man exited.
Even though I’d been expecting it, it still felt like an uppercut to the chin when I saw that it was Peter.
That wasn’t the only blow, either. Peter was wearing a suit. It was a tailored dark blue one I’d never seen before, an Armani maybe.
I started sobbing. How could this be happening? How could the man who’d introduced me to “Brandy” and
I watched Peter as he scanned the parking lot carefully. Seemingly satisfied, he pulled the motel room door closed behind him and headed for the Supra.
I turned and broke into a run for my moped as he opened the car door.
Was whoever he was with still in the room? I wondered, still flabbergasted. Or maybe they hadn’t met yet. Maybe he was going to pick her up?
“Hey, can I be the fifth wheel on your date, you son of a bitch?” I said to myself, truly losing it as I gunned my Vespa to life. “Thanks, Peter. Don’t mind if I do. Sexy suit, by the way.”
Duval Street, Key West’s main strip, was staggering room only as I buzzed onto it two cars behind Peter’s Supra a few minutes later.
With its packed bars and outdoor street stalls that sold beer and rum the way Coney Island sold hot dogs, Duval Street was to Key West what Bourbon Street was to New Orleans. Except in Key West, it seemed that Mardi Gras was every night.
I pulled to the curb in front of a crowded bar as Peter turned the car into a side alley beside a T-shirt shop and parked. What now, Peter? I thought. Some drinking and dancing? A late dinner perhaps?
My clenching hands shook on the moped’s sweat-slicked rubber handlebars. I
I sat waiting about a block back, scanning the Friday night sidewalk parade of navy aviators, drag queens, college kids, beach bums, and trendy millionaire couples on vacation. Peter appeared a few moments later from the alley. He was holding a small green duffel bag now, I noticed.
How do you like that? I thought as he headed south through the crowd. Maybe Peter’s alter ego was now going to hit the gym?
A double shift? I thought, absolutely stunned, as I gunned my moped to life and started to follow him again.
It was more like Peter was working a double
I came to a hard stop, scraping my moped and ankle off the curb, when I saw Peter turn the corner onto Fleming Street around the south side of the more shabby than chic La Concha hotel. I hopped off, keeping in the shadows beneath the storied art deco hotel’s awning, as I jogged to the corner and peeked around the side street.
Peter was standing on the brightly lit sidewalk in front of a Hibiscus Savings Bank ATM. As I watched, he took a thick envelope out of the bag and slipped it into the bank’s deposit slot.
A late-night deposit would have been normal enough, I suppose.
Except Hibiscus Savings wasn’t
Our savings account was with First State. At least the account that I knew about, I thought, shaking my head.
I was trying to process that revelation when a small silver Mazda Z with tinted windows pulled past me. It slowed and made the turn onto Fleming. Peter turned as its horn honked and ran around to the passenger side and got in.
I ran back to the moped.
Peter’s night was apparently just getting started.
Chapter 21
A NEW POSSIBILITY slowly occurred to me as I tailed the Mazda Z off crowded Duval and onto the darker side streets of the adjoining Bahama Village neighborhood.
It was actually a comforting one. Definitely soothing, considering the current circumstances.
Maybe this was the DEA thing after all, I thought.
Maybe Peter really had to work undercover and had just invented the story about traffic duty in Big Pine so I wouldn’t be worried. Sure, he’d still lied to me, but maybe it wasn’t as bad as I had first thought.
Please let that be the reason, I prayed as I buzzed along behind him like a complete maniac through Key West’s pitch-black streets.
Ten minutes later, the car pulled into the empty parking lot of Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. I waited on the street by the park’s walled entrance, watching as the Mazda stopped in the center of the lot and sat idling. After a moment, its lights dimmed and went off.
Were they staking someplace out? I wondered. Doing a deal? Waiting for someone?
Wind began blowing through the darkened, creaking palm trees as I crouched along the stone wall, watching the car. As I stared down the deserted street at my back, I remembered Elena warning me about the Jump Killer. About how some people thought he was from Key West.
Great, I thought. Thanks again, Elena. Really appreciate it. I really need something else to freak out about around now.
I sank down behind the wall as the car suddenly started and screeched out of the lot.
I lost the car as I was getting back on the moped, so I decided to drive back to Peter’s car parked in the alley on Duval. The silver Mazda was letting Peter out beside the alley when I made the corner half a block north ten minutes later. I pulled to the curb in front of the crowded corner bar to see what would happen next.
The first thing I noticed was that instead of the green duffel I’d seen him with, Peter was now carrying a much larger black leather knapsack.
A feeling of desperate, last-ditch hope floated in my chest. Did that mean there really had been some kind of DEA work? I wanted so badly to believe that what I had just seen was Peter working undercover.
The Mazda Z pulled onto Duval and rolled to the red light where I sat idling. Spanish music began to blare out of it as its tinted passenger window zipped down. I listened to horns and bongo drums racing each other as I laid my wide eyes on the two people inside.
I squinted in surprise and shook my head. That couldn’t be right, I thought.
I knew them both.
Teo, the skeevy bartender with the frosted hair, was behind the wheel doing what he seemed to do best, rubbing at his nose.
Even more surprising, beside him, my boss, Elena, sang along to the salsa with her eyes closed as she drummed on the dashboard to the beat.
Then the light turned and the tricked-out Mazda peeled off and disappeared into the traffic of upper Duval.
Still sitting on my buzzing moped, staring at its red running lights, I tried to piece together what I had just seen. For a moment, the fact that I knew everyone involved in the odd encounter gave me a feeling of relief. I actually wondered for a silly second if they were doing all this sneaking around for my benefit, as if they might be planning some kind of surprise party for me.
Then reality took hold. There was no party. Quite the opposite.
My husband is a bad cop? I thought.
No, I realized. It was Elena! Elena was the bad cop. Peter was working a case against her and Teo. I knew for a fact that Teo did coke and he probably dealt it, too. That had to be it!
That’s when the car behind me laid on its horn.
I turned the handlebars and throttled to get out of its way, but I must have given it too much gas. The back wheel spun out, the bike tipped, and I went down hard. I lay there for a moment, my elbow and knee in agony, my
