by JA Huss
“Not even true.” He puts a hand over his heart. “And anyway, you’ll be with me in spirit.”
“Don’t be a dick. I want to be part of this. I want to help. I’m an orphan, Alonzo. I know a thing or two about what these kids have been through.”
He sighs. My hope actually begins to rise. I even start picturing myself on this daring adventure. Dashing in on the Precious Cargo, gathering up all those kids, and ferrying them to safety.
But Alonzo just chews his lip, so I feel the need to add a little more to tip him over the edge and make him give in. “I want to be part of the adventure. The action, like you. I want to be the hero.”
He takes my hand and brings it up to his lips. I smile. Pretty sure I know what he’s gonna say. Something along the lines of, Tara Tanner, you are the bravest, most selfless, altruistic, good-hearted person I’ve ever met. Of course you can come. We need someone like you.
He kisses my knuckles gently, then whispers past them as he looks me in the eyes. “Don’t be selfish. This isn’t about you.”
“What?” I actually guffaw the word. “Selfish?”
“Tara. This is the last thing I’m gonna say on the subject. Then I’m getting on that boat, you’re getting on that one over there, and hopefully everything goes as planned and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“How dare you call me selfish? I’m here for the kids!”
“I didn’t call you selfish. I know you’re not selfish. I’m simply asking you not to start being selfish now.” I open my mouth to protest, but he puts up a hand. “Listen. You have an important job to do. And it’s different than mine. When you look at a machine it has many parts. And they all do different things, but they are still working together. We’re both allowed to have our own beautifully dangerous lives, Tare.” He places both hands on my cheeks. “And I want you to live yours.”
“Wait. Are you… breaking up with me?”
He laughs. “Not a chance, sunshine. Not a fucking chance in hell.”
He nods to Quint and joins him on the deck of the Precious Cargo. He looks back at me as Quint begins to motor out of the slip, and waves. Then he turns away.
When I turn away I practically bump into Jesse, who tries to charm me with one of his patented smiles as he prods me with a hand to the small of my back. “Come on, it’s time to go.”
He waits for me to start walking down the dock and then falls into step behind me. We’re on another boat a few finger piers over.
“He’s right, ya know.”
“About what?” I’m so annoyed. What was all that bullshit about my own dangerously beautiful life? That’s not how it works. We’re supposed to be partners.
“That’s not the part you’re supposed to play.”
“How would you know?”
“Believe me, I know how you feel. Johnny is the one in charge of all our dangerous missions. He keeps me out of the loop on everything. The only reason I know as much as I do right now is because worlds are colliding, Tara. His world, my world, your world, Alonzo’s world. All of the worlds are about to crash into each other. That agent? Madrid? She’s not regular FBI. You get that, right? The whole thing was a setup. And maybe you’re a part of it, and maybe you’re not. But Alonzo is just like Johnny. He’s gonna keep people safe the best way he knows how, for as long as he can. Because one day he won’t have that kind of control anymore. It’s all gonna go off the rails, and he’s gonna need you.”
I frown. “I could help him now.”
“You are helping him now.”
“I’m being shuttled to some superyacht. I get to be there when it’s all over.”
He grabs my arms and stops us in the middle of the dock, forcing me to turn and look at him. “Is that really what you think?”
“Yes. Even you get to do more than wait around.”
“I’m the bait, Tara. And it sounds pretty bad when you say it like that, but if I don’t do my job then Alonzo can’t do his, and you can’t do yours.”
“I don’t even have a job!”
He smiles again. “Yeah, you do. You just haven’t done it yet. So you don’t know what it looks like. I’ve done my job before. I was always the bait growing up.”
I just stare at him for a moment, utterly bewildered that he can say that with a calm face and indifferent attitude. “Don’t you hate that, Jesse?”
“If you had asked me a year ago how I felt about being bait I’d probably have seen things your way. But now?” He shrugs. “It’s just my job, Tara. It’s not who I am.”
I sigh. Because I don’t even understand what he’s talking about.
“Anyway.” He points to the boat filled with a bunch of young local sailors. “This is me. You want me to walk you the rest of the way to your ride?”
“No.” I huff. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“OK, then.” He gives me a little salute. “See ya on the other side.”
Then he turns to the boat of men who are waiting for him, boards, and disappears into the cabin, never looking back.
I exhale and look down the dock to where Vann and Belinda are waiting for me on Mr. Dumas’s boat.
“Come on,” Vann yells. “Let’s go.”
I reluctantly walk down to the boat I’ve been assigned to.
Alonzo and Tony spelled out how this mission typically happens. They have local contacts in the origin city where the kids come from, and those are the people who smuggle the kids out. Then some time in the middle of the night, the Dumas brothers show up and transfer them all onto their boats. They pay off friends in the Coast Guard to turn the other cheek, and then they motor up the coast of Florida and drop the kids off in a prearranged marina where they are picked up by various humanitarian agencies and shuffled into foster families until their new forged paperwork can be procured.
But the appearance of Madrid yesterday made it very clear that business as usual was not going to happen this time around. She told Alonzo and Diablo, in no uncertain terms, that this group of kids was to be turned over to her. And no one at the Coast Guard would be helping them tonight.
The FBI is looking for someone. Specifically, a little girl named Angelica. One of Creepy Wendy’s… friends? Co-workers? I’m not sure. Johnny didn’t elaborate. And I got the feeling, while watching him talk last night, that even he’s not sure what’s up with this kid.
But Chek knew. And Wendy knew. And they told us, with very serious faces, that the little girl called Angelica would never end up in the hands of the FBI. Ever. It was their job to make sure that didn’t happen.
I don’t think Johnny works for Chek, but they are definitely on equal footing. Because when Chek made this thinly veiled threat, Johnny just nodded his head, pulled out his phone, and started making calls.
The kids, who were already in the middle of their trip from Port-de-Paix, Haiti, and on their way to the rendezvous point in the Bahamas, were shuttled onto a commercial fishing boat and started making their way north towards Bimini Island.
That boat will never make it to Bimini. In fact none of the boats leaving the Key West marina tonight will make it anywhere close to Bimini. And none of us leaving on those boats will either.
At exactly six oh nine PM the sun slips below the horizon in Key West and the blazing red-orange sky turns the color of twilight. Forty-three boats in the marina begin leaving their slips and motoring out of the harbor towards the open ocean.
Above us there are at least four helicopters hovering. All of them Coast Guard, presumably with the FBI on board. Keeping watch. They’re gonna track us. Every single one of us. And we’re gonna lead them straight to this all-important girl called Angelica.
But they were not expecting forty-three boats to be in on this operation.
Alonzo and Tony called a meeting of the other local fishermen and for the first time ever, people were told the secret the Dumas family had been hiding for the better part of three decades. And even though up until that very moment they were all, for the most part, u
pstanding citizens with nothing more on their criminal records than public drunkenness and speeding tickets, they all agreed to get on their boats at sunset and go in forty-three different directions.
We are all bait, I guess.
Jesse is just the one who gets to make the most noise.
And while all that is happening, Tony and Alonzo—who grew up diving these waters since the time they were first able to hold their breath underwater—will drop into the marina wearing scuba gear, swim back to the docks, get out, and meet up with a pilot at the Key West airport.
From there they will take a float plane to the waiting fishing boat with the kids off the coast of the Bahamas and then they will shuttle them all into a nearby superyacht owned by Johnny’s friend, Logan.
They will not stop in Bimini. They will not stop at all until they get to Virginia Beach, nearly forty-eight hours later.
By that time the FBI will have lost track of most of us because they will be busy dealing with a public relations nightmare called Jesse Boston. Who will, hopefully, be picked up during the scheme and make a huge scene, get himself arrested—bailed out, of course—and then start making public statements to the tabloids.
Johnny Boston will make an unprecedented public appearance, chastising his brother, and the social media pile-on will commence.
While that’s going down, Wendy and I will borrow a local fisherman’s truck and make the trip up to Virginia Beach by land to pick up her friend. And by the time we arrive, Tony and Alonzo are back in Key West doing their thing like nothing happened and the whole thing is over. Kids are in the US with their interim foster families waiting on their new identities and the FBI has eyes on Chek, Johnny, and the present Dumas family.
And that’s exactly how it works out.
Even though I ask Wendy many, many questions while I drive, she says absolutely nothing. Not a single word. And when I pull into the motel where her friend is staying with the man called Logan, neither of them says anything then, either. They meet each other’s brilliant blue eyes for a prolonged moment, then embrace in a hug that lasts for many more seconds than you’d expect.
Then Wendy turns to me and says, “Thank you,” turns to Logan and says, “We’ll take it from here, thanks.”
And they walk away.
Two little girls. Just. Walk away.
I look at Logan. I have no clue who this man is, but he’s definitely someone like Alonzo, and Johnny, and Chek. “That’s it? You’re just gonna let them leave?”
He shrugs. “My job’s over, Tara. But yours is just getting started.”
“What do you mean? My job was to drive Wendy up here. I’m done.”
“Done? No. You’re not done. We have nineteen scared kids in various foster homes. They need a friend right about now. Someone who gets them. Someone who understands what it means to start over.”
Just as he says that a car pulls into the motel parking lot and honks.
I squint my eyes at it, startled. “Belinda?”
“She knows what it’s like to start over too,” Logan says. “And since the FBI seemed to give very few fucks about her, she drove up behind you.”
I turn to look at Logan while Belinda pulls the car into a parking space next to me. “What’s going on?”
He places a hand on my shoulder. Nods his head. “I get it, Tara. I do. But don’t worry. Alonzo will be there when you get back. He told me to tell you that.”
And then Logan gets into the truck I drove up here, starts it up, backs out, and leaves.
“You coming?” Belinda calls through the open passenger side window of her car.
“What are you doing? Why are you here? I thought—”
“You thought I wanted to… what? Stay with Tony? Give it another go?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“No, thanks. I’m not gonna stay down in Key West. I told Vann I’d be back in Fort Collins in a few weeks and to keep my job safe.”
“But your mom? And your friends?”
“My mom is safe. And you and Vann are my friends now. Starting over was hard. But it was good for me, Tara. And it’s going to be good for these kids too. But they’re scared right now. And they need people who get it. They need people who can tell them it will all be OK. And I agree with Alonzo. We’re the right women for the job.”
My brain is working overtime, thinking back to the last thing Alonzo said to me on the dock before this save-the-kids operation started.
We’re both allowed to have our own beautifully dangerous lives and I want you to live yours.
But it only makes sense right now.
We will be together.
We will be partners.
But we will not lose ourselves in the process.
And wasn’t that what I was afraid of? Wasn’t that the whole reason I had my little existential crisis back up in Fort Collins before I left?
I wanted to hold on to me, even though I was someone new now.
And helping these kids is just another way to pay tribute to who I am.
Someone more than Phoebe.
Someone better than Tara.
I am me. 3.0.
And I can’t wait to discover who she is.
EPILOGUE - ALONZO
I wait for her.
I wait for her the way I wait for all good things. Like how I wait for the perfect sunset. Or Saturday night dinners with the family. I miss her, don’t get me wrong. But she’s not far away. She’s never been far away, even when she was.
We talk every night. Sometimes we phone-fuck, sometimes we don’t.
She has always had her own life and I have always had mine.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t share one together too.
It’s not anyone’s idea of normal. I get that. Some couples can’t handle the distance and some couples can’t handle the intimacy.
We don’t have either of those problems.
Tara Tanner is the love of my life and I will wait for her.
I will be her siren, calling her home, while she goes off to do beautifully dangerous things.
Tony has been hanging out with me a lot lately. And while I enjoy his company—we have always been close—it pains me to admit that I actually miss Jesse. For a douchebag yachter who spent most of his life being a dick, he’s not a bad friend. I look forward to Saturday night dinners because he hangs out with Tony, Luke, Zach, and me afterward now.
He has more friends now, he told me last weekend, than he had in all the years that came before.
Jesse definitely took one for the team that night we got the kids. And Emma didn’t quite understand why he was on that fishing boat when he got nailed for resisting arrest. But he really didn’t do anything wrong and all the charges ended up being dropped once the hashtag #SaveBaby started trending on Twitter.
The court of public opinion weighed in and for the first time in his life, they pronounced the Baby Boston innocent.
We all felt Jesse’s internal vindication. We got it. We got him when that happened.
And he’s got two more kids enrolled in his sailing school. The dude tripled his client list in just a few short weeks.
Can’t beat that, I guess.
Belinda never came back either. She stayed up in Virginia Beach with Tara and they are both teaching those kids how to adjust to a new life and a new identity.
That bothers Tony. I think he really felt that Belinda came back for him.
But she didn’t. She came back for herself. I tried explaining the whole siren song thing to him, but he was never obsessed with the family story the way I was, so he didn’t get it.
Vann went home right after Belinda left. I have no clue what he’s up to, but I do know he was disappointed that Belinda left as well. He has a thing for her. Everyone could see it. Even my mother. And I wanted to take the dude aside and tell him to chill. Just let things play out. If Belinda wants him, she will find him. And besides, she did tell him to save her place at their tattoo shop.
But I didn�
��t say that. Didn’t feel like it was my place.
Johnny went home to his girlfriend. They’ve got their bun cooking in the oven and he doesn’t like to be away from her if he can help it. But at the same time, he wants her as far away from the business as he can keep her.
He calls me now. A couple times a week, at least. They are always weird calls. He’s one of those conspiracy theory guys. Always looking for the hidden meaning behind things. But he’s entertaining, so I just let him talk. And sometimes he says something that forces me to look at the world in a different way.
I have decided that I kinda like the Boston brothers.
Zach and Luke are definitely a thing. I’m not really sure what that thing is, since they always have a girl over there with them, but Joey shows up for Saturday night dinners with his clan every month or so and seeing them all together kinda puts it in perspective.
I don’t know Joey. But he invited our whole family up to the city to see his little girl’s dance recital next month. And ya know what? I think I’m gonna go. The idea of being an uncle to the in-laws’ kids kind of intrigues me.
Makes me think of the future I might have with Tara when she comes back to me.
My doorbell rings. It’s probably Jesse, since it’s Saturday and he and Emma are due in for dinner tonight.
But when I open the door it’s not Jesse.
“Excuse me? Mr. Derringer?”
I cover my mouth and laugh. Because it’s Tara. All dressed up in a pencil skirt. “What the hell? Why didn’t you tell me you were—“
“You are Mr. Derringer, right?”
I nod, still smiling. “Yes. Yes, ma’am. I’m him. Nerdy accountant. Good with numbers… and… balancing things.” I wink at her.
She does not break character. “I’m Ms. Sunshine, from the Key West Children’s Library. And I’m in the neighborhood going door to door looking for story time volunteers.”
“Story time?”
“Mm-hm.”
“As in, would I like to read to kids?”
“That’s right.”
“Ahhh.” I rub my hand over my jaw. “I’m not sure I have any stories appropriate for kids.”