by Blaire Edens
Why the hell am I trying to talk myself out of a job? Especially when the client has already handed me an envelope of cash.
But Lucy wasn’t good at holding her tongue. “Cheating isn’t the worst sin imaginable, you know.”
“In my family, after what we went through fifteen years ago, it is.”
Lucy decided to leave the conversation there. After all, Spencer, despite his attractiveness, was only a client. As soon as she proved that the Lizard Man had nothing to do with his father’s disappearance, she’d head back to Cheldron and start work on re-legitimizing herself. “Then let’s get to the bottom of it as quickly as we can. I’ll do a little research of my own tonight, and I’ll be ready to get started first thing in the morning.”
“See you here at eight for breakfast?”
“Seven,” she countered. “The more we can get done before noon, the better.”
“Why?”
“This heat. I’m a delicate flower, and I don’t want to wilt,” she said in a faux Deep South accent.
The grin on his face told her that he was going to really appreciate her sarcasm. If he didn’t already.
* * *
Spencer knew Lucy was right.
It would be much easier to investigate the mistress angle first but he couldn’t bring himself to take her advice.
The summer before his junior year in high school, he’d been home in bed after having his wisdom teeth removed. He’d heard his mother crying and rushed downstairs. In her hand, she held a letter. From Bette. While he never knew the contents, the content was easy to deduce.
When his father had returned home from work, his parents had had a huge row.
He’d overheard his mother say, “You promised me you would never do something like this, but now you and that woman are bringing this back into our lives, our home, our son’s life.”
His father had been having an affair. He’d been cheating on Spencer’s mother, the sweetest, kindest woman in the world. Even though he never admitted the affair and denied it at every turn, his mother had the letter. They’d gone to marriage counseling, worked on their relationship.
It blew over, or so Spencer thought.
But obviously it hadn’t.
Sixty was way too old for a mid-life crisis. If his father had known, back then, that he was going to continue the affair, he should have left immediately and allowed his mother a chance to live her own life.
Although he couldn’t imagine his parents as anything other than a unit. They did everything together: bridge, tours of wineries, and weekends on the pontoon boat. They even had matching golf bags. What would their lives have been like if they had divorced?
Judging by the letters he’d found, Bette was into bingo, thrift stores and early bird specials, three things his father despised as common and trite. For as long as cotton had been king, the Watsons had been more Brooks Brothers than all-day buffet.
His father was too high-falutin’ for someone named Bette with an “e” in Daytona Beach.
But there was no disputing the letters he’d found in his father’s desk back at the office.
Even if they were a little cryptic.
Okay, a lot cryptic.
He opened the door to his hotel room and walked inside. The room was blessedly cool and a chill passed through him. Sweet Williams’ Chamber was a soothing space done in shades of blue. Spencer kicked his shoes off and enjoyed the feel of the smooth pine boards under his feet.
The Bloomsbury was one of his favorite hotels. Built as a home in the mid-nineteenth century, the rooms had high ceilings and ornate mantles. Like an aging Southern matron, the place was classy and understated, and it always made Spencer feel at home.
He shucked down to his boxers and climbed onto the four poster bed. Laying on his back, he focused on the one of the ceiling fan blades and watched it make a lazy circle, willing his mind to stop racing.
* * *
Lucy was out of her element. After a childhood in a tiny house in the mountains and a career largely spent in tents, huts and poorly climate controlled offices, this place was too rich for her blood. After she tossed her duffel bag into the closet, she looked around the Sally Chestnut Chamber and sighed. From the iron headboard to the floral rug, it was everything Lucy had never been. Soft and genteel.
Ugh. It’s like a goddam Waverly explosion.
She forced herself to stop nitpicking the décor and focus on the Lizard Man. That’s why she was here. Her first paying job, a seriously hot client, and the promise to head out into the Scape Ore Swamp and investigate.
It all sounded like the perfect way to spend a few days. Except that her conscience was bothering her.
Before she trekked out into the swamp in full crypto mode, she was going to do a little research.
After changing into a pair of gym shorts and a tank top, she sat down in one of the moss green wingback chairs and opened her laptop. She connected to the hotel’s Wi-Fi and clicked on her browser. Into the search bar, she typed, “Bette Hollis Daytona”.
As soon as the images appeared in the third line of the results, she understood why the name had sounded both wrong and right.
Bette Davis had played a character named Charlotte Hollis in a movie called Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Even though the movie was old, made in the mid-1960s, Lucy remembered it. She’d had a cable-less childhood and had been forced to watch whatever came through on the antenna perched on the roof.
She’d seen that movie.
Could the name be a coincidence? It was possible but it seemed unlikely.
Maybe the woman had made up the name so that if the wife ever discovered the letters, her identity would remain secret.
Nah.
That seemed like a young person’s game.
But maybe she was generalizing.
“Damn it,” Lucy muttered to herself. She hated it when her scientific mind went to war with her intuition. It happened more often than she liked to admit, and it drove her absolutely batshit crazy. She was trained in science. Facts were her drug. Hypotheses and theories were the spice of her life.
As much as she wanted to believe that the Lizard Man might be real, and as much as she’d like to walk down the halls of Alamance College, proof in hand, her money was on finding Mr. Watson in a bingo parlor sitting next to Ms. Bette.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucy was already sipping her coffee when Spencer walked downstairs the next morning.
“How did you find the Sarah Chestnut?”
Only an uppity lawyer would refer to a hotel room by its formal name. She’d bet the meager balance in her checking account that he still had fraternity mixer T-shirts in his dresser drawers.
He was dressed in a blue, long-sleeved button down and pressed khakis. The one concession he’d made to the fact that they were hunting a swamp monster was in his choice of footwear: a pair of Chippewa snake boots that reached nearly to his knees. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and before she could control herself, a giggle escaped.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, pouring a cup of coffee for himself.
“Nothing. I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else.” Like how he’d fare in the swamp dressed with monogrammed cuffs.
She, on the other hand, was dressed in faded blue jeans, a red t-shirt that read “Big Foot Doesn’t Believe in You Either” in bold white letters, and her much cheaper, much more worn snake boots. She’d filled her water bottle, thrown some protein bars in her backpack and braided her hair into a tight plait. Lucy was ready to go monster hunting.
Spencer’s look leaned more toward skeet shooting.
Talk about the odd couple.
“You always wear snake boots to interviews?” she asked as he stirred the cream into his coffee.
“No, but I like to be prepared. Dad taught me that.”
Mug in hand, he sat in a chair separated from hers by a small occasional table. The scent of his cologne, spicy and warm, wafted towards her and she felt her hormo
nes kick into gear.
He’s so not my type. He’s starchier than the dry cleaners. I’d like to loosen him up a bit, unbutton that shirt slowly and—
“Ready to do some investigating?” Spencer asked, drawing her back to the hotel lobby.
“Rarin’ to go,” she said, the colloquialism escaping her lips before she remembered that he’d hired her for her PhD, not her folksy charm.
“I called Mac Dawson last night, and we’re meeting with him this morning.”
She’d seen the account online. Mac Dawson had seen the Lizard Man more than twenty years ago. At the time, he’d been a teenager on his way home from working the late shift at a fast food joint when he’d blown a tire. While changing it beside the road, which bordered Scape Ore Swamp, he’d heard a strange thumping sound behind him and when he turned to see what was causing the ruckus, he’d seen Lizard Man running toward him.
According to Dawson, the creature then clawed at the car and jumped onto the roof, clinging to it as the teenager hopped into the driver’s seat and peeled off. He swerved from side to side until he was able to toss Lizard Man off the car. When he’d gotten home, the car’s side mirror was shot to hell, and there were scratch marks in the paint.
To Lucy, it sounded more like a drinking game gone wrong than a new scientific discovery. Reptiles didn’t usually have a taste for sheet metal or headlight assemblies.
“His account is well known. The police report, along with dozens of interviews, is on the web. I doubt he’d have anything new to tell us.”
Spencer shrugged his shoulders. “It’s worth a shot.”
Lucy disagreed. “A twenty-five-year-old sighting is garbage. He’s thought about it too often, talked to too many people. And plus, if he really did see something, it’s highly likely that specific animal is dead by now. While some reptiles can live a long time, lizards, even big ones, only live fifteen or twenty years.” Now that she was here, Lucy was ready to trek out into the swamp and see what she could find. After all, she was the expert. “I’ve done years and years of research, and I’m telling you that the sooner we can get out there and have a look around, the more likely we are to find evidence left by the specimen you saw.”
“But we need background first.” He was hedging again.
“We’re both familiar with the legend and the sightings. That’s all we need.”
Spencer licked his lips and rubbed his throat. His body language screamed fear and anxiety.
“The Lizard Man, if he even exists, isn’t going to harm you.”
“I’m not scared of him.” He didn’t sound all that convincing.
“Bullshit. Your fear signals are flashing brighter than the lights on the Vegas Strip.”
“I’m not scared of The Lizard Man,” he repeated.
“Then what are you scared of?”
His clear blue eyes met hers, and that curious sizzle started in the pit of her stomach and traveled downward fast.
“I’m scared he doesn’t exist, that he had nothing to do with my father’s disappearance.”
“Finding that Lizard Man exists and killed your father is preferable to finding him cozied up to a sixty-something woman with blue hair in Daytona Beach?’
Spencer nodded. “Very much so.”
“You’re afraid of what you’re going to find out either way. Jesus. Why did you call me? It’s a losing proposition. I’m not sure if you want me to help you find a monster so you can tell yourself your father was a saint or tell you there’s no Lizard Man and show you to Daytona Beach.”
The silence was palpable.
Finally, Spencer said, “You’re right. What I’m asking is unfair.”
Lucy exhaled. “Look, I get it. We all think our parents are infallible and then we grow up and realize they’re just ordinary people, too, and it takes the shine off the whole apple but the truth is always going to be the truth and the sooner we can figure out what that truth is, the faster you can move forward.”
“In my head, I know you’re right.”
“So let me lead?”
He nodded. “Lead on.”
* * *
After placing their mugs on a silver tray near the registration desk, they headed across the well-manicured lawn to her truck. “We’d better take mine just in case we need a winch or something.”
A winch. A smart girl who knew how to use a winch. He wasn’t sure if he was intrigued or intimidated.
Either way, he couldn’t stop staring at the seat of her jeans. Her ass was perfect and filled out the denim in a way he could appreciate. There was a hole the size of a dime where one back pocket attached, and he found himself hoping he could get close enough to figure out what color panties she was wearing.
Pink. I hope they’re pink.
He was so dialed in to the tiny tear, he nearly ran smack into the side of her truck.
And what a truck it was. The big blue Dodge Ram looked like it had survived a nuclear event. It was scratched and dented and the back bumper was crumpled on one end. Even in its sorry state, with its big mud tires and split exhaust, it was the dream of every farm boy in Florence County, if not the entire state of South Carolina.
“This is some vehicle.” Spencer whistled. “How many miles?”
“Before or after the new engine?”
“Which you probably put in yourself.”
She smiled, and he noticed that her teeth were bright white and perfectly spaced. “I had a tiny bit of help.”
Lucy exuded confidence and capability that put the women he was usually attracted to in the shade. Not only was she smart and attractive, she was fearless. He saw it in the way she took firm steps and always met his eye directly. She had her power, and it circled her like an aura. In the fourteen years since he’d gotten his driver’s license, he’d chosen women who were more lace than leather, ones who knew a Gorham silver pattern on sight and had monogrammed pillow cases.
Maybe I’ve been wrong all along.
She was totally unaware of how attractive she was, which made her all the more so. It was like some weird conundrum he’d expect in a logic class. He’d never been conflicted about an attraction to a woman. Until today.
“Hop in,” she said. “I need you to navigate. If you’re good, I might let you drive this baby.” She tapped the dash and grinned at him.
He wasn’t going to admit how appealing that sounded. In a world where he’d always been expected to drive imports, he wondered what it would feel like to plow through the mud and silt with tires like hers. Growing up, several of his friends had owned big trucks, but he was too proud of his BMW 325i convertible to ever ask for a test drive even though he’d desperately wanted to get behind the wheel of one.
Jesus. Maybe he was the one facing a mid-life crisis. At thirty.
Maybe it ran in the family.
Leave it to me to be early.
It was about fifteen miles from the Bloomsbury to Scape Ore Swamp. Other than giving her a few directions, he stayed quiet and watched the pine forests roll by his window.
Even though he’d grown up in this area, after last night, all the trees, all the signs, everything looked unfamiliar to him, like he’d never traveled this road before. The Lizard Man had zapped his brain, reset it somehow. Despite having hours to process the events in Scape Ore Swamp, the blood-chilling fear was still lodged at the back of his throat.
He directed Lucy to the area where his father had parked his Nissan.
“I know this is hard for you,” Lucy said, slowing the truck and drifting into the fine sand.
Spencer’s heart raced. “I’ll be fine.” He hated the way his voice sounded unsteady, unsure. “I have to figure out what happened to him.”
“Why are you staying at the Bloomsbury when your house is so close?”
“When I escaped the swamp last night, I couldn’t think clearly. My mind was fragmented, twisted. All I could do was drive. By the time I saw the lights of the Bloomsbury, I was exhausted, and I stumbled inside and begged for
a room.”
Lucy parked and killed the engine. “I’m surprised a swanky place like that let you stay. I’m sure you were muddy and gross and very far from genteel-looking.”
Despite the dread that flooded him, he smiled. “It was a good thing they already knew me.”
She reached across the cab and placed her hand on top of his. Her skin was soft, and a delicious sizzle spread up his arm. “I know this sucks. I can’t imagine how it must eat at you on the inside but whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. I’ll be right beside you.”
Her softness surprised him. Up until now, she’d been all business. “Thanks. I know it will. It’s just that. . . .” His voice trailed off. Spencer didn’t know how to explain the feelings flooding through him.
“I get it. Trust me,” she said.
He opened the door, and the heat, as thick as she-crab soup, oozed into the cab of the truck and for a moment, Spencer felt like he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t know whether it was the fear or the humidity.
From behind the driver’s seat, Lucy pulled a large machete. She removed the sheath and the blade glinted silver in the bright sunlight. “Come on. We’re burning daylight.”
It only took about three steps into the spongy, swampy ground for the mud to rush over the tops of his boots. Each step produced a wet, sucking sound like it was trying to pull him down into the depths of decay. Lucy was just ahead of him, slashing through the undergrowth, seemingly unbothered by the heat, the mud, or the overwhelming stench of all the rotting organic material all around them.
The smell brought everything back in a flood of physical sensations. He felt hot then cold. He clenched his teeth together and refused to give into the fear. He knew this place, knew this environment. Yesterday, he’d seen something that scared the shit out of him, but he wasn’t going to let it keep him from solving the mystery of his dad’s disappearance. He’d seen the Lizard Man and lived to tell the tale.