Shadow in the Pines

by PJ Nunn

  “Hey, it’s your lab,” Beth told Dani.

  Great. Dani tentatively reached for the bag Mike held out, then spied the trashcan beside the desk. “How about if I put the bag in there?” she asked, dumping the trash on the floor then lining it with the bag Mike gave her and scooting it over beside him.

  Mike shot her a withering glance, but didn’t argue. Slipping the end of his stick through the drawer handle, he slowly opened the drawer to reveal a small copperhead, coiled atop the grade book, watching them with tongue flicking.

  “Beth,” Dani spoke softly to avoid startling the snake any further, “watch for Noah so he doesn’t storm in here and scare it.”

  “Don’t let anyone else in here,” Mike added.

  Beth nodded and slowly opened the door, stepping back into the hall while keeping her eyes on the desk. Mike moved slowly, trying to catch the snake’s riveting head in the noose, but it eluded him, hissing and striking with a force that caused Dani to jump. Patiently, he tried again, finally pinning the snake in a corner of the drawer with the Y end of the stick.

  “You’re not going to touch it, are you?” Dani asked, horrified, as he reached for it with his free hand.

  “Would you rather I left it here?” he asked sarcastically.

  Dani’s blood ran cold as he moved swiftly, grasping the snake securely just behind the head and lifting it from the drawer.

  “Get the bag,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Noah come through the door, approaching slowly. “I’ve got it.” Swiftly and silently, he moved around the desk and grabbed the bag from the trashcan, holding it open for Mike to lower the snake. A moment later, the bag was closed, undulating silently on the floor beside the desk.

  “What the fuck happened here?” Noah asked sharply, looking first at Dani, then at Mike.

  “I was just going to get my grade book and I found it there in my drawer,” she pointed to the open drawer.

  “Is it one of yours?” Noah asked Mike who nodded grimly. “Who touched the drawer?”

  “No one but me,” Dani said, remembering that Mike used the stick to open it.

  “Copperhead, right?” he asked Mike who nodded again. “Where’s your boss?” he turned to Dani.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him today,” she said, looking over at Beth.

  “Me either,” Beth spoke from the doorway. “Listen, can I go now?”

  Noah looked over at her. “Were you here when she found it?”

  Beth nodded.

  “Then you’ll need to stay.” He reached for the phone and called for a squad car. “Stay here, all of you,” he instructed, then strode from the room. When he returned, he had a pale-faced Joe Abraham and a campus security officer in tow. Two uniformed police officers appeared a moment or two later.

  “All right,” Noah said sternly. “Let’s get some answers.”

  The inquisition, as Dani referred to it, lasted the better part of two hours. When it was over, against Noah’s advice, Dani insisted on going back to Ophidian to help Mike close up the lab for the holidays. She was sure she’d hear about it later, but she was numb right now. She wanted to finish her work then never go back there again.

  When she left with Mike, Noah was still questioning Joe and Beth about who had access to a locked lab.

  “Well, that was festive, wasn’t it?” she said to Mike, wearily dropping her book bag on the table in the file room.

  He grunted in response but didn’t answer as he headed off down the hall with the snake bag in hand. The place was eerily quiet, with most of the employees already gone for the holiday. Dani was finishing the last of her reports when she looked up to find him in the doorway.

  “Can I see those?” he nodded at the report file. Dani handed it to him and he scanned the pages, his expression growing darker with each one.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Something’s not right,” he handed it back to her, then reached for another. “Count how many Madagascar Hognose we should have.”

  “Sure,” she opened the file and pulled out her notepad, making little stick marks to tabulate each group. They worked in silence for a few minutes, with Mike doing the same thing on another file.

  “Shit!” he said, causing her to look up.

  “What?”

  “How many do you have?” he looked at her.

  “Um…” she tallied it up in her head, “looks like eight mature and twenty-seven in nursery,” she said.

  “No way!” he jumped up from the floor and took off down the hall. Ignoring her instincts to avoid the labs whenever possible, she followed him and found him in lab seven counting out loud.

  “What’s wrong, Mike?” she asked, hovering just inside the door. He motioned for her to be quiet and continued counting, turning toward her as he finished the last tank.

  “Is that the file?” he came toward her with his hand outstretched.

  Nodding, she handed it to him, watching as he checked each tank again. “No fucking way,” he turned to her with a stricken look on his face, then snatched up a file laying on the table beside him and brushed past her through the door. Reluctantly, she followed him again, pausing momentarily as she realized that he’d entered lab twelve, the only one where they kept venomous reptiles. Ophidian housed and bred a large variety of snakes, but the Southern copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix), was the only venomous one.

  “Mike, what’s wrong?” she asked again, noting that a ghostly pallor had replaced his usually ruddy complexion.

  “We’ve gotta check every lab,” he said, brushing past her on his way back out the door.

  Dani caught up with him again in the file room, where he was busily removing folders from the bottom drawer. “Here,” he placed a stack on the table in front of her. “You tally them up, I’ll go count them,” he said.

  “Are you going to tell me what we’re doing?” she asked, beginning to feel alarmed by his sense of urgency.

  He looked at her steadily through narrowed eyes for a moment, then hissed, “The numbers are all wrong, every single one I’ve checked.”

  “Well, maybe it’s the files,” she suggested, remembering the disarray in the file room before she cleaned it up.

  “That’s what I thought too, at first,” he said, still whispering. “But I’m the only one who takes care of the hognose Madagascar and the Copperheads. I just did an update last week. We’re missing more snakes,” he said.

  “Maybe they’re on the dead list?” she offered, referring to the running page they kept of casualties in each lab.

  “Dani,” he took on the tone of a parent reasoning with a child who refused to understand, “I’ve lost one baby Copperhead in the last month. We’re missing twelve! Thirteen if you count the one I just brought back from your lab.”

  “Oh,” she said meekly, swallowing a lump of dread that was forming in her throat. Mike waited for her to add up the first file, then headed off to verify the count while she moved to the next one. One by one, they went through each species, growing more concerned when he came back with a short count every time.

  With a look of utter defeat on his face, Mike slapped the last folder down on the table and slumped into the chair beside it. “Brown snake is the only one not missing any,” he said with a groan.

  “Except the one that showed up at my house before,” she reminded him.

  Grabbing a pencil off the table, he started adding a column of numbers on the outside of the file. “Jesus!” he exclaimed, throwing the pencil at the wall. “We’re missing over a hundred snakes!”

  Dani pulled the pencil from behind her ear and started her own line of numbers, looking up at him when she was through. “We should have 1012,” she said. “How could we be missing a tenth of them and nobody notice?”

  “I noticed,” he snapped. “Why the hell do you think I’m doing this?”

  “You know what I mean,” she frowned. “I sure as hell didn’t take them. Don’t snap
at me!”

  “Crane’s gonna have my ass,” he moaned, covering his face with his hands.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked with all sorts of scenarios running through her mind.

  He shook his head, speechless for a moment. “Somebody took ‘em,” he shrugged.

  “But who? And why?” she asked. “And how?” There was no way she could imagine anyone making off with more than a hundred snakes and not attracting attention.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Well, think about it,” she insisted. “Did somebody come in here and get them all at once, or have they been sneaking them out a little at a time?”

  He frowned, but looked like he was considering the question. “I know I wasn’t missing thirteen in the Copperhead lab on Friday,” he said. “The others, I can’t be sure. But some are pythons and boas. There’s no way anyone could get out of here with all of these in one trip, that’s for sure.”

  “So it must have happened over the weekend,” she said, stating the obvious. “What are you going to do?”

  Mike sank to the floor, dropping his head into his hands. “He’ll fucking fire me.”

  “Mike, it’s not you,” she reasoned.

  “Tell that to Crane!” he looked up at her with panic in his eyes.

  Noah chose that moment to join them, entering the hall from the office door. Dani looked up at him, squatting on the floor in front of Mike.

  “What’s going on?” he asked suspiciously.

  Dani looked back at Mike. “You’ve got to tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” he asked ominously.

  When Mike didn’t answer, Dani did. “We’re missing over a hundred snakes.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said, but his voice was deadly serious.

  “Do we have to make this an official report?” Mike asked, looking up at Noah.

  Noah’s eyes narrowed. “Come talk to me.” With that, he turned and headed back to the office. Dani and Mike joined him there.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mike looked more discouraged than Dani had ever seen him and, despite their differences, her heart went out to him. He wasn’t very friendly to her, but he worked hard and she knew Crane would blame him for the loss, even though he had nothing to do with it.

  Noah looked skeptical as he took notes from the information Mike gave him and surprised her by telling Mike he wouldn’t file the report just yet. She waited until they got back to the house to ask him why.

  “I guess I need to update you about a few things,” he sighed, getting up from the couch to stoke the fire.

  Dani felt a little thrill as she watched him, muscles working in his broad back as he leaned into the fireplace. She couldn’t help but compare him to Mark sometimes. Mark felt like any kind of household activity was beneath him. Since Noah had been staying with her, even with an incredibly long work schedule, it seemed like he was always doing something. Cleaning the fireplace, running a load of laundry, helping with dishes. She even found him mopping the bathroom floor once. Hard to imagine. She rubbed his arm as he sat back down beside her. Oddly enough, she had mixed feelings about him finding out who her stalker was. Once he did, she’d have no reason for him to stay here. At least none that she was willing to consider.

  “You have an idea who’s doing all this?” she asked.

  “I have some suspicions,” he nodded. “First of all, your Dr. Abraham seems a little shady to me.”

  “No he’s not,” she said. “Is he?”

  He looked at her in amusement. “Still defending the boyfriend?”

  Dani nudged him with her elbow.

  “Did you know he was fired from his last job?” he asked.

  Dani was shocked. “What for?” As far as she could tell, he was an excellent instructor, very diligent about his work.

  “Suspicion of misappropriation of funds.”

  “Shit! I’d never have dreamed……” her voice trailed off.

  “Yeah. And, although I don’t have all the info yet, his bank accounts seem a little heavy for a professor’s salary. His net worth is in excess of $500,000.”

  Dani didn’t have an answer for that either. “Maybe he inherited it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is that why you agreed not to make an official report about the missing snakes?”

  He shook his head. “It seems that Dr. Atkinson and Dr. Crane both have some questionable backgrounds. I’m looking into that too. Besides, I don’t think McKay had anything to do with it and I don’t want to tip my hand to Crane until I know more.”

  Dani nodded. “I’m glad of that. Mike’s a little different, but I don’t think he’s doing all this.”

  “You’re just soft on him because he gave you that cat,” Noah smiled, nodding at the purring feline that occupied the corner of the couch.

  She smiled and snuggled up next to him as he raised his arm and draped it around her shoulders.

  “Did I tell you I like the way you’ve decorated the house?” he asked softly.

  “I love Christmas,” she smiled.

  “Guess I’ll have to get shopping and fill up that space under the tree,” he nodded to the corner where the graceful fir reached to the ceiling. Dani already had gifts wrapped under the tree for Beth and Mike and a couple for the local foster children’s program.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she shook her head. She’d been wracking her brain trying to decide on a gift for him, but as yet she had no ideas.

  “Darlin’,” he stroked her cheek, “I rarely do anything because I have to. Except go to work, which I have to get ready for about now.”

  Dani groaned. His working evenings was no fun. She missed their dinner and movie nights. With decorating done and no more papers to write or grade, the evenings seemed far too long. “Want something to eat before you go?”

  “Nah,” he shook his head. “I’ll grab something later.”

  Locking eyes with him, she felt herself falling into the chocolate brown orbs. Warmth started in the pit of her stomach and radiated throughout her body until she shivered. I love you, Noah. The words pounded inside her head, but there was no way she dared voice them out loud. He answered the unspoken invitation with a kiss. Lips soft as velvet against her own, contrasting with the scratchy feel of his beard. Dani didn’t remember ever feeling safer and more secure in all of her life. Beth was right. She’d be a fool to let him walk away.

  Noah winked at her, then moved to get up. Dani watched as he tugged on his coat and headed out the door to work, then turned her attention back to the blaze in the fireplace. Thinking about a future with Noah was disconcerting, but not nearly as disturbing as the thought of one without him. Hoping to avoid that train of thought, Dani got up and decided to get busy.

  With Noah off to work, she started the evening by making a casserole that would be easy to warm if he was hungry when he came in, then after cleaning up, she spread a collection of Christmas cards out on the table and addressed them to old friends in Austin. There weren’t many she cared to correspond with after the divorce, but a few still held a warm place in her heart. Once that was done, she decided to go upstairs for a long, hot soak in the tub.

  She’d just climbed in the tub with a good book when she heard Bandit barking downstairs. Great. Even though he stopped as suddenly as he’d started, a tiny quiver of fear kept her from enjoying the bath, so she climbed out a few minutes later and dressed warmly in a pair of flannel pjs and wrapped her terry cloth robe tightly around her before going back downstairs. Noah rarely returned from work before midnight, but she’d been waiting up for him, ready to fix him a bite to eat if he was hungry. Maybe she was more domestic than she thought.

  When she positioned herself on the couch with a stack of magazines and catalogs to peruse, she noticed Bandit seemed unusually interested in the front door. With visions of the snake that dangled from her doorknob just last week, and the more recent visitor to her desk drawer, she ignored his interest and determined to catalog
shop until she had an idea of the perfect gift for Noah. But Bandit’s incessant whining got the best of her and she finally got up and peeked out the window beside the door. With the porch light on, she saw that there was no one around, but she couldn’t see the doorknob from the window. Knowing she shouldn’t, she unlocked the door and carefully eased it open. No snake on the doorknob, but there was a huge manila envelope propped on the door that fell as she opened it wider.

  Dani bent and retrieved it, then quickly shut the door and locked it again. It was an interdepartmental envelope like they used at the college with her name sprawled across the front in magic marker. She wasn’t sure, but it looked a little like Mike’s handwriting. Reluctantly, she unwound the string that held the clasp closed and let the files slide out on the couch cushion beside her. It took awhile, but she finally deduced that the papers contained proof, or at least indication, that Dr. Atkinson had been using Ophidian to obtain grant money under false pretenses. If what she was reading was right, it looked like he was also selling off some of the snakes for his own personal gain, and at phenomenal prices!

  Dani’s mind went into overdrive. It must have been Mike who dug up this information for her, but why did he give it to her? Why not give it to Crane, or even to Noah? Someone who could do something about it, at least. Nervously, she bundled all the papers back up in the envelope, then put it beside her computer with the rest of her Ophidian paperwork, then paced restlessly in front of the fire, wondering what to do about it.

  Obviously, Mike trusted her to do the right thing, but what was it? She knew his job was important to him. He just started the PhD program so he was a few years away from managing his own lab, but if Crane fired him, it would be a big blow to his record. No one would want to hire a lab manager who lost over a hundred snakes. He was trying to help her and save his own job at the same time. She’d have to be very careful.

  Maybe the best thing to do was to approach Crane on her own. Tell him everything. If he knew she’d been the target of a stalker who was using snakes from Ophidian to scare her, maybe he’d go easier on Mike. According to the paperwork in the envelope, Atkinson was the one she needed to worry about, not Crane. The longer she considered that option, the better it felt. Finally, with eyes growing tired as the fire died out, she sank back onto the couch and drifted off to sleep waiting for Noah. Her last thought was that she’d probably wait and tell Noah after she’d had a chance to talk to Crane. Noah wouldn’t be nearly as concerned about protecting Mike’s job as she was. He’d never worked for a PhD. He didn’t know how complicated it could be.