7. Tess
Tess
The sedan engine ticked into silence, and Tess kept both hands on the wheel for one last second. The air conditioner died with it, leaving the Florida heat to push through the glass. She opened the door and stepped onto the crushed-shell driveway.
Salt, diesel, and the rotting-sweet stink of thawing bait replaced the stale car air.
Tess shut the door, leaving her purse on the passenger seat and the suitcase locked in the trunk, then faced the weathered bait shack near the docks.
This will do. Nothing about the place resembled the mansion she had left behind.
Pulverized shells shifted under her canvas shoes as she crossed the lot.
Every broken ridge pressed through the thin soles after two days of highway.
Her lower back had been complaining for hours, but stopping now meant standing beside the car and thinking about everything behind her. She kept moving.
Splintered boards ran toward the slips. Fuel hoses lay coiled beside the pumps, gulls prowled the roofline, and a motor droned somewhere behind the shack. No velvet ropes waited here. No cameras, no handlers.
An older man stepped onto the dock boards beside the shack with a shop rag wrapped around one hand. Black marine grease marked his knuckles and streaked the cloth as he worked at the grime. He looked at her sedan, then back to her.
“You looking for fuel?”
“Work.”
He tipped his head toward the shack. “Wrong driveway for office work.”
“Good.”
The answer scraped out after too much road coffee and too little sleep. Tess stopped a few paces from him and waited while he rubbed at one thumb with the rag.
“You been driving long?” he asked.
“Long enough to find the sign.”
“What sign?”
“The help-wanted flyer at the hardware store.”
He looked past her toward the sedan as if another person might climb out. Nobody did. Tess let the silence stand rather than explain the road, the ring, Camden, or why her phone had been powered off since she left. She was done trimming every answer to fit somebody else’s schedule.
The man nodded toward the bait shack. “Counter job?”
“Hardware store flyer says you need a body behind it.” A shell edge dug into her sole, and she shifted her weight without backing up. “I need a paycheck. Put me on the clock.”
His mouth twitched, though it never became a smile. He dragged the rag across his palm and tucked it through a belt loop.
“Name’s Sully.”
“Tess.”
“The country club is five miles back up the highway, Tess.”
She looked past him at the shack. A faded sign hung above the front window, and the smell of chum rolled through the diesel exhaust again. It was ugly, hot, and alive in a way the mansion had never managed to be.
Sully pointed toward the dock. “You step onto this property, the humidity drops you before lunch. Charter captains start yelling before sunrise. Fish blood gets into your shoes, your shirts, your hair. Nothing stays clean.”
Tess glanced at the dust dulling the toes of her shoes. Clean had cost her enough.
“You got a problem with fish?” he asked.
“No.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
“Men who think buying a charter makes them king of the county for eight hours?”
“Depends. Do I get to charge them?”
Sully studied her again, taking in the travel-creased clothes and the exhaustion she could no longer hide. Tess resisted the urge to straighten anything. There was no lens here waiting to punish a wrinkle.
The sun pressed against the back of her neck. Inside the sedan, the clinic envelope waited in her purse beside the dead phone. No message from Camden could reach her there.
Just get the job.
Sully jerked his chin toward the shack. “This isn’t a place to hide out for a weekend.”
“I didn’t ask for a weekend.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
“A counter. A schedule. Work that pays.”
His gaze stayed on her, and Tess held it. Her shoes were full of grit, her shoulders ached from the drive, and the odor coming off the docks could have stripped paint. She wanted all of it more than another minute in a life where her marriage existed only when it suited someone else.
Sully pulled the rag from his belt loop, wiped the last smear of grease from his thumb, and let it hang from his hand. “You sure you don’t rattle?”
Tess looked at the shack, then back at the black streaks on his knuckles.
“I don’t rattle, Sully. Point me to the bleach.”
Sully kept his eyes on her for another moment. The bait aerators droned through the floorboards behind him, filling the quiet between them. Then he gave a single nod and turned toward the shack.
“You got bags?”
“In the car.”
“Leave them there.”
Tess followed him through the doorway. Shade replaced the glare, but the heat remained, trapped beneath the low roof with the smell of salt, bait, and old bleach. A row of aerator hoses trembled against the wall, feeding bubbles into covered tanks near the back.
Sully crossed behind the counter and crouched beside a lower shelf. “You planning to stay around here, or you got someplace waiting for you tonight?”
The question landed too close to the truth. Tess watched him rummage through a stack of folded shirts, offering nothing he hadn’t asked for.
“Nothing waiting.”
“Good enough.”
He pulled out a sun-faded marina T-shirt and slapped it across the counter. The cotton had been washed enough times that the printed logo had started to crack around the edges.
Tess reached for it.
“Hold up.” Sully rested one hand on the counter. “Job comes with terms.”
Her fingers stopped on the shirt. “Go ahead.”
“Studio efficiency under this roof. One room, little bathroom, nothing fancy. Rent comes out of your pay every Friday.” His chin tipped toward the back of the building.
“You keep the charter manifests straight, keep the live-wells running, keep this counter from turning into a circus, you earn the mattress.”
A room.
Tess kept her face still and pressed her thumb into a fold of cotton. She had been prepared to sleep in the sedan until she found a motel willing to take cash without questions. The idea of a locked door above a bait shop should not have sounded like luxury.
Take it. Don’t make him ask twice.
“What happens if I leave the job?”
“You leave the room.”
“Fair.”
“You skip shifts?”
“You dock my pay.”
“I fire you.”
That almost pulled a smile out of her. “Also fair.”
Sully leaned one hip against the counter. “You got a problem with that arrangement?”
“No.”
“You want to ask what the place looks like?”
“If the roof doesn’t leak onto the mattress, I’m ahead.”
His mouth twitched again. “Leaks near the window when the wind comes from the east.”
“I’ll move the mattress.”
This time the expression made it all the way into a brief grin before he wiped it away with the back of his wrist. Tess looked down at the shirt between them and pulled it across the counter.
“I’ll take it.”
“Job or room?”
“Both.”
The worn shirt bunched in her hands. Three years of expensive clothes had taught her which fabrics photographed well under stadium lighting, which dresses Marcus considered acceptable beside sponsor logos, which colors washed out in camera flashes.
None of that mattered here. This shirt only needed to survive sweat and fish water.
Sully pointed through the front window at the sedan. “Your luggage stays locked in that trunk until your shift is done.”
Tess looked toward the washed-out shape of the car beyond the glass. Her purse waited inside, all of it sealed away from this room.
“Fine.”
“You can haul it upstairs after sundown.”
“Fine.”
“You keep saying that word, I’m going to assume you understand me.”
“I understand you.” Tess tucked the shirt under one arm. “Point me at the dirt.”
Sully pushed away from the counter and walked toward the rear doorway. Bright water flashed between the pilings, and a briny draft pushed through the opening to cut the bait smell.
“Deep-water slips are down that run. Cleaning tables sit beside the last two finger docks.”
Tess stepped toward him. “Where’s the hose?”
“Outside back wall. Green line.”
“Bleach?”
“Cabinet under the sink. Dilute it before you put it near anything that touches bait.”
She nodded once. “Anything else?”
Sully checked the clock, then looked through the open doorway toward the slips. “Offshore boat’s due in five minutes. They come back with blood on the tables, scales in the drains, and half the ocean stuck to their boots.”
“Then I’ve got five minutes.”
“You’ve got less if they’re early.”
Tess headed for the back door. The exhaustion from the drive still sat across her shoulders, and grit still worked inside her shoes, but neither problem required permission from anyone.
Behind her, Sully reached for the rag again.
“Leave the bags in the car, Tess.”
“I heard you.”
“Good.” He pointed toward the docks. “The cleaning tables aren’t going to scrub themselves.”
Weeks later, the freezer lid fought Tess every morning as if it had developed a personal grievance.
She wedged both hands beneath the handle and pulled until the seal released, sending a spill of refrigerated air across her sweat-damp face.
The relief lasted only until she leaned into the chest and reached for the first net of ballyhoo.
“Come on,” she muttered, dragging the frozen bundle over the rim.
Frost drifted from the mesh as she hauled it toward the prep station. The net scraped across the steel, leaving scales and chips of ice in its wake. Behind her, the bait aerators rattled the floorboards while another charter engine idled somewhere beyond the open window.
The shirt Sully had handed her on her first day now clung between her shoulder blades.
Cutoff denim had replaced the travel clothes she arrived in, and the shack no longer required thought to move through.
Freezer. Prep table. Receipt book. Front counter.
She could cross the room with an armful of bait without clipping a corner.
Another net waited inside the freezer.
Tess bent for it.
The oily fish smell changed without warning.