Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller) (22 page)

“The other room. Someone’s renting another room. Mr. Randolph told me to—”

“Who is renting the other room?”

“I don’t know!” She let her eyes go wide, putting on a face she hoped looked as defenseless as she felt. “It’s a hotel. A fishing camp. It’s what we do. People rent rooms.”

Bermingham swore and dropped her arm. The gap between letting her go and apologizing took less than a second, but Dani saw it. She saw the gears switching in his expression.

“Sorry, Dani. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He rubbed her arm and Dani resisted the urge to back away. That long, lanky awkwardness she had found so adorable in the bar just hours ago had disappeared, and she was all too aware of the physical power in the man before her.

“I should go.”

“Wait.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Wait. I’m sorry.” There was that smile again, dimples and all. He carded his fingers through his hair; Dani noticed how he managed to get it to flop just so over his eyes as he grinned sheepishly. “I’m being a jerk. I’ve got a lot on my mind and this deal is a really big thing. But that’s no excuse to be rude to you. Here I’ve got a beautiful girl all alone in a bar and I’m being a jerk. I’m really sorry.”

Dani made a show of hiding a smile she didn’t feel, pushing at Bermingham’s hard chest with both hands. “You are a jerk. I put this dress on for you and you haven’t even looked at me.”

“Oh I’ve looked at you.” He trailed his fingers down her arms and probably would have raised goose bumps if her elbow didn’t still throb from his squeeze. “I keep on looking at you, Dani Britton. And I keep asking myself why a cute girl like you spends her time in a place like this? What’s in it for you?”

“The glamour?” His laugh sounded genuine and, against her natural instinct, Dani stepped in a little closer. “And I get to meet interesting people sometimes.”

“That must be easy for a friendly girl like you.”

“You’re not very observant.”

“But I bet you are.”

The speed with which he answered her put her on alert. “Why do I suspect you’re going to ask a favor of me?”

“Because you’re smart?” Dimples. “And because maybe you’d like to see more of me in the future. Look, I really need this deal to go off smoothly. I really, really need the Wheelers to come through for me.”

“You really need your twenty-five prime units.”

“You were listening.”

Dani let out a low laugh. “You were kind of hard to ignore earlier, what with shoving Juan’s gun into his liver. What is it that they’re bringing you? That has to stay so cool?”

He ran his fingers across her shoulder, up into her hairline. Dani leaned into his palm, letting him tilt her face up toward his. “Your boss didn’t tell you?”

“My boss doesn’t know.” She saw his smirk. “He tries to stay out of the Wheelers’ business as much as possible. Everyone does.”

“And yet, here we are, getting ready to make the deal.”

“The Wheelers can be very convincing. Not everyone has the ability or the nerve to body slam Juan Wheeler.”

“Well I do.” His fingers tangled in her hair as he pressed her against him. She had to keep her head back, her chin against his chest, to look him in the face. His hands were gentle against her and she slid her arms around his waist. It felt like hugging a tree—a warm, muscular, terrible tree. When he spoke, she could feel the words in the muscles of his back. “That’s why it’s good that we’re getting along so well.”

“That sounds mildly scary.”

“This whole situation could get scary fast. I can keep you safe and I will but I need something from you.”

She smiled up at him to hide her nerves. “Something besides low thread count sheets?”

The way he stared into her eyes made her feel like she was right back in that hospital in DC, hooked up to IV drips, being grilled by everyone in the country who had a badge. He was taking her measure and not even trying to hide it. Dani let her thoughts line up in their own particular order, dragging the fear and anger off to a private corner of her mind.

Let him stare.

He smiled. Finally. “I need you to pay attention to what your boss is doing. And his friends. Do you know his friends? Someone named Caldwell?”

That was unexpected.

“I know who you mean.”

He nodded. “Word is he and your boss are good friends.”

“And?”

He splayed his long fingers against the small of her back. In any other situation it would have felt seductive. “And are we going to pretend that neither one of us knows what he does for a living?”

Dani shook her head, her mouth too dry to speak.

“Good.” He leaned in and brushed his face against hers. “I want to keep you safe, Dani, but this deal is going down. Nothing can keep this from happening. Do you hear what I’m saying? So it would really be helpful to me if you would keep your eyes and ears open for me. Your boss is more involved in this deal than he’s letting on and I just want to make sure that everyone sticks to the arrangement.” His hand slid softly under her chin. That her jaw fit easily into the palm of his hand wasn’t lost on Dani.

“I’m calling the shots here now, Dani. Not your boss. Not Vincente. Not those moron Wheeler boys. Everyone answers to me now. I’ve got to know. Can I trust you?”

A yes wasn’t going to cut it.

Dani slid her small hands up the expanse of his chest until they met behind his neck and she pulled him down to her. Even moving with her, it felt like dragging iron, and Dani let him lift her off the floor into his embrace. The kiss deepened and she felt that same breathlessness she’d felt with Bermingham on the porch. She let herself drift in it.

There was a part of her brain for things like this too.

Bermingham seemed reassured and convinced when they pulled apart. He slipped his fingers through hers when she stepped back,
begging off to finish setting up the other room. He teasingly grilled her about going to meet another man and Dani answered with mock mystery.

She really hoped the pleasure center of her brain would hold the foreground of her mind long enough for her to get out of the bar without screaming.

Dani exhaled slowly as she headed down to the office to grab a room key and the key to the linen closet to set up the room for the new guest. Mr. Randolph or Peg, whoever had taken the reservation, had set the key out for her as they had dozens of times since she’d taken this job. At this moment, everything and everyone felt threatening to her. She struggled to remember the way it felt when this was her only job, when the biggest irritation was a broken air-conditioner and the only thing she was scared of was facing a pissed-off rat.

Bermingham knew Caldwell was FBI.

And he thought Mr. Randolph was trying something shifty.

Mr. Randolph was openly terrified of the Wheelers and the Wheelers were terrified of Bermingham and now Bermingham was getting nervous. Nerves make dangerous people more dangerous. How much more dangerous could this situation get?

1:15pm, 104° F

Booker climbed onto the oak barstool and hooked his feet over the lower rung. He rolled his shoulders, letting the heat soak into his muscles, loosening them from the walk. He could have gone right to his room. The leathery woman behind the bar had tossed him a key and shrugged in a general direction after swiping his fake credit card, but Booker wanted to sit for a minute. He wanted to get a feel for the place.

Jinky’s.

By the name he’d expected some sort of ’50s-style soda shop, not this rough, bare-floored gin joint. He scanned the walls and ceilings. Every inch of every surface was covered in pictures and postcards and license plates and pieces of underwear, stapled, nailed, taped, skewered, and otherwise attached in what looked like a decades-old patina of debauchery. It felt authentic in a way that newer bars could never hope to achieve.

It wasn’t anything he would have chosen for himself—Booker didn’t drink—but he could appreciate the view out over the inlet and the general sense of Floridian ease. But he hadn’t traveled all this way for either of those things.

He was here for Dani.

He tensed at the shiver that coursed through him. He’d been feeling them all day. They’d been shimmying underneath his skin since he’d manipulated Agent Davis into searching for Dani’s file. Booker had done all he could to keep thoughts of Dani hidden deep within himself. His new employers had asked about his feelings toward her and he thought he’d been pretty successful convincing them she’d just been another target.

Of course, his new employers were stupid in a lot of ways.

They lacked any originality of feeling and couldn’t have collected a splinter’s worth of imagination among the lot of them. He was glad for it because the last thing Booker wanted to do was discuss his complicated feelings toward Dani Britton with some cold-blooded therapist.

He didn’t know how he felt.

That understanding alone added an element of excitement to his anticipation.

He’d been hired to kill Dani and she’d proven a fascinating target. Adorable and underestimated and clever and tough. She’d gotten away from him, damn near killed him.

He didn’t know how he felt about that either.

There weren’t many situations Booker went into with so little certainty. This one made his fingertips tingle. He sipped his ginger ale and watched the sun bake the deck outside.

2:00pm, 104° F