3. Sydney
CHAPTER 3
SYDNEY
I park my rental car in the dock parking lot close to the fish cleaning station.
It’s the time of the evening when all the recreational boaters are calling it quits and backing up their boat trailers to the boat ramp.
There are five in line as they wait for another boat to be pulled out of the water.
I step out of the car and watch a woman holding a toddler wearing a life jacket, a dog leash around her wrist attached to a happy lab and grasping the hand of another child who’s hanging their head toward the ground. I’m not sure what’s the most iconic—the woman who looks like she’s survived WWIII with a puke stain on her shirt, the dog who’s completely soaked, or the kid leaning so far forward their hair is dragging along the concrete.
I wait for a few moments as the group stumbles past, then I walk toward the fish cleaning station.
Braxton is meeting me there. I can’t believe he’s actually willing to work with me on this. But he’s also kind of stuck with me. I was able to get the position as his partner because he had absolutely no other options.
This is the official beginning of the adventure. The point of no return.
Really, the moment I got onto the plane to come to Oregon could have been considered the start, but this? Meeting with Braxton? What we want to talk about?
It’s not just taking a fun, adventurous vacation.
No. I’m looking for a real adventure. And I happened to stumble across one in my translating work.
It’s an adventure that involves thirty million dollars and revenge. Bodie King hired me to help him at a meeting to help translate Italian. My job is interesting in that most people use technology to communicate now rather than hire an actual person to help with the translation. It’s more of a courtesy thing or a show of respect that they are valuing the person and want everything translated clearly.
It was after a meeting with Braxton Fuller and a family by the name of Vicelli that I heard about a missing cache of money. A first-come-first-serve type of situation.
Am I qualified as a tracker? A computer analyst? Or treasure hunter?
Absolutely not. Am I willing? 100%. And I’m pretty sure that will make all the difference in the world.
There’s a truck coming toward me that slows to a stop as I hurry across the roadway to a patch of dirt.
I spot Braxton leaning against a metal post that’s about four feet tall.
The sun is setting, and I get a little chill at the thought of meeting with a strange man at dusk. With a sigh, I shake my head and walk toward him. Now is not a good time to get cold feet.
I step onto the curb a few feet away from him and smile.
“Hi,” Braxton says right before he guzzles a can of beer and drains the whole thing. He crunches it and tosses it into the shrubs. “I’ve been waiting.”
He’s a man in his thirties, somewhat fit, wearing a polo with a pen in his pocket, and a self-important air that’s suffocating.
I slide my phone out of my purse and glance at the time. “You must have been early.”
He leans forward toward me, still resting on the metal post, and I’m grateful there’s something between us.
I can hear him breathing as he glances back and forth. “We have to be quick. I don’t want anyone to get suspicious.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re taking care of that for us,” I mumble as I glance over my shoulder to see a fisherman slowly adjusting things on his boat trailer as he watches us. This probably isn’t the usual place for a meeting.
“I have the flash drive.” Braxton pulls it from his pocket and waves it in the air. Has this guy never heard of television before? I could recommend some great spy movies where he could learn how to be more subtle. This is not how drops are done. Doesn’t he know this should be inconspicuous and casual? Instead, this man is radiating enough nervous energy to be spotted from space.
With a heavy sigh, I snatch the flash drive out of his hand and slip it in my pocket.
Another truck pulls down the drive and rolls next to us. The woman driving it has the window down. It’s the mother I saw walking with the kids.
She glances over at me, pushing hair out of her face, and smiles tiredly at me.
“I love your running shoes! Where did you get them?” She points to my bright white sneakers with the reflectors. They’re practically glowing.
I quickly tell her with a smile. “But they’ve discontinued them.”
“That sounds like a crime,” she says with a laugh.
“That’s exactly what I thought!”
Braxton flinches when we say the word crime. The woman pulls away none the wiser.
“We shouldn’t stay visible too long. We’re risking getting caught,” he says.
I stare at Braxton. It’s like he literally just realized he picked a horrible spot for a meeting. His nervous twitching is making me want to run.
He was the one waving that flash drive around.
His jerky movements are so different from the construction worker on West’s sailboat. Braxton seems to second-guess every movement, unlike the guy tearing up that deck as though it were made out of paper. I don’t know why I’m thinking about him—besides the fact that he’s gorgeous—or why I’m bothering to compare him to Braxton. I have no interest in Braxton, and I’ll never see the guy on the boat again. But I can’t keep from comparing the steady, strong movements of the stranger to the nervous jumping that’s going on next to me.
Glancing around the docks, my eyes land on West Turner’s sailboat. There aren’t any lights on; otherwise, I’d try to see if he is there to help me with this flash drive.
“How do you want me to contact you when I have the information?”
“You’ll be able to call my number that I contacted you from.” He stares at the parking lot over his shoulder.
“Wait, shouldn’t I make a copy of it? And return it to you?”
“I’m usually with the people we’re going to steal from, so I don’t know if you’ll be able to get it back to me.”
I sigh. “It’s not stealing if it’s already stolen and not in their possession. And I’ll do my best to get it to you before I leave.”
“You don’t know who else will be going after it.” He leans forward and latches onto my hand. It sends a chill up my arm—and not a good one. I don’t like being touched by strangers.
I try to pull back, but he doesn’t take the hint and holds on tighter. “I assume it will be you and me.”
“But I don’t work for just anybody.” His grip on my wrist is so tight my fingers start turning blue. “I work for?—"
He gulps and looks around the restaurant before he turns back to me. “I work for some bad people.”
I yank my hand out of his grasp and rub my wrist. “I know.”
He freezes mid-reach for his pocket. “You know?”
“Of course I know. You think I’m going to take thirty million dollars without knowing who my competition is?”
He’s stunned. I tend to do that to people a lot. No one expects someone with a smile on their face to know things. They think we’re only good for a fun time but that we don’t have much intelligence to offer the world.
I personally love seeing people at war with themselves when I surprise them. It’s probably very rude of me, but I have to admit it’s fun.
He didn’t think I knew we were stealing from the mafia .
“You mean to tell me you’re still willing to chance it?”
“Well, aren’t you?” I shoot back. Because while I know I’m taking a serious risk by doing this, it doesn’t mean I want to be stupid about it. I need to know who I can rely on—something I’ve already thought about after my limited dealings with Braxton. He’s not proven himself as a man of steel yet. He’s got more Jell-O in him than anything. A yes-man all the way.
“Yes, but at least I have a grudge!” he cries out.
“So do I, Braxton, so do I,” I mutter as another truck drives by.
Braxton is looking a little pale. “I’m feeling sick. I’ll go back to the hotel, and once you’re finished with that, you can bring it back to my hotel by the bridge in the morning. It’s room 205.” He turns abruptly to leave, then changes his mind and pivots on me. He grabs my arm and jerks me close. “If you don’t bring me my USB back, I’ll track you down and kill you.”
He releases me and scurries away before my brain had time to register a fight or flight response.
What an absolute gem of humanity, said nobody ever.
I take a deep breath and look around.
It’s getting darker by the minute, and there still isn’t a light on West’s sailboat. I hope Bodie is right, and he’ll be there at our meeting time tomorrow.
Because if he is, then by tomorrow night, I’ll have everything I need to find thirty million dollars and get a little revenge.
It’ll be something worth bringing home to my parents.