Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller) (6 page)

8:37am, 87° F

Jesus Christ. Oren thought his heart would leap from his chest when Dani asked him about Caldwell. Peg might have her suspicions that his buddy was with the FBI, her ability to sense law enforcement honed by years of living in fear of it, but Caldwell always made a point of keeping his head down and his badge out of sight. Oren could think of about a thousand other things he’d rather be discussing in front of the Wheelers. Safe to say, the Wheelers would not be amused at Caldwell’s occupation.

Bless her heart but Dani had shitty timing.

He jumped back into conversation as she headed into the bar. “So what’s this change of plan? I didn’t agree to anything else but setting up the meeting.”

“That’s all you got to do,” Juan said, pulling out a cheap-looking phone. “Set up this meeting and a couple others. You know, this deal is going to take some negotiating. Gimme Bermingham’s number.”

Oren pulled out the slip of paper he’d been carrying with him since his contact in Miami had passed it on to him. It was just like Juan to expect him to play secretary. He’d only called the Canadian twice, both times from the payphone outside the Winn-Dixie shopping center on Big Pine Key. He didn’t need anyone to trace the calls back
to him. The odds were that the number only went to a burner phone, but Oren figured nobody ever regretted being too careful.

Juan punched the number into his phone, settling back in his seat and giving Oren a wink. Oren hated winks. Nothing good ever followed a wink.

“Yeah, yeah, how you doing?” Juan smirked as he spoke. “This is in regards to our meeting this morning. Mr. Vincente is making some fine-tuning adjustments to the arrangement.”

Juan sat up straighter, and Oren could make out an angry tone coming from the phone.

“No, you don’t make the terms, see? Mr. Vincente, he makes the terms. He sets the deal. He’s got the goods, you toe the line. You got it?” The little man spit when he spoke. “You don’t like the deal, I take our product elsewhere. What’s that?” More shouting and Juan pulled the phone away from his ear to glare at it.

Great, Oren thought as the sun cleared the trees across the road, falling hot and bright on the deck. Now everybody’s pissed.

“I’m here with Randolph,” Juan said, nodding to Oren as if checking to see if he was in fact here with him. “I’m going to go over the new plans. You listening? The deal isn’t happening today.” Oren could just make out something shouted on the other end, hearing a lot of words that sounded like
duck
. “How many ways I got to tell you this, huh? This isn’t your deal to decide. Mr. Vincente has the product; Mr. Vincente makes the rules. That’s how it is. Also: Now we’re doing the exchange right here, right here at Jinky’s.”

“What?” Oren leaned forward. Juan smiled at him and nodded.

“Yeah, yeah, here. Google it. They got Google in Canada, right?” Juan spared a moment to point at Joaquin, who thought that line was a lot funnier than Oren did. Oren tried not to notice the spit that rained down from the bigger Wheeler’s laughing mouth. He was glad the sun had hit the deck. It would hopefully dry up the glob of wetness near his foot.

“I’ll keep you apprised of the new terms.” Juan nodded at Oren again, impressed with his own vocabulary. “Tomorrow morning, same time, same channel. Oh, and Bermingham, if you’re thinking about trying anything like trying to nickel-and-dime Mr. Vincente, trust me, you will regret it. There’s plenty of folks willing to pay top dollar for Mr. Vincente’s product. He wanted me to tell you that he’s only doing this deal with you in the name of—what did he call it?—international relations. Don’t you forget it.”

The voice on the other end dropped to a more reasonable volume and Juan smiled. “Mr. Vincente is well aware of the heat. Yeah, yeah, and I checked Weather Channel. Seems like it’s just going to get hotter. Mr. Vincente wanted me to remind you of how much riskier this deal becomes the hotter it gets. You’d be smart to keep that in mind in case you’re thinking of pulling anything or trying to screw Mr. Vincente. Mr. Vincente doesn’t like people trying to screw him, you hear me?”

Juan picked something black from under his fingernail as he listened. Oren looked away when he wiped the gunk on the tabletop. Dani returned with their drinks in time to spot the smear. “Yeah, yeah, Mr. Vincente is well aware of your time issues. We’ll do the deal in the morning. We’ll discuss the—hang on.” He pulled the phone away from his mouth and smiled. “Thanks, Dani. Two cubes, just the way I like it, babe.” He slurped a loud drink and went back to the phone.

Oren noticed that even Dani couldn’t completely hide her opinion of Juan’s ridiculous big-shot gesture. He also didn’t miss the way Joaquin managed to brush his fat hand over Dani’s left breast reaching for his drink. He really needed to give Dani a raise.

8:59am, 88° F

Dani wanted a raise. She didn’t care about the illegality of whatever deal the Wheelers were putting together. She didn’t really even care
about Joaquin’s clumsy attempts to feel her up. He was big and armed and nasty, but he was also stupid and hungry for attention. Dani didn’t have any trouble at all keeping Joaquin in his place. She let him cop his little feels, his greasy thumbs brushing against her here and there. It was like letting steam out of a pipe—little bits here and there kept pressure from building up.

No, Dani wanted a raise for keeping her mouth shut about Caldwell.

That wasn’t true either. She wanted for Caldwell to never have existed.

She wanted to slap Mr. Randolph on the side of the head with her tray until he truly understood the depths of her hatred for any agent of law enforcement.

Instead, she went back into the bar and fished his laptop out from beneath the cash register. Mr. Randolph never remarked on the fact that someone kept erasing his internet history. Maybe he didn’t notice; it wasn’t the kind of thing most people paid attention to. Dani did, though. She not only erased hers after every search, she made a point of checking his. Mostly Mr. Randolph checked weather reports and liquor prices; occasionally did a little online shopping for fishing gear. If he did use any search engines, he did it in private browsing or erased his cookies. But judging from the notes he had taped to the machine—
ctrl+alt+delete = 911 shutdown
—he didn’t give the impression of being especially tech savvy.

Then again, he didn’t need to do any searches himself, did he? He could just call his buddy in the FBI.

Dani glanced around to be sure nobody watched her type.
Charbaneaux
. The name brought up the usual list—the senator, the executives, the charitable foundations. Dani scrolled through the list for anything new. Typing in
Sinclair
and
Choo-Choo
brought up only older entries on gossip sites like Page Six. It seemed her friend and coworker had kept himself out of the gossip sheets after taking the job as audio analyst with Rasmund.

Or Rasmund had removed him from the pages.

Dani didn’t feel safe trying to call Choo-Choo on any of the jillion numbers associated with the Charbaneaux name. Nobody had told her contact was forbidden, but she suspected the lurking eyes that tracked her life now wouldn’t smile upon fraternization. They might not want two damaged witnesses to the government’s covert crimes getting together and swapping stories. She didn’t know what lengths they might go to in order to prevent a reunion, but she knew altogether too well what they were capable of.

It didn’t keep her from looking for him though.

All of this—all of this running to the Keys and hiding in plain sight, all the Fed shakedowns and intimidations, all the nightmares, especially the nightmares—all of this made her want to talk to the one person on earth who knew what had really happened, who knew she was never a spy or an interrogator or a torturer. She wanted to just sit and be quiet with the one person who wouldn’t wonder about the scars on her body because he had scars of his own.

But there was no sign of him. She made note as she always did of any current location for family members. Someone was hosting a gala in New York City next weekend; a Charbaneaux was mentioned in an article about Martha’s Vineyard. There was a campaign fundraiser in Philadelphia and a charity auction in San Francisco. Who knew there were so many Charbaneauxs in the world? Dani didn’t care about any of them. She wanted only to see her friend Choo-Choo, to make sure he was okay.

She saw Caldwell’s glass sweating on the bar.

She smelled Joaquin Wheeler on her clothes.

She wanted Choo-Choo to tell her that she was okay.

9:08am, 92° F