Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
The air changed twenty miles before they hit the water, lost the scent of sun-baked scrub and diesel, replaced by a heavy, cloying humidity that smelled of salt and rotting kelp.
Dante felt the steering wheel slick under his palms. His eyes were red-rimmed and burning, but the sight of the causeway rising out of the marshland didn't bring relief. It brought nausea.
“Dante,” Jessica said softly. She was looking at the water, at the brown, churned-up surface of the bay. “We're almost there.”
“We're almost on a bridge with one way off.”
He checked the rearview again. The semi from the morning had long since vanished, replaced by tourist SUVs and rusted-out work trucks. But he couldn't shake the feeling that the road was narrowing around them on purpose.
He slowed the 'Cuda as they hit the bridge.
Below, the water was murky and uninviting.
He kept to the right lane, trying to blend into the flow of traffic, but it was impossible.
The car was too red and too loud. Every time someone passed, his hand hovered over the gearshift, ready to drop it into third and run.
Dante’s eyes scanned the skyline of Galveston.
It wasn't the sparkling beach town the brochures promised.
From this angle, it looked like a city that had been drowned and dragged back up again.
The Victorian houses of the Strand were beautiful but scarred, their paint peeling in the salt air.
The giant, rusted skeletons of oil rigs sat in the distance.
They hit the first set of lights on Broadway at the end of the causeway.
The streets were narrow, lined with towering palms that threw long shadows across the asphalt. A police cruiser idled at a gas station to their left, and Dante felt his pulse jump. He didn't look at the cop. He stared straight ahead, jaw locked.
“He's not looking for us,” Jessica said quietly, her hand moving to his arm.
“Doesn't have to be looking for us to see us.”
He turned off Broadway, winding through backstreets toward the harbor until he found what he wanted: a dilapidated parking garage that looked like it hadn't been touched since the eighties.
He drove to the third floor and tucked the 'Cuda into a corner stall behind a concrete pillar.
After he killed the engine, he didn't move.
His hands stayed on the wheel, the weight of the last twenty-four hours pressing down on him now that the car had stopped and there was nothing left to outrun.
The adrenaline was gone. What replaced it was the plain, exhausting fear that he was leading her into something he couldn't get her out of.
“Is this where we call him?” Jessica asked.
He looked at her. In the dim flicker of the garage's fluorescent tubes, she looked tired in a way that makeup and bravado couldn't fix.
“Yeah,” he said. He pulled out the burner phone. “Let's hope Inglis wasn't full of shit.”
He dialed. On the third ring, a voice answered. “Who is this?”
“Ryan Inglis sent me,” Dante said.
A pause. He heard a boat engine idling in the background.
“Pelican Club. Back booth.”
The line went dead.
“Pelican Club,” Jessica said. “You know where that is?”
Dante shook his head, already getting out.
He walked to the edge of the parking level and braced one hand against the low wall, looking out over the harbor. The marina stretched below—docks, low buildings, a strip of bars strung along the waterfront. The Pelican Club would be down there somewhere.
He came back to the car. “We're walking.”
Jessica studied him. “You don't want to drive?”
“I don't want that car anywhere near wherever this guy operates out of. If Miller's real, he's survived this long because people can't find him. We roll up in a car like this, we're telling everyone on the waterfront exactly where to look.”
She nodded once, accepting it.
He headed for the stairwell and she fell into step beside him, her hand finding his without hesitation.
The ring pressed cold against his skin.
Dante looked down at their hands for half a second. Then he laced his fingers through hers and kept walking.
Jessica expected the Pelican Club to be some shady dive bar hidden down a fishy back alley, but to her surprise it was one of the larger establishments on the waterfront, with bright signage, a wide deck overlooking the marina, and a steady stream of people coming and going like it was just another busy lunch spot.
Nothing about it said hideout. If anything, it felt exposed.
“That’s it?” she murmured.
Dante slowed beside her, his gaze moving over the building, the crowd, the open sightlines. “That’s what the sign says.”
He didn’t sound convinced.
They stood there for a second longer than necessary, both of them taking it in: the families, the boaters, the waitstaff weaving through tables with trays held high. It was loud, open, and ordinary.
Which somehow made it worse.
“Maybe that’s the point,” Jessica said quietly.
Dante didn’t answer. He just reached for the door and pulled it open.
Inside, the heat wrapped around her immediately. The smell hit next: fried seafood, beer, salt air drifting in from the deck. The place was busy but not chaotic, the kind of afternoon crowd that didn’t pay much attention to anyone who wasn’t part of their table.
Still, Jessica felt it. The way a few heads turned. The way her reflection flashed back at her in a mirror behind the bar, sequins catching the light, completely out of place. Dante’s shirt helped, but not enough to make her invisible.
Beside her, Dante shifted slightly closer.
“Back booth,” he said under his breath.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t,” he said. “He said it. That’s all we’ve got.”
They moved deeper into the room, past the bar, past a cluster of high tables, toward the quieter stretch along the far wall where the lighting dimmed and the noise dropped just enough to make conversations feel more private.
There were three booths at the back. Two were occupied. The third had a man sitting alone, a hat pulled low, a drink in front of him. He wasn’t doing anything unusual, he was just sitting there like he belonged.
Jessica hesitated for half a step.
Dante didn’t.
He angled toward the booth, slow enough not to draw attention, but direct enough that it was clear he’d made a decision.
If it wasn’t the right man, they’d find out quickly enough.
Dante slid into the booth, pulling Jessica in beside him.
Miller didn't look like a fed. He looked like a retired history teacher who had spent too much time in the sun. His eyes were a piercing, surgical blue. They moved over Dante, before settling on Jessica. He lingered on the ring.
“Her name is Jessica,” Dante said, his voice low.
The man didn’t look away. “Her name is whatever I put on the passport, kid. Right now, she’s a liability in a short dress.”
Jessica felt Dante’s arm tense beside her.
“Ryan told me you two were a package deal. A couple. Married.”
“That’s the story,” Jessica said, before Dante could.
The man let out a small breath, not quite a laugh. He lifted his glass, turned it slightly, then set it back down again.
“I’ve been doing this long enough to know the difference,” he said. “People who are tied together… and people who are just trying to survive the same situation.” His gaze moved between them. “You two don’t look settled.”
Jessica didn’t respond. Because she knew what he was seeing.
“What does that matter?” Dante asked.
The man leaned forward slightly.
“It matters because the people looking for you know who you are,” he said.
“What they don’t know is who you are when no one’s watching.
” He tapped the table once. “If I move you, you go somewhere small. You argue, someone hears it. You sleep apart, someone notices. You slip once…” He shrugged. “That’s enough.”
Jessica looked down at her hand. At the ring. It didn’t feel like a prop anymore. It felt like a condition.
“You want to disappear?” Miller asked, his eyes boring into hers.
“Then you have to commit. You don't get to be 'friends' or 'partners.' You have to be the real deal. You eat together, you sleep together, and you die together. If you can’t handle the weight of that, walk out now and take your chances with the highway.”
Jessica lifted her chin. “We can do it.”
The man’s gaze shifted to Dante. “Can you?” he asked. “Or are you going to make this harder than it needs to be?”
Dante didn’t answer right away. Jessica felt the tension build in him, like something he was forcing down instead of letting out. For a second, she thought he might push back, might challenge the man across the table.
Then, slowly, his fingers uncurled. He reached out and covered Jessica’s hand with his, his palm hot and heavy. “She’s my wife,” Dante said. He didn’t look at her when he said it. “Do what you gotta do.”