Feeding Gators: Book 1 in the Shiner's Bayou Series

by Gen Anne Griffin

  Gracie closed her eyes and fought the panic that was bubbling up into her throat as she dug her fingers into her purse searching quietly for her phone. If she had to call 911 in order to get out of this mess, then she would. She had just brushed her fingertips across the top of the cool plastic case when Austin unexpectedly hit the brakes and snatched the car sideways onto a small, dark narrow side road that Gracie had not even noticed them approaching.

  She slid into the passenger’s side door of the car with an oomph! The side of her head hit the glass in the window and the impact brought tears to her eyes.

  Austin sped up as he straightened the front wheels on the pavement.

  *

  “You just wrecked any chance I had of getting laid tonight,” Cal informed Addison as he walked towards the parking space where his friend was leaning on the hood of his state-issued truck. Addison was still wearing a stained, wrinkled game warden’s uniform and smoking a Marlboro Red.

  Cal held out his hand and gestured for the pack of cigarettes before Addy even opened his mouth. The box immediately landed in his palm. He pulled a lighter that was shaped like a naked woman’s torso out of the cellophane wrapper and lit a forbidden cigarette. The burn of the smoke felt good as he pulled it into his lungs.

  “Thought you were quitting,” Addison said with a smirk as Cal laid the rest of the pack of cigarettes on the hood of the gray truck.

  “She’s already got something to be mad about tonight. What’s a cigarette gonna hurt?” Cal leaned back against the Ford, staring up at the first couple of stars to appear in the clear night sky.

  “Date night, isn’t it?” Addison didn’t even try to look sorry as Cal nodded. “You ought to be thanking me. I did you a favor.” He gestured through the window, watching as Jo Beth scooped up the check and Cal’s debit card. She toted them to the register while keeping up a solid stream of conversation with the petite brunette waitress. The waitress glanced back through the window. She caught sight of Addison and grinned, waving cheerily when Jo wasn’t looking. “You need to trade that one in on a less bitchy model.”

  “It doesn’t work like that,” Cal took another deep drag of the cigarette. He coughed slightly as the smoke saturated his lungs and burned there. Jo was right. He needed to quit. “Are you here for a reason or did you just show up for the sheer pleasure of ruining my night?”

  “It’s a sad day when just seeing your best friend ruins your night.” Addison made a tsk-tsking noise at him. “Does the name Eddie Von Hussant mean anything to you?”

  “Should it?” Cal frowned, trying to remember who Eddie was. “It sounds vaguely familiar but I can’t really put a face with it.”

  “Alex said everyone used to call him Twitchy Eddie,” Addison offered with a shrug. “He also mentioned that David beat the hell out of him on a regular basis when y’all were in high school. Seeing as you were normally the one pulling David off of people in high school, I figured you might remember the guy.”

  “Ok, yeah. I know who you’re talking about. I always felt sorry for him,” Cal said with a nod. The memories were coming back to him from middle school and high school. “David had some anger management issues back then. I’m pretty sure he was responsible for Twitchy Eddie’s twitch.”

  “David still has anger management issues.” Addison frowned and took a deep breath. “Eddie just came back to Shiner’s Bayou with a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice and a burning desire for revenge against everyone who ever looked at him funny. He’s applied for the open deputy position with the Sheriffs’ Department. Uncle Wally thinks Eddie is going to try to run for Sheriff come the next election.”

  “Why the hell would Twitchy Eddie want to be the Sheriff of Coastal County?” Cal was genuinely baffled.

  “He told Alex that he wants to revolutionize law enforcement here. He said he came back to put a stop to the “good ol’ boy” stuff that goes on around here. He’s making a lot of noise about equality and stopping favoritism within our, and I quote, “local law enforcement community.”

  “Huh. I thought Alex was the one filling that deputy position.”

  “Uncle Wally’s been planning on hiring him. Now Eddie’s the most qualified candidate on paper and there’s apparently some kind of policy that says the most qualified candidate for a public service job is the one that is supposed to be hired. That’s where we come in.”

  “Wait. What?” Cal suddenly didn’t like where this conversation was headed. It didn’t help that Addison had a peculiar gleam in his eyes that Cal had long ago learned to associate with doing something that could get them all arrested. Getting arrested was a particularly challenging feat to accomplish when you took into consideration that Addison was, technically, a cop.

  Addy must have read his mind. He crossed his arms over his chest and double checked the police-issue radio on his belt to make sure the transmitter was turned off.

  “Uncle Wally is putting Alex and Eddie both on trial with the department starting tomorrow. He told me and Alex that we need to make sure his trial period goes like hell if we don’t want Eddie taking over. If it’s a disaster and we can prove that he’s completely incompetent, Uncle Wally can justify hiring Alex instead.”

  “Sounds like half-assed way to screw somebody out of a job.” Cal considered the possibilities for a minute. “What does David have to say about all this?”

  “He doesn’t know yet. I’m fixing to head over there as soon as I leave here. I just need to know that you’re in. You’ve always been the best at coming up with plans that work without landing us all in jail on murder charges.” Addison turned unexpectedly serious, all signs of good humor and amusement disappearing from his face. “Speaking of murder charges, Eddie already told Alex he’s planning to go after David about Josie Santiago. He wants to try and charge David with the murder even though no one has ever found her body.

  “David didn’t kill Josie Santiago,” Cal said flatly as Jo Beth came storming out of the diner. She shot Addison a death glare and stomped across the parking lot to Cal’s truck. Her kitten heels made a loud tapping noise as they struck the asphalt. He checked his pocket for his keys. Date night wouldn’t work out too well if she drove off without him.

  “I know that. You know that. Twitchy Eddie, on the other hand?” Addison trailed off with a shrug of his shoulders. “Point is, I’m not going to be able to stop Eddie from going after David if he’s a deputy and Alex isn’t.” Addison leaned against the truck and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you in?”

  “Doesn’t sound like I have much of a choice.” Cal straightened his back at scowled in the direction of his truck. He was not looking forward to the prospect of dealing with Jo Beth any more than he was looking forward to sabotaging Twitchy Eddie. Addison followed his gaze.

  “I heard you bought a diamond ring,” he said. He shot Cal a look that implied he had lost his mind.

  “Where did you hear that?” Cal tried to conceal his irritation and failed. Instead, he extracted a second cigarette from Addison’s pack of Marlboros and lit it even though he could still feel the smoke from the first cigarette burning in his lungs.

  “You bought it from Laurie Marsden. She thought you were sweet, so she told me about it. I think she was hinting around that I should consider doing the same.”

  “Dammit.” Cal scowled and leaned back against Addison’s truck. He tried not to look towards the other end of the parking lot where Jo was impatiently sitting and waiting in his own Chevy. “If you know that means the whole goddamned county knows.”

  “That’s not why I brought it up.” Addy tugged thoughtfully on the fraying hem of his state uniform shirt. “As your friend, I feel obligated to stop you from completely fucking up your life by marrying Jo Beth.”

  “Jo Beth is a good girl.”

  “Not for you.” Addison shook his head and shot a look of loathing in the direction of Cal’s truck. “She reminds me of your Dad.”

  “You’ve lost me,” Cal informed him.
<
br />   “Your Dad has tried to control your life since the day you were born. Play it safe. Be practical. Make smart choices. Don’t ever take any risks. Jo Beth is exactly the same way. It’s not good for you. You need a little bit of excitement in your life.” Addison frowned. “You start getting mad at the world anytime you’re around your Dad for too long. Prolonged exposure to Jo Beth has the same effect. You’re not happy with her.”

  “I should be happy with her.” Cal wondered if he was trying to convince himself or Addison. “She has a lot of good qualities.”

  “She’s making you miserable and you’re too stubborn to realize it. She’s nosy as hell and never shuts up. Every time I see you with her, you’re staring off into the distance like you’d rather be somewhere else while her jaw flaps and flaps. Plus, she’s a bitch.”

  “She’s not a bitch. She just doesn’t like you,” Cal pointed out.

  “You marry her and next thing you know you’ll be wearing matching sweater sets to church revivals and driving a minivan for the rest of your life. You’ll never fish or hunt again. Your boat will rot in your yard until she forces you to sell it. Once you sell it you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing Jo Beth’s bidding.” Addy crossed his arms over his chest. “You know it’s a big ocean. Lots of fish in the sea. Marry someone who can clean a fish.”

  “Your logic needs work,” Cal said. He was still trying to connect the dots on Addison’s fish analogy. “Just because I bought the ring doesn’t necessarily mean I’m planning on popping the question tomorrow. Why do you think that ring has been sitting in my glove box since I bought it?”

  Addison’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You’ve got the ring in your glove box?”

  “I’m having commitment issues,” Cal admitted as he blew hot air out his bottom lip and played with his cigarette. Addison shot him a wicked grin that Cal knew better than to trust.

  “What are you planning?” Cal asked.

  Addison didn’t answer as he started walking across the parking lot, taking long, even strides until he reached the passenger side of Cal’s Z71. Cal hesitated for a couple of seconds before reluctantly following after him. Addison yanked open the passenger side door and grinned up at Jo Beth, exhaling a long drag of cigarette smoke directly into her face.

  “What the? Get off of me!” Jo demanded as Addy leaned across her knees and popped the glove box open.

  “I’m out of condoms.” He smiled broadly as she coughed on his cigarette smoke. “I need to borrow some.” He yanked something out of the glove box and quickly jammed it into his pocket. Winking at Jo Beth, he slammed the glove box closed and shut the door of the truck. He was grinning like a mad man when he turned back around to face Cal.

  “What did you just do?”

  Addison looked entirely too pleased with himself as he reached into his pocket and displayed a small black velvet box in the palm of his right hand.

  “I’ve decided you’re unstable and don’t need to be making life-altering decisions right now,” Addison announced as he began heading back towards his own truck. The police radio on his belt crackled and the dispatcher informed him that Lou Kramer had poachers in his back pasture and wanted Addison to come deal with them in the next five minutes or he was going to shoot them himself.

  Addison gestured to the pocket where he’d put the ring. “You’re not getting this back until you can convince me that you really want to get married.”

  Cal considered arguing then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

  Addison started to walk away again when someone called his name.

  “Addison, wait!”

  Cal turned to see the waitress from the restaurant coming towards the truck with a bag that appeared to have several to-go boxes in it.

  Addy stepped back out of his truck and smiled at her as she handed the bag to him. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said. The girl was gazing up into his turquoise blue eyes with pure adoration. “There’s a cheeseburger with everything, fries and a slice of cheesecake in there.”

  “Thanks.” Addison smiled at her benevolently as he laid on the charm. “I really appreciate it. I’m about to go on another call, but it sure will be nice to have a warm dinner waiting for me when I get finished.”

  “Glad I could give it to you. I have to go back inside now.” The girl blushed a bright pink and turned away, scurrying back inside the diner.

  “Another one of your girlfriends?” Cal rolled his eyes.

  “No. But today might just be her lucky day. She wrote her number on the top of the cheesecake box.” Addison grinned at him as he opened the bag of food.

  “Jesus Christ.” Cal shook his head in complete disgust. “They just throw themselves at you.”

  “What can I say? It’s the Malone charm,” Addy grinned cockily and held his arms out in a broad shrug.

  “I hope the poachers shoot your sorry ass,” Cal muttered. “I’m never going to understand how you do it.” They both knew he wasn’t talking about Addison’s duties as a game warden.

  “It’s easy. You just pick a girl. Make sure to talk real nice to her, and she’ll jump into the cab of your truck with her legs spread wide open.”

  “I wouldn’t want one that jumped into my truck with her legs spread.” Cal shook his head in disgust.

  “Naw, I reckon the only one you really want is my kid sister.” Addison put out the stubby end of his cigarette and let the words sink in. “I think you ought to drive up there to State University and go get her.”

  “Gracie doesn’t want me,” Cal said flatly. “There’s no way in hell I’m driving three hours for her to tell me again. I heard her the first time.”

  “Gracie doesn’t have the slightest clue what she wants,” Addison announced as if he had thought about this for a while. “I talked to her yesterday. She’s miserable. The only reason she ain’t come home already is her damned, stupid pride. She fought Daddy so hard to get to go away to college that she ain’t about to admit she made a bad choice. Every time I ask her how it’s going, she gets that forced, fake-happy voice that she uses when she’s telling Granny Pearl how much fun she had at last year’s church revival.”

  “Gracie hasn’t gone to a youth revival since she was 10.” Cal tried to act like he didn’t care how Gracie felt or if she missed him even though Addison knew it was a lie. “There’s nothing between me and her. She doesn’t want me. I’m over it. I’ve got my own pride. Gracie can live her life and I’ll live mine.”

  Addison shook his head after a moment. He shrugged as he put the food in the cab of his truck. His radio crackled again as he climbed behind the wheel. “Keep telling yourself that. You’re a proud, stubborn bastard. Call me if you come up with a reason for me to give that diamond back.”

  *

  “Austin, stop the car. Please.” Gracie knew she sounded desperate but right this moment she didn’t care. She’d rather sound frightened than be trapped in a car that was going way too fast around tight curves with steep drop- offs next to the road.

  His mocking laugh was anything but comforting. “Scared yet?”

  “I want out of this car. Now.”

  “Too bad.” Austin continued to speed up. “I’ll take you back to school once that freaking truck stops following us.”

  “Following us?” Gracie repeated his words unsure if she had heard him correctly. When he didn’t correct her, she blinked at him and then twisted in the seat. She hadn’t noticed any other vehicles following them. She couldn’t see anything behind them except a single set of headlights way off in the distance. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re being followed,” Austin said through clenched teeth. He used both hands to grip the steering wheel as he continued to accelerate.

  “I don’t think so.” Gracie watched the headlights of the other vehicle fade rapidly away as their speed increased. “Slow down.”

  “No way.” He shook his head so hard drops of sweat flew off his forehead. Gracie looked hard at h
im. She felt considerably more nervous than she had a few minutes ago. Austin was pouring sweat despite traveling at nearly 90 miles an hour with his window wide open and the air condition running on full blast. His tanned skin had turned a sickly shade of pale green.

  Gracie absolutely had to get out of this car. Now.

  “Austin, there isn’t anyone following us,” she told him. “Pull the hell over. I’m done with you, and I want to get out.”

  “You want them to get me, don’t you?” Austin turned on her. “You probably know who’s driving that truck, don’t you? You dressed up like a whore thinking you would get me to trust you, and then you were planning to steal all my shit, weren’t you?”

  Alarm bells began to go off inside Gracie’s head. Austin wasn’t just acting like a jerk anymore. He was acting like a paranoid nutcase. “I don’t know what you’re even talking about.” She tried to keep her voice soothing and calm as she debated the likelihood that she could grab the wheel and snatch the car off the road without rolling it and killing both of them. The odds were not in her favor. “There isn’t even anyone back there.”

  “Liar.” Austin practically spat the word at her as he turned onto another deserted rural road. “You’re just a lying tease.”

  “Pull over,” she repeated. Austin’s sweat soaked shirt, pale complexion, rapid breathing and massively dilated pupils told her that whatever fantasy was playing out in his drug-addled, paranoid brain right now wasn’t good.

  For a moment he didn’t respond at all. Then the car began to slow and Gracie realized he had taken his foot off the gas. Gracie prepared to bolt from the vehicle as the car slid onto the shoulder of the road.

  She expected him to unlock the doors once the car came to a stop. Instead he reached over and grabbed her wrist in a tight grip.