Redemption Key (A Dani Britton Thriller) by S.G. Redling

thick copper cuffs clanking together. She stopped when she saw Dani. “Who are you?” The woman didn’t wait for her answer. “What the fuck? I mean seriously. Sibbie is in tears telling everyone that you hit her. Did you hit her?” He didn’t react. “Jesus Christ, Choo-Choo. I don’t know why I let you in the door. I really don’t. I don’t need your scene. I don’t need this shit. If you can’t behave like a human being why don’t you and your . . . your . . .” she waved her hand in Dani’s direction, “get the fuck out of my house.”
    Choo-Choo sighed. “Fuck off, Caroline.”
    “Fuck you!”
    Dani said nothing. She thought she had a filthy mouth, but from what she’d seen tonight, these people tossed f-bombs like confetti. She wondered if they even heard the word anymore.
    Caroline studied Dani once more. “I don’t know who you are or what the fuck you’re doing here, but hopefully you have enough sense to avoid this blond hot-mess piece of shit. Take my advice. He doesn’t pay off.”
    Choo-Choo gave a halfhearted eye roll as she stomped back off the porch, returning to the party. He let the silence grow awkward again before he spoke. “How long are you here?”
    “I’m flying out at midnight. That airport in the middle of the island.”
    He rose from the chair with the same feline grace she remembered. He didn’t look at her. “Congratulations on finding me. Have a safe trip back to wherever it is you call home.”
    “Wait.”
    His smile was tight. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go and make peace with the tribe. After all, these are my people, aren’t they? It won’t do to let hard feelings fester.”
    He breezed past the trellis toward the party.
    Just like that, Dani stood alone in the dark. Choo-Choo was gone.

    Dani found her own cache of profanity as she made her way through the darkness back to the main road. She’d come all this way for nothing. She’d hoped, no she’d
expected
him to have missed her as much as she’d missed him. It was stupid. She was stupid. They hadn’t been close friends at Rasmund. None of them had been the close-friend type.
    But after everything that had happened . . .
    He’d taken a bullet for her. She remembered two shots ringing out, his long body falling over hers to push her out of danger. Was she remembering it right? Maybe he’d just been ducking for cover. Maybe she’d just imagined their closeness after the grueling ordeal of recovery. Maybe she had made up a bond that never existed.
    He thought she’d lied to him.
    “Fuck!” Dani shouted to nothing. They’d been monitored in the military hospital. Every word was recorded. She just wanted to get away from them, and Choo-Choo was nowhere near ready to be released. He needed weeks of recuperation.
    Because he’d taken that bullet in the chest.
    And he thought she’d lied to him.
    She grappled with the idea of going back in and forcing him to listen to her, to let her explain. But she’d seen him in the crowd as she left, his arm draped around the mollified Caroline, a cluster of people laughing at whatever was falling from his beautiful mouth. He was home. He was in his element. However he might have felt about it during his years at Rasmund, he had obviously come to accept his place in his world.
    Dani decided she hated Martha’s Vineyard. It was dark. Not dark like the remote Redemption Key. There were no streetlights on purpose. Only money, real money, could buy this kind of maintained rustic charm. What kind of island didn’t have houses with beach towels hanging from the railings? Where were the aboveground pools and plastic floaties? What the hell was lemon curd and why did it cost fourteen dollars a jar?
    The best thing about her inner tantrum was that it made the miles pass beneath her feet as she stomped along, hoping she was headed toward the airport. She cleared a small bend in the road and saw a figure leaning against a rough wooden fence.
    “Taking the long