Chapter 13
T he next few weeks, I was on pins and needles waiting for word to come.
The Feds seized George’s boats and his houses, excavated the entire property on Smugglers Row and found millions buried alongside the septic tank in his yard.
Sleep eluded me most nights, expecting DEA agents at my door any day, but they never came.
The mangrove shack became our refuge. Ellie and I spent hours dreaming and loving and planning our future in-between her classes and my bumbling attempts at starting the business.
Like dark and light, we blended our skills and our lives. Ellie finished spring semester, then focused her efforts and everything she had learned at FKCC to help fix my problem.
With his millions seized, George was going to definitely want this money when he got out, so we had to get busy cleaning it .
While Ellie managed the administrative side—filing to incorporate Rodman Reels, LLC, opening banking and investment accounts, and setting up the books to track the money—I haunted Rusty’s, keeping my ears peeled for every boat that came up for sale from Miami to Key West. I crawled in bilges, sounded hulls, checked oil and steering.
Some boats were too expensive. Some were in disrepair.
Some were too small. Others were way more boat than I needed.
“What about this one?” Ellie circled number 17 on our list of possible leads.
“Looks too good to be true,” I said. It was a beauty of a boat.
“Sammy said a guy named Lance was selling it. Let’s go see it.”
Shading her eyes from the glaring sun as we drove into the parking lot at Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, Ellie’s face lit up and she pointed. “There it is. There.”
I grinned from ear to ear as soon as I saw the boat.
“By God, Ellie, I think this might be the one! ” A 1978 Viking, she was only four years old, a flybridge sportfisher, perfect for deep water trolling.
The price wasn’t a misprint. Lance was selling it for a millionaire who had three other boats and a plane.
He needed the marina slip for his new boat so he priced it low to move it fast. After sixteen miserable failures, I wasn’t sure we’d ever find the right boat, but the stars had finally aligned.
Turned out Lance’s millionaire was willing to take cash, so with the new boat registered in the new business name, it was time to get serious about finding clients.
Using what she had learned in this semester's marketing classes, she put together flyers and posted them everywhere— hotels, bars, shell shops, and everything in between. The calls started rolling in, and her aunt’s kitchen table became our unofficial headquarters.
Ellie put us both on the payroll of the newly incorporated Rodman Reels, LLC, to increase expenses and help launder the money faster.
We opened a business account, depositing different, small amounts everyday, but not really making much headway cutting down the pile of bills in the duffel bag.
“You know”—Ellie looked up from the books spread across the wooden table—“we’re paying for a boat slip.
It’s deductible, but we’d be better off putting that money toward our own place, something with a dock for the boats and a place for a house.
When we get married, we’re going to need a place to live. ”
“Does this mean you’re ready to get married?” I dropped to one knee next to the kitchen chair and took her hands in mine, rubbing my thumb over her conch pearl ring.
“Quit being silly, Spencer.” She pulled a hand free to slap me softly on the shoulder. “You know I want to marry you.”
“Yes, but when?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes roamed the kitchen. “When I finish school? When we can afford a place to live.”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” She shrieked. I swear she looked at me like I had two heads.
“Yes.” I stood, pulling her to her feet. Standing chest to chest, I could feel her heartbeat, a rapid thump . “Let’s just do it,” I said, lacing my hands together behind her back. “We’ll get dressed up, go down to the courthouse, and make it official. ”
Her eyes were wide, mouth agape. “But where will we live?”
“Who cares?” I shrugged, unconcerned with the details. “As long as we are together, I can live anywhere.”
Ellie smiled. “I’d love to marry you sooner than later, but not just yet.”
Ellie was the practical one. I did everything by the seat of my pants. We made a good team. She was right, I knew. But I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
She gave me a pitiful look before tapping the back of my hand. “Come on, let’s go to Sammy’s. I want to show you something.”
She grabbed her purse and a legal pad she’d been making notes on, and dragged me by the hand to the truck, giggling. “I’ll drive,” she said, giving my hand a squeeze.
I couldn’t figure out what she wanted to show me at Sammy’s, but when we turned off US-1, instead of turning left down the sandy road to Sammy’s hut, Ellie turned right.
I could tell no one had been this way in a while.
The “road” was nothing but two ruts through the scrub.
The weeds had grown tall and the driveway hadn’t been graded in a long time, if ever.
We finally made it close to the shore, stopping a dozen yards from the water. Wading through the hip-high weeds at the water's edge, we found the remnants of an old wooden dock.
Stepping up behind Ellie, I looked around, asking, “What is this place?” The shore stretched east to west, the end of the island visible to the west and what I thought might be Sammy’s hut off in the distance to the east .
“Sammy told me about it,” Ellie said as she leaned back into me, grabbing my hands to wrap my arms around her waist. “The old man he bought his place from owns this property, too.” She waved her hand up and down the expanse of water frontage.
“There’s room to make a marina,” she said.
“We could move the boats here, plus rent out other slips.” She threw her arms out and spun around. “This can all be ours.”
It sounded like a dream come true, but surely not within our reach. “Do we have enough?”
There was a hint of a wince in Ellie’s smile. “If we use some of George’s money, we do.”
I didn’t like the idea of using George’s money. My shoulders straightened in response to my increasing heart rate. “What if he gets out and wants it before we put it back?”
Ellie faced me, her arms draping around my rigid shoulders.
“We don’t know when George will get out, but we do know that the money will be safer invested in property than hidden in the mangroves.
” She paused, letting me digest the foundation she was laying.
“We’ll replace it with clean money once we have real income from the marina.
And we can always mortgage the property if we have to, to give him the cash if he comes looking for it before we make it back. ”
Even just borrowing George’s money made me nervous, but she’d thought it through more than I was capable of, and I figured that she was right.
Sammy helped with the transaction and before we knew it, we were elbows deep in weeds, clearing the property. We soon learned that Spencer, Jr. was already sprouting in Ellie’s womb and had a courthouse wedding, with Waylan as my best man .
Determined to have a home ready for the baby, Ellie was a workhorse up until a week before she delivered. I worried, but she insisted. By the time Spencer Jr. came along, we’d rebuilt the dock and had a small house on stilts for the three of us.
Life was better than I could have ever dreamed.
But the threat of George returning loomed like a dark cloud in the distance. Would he come back like thunder and strike like lightning?