Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller) by S.G. Redling Read Free Book Online

his plate of plantains performing like the master of ceremonies.Angel Jackson showed up at some point, slipping back into the kitchen to meet with Rolly. God only knew what the cook and the black-eyed pilot were up to. An elderly couple who lived down the street from the fish camp strolled in after their morning walk, and another table was filled with guys he hadn’t seen come in. Fishermen, probably. The heat did funny things to people in Florida. You just never knew if everyone was going to go to ground or come roaring out for relief.
    He watched the Australians try for the millionth time since their arrival to make small talk with Dani. One of them, Nigel or Rigel or something—Oren couldn’t make heads or tails out their impenetrable accent—flipped his nasty dreads over his shoulder and pointed to the scar peeking out from below the hem of Dani’s dress. Oren chuckled and leaned in to listen; Casper looked up from his plantains. This should be entertaining.
    “ ’S quite a scar you got there,” Nigel/Rigel said.
    Dani said nothing, just nodded once and garnished a gin and tonic.
    Nigel/Rigel said something else unintelligible, and Dani cocked her eyebrow. “Want to try that in English?” she asked.
    “I am speaking English,” he said, spinning on the stool so his similarly dreaded friends could hear him. “The problem with your culture is you think everyone ought to sound just like you. What you fail to take into account is that the rest of the world would rather hear cats having a naughty than listen to that American shit. You got it all in the nose, you know?”
    Dani handed the gin and tonic to Casper, who gave her a wink. She graced him with a friendly flicker of recognition before turning back to the younger man. “Is that what you came all the way from Australia for? To tell me what’s wrong with my culture?”
    “Nah, came for the good ganja. We’re just hoping to get out of here in one piece. You know, not shot to pieces like Butch and Sundance. A sight better than you, eh?”
    Dani’s face revealed nothing. “What do you mean?”
    He nodded toward her leg. “I been around. That there’s a gunshot wound. Pretty big one too.”
    Nigel/Rigel and his friends didn’t seem to notice how quiet the bar had gotten during the exchange. “Where did you learn that?” Dani asked. “CSI: Melbourne?”
    “Like I said, I been around.”
    “Not enough, apparently.” Dani’s eyes flitted over the locals nonchalantly leaning in. “That’s not from a bullet.” The Australian made a disbelieving sound, and Dani poured herself a shot of tequila. She tilted her head back, telling her tale to the ceiling, which Oren knew made it easier for everyone pretending not to listen to hear her. “I was a pole-vaulter. A good one. Headed to the Olympics. I’d qualified and everything. One day at training, I was up and almost over. The pole snapped, I fell, and the jagged end went right through my leg. Hurt like a son of a bitch. And that was the end of my Olympic dreams.”
    Casper let out a loud sigh. “Damn shame about the Olympics.” He raised his glass to her and Dani toasted him with her shot.
    No sooner had the glasses hit the bar than Rolly leaned out the window between the bar and the kitchen and shouted, “Twenty-three!”
    “Twenty-three!” the locals shouted back, high-fiving each other as Oren waved his finger in circles over his head. Dani started lining up shot glasses and pouring tequila. That was the twenty-third time someone had asked her about the scar on her leg, and that was the twenty-third original version she had answered with. The locals had never asked and only the stupidest tourists ever did and Oren had promised Casper and friends that for every original answer Dani could create, he’d buy a round for the entire bar. Excluding, of course, the askers, something that sat very badly with the Australians.
    Dani slid Oren’s fifth vodka before him, the lime squeezed to death exactly