by PJ Nunn
“No,” she said, frowning. Last night’s fears surged through her like she’d grabbed a live wire.
“It’s just a precaution,” he said. “Don’t get all stressed.”
“But, Noah…” Dani never even used mousetraps because she couldn’t stand to see the disgusting little creatures killed like that. Did he really think she could use that thing on somebody? “I could never shoot anybody.”
“And I don’t want you to shoot anybody,” he assured her, leading her to the back door. “All I want is to show you how to use this just in case you need it. That’s all.”
As she stepped through the back door, she saw that he already had some target cans set up along the far side of the yard and they spent the better part of the next hour getting her acquainted with a .38. It wasn’t as bad as she feared, but it wasn’t the gun that worried her. It was the target.
When they got back inside the house, she sat down on the couch and closed her eyes while Noah went to put the gun away. It was impossible to believe all this was happening to her. How could things happen so fast when time seemed like it was standing still?
The couch cushion took a little dip when he sat down beside her and she looked up at him. “What do you really think is going on here? I mean, you’re not afraid I’ll disappear like the other three, are you?”
Dani imagined all sorts of things running through his mind as he looked at her, things she didn’t want to think about, much less hear.
“You want a professional opinion, or a gut instinct?” he answered a question with a question.
“Both,” she said, suspecting they weren’t at all the same.
“Okay-y,” he said. “My professional opinion is, somebody thinks you’re asking too many questions and wants to scare you out of it. The phone call, the big non-venomous snake. If someone wants to kill you, they don’t usually warn you first. But, my gut tells me there’s something more going on. I don’t know what, but I care too much about you to take any chances.”
“So, what do I do?” she asked. “I can’t just quit my job and stay here all the time.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, tugging playfully on a strand of her hair. “You be careful. You let me ask the questions, and you don’t go off anywhere by yourself.”
“Okay,” she said meekly, looking down at the floor.
“Or, you can move in with me and I’ll be your chauffeur,” he offered jokingly.
Rolling her eyes, she said, “Yeah, right.”
She’d just come out of a ten-year marriage where her husband dictated every detail of her life. She wasn’t about to go there again, no matter how different Noah seemed. If some coward wanted to play hardball, she’d just have to learn how to play.
***
Dani was putting the last of the file folders into the file cabinet when she looked up to see Mike standing in the doorway, watching her.
“Hi,” she smiled, determined to be friendly despite the constant cold shoulder she got when she worked at Ophidian. “Need me for something?”
“Nah,” he shook his head, glancing casually around the now spotless room. “You’ve done a good job in here. I’ve never seen it look like this in all the time I worked here.”
That was high praise, coming from him.
Dani shrugged, not wanting to make too much of it. “Thanks. You guys work hard in there, you need someone to keep your reports organized.”
In truth, she’d far rather be in the file rooms than in the labs with the snakes. Especially after the incident at the house last week. She swore, the first time she’d entered a lab after that she felt her skin crawling.
He nodded but didn’t speak again. Dani waited a moment, then gathered her books off the table. It was already after six and Dr. Crane didn’t approve of overtime unless it was his idea. Mike moved so she could pass into the hall, then followed her to the office.
“I heard you found a brown snake in your house last week,” his words stopped her with her hand on the doorknob and she turned back to face him.
“Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”
“Beth,” he said. “She was pretty freaked.”
Dani laughed at that. “So was I.”
“Can I walk you to your car?”
“Sure,” she shrugged.
He hadn’t talked to her this much the whole time she’d worked here. Maybe she was finally gaining some ground. Her search through the files had been productive, at least for the lab, but it hadn’t told her anything she wanted to know about the missing students. She’d tried to heed Noah’s warning about asking too many questions, but it was hard when those questions relentlessly bombarded her brain.
Mike walked along beside her, nervously shoving his hands in and out of his pockets and keeping a wary eye on the surroundings. Dani was beginning to catch his uneasiness when he spoke again.
“What did you do with the snake?”
“I’m not sure, exactly. A friend of mine was there. He killed it and took it outside,” she said. “Why?”
He stopped beside her when she reached her car and scanned the parking lot, not meeting her eyes.
“I had to come in Saturday to pick up something I left in the brown snake lab,” he explained. “One of them was missing when I got here.”
“You think it’s the same one?”
“I’d like to check it, if you don’t mind,” he said. In spite of his wariness, there was a glint of determination in his eyes.
“Okay,” she said, her mind reeling from the possibilities. She hadn’t even thought about where the snake might have come from. “When?”
“How about now?”
Dani was going straight home anyway, so she waited for him to get his car and follow her. Once she got home, she called Noah to find out where he’d put the snake and was able to take Mike right to it. It didn’t look near as scary sprawled on a bush, shriveled and crawling with ants, but Dani still had to suppress a shudder as Mike gingerly lifted it and laid it out flat on the ground.
“Is it?” she asked finally when he didn’t speak.
“I can’t be sure, but I think so,” he said solemnly.
The gentle breeze and the crisp, pine scent did nothing to lighten the dread that hovered like a storm on her horizon.
“Mike,” she said, unwilling to play games, “somebody put this in my house. Who would do that?”
“You don’t know that,” he turned angrily, stomping through the brush toward his car.
“What do you mean, I don’t know that?” Dani struggled to keep up with him as he walked away. “You think that snake just escaped from the lab and crawled out here and let himself into my house?” Once they broke free of the trees, she hurried around and stopped in front of him, forcing him to look at her.
Running a hand nervously through his hair, he shook his head and stared up at the sky.
“Talk to me!” she demanded. He closed up the lab. He had to know something.
“I don’t know what to tell you!” his eyes flashed with anger. Or was it fear? She couldn’t tell.
“How long have you worked there, Mike?”
Pulling his keys out of his pocket, he sidestepped and got in his car, ignoring her question.
“Mike! I haven’t done anything wrong! Why won’t you talk to me?” she pleaded.
He put the car in gear and started backing out of the drive, then stopped, looking at her out of the open window. “I need to think about this,” was all he said, then he was gone.
Completely frustrated, Dani picked up a pinecone off the ground and hurled it with all her might back in the direction of the snake. What was it all about, anyway? Her brain refused to process the data. It was simply too unbelievable. So what if she owned the land where they disappeared? It was six years ago, for God’s sake. She didn’t see anything!
Chapter Eleven
The funky cloud followed her into the house, hindering her evening activities and leaving her with a generali
zed feeling of depression. When Noah called and said he was working late, she decided to chuck it all and headed upstairs for a long soak. Maybe a glass of wine and a good mystery would take her mind off things for a while.
She had the tub filled with hot water, vanilla candles burning and was just pulling her shirt off over her head when the doorbell pealed. Hastily shrugging back into her shirt, she raced downstairs thinking Noah must have finished up sooner than he expected.
“Hey!” she said, smiling as she opened the front door.
But it wasn’t Noah, it was Mike, and in his arms was a big, fluffy gray cat.
“What’s this?” she asked, with Bandit sniffing and wiggling furiously at her feet.
“Snakes don’t like cats,” Mike explained, with a sheepish grin that smacked of repentance and made him look like an overgrown schoolboy.
“Are you serious?” she asked. “Come on in.”
Shuffling awkwardly through the door, he stood in the living room floor and waited for her to shut it before handing her the cat. “I have some things for her in the car.”
“You want me to have this cat?”
She’d never owned a cat in her life and wasn’t sure she wanted one now. But if it helped assure she’d have no more reptile visitors, that was a definite plus.
“I thought it might be good,” he said. “Unless you don’t like her.”
“No,” she took the purring bundle, amazed at how soft and silky it felt. The cat settled right into the crook of her arm like she was used to pampering and looked up at her curiously with eyes that were startlingly blue. “I’ve just never had a cat before.”
She sat down on the couch and watched, amused as Bandit sniffed the cat’s tail. With an attitude she could only describe as haughty, the cat tolerated Bandit for a few minutes, then reached out a paw and tapped him soundly on the nose, sending him scurrying to the kitchen.
“She’ll be fine with him,” Mike said. “Her name’s Charlie, like Charlie Baltimore.”
“From that movie?” Dani asked, smiling. ‘Long Kiss Goodnight’ was one of her favorites. “Sit down,” she urged, realizing he was still standing, restlessly shifting from one foot to the other.
“I can’t stay. It’s late,” he mumbled.
“Mike, I really want you to tell me what’s going on,” she said.
Charlie slid off her lap and kneaded herself a comfortable place on the couch and proceeded to bathe right there between them.
“I don’t know,” he said, with the most honest expression she’d seen on his face up till now. “Friday, I locked the lab and everyone else was gone. What time did you get home that day, anyway?”
“I think it was just a little past seven,” she said. “I stopped at the store to get some dog food and came straight here.”
“I left right after you did, so that doesn’t leave much time for someone to get back in the lab and get out here. I’ll check around and see what I can find out, though,” he shuffled toward the door. “Let me get her litter box and food, I’ll be right back.”
Dani stroked the cat absentmindedly while she waited. It was nice that he brought her a cat. It was nicer still that he was opening up to her and seemed willing to help her figure this out. She could use an ally at Ophidian.
“Thanks, Mike,” she waved at him from the porch as he walked back out into the darkness. When she closed the door behind him, she felt a little less alone, and, after situating the cat dish and warning the two animals to behave, she went back to her bath.
***
For once, there was no one Dani knew in the cafeteria as she sat her tray of mystery meat down on a remote table. The week had been hectic. It seemed like she ran from one place to the next. From the looks of it, she might enjoy thirty minutes of uninterrupted time before lab.
It didn’t take long to wolf down her food, some kind of turkey she hoped. Pushing her tray aside, she took out the spiral she kept close to jot down notes as they occurred to her. Noah had been busy most of the week. She’d only had dinner with him once. He’d finally got his hands on the old employee list from Ophidian and had been diligently tracking them down for questioning. As far as she knew, he hadn’t uncovered any new evidence, but if there was anything there to find, she was sure he’d find it.
Dani was more interested in Mike’s opinions about who might have put that snake in her house. At first, she’d thought it would be simple. Who had keys to the labs? Then she’d learned that almost anyone who passed through the lab could have picked the keys up. It’s not like the snake labs were burglar magnets. Dr. Crane had keys, of course, and Mike. Emil and Jeff had keys, but master keys of all the labs were hanging just inside Dr. Crane’s outer office, which was rarely locked. She’d checked and none were missing, but that didn’t mean someone didn’t take it and put it back later. Nobody should have had keys to her house, but Noah assured her the locks he’d replaced wouldn’t have presented much of an obstacle to someone who knew what he was doing.
Mike had said something else that nagged at her. One day, when they were alone in the file room, he’d mentioned something about Dr. Crane’s wife leaving him right after the students disappeared. From what she’d learned, Mrs. Crane still lived here in town, but they’d divorced later that same year. Dani couldn’t think of a good reason to pay her a visit, but, since she was actively involved in the Rose Festival, she hoped maybe she’d get a chance to talk to her at the Rose Dance.
With a sigh, she tucked her note pad away and gathered her dishes. If she left now, she’d have a little extra time to set up in the lab before the students arrived.
***
“Do you have to go now?” Dani whined, leaning on Noah’s shoulder. They’d enjoyed a simple dinner and a movie on the DVR. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to spend an evening with him, he’d been so busy.
“I’ll be back before the dance on Sunday, I promise,” he said, looking down at her with eyes that melted her soul. “I really want to get a look at Atkinson’s place for myself.”
After dinner, he’d filled her in on the research he was doing on Dr. Atkinson, but mentioned that he’d yet to speak to the man personally. When he left here six years ago, Dr. Atkinson had opened his own laboratory facility in Atlanta. Apparently he’d been there ever since and was reasonably successful and well respected in his work.
“You promise?” she asked. “The lab probably won’t even be open tomorrow.”
“I promise, and yes, it will. I talked to the secretary,” he assured her. “But I better get to the house. I haven’t even washed my clothes yet and I still have to pack. My plane leaves at the crack of dawn.”
Reluctantly, she got up from the couch and walked him to the door. “I don’t know why it’s so important that you go there tomorrow,” she said, still pouting.
“So I can spend some time off with you next week, silly,” he touched her nose. “Besides,” he looked down at Bandit wiggling at his feet and Charlie watching them suspiciously from her place on the couch, “you’ve got plenty of company.”
“I’ll miss you,” she said as he kissed her good night.
“I’ll call you tomorrow night, and you have my cell number if you need me,” he said.
She closed the door with a sigh after she watched him go, then headed for bed determined to keep the time between now and Sunday’s dance as full as she possibly could.
***
In keeping with her plan to keep the day full so time would pass quickly, Dani decided on an early morning shopping spree. She hadn’t splurged on a new formal in years, and she’d sold most of what she used to wear before she left Austin. With a sense of purpose, she headed for a nearby mall and fully expected to spend most of the day shopping for something special to wear tomorrow.
The annual Rose Dance was a black tie affair, one of the biggest events of the season. As luck would have it, she found the perfect dress in the first store, an ice blue satin off the shoulder number with a tight fitting bodice and swir
ling full skirt that fit like it had been made for her. An hour later, she had new shoes and accessories and a whole day to kill. She wandered the mall aimlessly for a while, but was still home before noon.
The day was mild, so she spent some time in the garden, but the ground cover had pretty much taken care of the weeds and it didn’t take long to have it in shape. With the day and the night stretching interminably before her, she decided to tackle something more challenging. The one thing she’d been meaning to do, but always found a way to avoid, was cleaning out the cellar.
Before she could talk herself out of it yet again, she gathered a pail, a sponge, a broom, and an armful of trash bags and headed for the back yard. She’d forgotten the padlock, and had to set her things down on the ground to retrieve the key, but a few moments later she was on her way. Two steps down, the fresh, crisp autumn air was replaced by a cold, damp, musty smell that tickled her nose. The lone light bulb, stuck to the ceiling like an afterthought, had an opposite effect than its intended use. Instead of the warm glow of a reassuring beacon shining light into the darkness, it revealed shapes and shadows in all the crevices and corners that screamed for illumination.
After the initial chill and sense of foreboding, she gradually became accustomed to the dim light and worked hard at emptying and scrubbing the shelves, humming to herself to chase away the silence. The shelves were wide and deep along one wall, sturdy enough to hold the weight of filled canning jars to last throughout the year. She had to go back up to refill the water bucket several times, but, little by little, she saw progress.
Once she finished all the shelves and carried the trash up to the street, she went back into the cellar determined to clean the floor. She might never use the place again, she didn’t have that much to store and the thought of canning fruits and vegetables far exceeded her culinary skills, but at least she could lock the door and know it was done.
With a scrub brush in hand and a fresh pail of Lysol water, she attacked the floor with a mixture of annoyance and enthusiasm. The knees of her jeans were wet and muddy, so she worked backward, cleaning as far in front of her as she could reach, then scooting back, grateful that at least there was a visible difference between what she’d done and what she hadn’t.