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  Breakwater

  Pine Island Florida Suspense: Book 5

  Jack Hardin

  First Published in the United States by The Salty Mangrove Press

  Copyright © 2019 by Jack Hardin. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

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  Fun Footnotes to Breakwater

  Get Involved

  Gratitude

  For Heidi

  Because you named your dog after Ellie.

  And because you’re my sister. I guess that’s a bigger deal.

  Chapter One

  It looked like congealing blood, the way it slowly trickled down the wall.

  She stepped back, and the small metal ball clicked inside the can as she shook it. Leaning back in, she gave the nozzle a quick press, and dark red paint plumed out. Satisfied, she tossed the near-empty can into a metal trash can that sat at the corner of the building. She peeled off the latex glove, now stained with a spectrum of colors, and discarded it.

  A middle-aged man bearing olive skin stood next to her. His long hair was pulled behind his back in a ponytail. “You’re very talented, Juanita,” he said.

  She ran the back of her wrist across her forehead, wiping away a bead of sweat that was creeping toward her brow. “Thank you,” she said, though she didn’t smile.

  “He looks like me,” said a small voice beside her. Juanita’s little brother pointed to the image of a young boy standing next to a card table, watching two older men playing dominoes.

  Alex Serrano rubbed the top of the young boy’s head and smiled down on him. “That’s because it is you, Junior.” He looked back on the finished mural. The east-facing wall of the shelter now briefed passersby on the local culture. The men playing dominoes gave way to two children at the opposite ends of a ping pong table and a portly lady behind them frying plantains in a large pan. Further down the wall were images of men playing soccer, a teenage boy connecting his baseball bat to a ball. In the center of it all, in typical blockbuster graffiti lettering, were the words “Hope House.” The drying rivulets of red formed the messy yarn hair of a doll a little girl held, clutched in the crook of her arm. Both the Cuban and American flags flew above her.

  Alex had opened Hope House almost two years ago now. It was nestled in the center of the Miami neighborhood of West Hialeah. The community was comprised of nearly ninety-five percent Hispanics, making it one of the most ethnically homogeneous places in the nation. Initially conceived as a shelter for poverty-stricken, Spanish-speaking immigrants, Alex’s vision had grown, and Hope House had matured into a recreation center as well. It was a safe place where kids could come in off the streets and play foosball, video games, and even learn to read or cook. The street gangs were not as invasive as they had been a decade ago, but they still held influence over some areas of the community, peddling drugs, burglarizing storefronts, and intimidating those not willing to join their ranks.

  Alex stood admiring the detail in the face of the boy swinging the bat. “One day,” he told Juanita, “you will do big things.”

  She shrugged and looked back at her brother. “I just want him to have a better life,” she said. “I’m not sure how to give him that.”

  Alex set a fatherly hand on her shoulder. “You keep going to school, stay focused, and many opportunities will arise. Luck, they say, is when preparation meets opportunity. Keep preparing. In six months, you could be in college.”

  Juanita gave a half-smile, then whistled to her brother who was now at the other end of the building picking up pebbles and skipping them across the street. “Junior!” she yelled. “It’s time to go.”

  Alex stood with his hands on his hips, still admiring the mural. “Thank you again, Juanita. This is amazing.” He turned toward her. “We’re serving tortilla soup for dinner tonight. Make sure to come get some.”

  “Thank you,” she said, then took her brother’s hand and started down the sidewalk. Junior waved at Alex as they walked away. Alex smiled at the boy a final time before turning and going back inside. When they reached the corner, Juanita turned south on W 8th Avenue instead of continuing on W 37th Street, the route back to their aunt’s house.

  “I thought maybe you changed your mind,” her brother said.

  “No,” Juanita replied. “I need to do this.”

  “Mr. Alex will ask me where you are when I come to the shelter without you.”

  “Tell him I am visiting a cousin. That will keep him from asking questions.”

  “But we don’t have a cousin.”

  Her tone grew agitated. “I need you to do that, Junior. If you don’t, they might start looking around and find out that Tía can’t take care of us. They’ll put us in foster care and probably separate us. Do you want to go live with someone you don’t know?”

  He lowered his head. “No,” he said softly.

  His little hand felt small in hers. They walked side by side, navigating broken bottles and deep fissures in the neglected sidewalk. More than once she tugged him back from stepping on a discarded needle.

  “Mami would tell you not to do this,” he finally said.

  Juanita wanted to stop in her tracks. She wanted to grab Junior and shake him and remind him that their mother was dead. That she wasn’t there to tell them anything. But she didn’t. Instead, she chose her words more carefully. “We’re alone now, Junior. I need to watch out for us. Tía can’t do it.”

  He gripped her hand harder. “You could have told Mr. Alex what you are doing.”

  “He’s a good man, but he can’t get us out of here. I turn eighteen in a few months. If I can make some money before then, I can get the judge to let me take care of you, and we can move somewhere better.”

  She stopped at the corner of an old, condemned motel that was hemmed in with panels of temporary chain link fencing. The half-hearted effort to prevent people from trespassing on the decrepit property hadn’t worked. In a dozen places, holes large enough for someone to crawl
through had been cut into the fencing, and most of the room windows were busted out. Juanita personally knew half a dozen vagrants that still called the place home.

  She peered around the corner of the building and saw a dark blue van parked on the curb. The side door was open, and a man she didn’t recognize stood near it, waiting. He had a large beard and thick arms that were folded across his chest. His bulbous nose looked like it was made out of putty and one side had caved in.

  Juanita quickly turned back to her brother. “I have to go to the van alone,” she said. “Jesse told me not to bring anyone with me.”

  “Why?”

  Ignoring the question, she said, “I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

  Junior squeezed her hand harder and drew down on it. Tears were forming along his eyelids. “Don’t go.”

  She squatted down and placed both hands on his shoulders, looked him in his eyes. “We can’t stay around here anymore. But I can’t get us out unless we get some money. Do you understand that? Jesse promised me it wouldn’t be long. He’s going to watch out for me.”

  “I don’t like Jesse.”

  “He’s been good to us. Just go back to Tía’s and stay in your room until you leave for dinner. And don’t tell anyone what I’m doing. You understand?”

  “Yes. I understand.”

  She stood up and pulled him into her. His head hardly reached past her stomach. He tilted his head back and looked up at her, producing the first smile of the day. “I can hear your heart beating in your stomach. Is that where it’s supposed to be?”

  She wouldn’t tell him it was because she was nervous. But she had to do this. Their aunt was worthless. All she cared about was her next plunge of the needle, that next fix that would send her back into the clouds and keep her oblivious to the reality that she now had a niece and nephew to care for.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Juanita said. “I promise you.”

  “What work are you going to do?” he asked.

  “We’ve already talked about this. They are going to give me some work in the fields. It will get us some money.”

  He nodded and scrubbed at his tears with loose fists.

  She gave him one last hug before letting him go and crossing the street. She didn’t look back. Seeing Junior around the corner crying just might have enough power to compel her to stay. And she couldn’t stay. She was going to give that little boy a good future. And to do that, they needed money. She wouldn’t get much, but this was a start.

  As she approached the van, she nodded quickly at the burly man. From this proximity, she could see that his right eye was colorless. The iris, instead of a bright green to match his left, was white. “You’re late,” he said, as he motioned for her to get in. Jesse was in the driver’s seat, and seeing him made her relax a little. He acknowledged her with a brief nod before turning back and looking out the windshield.

  The back of the van had three vinyl-covered bench seats which were separated from the front by a steel mesh barrier. Three other girls who looked to be about Juanita’s age were already inside. She ducked and took the empty bench seat in the back. The side door slammed shut, and the large man with the misshapen nose got into the front passenger seat.

  Outside, something caught her eye, and she looked up to see a curtain move in an unbroken window on the second floor of the motel. Junior was standing there, his tiny six-year-old frame drenched in a hoodie better suited for a large adult. Even from here she could see his wet, puffy eyes. She loved that little boy with all she had. Looking at him standing there alone made her heart hurt.

  His eyes were searching the windows of the van. She set her hand to the glass, but he couldn’t see her. The tint was too dark. But she blew him a kiss anyway as Jesse started the van and pulled away from the curb. She watched Junior grow smaller as they moved down the street until a billboard blocked her view and he disappeared for good.

  Juanita swiveled back in her seat and faced the front. The other three girls were staring into their laps, clearly as nervous as she was. They drove in silence for the next ten minutes, passing up the airport as they rode along NW 7th Street and drew closer to downtown.

  Suddenly, the van took a sharp right and cut down an alley before braking hard enough to elicit murmurs of concern from the passengers. The murmurs quickly mutated into anxious cries as both men up front reached down toward their feet and produced heavy gas masks. They slipped them over their heads and adjusted them. The larger man leaned over something that was sitting on the seat between him and Jesse. Then came a series of quiet squeaks, like a spigot was being turned, followed by a low hissing noise that became stronger with each squeak. The two girls at the front began to scream, but they suddenly stopped. One laid a hand on the window, and the other grabbed the edge of their seat as if they were trying to keep their balance. Suddenly their heads slumped followed soon after by their shoulders. Then, to Juanita’s horror, they slipped from the seat and fell to the floor like someone had switched off their circuits. The young lady in front of Juanita screamed and started to call out Jesse’s name for help. Juanita’s heart was pounding deep in her chest, and her throat had gone dry. She stood up as high as she could and craned her neck. She couldn’t see anything. Just both men staring straight ahead, unmoving, looking like impassive aliens in those awful masks.

  Juanita moved to the side door and tried the handle. It wouldn’t budge. She started banging on the window with her fist, her blows now fueled by a cold terror. Then she felt it. She took in a panicked breath, and her body mellowed like a sleeping pill had begun to unfurl in her chest. Groggy, she returned to her seat. The third girl had stopped screaming and was now laid out across her seat, her eyes closed, an arm drooping awkwardly toward the floor.

  Juanita’s body slumped, and her face slid onto the smooth, cold vinyl of the seat.

  Jesse. She had trusted him.

  He betrayed her.

  She blinked slowly now, her thoughts, no longer sparked by high voltage terror, were oozing, seeping from her mind like a thick syrup.

  Junior was right. She shouldn’t have come.

  As she slipped into unconsciousness, her heart was heavy with the knowledge that she would never see her little brother again.

  Chapter Two

  Three Months Later

  He loved the darkness. He felt comfortable in it, like an old skin you didn’t want to shed.

  Brett Riggins killed his outboard and rode his flat-bottomed boat into a cut in the mangroves before tying off on a narrow ramshackle dock that led deep into the underbrush. He stepped out of the boat and ducked beneath reaching branches. He didn’t need a light. He had passed across these old boards hundreds of times. Thousands, perhaps. Twenty yards in, he veered right, and when he pressed in on the door, it slid against the floorboards with a non-committal creak.

  It was nearly sunrise, and the tiny pinpricks of light that came to the earth from violent stars could not pierce the tin roof of the small, weathered shack. Inside held the kind of thick black that could compel even the most rational adult to believe that something may have come with the darkness. But not for Brett. No one came out here, and nothing but the occasional critter ever got in. The decrepit structure sat deep in the mangroves, a few miles north of Everglades City, nestled in like an old animal that had hidden away to curl up and die in privacy.

  He stepped inside. The lantern and the box of matches sat on a short counter on the opposite end. He started toward it and tossed his keys through the darkness, hearing them clatter onto a small table in the center of the room.

  “Hello.”

  Brett swiveled around as a halting noise escaped his throat; a malnourished scream. He jumped back a couple of feet and held his hands out in front in a frenzied effort to protect himself from the unseen intruder. He managed a weak “Wh-Who are you?”

  The voice was softer, belonging to a female, but firm and confident. “I’ve been waiting for you to show for the last eight hours.” Then, like a
parent worried sick over their teenager, she said, “Where have you been all night?”

  “How...how’d you get here? Nobody knows about this place.”

  “That’s not important.”

  “You police?”

  “Brett, there is a pair of handcuffs on that table you just tossed your keys on. Please put them on.”

  He spoke into the darkness. “Handcuffs? What is this? You arresting me? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I won’t tell you twice.”

  Brett didn’t like her tone. It carried a quiet authority. He couldn’t see if she had a weapon pointed toward him. If she had really been out here in this place all night by herself, she possessed a level of guts he thought impossible for a woman; most men too. Reluctantly, he stepped over to the table and felt around. His keys rattled as his hand slid over them, and then his fingers touched the familiar cold steel of the handcuffs. He grabbed them up and rattled them around. “Okay. I got them on.”

  “Nice try. Put them on. Now.”

  He growled under his breath, and the sound of the metal teeth ratcheting together echoed across the thin walls of the shack. “There. Happy now?”

  “I only heard six clicks, twice.”

  “Come again?”