Fairy Tale Blues (36 page)

“I know what his problem is. What's yours?” He sounded angry and challenging.

I was incredulous. “You,” I practically shouted.

“Oh, great,” he mumbled. Jess became very still and he stared into my eyes, looking grim and sad. I let him see the truth in my gaze: nothing had happened between me and Daniel.

“I love you, Jess.” I hadn't said it last night, not even when he had said those words to me. But it was true: I loved him. And I wanted him to know.

He nodded his head once.

Our sons appeared then, thudding up the stairway and making the wooden-deck floor vibrate; they noisily pulled out chairs around the table and announced how ravenous they were.

“Where is he?” Saddler said. I had filled in the guys about Daniel last night during our long drive home from the airport.

Before I could answer, Daniel rejoined us. I introduced Cam and Saddler to him, and he waved the waitress over to get their orders, tossed his cell phone back on the table and sat down. We all talked for a while; then Daniel checked his watch and mentioned that he needed to meet his broker on the pier briefly to sign some papers. It would only take a minute. He invited Jess to walk down with him and see his boat. The boys' food was just being served, so I stayed at the table with them.

I reached out my hand to Jess as he was leaving. He took hold of it and came to my side. We looked into each other's eyes. After a moment he leaned down and kissed me. Jess had a generous heart; I felt glad of that.

He was both right and wrong in perceiving Daniel as a threat. The threat had been a reality from my first meeting with Daniel, but then so had the firm position I took in response to it. I hadn't come to Hibiscus to escape anything in my marriage; I had come to face it full-on. I hoped Jess knew that now.

After Jess and Daniel left, I asked the guys about their fishing trip with Shank.

Cam said, “We caught a ton of fish. Shank knows his stuff. We cleaned them, and Shank is packing them in ice for the houseboat. Sadd and I will grill fish for dinner tonight.”

Saddler nodded to the cell phone lying on the table. “They've got trackers in these things. Since Daniel's old partner has access to governmental data, he probably has access to the data from the tracking device in the phone.”

“Really?”

“We could buy your friend some extra time,” Cam said and took a big bite of his roast beef panini.

I liked that he referred to Daniel as my friend and wanted to help him.

When Cam stopped chewing, he explained, “Your phone looks just like his.”

“Oh, I know. He knows, too. He flips his open before pocketing it to check that it's his.” I knew what Cam was thinking—switch phones and Parson would follow me, not Daniel. “That won't work.”

Saddler said, “Remember when we were in high school and you and Dad warned us that if we broke our cell phones, you wouldn't replace them?”

I remembered that well. I should have made the same rule for Jess; he broke his regularly—dropping it in the snow, the creek, the toilet.

Cam said, “You never had to buy new phones for us, because we just removed our SIM card. It's a little plastic-and-metal card less than a square inch inside the phone. We stuck it in a friend's phone or any other old phone we found lying around.” He grinned at me. “Sometimes yours.”

Saddler said, “The SIM card holds all our information.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“If we stuck your SIM card in his cell, Daniel would still have his phone.”

Saddler added, “But they couldn't trace him.”

I said, “Well . . . sure. If that'll help.” I handed him my phone. A misty fog seeped into my mind during technical talk. When machines—computers, cash registers, even vacuum cleaners—didn't turn on and operate the way I expected them to, it was as if I was injected with an anesthetic that turned me stupid. A kind of ennui flooded my normal curiosity at such times. I bent to pet Bijou and rub Jeter's tummy. He and I had bonded closely since he'd begun coming home with me most evenings.

“We better hurry.” Saddler dug into his pocket for the Swiss Army pocketknife he always carried and handed it to Cam. “Use this to lift off the back of her phone; I'll use the table knife on his.”

They began working with the phones in their laps, their backs to Jess and Daniel's approach. Cam said, “This will help because the SIM card carries not only a person's identification and phone contacts, but also has LAI—location area identity. You make a call and that information is sent to a mobile operator network.”

I glanced up from the dogs. Saddler got the back off Daniel's phone, lifted out a tiny card, then reached for my phone from Cam. My heart pumped uncomfortably; I wasn't cut out to be in crime. My sons, however, worked with ease and efficiency. I leaned sideways in my chair to pet the dogs again and pictured Daniel's tiny card floating in the ocean below us. I wondered briefly what Gina would think if she called me and Daniel answered. Was that how it worked?

Saddler handed me Daniel's phone and my own. “See? They both look like they always did.”

Jess and Daniel returned up the steps just as I was placing Daniel's phone back on the table.

I looked up. “It's yours.” I held my own phone in the folds of my skirt, then rustled a hand in my pocket, pretending to find my phone there. “Checking for messages.” Opened it, closed it. I flicked a glance toward my sons, and they both looked at me the way they did when I skied an especially skinny, steep path through trees without wiping out. But I was sticky with nervousness and breathing funny, too.

Daniel sat on the edge of his chair and said, “I'm going to have to take you up on that offer with Jeter.” The dog rose from beside the chair at the sound of his name. Jeter pressed his forehead against Daniel's knees, and Daniel laid both hands on Jeter's ebony head, then rubbed his neck. He bent to whisper a few words in his dog's ear.

Tears filled my eyes.

Jess said, “We'll take good care of him, Daniel. You can count on it.”

“Thanks, Jess.” Daniel nodded to him. “Thank you.”

We set up a plan for getting Jeter back to Daniel, if at all possible while I was still in Florida.

“I won't put Annie in any danger, trying to get Jeter back, Jess. Hope you know that.” Daniel looked down at Jeter, then back up. “And I appreciate your coming today; I wanted us to meet. You guys, too.” Daniel included my sons, then scanned the water.

Jess asked, “See anything?”

“Not yet. But Parson is persistent.” Daniel reached for his iced tea, keeping one hand on Jeter's head. “He's got all the cards for a showdown. Parson realizes now I won't be partnering with him. I can see he isn't accepting that.” Daniel finished his drink. He set his glass down. “I didn't think he would.”

He stood, pocketed his phone. He tossed some money on the table for the bill, insisting this was his treat. He shook hands with Jess, Cam and Saddler. He nodded to me, and I felt just like Jeter did. I wanted to press my forehead against Daniel in a long goodbye. Likely, neither Jeter nor I would see Daniel again.

Daniel walked away. I held on to Jeter's collar, soothing him—and myself—as we watched Daniel disappear down the steps.

During the drive back to my apartment to pick up our suitcases and the supplies I'd packed for the houseboat, I worked on the lump in my throat. Already I missed Daniel. Even in the presence of Jess and my sons, something about him stirred me. And I was worried about his safety.

 

Jess, the boys and I drove down to the Keys straightaway. Daisy and Marcus were bringing Dad. They would arrive on Islamorada a couple hours before us in order for Marcus to check out the boat and fill out the paperwork for the rental and insurance.

“Just enough time,” Jess said, driving down US-1, “to completely destroy order on the houseboat. If I find your brother-in-law's wet bathing suit on my pillow or the twins' sandals on the breakfast table, I'm jumping overboard.”

Like he was Mr. Tidy. He'd already started collecting pamphlets, brochures and free magazines about every tourist attraction on the Gulf of Mexico, and they were all flung across the back window ledge of my car. Next they'd be lying atop every horizontal surface of the boat. I wanted to enjoy my family, so I'd lowered my expectations for this trip to merely hoping that my dad acted halfway sane and the sugar ants weren't packed in Daisy's luggage.

We arrived at the pier in Islamorada and greeted Marcus, then toured the boat. We found Dad checking the view from the upper deck. He greeted each of us with hearty thumps on the back that made us look like bobble heads as we absorbed his affectionate pounding. Daisy and the girls were out looking for a store; she'd forgotten something. Jess and Saddler left to unpack the car, while Cam and I put away supplies in the tiny kitchen. I still thought about Daniel.

“Do you think the phone thing will work?” I asked Cam. My voice sounded raw and I cleared my throat to cover up. I handed him a six-pack of yogurt to set in the refrigerator.

Cam said, “One catch. I know there's an FCC regulation that you have to be within twenty miles of a cell tower for a nine-one-one call to be traced, so same deal for any call. Mr. Fields might have connections, but he still needs cell towers to trace location.” He checked his watch. “We don't have time to move out of range tonight. Houseboats are slow. So that's no problem.”

“What do you mean?”

His father called him to help carry Shank's cooler of fish, and before Cam ran off, he said, “Houseboats only go a few miles an hour.” I knew that. I had meant, what did our houseboat trip have to do with cell-phone towers? I followed him down the pier to the parking lot to find out and saw that Daisy had just returned. Nell and Libby came running toward Cam and Saddler, flying across the final couple feet, both angled to leap into a cousin's arms.

After the hugs and greetings, Libby said, “Mommy forgot to pack our wonderwear.”

Cam held her on his hip. “Wonderwear?”

Saddler held Nell.

“Underwear,” I explained. “Their panties have Wonder Woman on them.”

Nell said, “So we have to wear our baby suits.”

Jess joined us, after having hugged Daisy. He said, “Are those kind of like birthday suits?” His question set off extended giggling from the twins, heads tossed back, their moon faces catching the sunlight.

That one I couldn't translate. Jess made another stab at it. “Bathing suits?”

We finished unloading supplies, stretched sheets on beds, gassed up, filled water tanks. And were off. Our destination was a small island on a map dotted with small islands. Our plan was to anchor there before dark. Marcus, our designated captain, said, “No problem.”

Jess and I sat up on the top deck and watched the scenery glide by, a big blue platter of sky above us with a gathering of clouds toward the west. The water was smooth and glossy, the breeze surprisingly stiff on the upper deck. Cam climbed up and asked to borrow my cell phone and sat with it on the other side of the deck. He'd borrowed it earlier to make calls on our way down the coast.

I said, “Cam, where is your own phone?”

“Guess.”

“You've broken it again?” I asked.

My dad followed his grandson up the steps. He called over to Cam, “If you're ordering pizza delivery, no anchovies or black olives for me.” It was becoming more difficult to know when Dad was joking and when he wasn't. So I offered a grin that would serve in either case.

The houseboat moved slowly into the gulf. As nervous as I'd been while doing the switch with Daniel's phone, it seemed a rather silly prank to me now, a mild response to a situation my family and I only vaguely understood. Parson Fields probably had more to go on than some tiny card location. Then again, my sons might be right in thinking that their trick would slow and confuse Fields enough to give Daniel extra time. Out here on the quiet blue water with the family, it felt more like an unnecessary inconvenience to me, and probably also to Daniel, to be without our contact numbers.

I asked Cam, “So are you putting your tiny card thing in my cell?”

“No, I'm making calls with Daniel's SIM card in case anyone is tracking.”

Jess said, “What's he talking about?”

“I don't know.”

Dad said, “That's just how I feel sometimes. I don't know what the heck anybody is talking about.” He didn't seem to mind; he leaned over the railing and hummed “Biko.”

I was reminded of my earlier question. “Cam, what did you mean about cell towers and all that? And tell your father what you and your brother did with Daniel's phone.”

When Jess heard, he leaned over the upper deck railing and called, “Saddler, get your ass up here.”

I said to Cam, “You guys dropped that little card in the water at the Turtle Nest, right?”

“No, we got it.”

Jess said, “You idiots. Where the hell is it?”

“In Mom's phone.”

Dad broke into full voice. He stood at the front of the upper deck, the wind blowing back his thick silver hair, and sang loudly, “Biko, Bi-ko-oo-oo, Biko.”

Saddler came up the steps, fully aware of the tension in the air and his likely role in it. To blunt the force of the coming confrontation and to divert attention from himself, he said, “Grandpa, did you know you're singing about a famous black man from Africa?” Saddler grinned. His grandfather's bigotry was an old family fact.

Dad paused, looked stumped for a moment, then said, “I'm singing about a famous game. Bingo.” He turned his back to us, faced out toward the wind and water again and picked up his song.