“Your point’s well taken. I suspect Mr. Trainer has a covert source of funding and a larger facility in an undisclosed location nearby,” Brigadier General Alonso Colon said. “It’s clear that his operation has spread beyond one man’s capabilities. Just look at the scale of the damage. How much of the lagoon is infected with bacteria now, professor?”
“Again, I must respectfully disagree with your assumption that Mr. Trainer has something to do with this. He’s only studying it, just like we are,” Swartzman said. Moni grimaced. The Lagoon Watcher had been doing much more than studying her and Mariella when he spied them from across the street before the car chase. “Anyway, the mutated strain of thiobacillus has been detected all the way to the north end of the lagoon near Scottsmoor down as far as the Sebastian Inlet. It hasn’t gotten through the inlet into the ocean. The chemical levels in a body of water that large are much harder to change than in the relatively narrow Indian River Lagoon.”
“No infected animals are escaping into the ocean either,” Aaron added. “Weird, huh?”
“It’s not weird,” Swartzman countered. “If their body chemistry has been altered to adapt to the bacteria’s preferred environment, then they’d thrive in the lagoon where the conditions suit them. And they’d foster its growth any way they could, even if it harmed people.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” Sheriff Brandt said. “Whoever’s behind this has planned for a lot of casualties. I’m afraid General Colon has more on that.”
The members of the task force focused on the military man. Many eyebrows were raised as he puckered his normally proud face in embarrassment.
“A number of days ago, what we suspect were mutated creatures from the lagoon broke into Patrick Air Force Base and stole sixteen powerful explosives. Each one can release enough force to destroy a major structure. While we’re still investigating how the theft occurred, despite the best efforts of our security, it’s imperative that we recover those explosives promptly.”
Moni’s heart swelled bigger with every beat as she imagined a cascade of fire tearing through the wall of the conference room—or worse. The African artwork would fly off the shelves in her living room before the burst of fire dumps the shattered wooden boards and nails of her roof down atop her and Mariella. If the Lagoon Watcher couldn’t capture Mariella or behead her, he might settle on simply blowing her up, along with any unfortunate soul in the same building. Still, sixteen bombs seemed excessive for one target. If her plan didn’t stop him soon, the current victim count could turn out as only a warm up before the true massacre.
“Now that everyone knows how much is at stake, I say we’re putting way too much trust in Moni’s cutesy little plan,” said Sneed, who ignored the fact that everyone else besides him and Swartzman had already committed to it. “This woman has messed up every task we’ve given her except for keeping the girl alive, which hasn’t helped us one bit because she hasn’t said a damn thing. What makes everybody think she’ll get it right this time?”
Moni had no answer for him.
Chapter 32
For once, Moni wished she could trade places with Sneed. While she sat behind the tinted windows of an undercover SUV in the staff parking lot of Challenger 7 Elementary, Sneed hung out in the security room of the school’s administration building and watched the video monitors. She hated waiting without seeing what was happening. That head-slicer, or one of his foul creations, could be on their way any moment.
Moni had done nothing with Mariella for three days besides shuttle her between the hotel and school. At no time were they out of range of at least six officers. That didn’t put her at ease. None of those officers, especially Sneed, cared about Mariella as much as she did. They made their priority catching the suspect, with the girl’s survival a distant second, Moni thought.
That Thursday, Sneed had one officer with him. Another two were stationed in a house facing the playground. One was undercover as a construction worker on the cafeteria roof and another one—a hefty man with a beer gut and a shaved head who had been one of the late Harrison’s closest friends—sat beside Moni in the SUV. Gary DeWitt didn’t even glace at Moni after she told him to stop smoking in the car with the windows rolled up. He exhaled a puff of smoke into the windshield so that it rebounded into Moni’s face. She started coughing.
“My eyes are watering,” Moni said. “I’m supposed to be looking for the suspect, but I can barely see.”
“Excuse me, but I smoke when I’m grieving,” DeWitt said. “I’m sorry, you must have forgotten what grief is.”
Everyone mistook her relief that Mariella survived the last attack as a sign that she didn’t care about Harrison’s death. That couldn’t be further from the truth. She cared, but her sorrow over his loss barely registered when the fear of losing the girl at any moment constantly hung over her like a black widow spider suspended on a web above her bed.
Besides that, the hardest part of the past three days had been ignoring the five calls a day that Darren, her ex-boyfriend, bombarded her office line with. For that reason alone, she didn’t miss living in her house all that much. Tropic would have to make due in the pet “hotel and spa”, otherwise known as a cage and water dish, until this mess is over.
Too bad she had another hater stuck with her all day. Sneed must have dumped her in that car with someone who wished her a miserable death so it would throw her off her game. He could always use another excuse for demoting her. Moni wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. She scanned the three rows of brick classrooms with the metal awnings between them. Mariella’s class was in the middle one. She also kept an eye on the eight rows of portable classrooms that had four trailers to a row. The fourth, fifth and sixth graders had the pleasure of sweating inside those pine boxes.
If anyone approached the school grounds from the south side through the parking lot, or from the east side along the classrooms and trailers, Moni would see them. They had cameras on every hallway and the view covered each door, so, technically, no one should slip by them. For three days, they had identified all suspicious people entering schools grounds and had school security intercept them. All of them had good reasons, such as a parent coming to pick up their kid early for a medical appointment. It bothered Moni that she couldn’t watch the encounters with the security guard. The Lagoon Watcher could have worn a costume and forged a doctor’s note.
Maybe my paranoid head is giving him too much credit for being clever. But if he could transform the lagoon into a bacteria-infected, acidic mess I shouldn’t put any stunt past him.
* * * *
Mrs. Mint wondered whether her students noticed that she glanced out the window more often, and jumped a little every time someone opened the door unannounced. They couldn’t have known about the police sting operation, except for Mariella of course, but she couldn’t exactly tell anyone. From the lingering stares of concern on the faces of more than a few children, Mrs. Mint saw that the most perceptive students realized things weren’t quite normal.
How can I teach my class when there’s a threat from a child-napping lunatic looming over it? The officers wouldn’t be blanketing the school if they didn’t expect that he was coming. What do I do if he gets in this classroom?
Sneed had given Mrs. Mint a pen with a silent buzzer that would alarm the police. She had his number on speed dial on her cell phone. But if this psychopath evaded them—as he has been doing quite effectively since he started this killing spree—and slipped into her classroom, those toys wouldn’t hold him off. He wouldn’t stop and wait for the police. He’d hurt her, Mariella and anyone who got in his way.
Her eyes caught sight of Mariella sitting quietly in the middle of class with a pink bow in her black hair, and a purple pony on her glittery shirt. As beautiful and benign as the child appeared, Mrs. Mint couldn’t help letting resentment seep through her stare. The girl had brought so many complications and troubles into her life since the attack on her parents. Even with all her years of experie
nce in the classroom, Mrs. Mint simply couldn’t crack through her armor of silence and help her. If only the girl would leave, things would be normal.
Mariella’s dark eyes snapped on her. Something about them didn’t seem very childlike at all. They were more like the eyes of a hawk sizing up a mouse. She immediately regretted that she had wished that the girl would leave. Losing her parents had profoundly changed Mariella and the child in her had died that day as well. She needed the help of a responsible adult to get her through this and, Lord knows, Officer Williams didn’t seem all that responsible.
Mariella just wants a home, Mrs. Mint thought. She wants to fit in and belong, but everything seems so strange now. She had only started comprehending English when she lost her parents. The girl didn’t have many friends before, and she was on her own now.
Grieving over her parents, and fighting for her life, could have completely overshadowed any desire for social acceptance the girl might have. At first, it did, but Mrs. Mint had noticed subtle changes. When other kids asked out loud for things, like a green crayon, Mariella would bring it to them. Sometimes they accepted it from her, but most times they didn’t. The Buckley twins had declared Mariella a “cootie monster,” and they’d label any kids that touched her as the same. They said that she got the cootie bug in Mexico, where Swine Flu came from. That evolved into them oinking at Mariella and calling her, “cootie swine.”
Mrs. Mint told them to stop, but she couldn’t hear and see everything. Nor should the class expect her too. She had always believed that if kids couldn’t defend themselves against bullies in class, they couldn’t deal with bullies out of class, where they were much more dangerous. At some point, the child must stop seeking the refuge of adults, and confront them.
It flared up again at recess as the kids played soccer. Mariella invited herself to the game, but no one passed to her. When an errant kick sent the ball astray and Mariella finally caught up with it, Kyle Buckley announced: “Cootie Swine’s got the ball. It’s infected. Don’t let it touch you.”
The blond-haired boy scampered from the soccer field and his classmates followed. Mariella dribbled the ball towards the net and kicked it in. She raised her arms as she swung around with a gleeful smile only to see an empty field. The girl hung her pouting face, and stomped the grass. Suddenly, she flung her arms out and stumbled. A red dodge ball had beamed her square in the back.
“Score one direct hit on the Mexican swine,” Cole Buckley said as his twin brother tossed him another dodge ball. “I’ll liberate our field.”
While several kids encouraged the Buckleys to pummel the fragile girl again, Mrs. Mint shimmied into her sneakers and shouted at them to stop hitting people with balls. Of course, that’s what dodge balls were designed for, but kids aren’t as tough as they used to be.
“Cut it out, boys,” Mrs. Mint hollered from the bench under the shade of a pine tree. “If I have to go out there, you’re missing recess tomorrow.”
She hoped that her threat would save her aching feet from walking through the sand, and her doughy skin from the brutal afternoon sun. Cole Buckley obviously had none of those considerations in mind when he launched another ball at Mariella. This time she dashed out of the way—and kept on running. The girl ran south off the playground and along the edge of the classrooms.
“Mariella!” Mrs. Mint shouted, as she reluctantly hiked up her jeans so she wouldn’t scuff the cuffs on her sneakers as she ran. Pain stabbed through her left ankle as she stepped on a tree root jutting out of the ground. She could barely keep up with the eight-year-old, much less gain ground on her.
* * * *
“The girl is moving south from the playground, and around the classrooms,” the officer watching the playground from its north side said over the secure police line. “I’ve lost sight of her.”
“I got her,” said the officer playing construction worker on the cafeteria roof. “She’s passing the classrooms. She’s in between the trailers. I can’t see her anymore. I think she’s headed for you Moni. Does she know where you are?”
Moni sighed. She knew that Sneed must have that question in mind as well.
“I told her I’d be in the parking lot in case anything scary happened,” Moni said over the line.
“Real smart move,” DeWitt said. His pudgy hips nearly spilled out of his seat. “Now she’ll reveal our position. If the suspect is watching, he’ll know this is a trap. Mission over.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically enough so he wouldn’t miss the gesture and then got back on the line. “I think I better go out there and meet her. We can’t have her running around campus unsupervised.”
“Do you want to catch the Lagoon Watcher, or play mommy?” Sneed asked over the line. “If he recognizes that we’re baiting him, the Lagoon Watcher will grow wise to our set up. Even a deer ain’t stupid enough to walk into the same trap twice. This may be the only shot we have at corralling him.”
“Our first priority must be to keep Mariella safe,” Moni said as she tugged at the door handle. It didn’t budge. Officer DeWitt wagged his finger at her with his other finger pressing down the master lock.
“Don’t you worry about the girl. She’s in good hands,” Sneed said. Moni nearly puked down her shirt at the thought of that fat turd holding Mariella in his hairy mitts. “I’ve got cameras covering every row of the kiddie trailer park. Even now I see her running for her mommy. Just do me a favor—stay in the car.”
“Then who will…”
“Mrs. Mint is right behind her,” Sneed said. “She’s a teacher. She can handle a sassy little brat playing hooky.”
* * * *
Mrs. Mint hobbled across the pavement around the “temporary” trailers, which had been at the school for nearly four years. Her knees and ankles jolted like misfiring pistons, as they were unwillingly pressed into service chasing the girl. She wished teaching didn’t have to be so physical. If she spent all day behind her desk, she’d have no complaints.
The teacher reared over with her hands on her knees and gasped for air as she finally cleared the eight rows of portables. After composing herself, she straightened up and surveyed the parking lot. She didn’t see Mariella. She spotted the “undercover” Lincoln Navigator with tinted windows, but she didn’t see any girl pounding on the windows, demanding her new mommy.
Maybe she erred in thinking that Mariella would run straight through the trailers on the same path she had entered. The girl might have made a detour or two. For a small kid, it wouldn’t be hard to get lost amid the massive rectangles. Overruling the strenuous protests of her throbbing ankles and knees, Mrs. Mint spun around and jogged back to trailer city.
This time she paced herself and paused as she passed each row so she could have a good look down both ways. She completed the entire length, and didn’t see anyone besides students making goofy faces at her from the windows of their wooden classrooms. No sign of Mariella.
Mrs. Mint’s heart pounded as fear of the worst crept through her arteries like a scorpion. She reached into her pocket and fingered the pen that would alert the police. Then she looked around and saw the cameras. They were watching every row of the portables, but they hadn’t called her with the girl’s location. If Mariella had found a hiding place from them, it must be between the short sides of the trailers, not the long sides that were under surveillance, she thought. The girl did have a thing for privacy. Mrs. Mint wouldn’t mind leaving her alone to cry off her frustration. But, with a whole police force and the girl’s supposed mother watching, she figured she better console the poor thing.
The teacher trotted up and down the rows along the short ends of the trailers, and peered underneath their hitches and behind their air conditioning units. As she leaned over for a look at the crawl space behind a clattering A/C unit, an arm cloaked by a black coat wrapped around her throat. It yanked her against a hard body that stunk of salt water and rotten eggs. She reached into her pocket for the alert pen. The man grabbed her wrist and squee
zed it until she couldn’t feel her fingers.
“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” the Lagoon Watcher said with his steaming breath on the back of her neck.
Chapter 33
The man stuck his gloved hand down Mrs. Mint’s pocket and his fingers clawed at her upper thigh. Oh Jesus, not there! She squeezed her legs together. His forearm wrenched her chin upward until she exhausted all her muscles struggling for air. His hand penetrated deeper until her pocket nearly tore. The Lagoon Watcher finally ripped his hand out of her pants and tossed the alert pen away.
“Everybody has the wrong idea about me. I’m not the one who’s dangerous,” the Lagoon Watcher said as he eased his grip around the teacher’s neck. She sank into the folds of his dark coat as if it where swallowing her whole. Her chest heaved as she feared that any breath could become her last. “The girl is dangerous. But I’m not here to hurt her. I’m here to figure out what’s wrong with her, and help her get better. The best thing you can do is walk away and leave us alone.”
She doubted that a man this creepy really intended on helping Mariella, but Mrs. Mint couldn’t argue that, if she walked away, at least she wouldn’t get hurt. She hadn’t become a school teacher so she could battle serial killers with her clip-on nails.
“Give her back, and then I’ll walk away,” Mrs. Mint said. Her tone lacked the force that she had intended. Instead of reeling from intimidation, the man chuckled as if he had been threatened by a squirrel.
“If I can make her better, you’ll get her back,” the Lagoon Watcher said. His breath stank of over-fried crawfish. “I wish I could promise you that she’ll be fine, but I haven’t been able to fix much that’s gone wrong with the lagoon. We finally killed nature’s precious treasure.”
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