

  There was something familiar about this man. Dani ran through her memories – had he been a subject of surveillance at Rasmund? He fit the profile – wealthy, powerful. She’d studied dozens of men just like him in her five years of that ill-fated job, most of them as corrupt as the people who had hired her to study them.

  She hadn’t seen him on the island before and the familiarity didn’t feel like they had ever met face to face. It wasn’t the feeling of someone she’d known. It felt like –

  “Has the party boat come by today?”

  She blinked at the question. She didn’t think she had ever seen anyone less likely to want to board the infamous Lady of Spain and she had never heard anyone make that question sound so wistful.

  Then she saw it.

  His long, elegant fingers wrapped around the bottle, the perfect nose, the easy posture. She’d seen these before, just on someone else.

  “Are you…” She cocked her head, trying to calculate his age correctly. “Are you Choo-Choo’s grandfather?”

  The glimmer of wetness over the old man’s eyes answered for him. Choo-Choo’s relationship with his enormous and powerful family had been difficult at best with the exception of his grandfather. When everyone else believed the lies the government had spun about Choo-Choo and his disappearance from Rasmund – a ridiculous story about running away on a yacht in the Seychelles – his grandfather had refused to accept them. Unfortunately for Choo-Choo, that meant their employers had to go to extraordinary lengths to sell the story. And even in the aftermath of all that horror, Choo-Choo still spoke of his grandfather’s affection.

  “Is he here?”

  The loneliness in that question dropped Dani into the seat across from him.

  “He’s working. The boat went out earlier. He’s probably cleaning.” The old man nodded, his lips narrowing as he looked out over the water. “He’s good, you know. He’s happy.”

  “Is he?” He smiled the saddest smile she had ever seen. “Good. I’m glad.”

  “He’s clean, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  He nodded, even if he didn’t believe her. The people behind Rasmund had hooked Choo-Choo on a chemical cocktail that tore through his brain like a chainsaw, addicting him to the point of madness. She could only imagine what a nightmare it had been for his loved ones to see.

  Before she could think of anything else to say, she heard a clatter beneath the deck. A bike bell rattled, and gravel crunched, and she heard the familiar tuneless whistle that always preceded Choo-Choo when he came up the steps. After all they’d been through, he and Dani made a point of not sneaking up on each other.

  The sun shone off his blond hair, longer now and pulled off his face with an elastic head band. His hair stuck out in every direction; his dirty t-shirt advertised some rib festival in the Midwest; and his flip-flops didn’t match but Choo-Choo still managed to own the air around him like he was walking a red carpet. She’d never seen any creature more graceful and, not for the first time, Dani wondered if she would ever get tired of looking at Choo-Choo.

  Heads turned wherever he went but Choo-Choo always smiled at Dani first. When he saw the man sitting beside her, his blue eyes widened, and he froze in a rare moment of awkwardness. The older man rose slowly from his chair, as if afraid his grandson would bolt.

  “Hello Sinclair.”

  “Grandpa.”

  Dani stepped aside as the two men embraced. This wasn’t a manly backslapping, stay-at-arms-reach man hug; they gripped each other tight, Choo-Choo was taller than his grandfather and leaner, his features finer than the older man’s. His grandfather cradled the back of her friend’s head, the way a parent holds a newborn. Choo-Choo let himself be held.

  She started to step away, to give them some time, when the older man cleared his throat and stepped out of the embrace. With the new distance between them came manly arm clasps and squared shoulders. Choo-Choo recovered just slightly behind his grandfather.

  “I’ve met your friend,” the older man nodded her direction. “Dani, I presume?”

  “Oh yeah, of c
ourse, I’m sorry.” Choo-Choo’s hands fluttered before him. “Grandpa, this is Dani. Dani Britton. We worked together in D.C. Dani, this is my grandfather.”

  She wanted to put herself in front of Choo-Choo, to give him a chance to settle into his usual cool demeanor. Whether or not he was happy to see his grandfather, Dani felt defensive on her friend’s behalf. “Nice to meet you. Choo-Choo’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Has he?” It wasn’t as rude as it could have been, but it wasn’t as warm either. As Choo-Choo flopped into a chair across from him, his grandfather returned to his own, making no gesture of welcoming her to join them.

  Dani saw the settling of his shoulders, the seriousness of his expression. She saw too the unusual sight of Choo-Choo shrinking back in his chair, his gaze down on his feet. She wondered if they even realized the dynamic they were playing out – disapproving adult, disobedient child. She knew what the old man was going to say before he opened his mouth.

  “I wonder if I might talk to my grandson alone for a moment.”

  Choo-Choo’s cheeks flushed. She had whisked her friend out of his family’s home on Martha’s Vineyard in the middle of the night, in the middle of a party. He hadn’t told anyone he was leaving. He knew what they would think – that he was screwing up again. He was the family fuck-up, even to his beloved grandfather.

  But Dani knew the other side of Choo-Choo – the angry side, the loyal side, the man who didn’t leave her when faced with danger, the man who said he would rather be shot to death than suffer being pushed around by some officious authority again.

  His family knew Sinclair the Party Boy.

  She knew Choo-Choo the Man. He was her best friend.

  She settled into a chair. “I think I’ll stay.”

  The Charbaneauxs hadn’t become the Charbaneauxs by fighting losing battles. Or by flying off the handle when things went wrong. Mr. Charbaneaux probably thought she was just a brat, one of the many bad influences in his grandson’s troubled life. Dani didn’t really care what he thought of her; she’d stopped taking orders from guys like this for good. Until Choo-Choo asked her to go, she was staying.

  “It’s okay,” Choo-Choo said finally, and Dani nodded, thinking he was telling her to go. “Dani and I don’t have any secrets, Grandpa. We can speak in front of her.”

  The old man sighed. “There’s nothing secret to discuss, Sinclair. Although it certainly seems as if you and your – your friend – have plenty of things that might be best handled discreetly. From what I understand, it took quite a bit of handling to keep your latest story out of the press. Smugglers, Sinclair? Gangsters and human trafficking?”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, but you were here. You were taken into custody by the FBI.”

  Choo-Choo’s cheeks burned red. “We weren’t taken into custody. We were witnesses— “

  “You were witnesses to a federal crime.” Mr. Charbaneaux banged his hand on the table. “Because you were once again in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. You need to start making better choices, Sinclair. You’re not in boarding school anymore. You are twenty-six years old and it’s time you took control of your life. It’s time you---“

  “That’s what I’m doing here.”

  The old man snorted. “First mate on a party pontoon? Pouring margaritas and puttering around the Florida Keys? Is this your idea of a career?”

  “No Grandpa, I just…there’s just…”

  It didn’t take any special people reading skills to figure out that this was not a fresh argument.

  “Sinclair, I know you’ve been through a great deal in the past year. We all have. And I know you need time to heal and to figure out where to go from here, but you also need your family. Your family needs you. When the word got back about the unpleasantness here at this bar,” Dani rolled her eyes at his choice of words, “when your mother heard about where you had gone and how you were living, well, this hasn’t been easy on her either.”

  Choo-Choo recovered a little of his old snark. “I’m sure it’s been very challenging for Mom and Dad, wondering if I’m going to make the papers again, wondering how much damage control they’ll need to maintain their standing if I go off on another escapade.”

  “I think those scars on your chest and the track marks on your arm qualified your last disappearance as a little more than an escapade.”

  Dani didn’t know what it was like to be a Charbaneaux. She came from a trailer park in Oklahoma; her dad was a truck driver and her mom was crazy. She’d spent her childhood being shuttled among begrudging relatives who didn’t have the money to spare for an extra mouth to feed. Once she’d left home, Dani had been well and truly on her own. But Choo-Choo?

  The Charbaneaux name could be found on every power roster in the country. Senators, CEOs, diplomats, Ivy League professors, museum curators – anything that came with any power, status, or influence came in elbow to elbow with the Charbaneauxs. They had land, education, power, art, money, and reputation. And they had numbers. Vast numbers of siblings at every generation. Choo-Choo was one of six; he had dozens of cousins from dozens of aunts and uncles and in-laws and extended family.

  Dani didn’t know this because of any kind of fond family stories from Choo-Choo. She knew it because Googling the Charbaneaux name rolled out pages and pages of their endless achievements and undertakings. And while Choo-Choo was probably not the first screw up in the family, he had made a point of being one of the greatest. That’s what had made him such a perfect mark for the people behind Rasmund. They’d both been picked for more than their talent.

  Dani was nobody. Choo-Choo was of no account.

  Seeing that point brought up by the one family member whose opinion Choo-Choo valued, seeing the flush of shame on his beautiful face while his fingers mindlessly traced the web of scars underneath his t-shirt, seeing her friend brought to task with no thought at all about how brave he was, how smart, and how loyal was really pissing her off.

  “It’s time for you to come home, Sinclair.”

  Dani gripped the arms of the deck chair, wanting to swing it at the old man. His suggestion did more than piss her off, it scared her. The truth was it was a lot easier being brave when she had Choo-Choo by her side.

  “No.”

  She and the old man sighed at the same time but for very different reasons.

  “Sinclair, I don’t know why you’re so angry, why you’ve always tried to throw your life away or why you would trade your family home for some godforsaken shit hole.”

  The high spots of color glowed on his cheeks, but Choo-Choo’s voice was steady.

  “You don’t get to call this a shit hole. I like this shit hole. I know what everyone thinks. They think I ran away to get wasted but that’s not true. I’m tired of explaining myself. I just want to be here. With Dani.” He smiled at her. “I want to work on the Lady of Spain. I don’t want to be Conrad Charbaneaux’s fucked up son. And Freddie made it really clear that he doesn’t want me for a brother. You’re the only one that cares that I’m not there.”

  “What about Teddy?”

  Choo-Choo hung his head. “She doesn’t want me there, Grandpa. She’s probably thrilled that I took off so there’s no chance I’ll fuck things up for her campaign.” He groaned. “I bet she almost died when she heard about the Feds picking me up. If that had made the news…”

  “If that had made the news, she would have stood by you, Sinclair. She always has.” He put his hand over his grandson’s. “I’m not the only one who wants you to come home. Teddy asked me, begged me, to come down and talk with you. She’s not ashamed of you, Sinclair, and neither am I. Come home.”

  Choo-Choo sighed. “And do what?”

  Mr. Charbaneaux shook his head. “I suppose it would be too much to expect for you to follow the national news, what with your…your,” he looked around the deck and inlet, “your busy new lifestyle. Unc
le Mondy passed away last night.”

  Choo-Choo looked sincerely shocked at the news. “How?”

  “Peacefully,” his grandfather said simply, “after spending the day at a fundraiser. I and the rest of the family feel that the least you could do, in light of everything, is come home and pay your respects. Surely the Lady of Spain Party Pontoon could spare you for a while.”

  Dani wondered if the old man could see her middle fingers pointing squarely at him under the edge of the table.

  Choo-Choo sighed. “I could come up for the funeral.”

  “That would be a wonderful gesture. We’re having our family photo the next day. You know the one with that ridiculous photographer your mother is just mad over. Everyone is coming in for a luncheon afterwards. You also know how much this means to your mother. You’ve missed too many already. Your cousins will be—”

  “Grandpa.”

  “Come for the service and we can talk when you’re home.”

  “We can talk any time or place that you want, Grandpa, but I’m not staying up there.”

  “Teddy wants to talk with you.”

  “Teddy can call me.”

  “She’s been trying to.” Mr. Charbaneaux leaned forward. “Your cell phone is out of service. I can only assume it was seized by law enforcement? Or did you sell it?”

  That was a mistake. Dani saw it, the line that should not have been crossed. Maybe the old man saw it, maybe he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t care. Choo-Choo cared. Dani saw a glint of that hard ice in her friend’s eyes. She had first seen it when he had told her about his addiction. It had scared her then. Now it gave her hope.

  Choo-Choo hadn’t sold his phone. It hadn’t been seized by anyone. His phone lay at the bottom of the inlet, tossed into the water when he had made the decision to stay on Redemption Key with her, no matter who came after them, no matter what anyone else wanted.