by Linda Ladd
“She’s a witness. They took her out there to get rid of her. Why wouldn’t they do that if they caught her again?”
Novak didn’t have the answer. “It’s just what my gut’s telling me.”
“It’s unlikely they wouldn’t kill her on the spot.”
“I know. I’m hoping they’ll be greedy enough to try to exchange her for money. I’m going to have Black offer enough reward to keep her alive.”
“Sorry to be blunt, but that’s wishful thinking. She’s a witness who can put them in prison.”
“Yeah, maybe, I’m going for best-case scenario. If they think this whole thing’s coming down on their heads, they might want to take the money and run. Give me the possibility, Eldon. I need something.”
Eldon frowned. “I’ve gotta be honest with you, Novak. Your partner probably didn’t make it that far down that river, whether they had guys right behind her, or not. That area is teeming with alligators, the big ones. They’ll drag her under so fast that she won’t even see them coming. You’ve got to prepare yourself for that possibility.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Silence dropped over the room. Every single one of these men had been born and brought up in and around the Everglades. They all thought he was refusing to face reality, and they were right. But he was not going to give up. He was not going to believe Claire was dead until he saw her body. “Look, Eldon, Claire is smart. She’s a survivor. I know she’ll get out of that water as soon as she can because of the alligators. That’s what she’ll do, trust me. I know her. The current out there was fast and had to have taken her downstream in a hurry. She’ll fight her way to shore, and she’ll pull herself out and get off that bank because she knows they’re looking for her.”
Eldon said nothing. When Novak looked around at the younger guys, to a man they avoided eye contact. They knew chances were not good for Claire. They thought she was dead. Nobody said anything.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Eldon said. “That house that girl described? It better not be on tribal property, which is a distinct possibility. It could be anywhere, I guess, and the wetlands are huge, much of it remote, but the only houses down here are on our land.”
“You told me that you know the Everglades like the back of your hand, that you fished it all the time. Have you ever seen a house that looked anything like that?”
“Not that I recall. Nobody knows every inch of this place. It’s got runoffs and new water channels and stagnant swamps and lakes nobody goes in. There are places only accessible by canoes and kayaks. I’ve got a fine memory, and I’ve been around here a long time. Maybe we can find this place, given time, but I can’t guarantee it. I sure as the devil can’t predict your friend’s going to be there, alive and well. Her chances are not good, Novak, not out there alone in the dark. I’m sorry, but you need to prepare yourself.”
Novak didn’t need to prepare shit. “I think she’ll get out and will find help. Or they’ll capture her again. I know Claire better than you do. She’s still alive.”
“You just want to believe that.”
“Yeah, I want to believe that. I do believe that.”
“Okay, if this house is out here somewhere, we’ll find it. What then?”
“Then we go in and rescue anybody held inside. Maybe alert the feds to help us do it.”
“Maybe?”
“Okay, we’ll bring in the feds.”
They engaged in another solemn stare. “Those infants are still out there, Eldon. Little babies taken forcibly from their mothers. We need to find them. Rosa might be there. I’m counting on it. That’s what started this whole thing.”
“That’s another reason to get Alcina out here. In case we find her baby.”
“Okay, I’ll go get Alcina and Pedro. We’re wasting time. We’ve got to get moving.”
“Our teams are out there. I have two more leaving soon. Where’s Black?”
“Still searching with the chopper. Another thing, Allison said she was held in a place that had phone service. She heard phones ringing. That might help you nail the location.”
“Most places out here get service if you’ve got the right carrier. She give you any kind of landmarks?”
“She told me she could smell the swamp and they arrived on a gravel road. She said the house had a metal roof because it was raining and it sounded like drums beating. She said it looked old and weathered on the outside but the inside looked like a medical clinic. There was the smell of disinfectant and bleach. She was kept chained to a bed, but it had clean linen. She heard babies waking up and crying all through the night. That’s all she could remember. They drug these women. She was pretty much out of it all the time.”
Osceola shook his head. “Well, at least they’re taking care of the babies.”
“If worse comes to worst, Black has some friends outside law enforcement that can help us. You might not want them involved, though.”
Eldon’s eyes delved into him. “You talking about the mob now, Novak?”
Novak skirted on his answer. “Would it make a difference to you if we got Rosa and Claire back unharmed?”
“Yes. Who are you talking about? Let’s get specific. Give me a name.”
Novak hesitated. Novak trusted Eldon, but he didn’t want to betray Black’s confidence. Still, he knew Black would do or say whatever it took to get Claire back. “This has got to be for your ears only.”
“My men are trustworthy.”
“I know that, but I can’t risk it. Just know this, Black is in no way working with these guys. Never has. This man is his legit godfather, the real kind that stood up with him at his christening.”
Eldon slid a notepad over to Novak. “Write it down. If we’re going to help you, we need to know who you’re getting involved.”
Novak took out his phone and typed in Jose Rango out of Miami. He turned the screen around and let Eldon read it and then deleted it. Eldon’s eyes returned to Novak’s face,
“You heard of him?” Novak asked.
“Everybody in Florida law enforcement knows him. I know he can be bad news if you cross him. We’ve never associated with anybody like that. We leave them alone, and they leave us alone.”
“This guy is fond of Claire. He will not be pleased with her being taken, especially since she’s pregnant with his godson’s child.”
“Well, I know who Nicholas Black is, and he’s a fine man. I have that on authority from you and Eloise. She filled me in on him before we agreed to get involved.” Those intelligent dark eyes held Novak’s attention for a long moment. “The man’s name you showed me.? He is known to be ruthless.”
“I know that. Maybe that’s the kind of help we need right now. He’s not going to like this baby thing any more than we do. He’s family oriented, believe it or not. Your hands will remain clean. Black and I will deal with him. You won’t have anything to do with it. I thought you should know.”
“You bet your ass my hands will be clean. We got an understanding on that now, Novak?”
“I get it. Kellen took my partner, tried to murder her, and now she’s lost and maybe dead. You need to know that Black’s going in after payback. You understand me?”
“What you and Black do is your own business. I don’t know and don’t care. Just make sure you do it outside tribal land.” He shook his head. “Now go get Alcina and Pedro and let us get out there. You can go out with us as soon as you get back.”
Eldon pushed back his chair and stood. “Okay, get out of here, and let us get to work.”
Novak and Osceola shook hands, and then Novak was left standing there alone. A moment later, Eldon’s son Jake was back with a Jeep for him to use. Jake was a tall, muscular young man who didn’t look anything like his father. He looked like a New York male model dressed in ripped jeans and a white Pa-hay-Okee Safari T-shirt. Novak thanked him a
nd drove back to Naples, but there was not a minute on the trip that he didn’t visualize Claire in that swampy river, alone in the dark. He hoped to God that Black had already spotted her and had her in a hospital ER. But he didn’t really believe that.
Chapter 12
Stumbling along in the darkness, Claire used her hands out in front to feel her way through the woods. It was pouring down, and the rain was cold and drenched her to the bone. Shivering all over, she knew she couldn’t stop. She screamed when she blundered straight into a giant spiderweb she couldn’t see. She’d seen such webs in the Louisiana bayous and the huge spiders that lived in them. Frantically, she fought free and backed away, shuddering and slapping the sticky gossamer strands off her face and out of her hair. She hoped the spider wasn’t on her or in her clothes, the mere idea filling her with revulsion.
After that, Claire stopped, so exhausted, so cold and wet. Now she was scared. She knew she had to keep going, had to find her way out of the swamp. She had to make it to some kind of road or campsite, somewhere, anywhere she could find people who would help her. Now that she was away from the river, she realized her arm hurt. She touched the wound and felt blood running down over her elbow. It was shallow and would heal. She was more afraid that the blood would draw predators straight to her.
Starting off again, she kept telling herself that her chances were better now than they had been. She had made it out of the river alive and escaped from her pursuer. She was on dry land, well, partially dry, because she kept stepping into soggy ground and pools of water up to her ankle. She tried to angle her path away from the river, but she was confused now about which direction to go. It was too dark to gauge anything. Still, her chances were better out there in the woods than in the hands of armed killers.
She froze when she heard loud snorting somewhere in the dark behind her. She stopped and did not move. It could be a feral hog, or maybe even a Florida panther. It could be anything. Lots of wild animals inside the Everglades could kill her, because she no longer had a weapon and she was injured and exhausted. Every time she heard rustling in the bushes, she feared water moccasins or cottonmouths would slither out of those swamp pools and strike her. Whatever it was ran when she started out again, so it was probably a deer. She trudged on, wishing she could see where she was stepping.
In time, the drumming rain diminished, and the sky gradually paled from black to gunmetal gray. Vague shapes loomed and slowly metamorphosed into big cypress trees draped with long beards of Spanish moss. Raindrops spattered on palmetto fronds all around her and dripped off leaves onto her bare head. Dawn was well on its way.
Claire felt like weeping and almost let herself go to pieces. If she could see where she was going, maybe she could make it out. The faint light made the going so much easier, but the rain had also brought up steaming clouds of biting flies and gnats. Mosquitoes that swarmed over standing pools were the worst. She moved on until she hit some kind of grayish green mire that sucked her shoes down in the oozing muck. Jerking her feet out, she backed away until she was stopped by a tree trunk. She stood there a minute, catching her breath and bolstering courage, but there wasn’t much left.
As the day brightened, Claire realized how much trouble she was in, because she was standing in the middle of a partially flooded cypress grove out in the middle of nowhere. She’d seen these bogs in the bayou, too, but always from the safety of a boat, not standing in the murky water. She stiffened her jaw and trudged on, trying to find firm ground with each footstep until she finally came upon a wide sandbar. She collapsed there on her back in that soft, wet sand, feeling incapable of going on. She didn’t move for a while, trying to slow her racing heart, until another cloud of gnats found her. Still, she didn’t want to get up.
The endless nocturnal drone of millions of insects faded with the sunrise. Her baby was quiet now, and that worried Claire. When she finally felt movement again, her eyes burned with emotion. She could not let herself lose the baby doing this kind of physical exertion. She could not. She would not, no matter what.
After lying there for a while, she gathered enough strength and pushed herself back up to sitting and looked around. That’s when she saw the big alligator. It was submerged in part of the river’s overflow. All she could see was the eyes. Oh God, she had to go, get farther away from the river. She had seen how fast alligators could strike if one ventured too close. They could attack their victim and have them under the water in the blink of an eye.
It was still so early that the damp, humid breeze wisped and whirled mist around on the surface. Ground fog hugged the base of the trees, hiding anything that lurked there. It looked like she had been dropped either into the middle of Jurassic Park or inside the worst nightmare she could ever dream up. She had to make herself move farther inland. Somehow she got to her feet, her eyes riveted on that gator. It was a foot closer now, approaching its victim.
That’s when she heard the helicopter. Maybe it was a rescue team out looking for her; maybe Novak and Black had tracked her somehow. Her hopes flared momentarily then floundered and flamed out. There was no way they’d know where she was. The only people looking for her right now were killers. It was probably Kellen’s guys in that helicopter, and they were circling the area, searching for her.
Claire started inland again in a hurry, stepping over moss-covered rocks and driftwood and stinking rotten vegetation. Lizards zipped across her path, and those awful spiders hung in their webs with silk-wrapped prey and watched her pass. Oh, God, she had to get out of this place. They probably thought she wouldn’t have the guts to take off through a desolate swamp. She was beginning to question the wisdom of it herself. Maybe she should’ve stayed at the river, but the alligators would have gotten her there.
Every once in a while she had to stop and fall on her knees and rest. She constantly searched the ground for slithering snakes. She pushed on because there had to be somebody somewhere. She was in Florida. There were towns and people and highways. Claire felt certain that she would eventually find someone. They had driven a long way into the Everglades before they’d stopped at that bridge. All she needed was a path or hiking trail where she could flag down a car or walk into a campsite.
Her arm was killing her now. The wound was probably infected from the nasty water. She stopped and ripped a strip off her sodden, muddy T-shirt and bound up the wound as best she could. She had an awful headache, but she tried to ignore that so she could keep going. Maybe she’d stumble on a boat launch. Lots of fishermen came out to the Everglades every day. She knew there had to be fishing camps on that river.
Squinting up at the early morning sun, she lowered her gaze and scanned the woods around her. Then she saw the weed-choked path that was partially covered with white shells. It had to lead somewhere. Encouraged, she fought her way onto the trail. After that, the going got easier. Her pace picked up because she was hopeful now. She was thirsty and so tired she could barely lift her feet. Some panic had faded to just bullheaded determination, and she could think straight. Maybe it had been Black inside that chopper she’d heard. Maybe they had deduced she was out here. Maybe they had tracked the rental car somehow.
Right now, she needed a safe place to sit down, her legs ached, and her exposed skin was covered with bites and scratches. She was afraid she’d end up collapsing and never get up again. Chances were that Novak had contacted Eldon first thing when he realized she had been taken. If anyone could find her, Eldon and his sons could. So she kept moving.
In time her feet hit gravel, and her heart took a leap. The sun was all the way up now, and the day was bright and clear, the sky azure blue and cloudless. She followed the gravel. Then she heard voices. Alarmed, she hunkered down right where she was. She didn’t know who was up there. The voices had been male. It could be her pursuers. She had to find out, because she wasn’t going to last much longer out here alone. Minutes later, she came out on a narrow dirt road. Despite her utter fatigu
e, she hurried faster. In minutes she rounded a grove of trees and found a fish camp. Three men were standing around an airboat pulled up on the bank. All three were dressed in head-to-toe camouflage, but they were not the bad guys. They looked like some of Eldon’s sons. Claire was too exhausted to make it to them, but she could yell.
“Help, please! I’m over here, I need help!”
They didn’t hear her because her voice was nearly gone. She croaked it out again. The guy standing at the back of the boat turned around and looked at her.
“Please, please,” she got out hoarsely, but then she fell to her knees, unable to stay on her feet.
The men ran toward her, and she sat on her heels and watched them. They surrounded her and strong hands lifted her to her feet, all of them asking questions at the same time. They were telling her that she was safe now, that they’d help her. She leaned bodily against them and let them support her weight, too spent to even say anything. When she staggered, one guy scooped her up and headed to the boat. She clung to his neck, grateful tears threatening. They were nearly there when the first shot rang out. The young man holding her looked surprised, and then she saw the hole in his forehead and he just went down with her, dead before he hit the ground.
It took a second to overcome her initial shock, but then Claire scrambled free of his body as the other two men were mowed down before they could draw their weapons. Then she was surrounded by men she didn’t know. She lay on her back looking up as footsteps approached. Max Kellen looked down at her. “Why, Mrs. Nicholas Black, you have led us on quite a merry chase.”
Claire was too exhausted to even struggle. He knelt beside her, and she felt something prick her arm, a needle, and then her mind blurred and faltered. The last thing she remembered thinking was that it was over. They would kill her and throw her to the gators, and she and her baby were going to die and Black would never even know what had happened to them.