Chapter 8
T he mayor’s publicity stunt in Key West worked. The Feds lifted the blockade and visitors flocked back to the Keys in droves. I got three new customers that week. And after Ellie and I had made it official, I was on top of the world.
She got out of class early that first Monday after things were back to normal, so we were heading out on the Whaler for an afternoon cruise…and some loving, I hoped. After that first taste of her, reenacting that night was all I could think of.
Ellie was in my apartment bathroom as I loaded the cooler in the kitchen.
“Where do you keep your towels?” she shouted, voice muffled.
“They’re in the top of the closet.”
A minute later, I heard, “I don’t see any towels.
” Her voice sounded further away than the linen closet in the hall.
I put down the cooler and lifted my head, peering toward the hallway.
She wasn’t there. Which meant she was in the other closet.
In the bedroom. I stood up straight and rushed in, a second too late.
I heard the thud before she even saw the brown paper-wrapped parcel on the floor. She held the blanket it had been wrapped in, blinking, confused. I started toward the parcel but she was already picking it up.
She looked puzzled by the weight of the package, bouncing it in her hand. Money is heavy, at least when it’s bundled in $5K stacks.
“Sorry. This fell when I pulled on the blanket. Thankfully it didn’t hit my foot or I’d have a broken toe.” She rolled the brick over in her hand, eyeing it. The brown paper had split open on the corner from the impact, revealing the green stack of bills.
She looked up, questioning. “What’s this?”
I swallowed to try to clear the lump in my throat. “It’s my nest egg.”
She stared at the package for a long second before she ripped the paper further. I could see Benjamin Franklins from where I stood, as clearly as I saw her mind reeling. “There’s thousands of dollars here. Where’d you get this kind of money?”
I tried to sound nonchalant. “I’ve been saving up.”
Ellie’s eyes narrowed. “I know you have a bank account. I’ve seen you deposit money into it. Why do you have…” She thumbed through the stack. “ Thousands of dollars stashed in your closet? ”
“It’s cash money. My dad said if I put it in the bank I have to pay taxes.”
She blinked disbelievingly, then glanced down at the pearl conch ring adorning her finger. Her eyes hardened as she lifted her gaze. “I’m not stupid, Spencer. Does this have anything to do with the bales found at George’s?”
She’d already put two and two together. “Not exactly,” I stammered.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded with a fiery look in her blue eyes. “Come clean or I’m out of here.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded and literally at a loss for words. Her face twisted in anger as she shoved the package into my hands.
“It’s not what you think,” I insisted. “I’m not running drugs. I just stand lookout.”
I reached out as she started toward the hallway, but she shook off my hold as she paused to fume. “That’s supposed to be less criminal?” Her disappointment in me drilled to my core. “You'll end up in prison like the rest of them,” she said with a cold resolve that sent a chill up my spine.
“It’s not like that,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “I don’t touch the drugs or the money. I just sit out there with a VHF making sure it’s all quiet when they’re making a run.”
“Does your buddy Mateo have something to do with this?”
“He’s involved,” I answered, unsure how much to divulge in my coming clean. “He does it too,” I admitted.
She glared with cold fury. “You've got a stack of drug money in your closet, Spencer. I hope you’re as slick as everyone thinks you are,” she shouted. “You need to be to get out of this one. But I don’t want any part of it.”
I looked up toward the ceiling, my parents just one floor up, and hoped my mother wasn’t there to hear the commotion.
I kept my voice low. “I know it looks bad, but I don’t touch anything until everything is said and done.
I get paid after the fact and never have my hand on any money or any drugs during the process. ”
She stared a hole through me. “Are you that dumb?” I guess she decided I must be, because when I didn’t have an immediate answer, she spun on her heel and beelined for the door.
She paused in the entryway, her aunt’s van parked in the driveway behind her.
“That night you were supposed to be bait fishing, that’s what you were doing, wasn’t it? ”
I nodded, ashamed.
“And the time before that you said you were night fishing way out in the Everglades with the guys? Then too?” She asked, way louder than I could have liked.
Ellie was catching me in all my lies. There was nothing left to do but to admit it. “Yes,” I said, dropping my head.
It was like a bad dream watching her wiggle the ring I’d given her off her finger. “You are a liar and a cheat, Spencer Rodman,” she hissed. I watched in horror as she hurled it into the pea gravel. “I can’t believe I was dumb enough to give you my virginity.”
My heart sank into my stomach as I watched the van peel out the driveway so fast that gravel sprayed up off the tires.