“As long as he’s busy—and you can see him—I’m okay,” Wilson whispered. “Besides, I’m a Miccosukee, remember? I’m invisible.”
“Half,” Parker said.
Wilson smiled, but it looked forced. “If he goes under—”
“I’ll let you know.” Parker grabbed the gator stick. “Take Amos Moses.”
Wilson looked like he was thinking about it. “I’ll take Boomer instead.” He held up Parker’s SOGfari Kukri machete. The twelve-inch carbon steel blade had a wicked edge on the business end—and a saw-back that could cut through anything. The first time Wilson saw it he said it reminded him of a boomerang. Parker had been calling it Boomer ever since. “I’m not taking the time to untie that camera strap.” He made a chopping motion with the machete. “I’ll cut the thing free.”
“Good choice.” Parker lowered the engine, fired it up, and nosed the bow in as close as he could to the trees before cutting the motor. He gripped Amos Moses and took his post at the stern. Wilson sat on the bow and slowly lowered himself into the water without making a ripple.
Parker twisted off another hunk of French bread and heaved it past the alligator’s ugly head. “Go the other way, Goliath. The bread is behind you.” The thing didn’t move. Just stared at Parker.
Could alligators smell humans—or somehow sense if someone was from the same family, like a kind of DNA scent? Did Goliath know Parker’s dad had been hunting him—that they were related?
He glanced over his shoulder. “How you doing?”
Wilson waved one hand, but didn’t speak. He was just beyond the cypress with the strangler on it. He moved slow—obviously trying not to slosh the water and get Goliath’s attention.
The gator moved closer. Five feet maybe. And it wasn’t just his head visible now. His whole body surfaced. Parker stared—absolutely stunned at Goliath’s size. The scutes on his back were massive. Black. Glistening. The serrated edge on his tale—truly like something from the dinosaur era.
“Keep moving, Wilson. I don’t like this. He’s staring me down.”
A sharp thwack came from the trees. Then another. Parker stole another look over his shoulder. Wilson grinned and held the camera in one hand, Boomer in the other.
Parker turned back to Goliath. The gator was gone.
“Hurry—he went under!”
Wilson sloshed through knee-deep water, seeming to forget all about not making a sound.
Parker gripped Amos Moses—ready to strike—and ran along the inside of the boat, looking for any telltale sign of Goliath or a shadow passing underneath.
“You see him?” Wilson passed the cypress with the strangler vine. “Anything?”
“He could be anywhere. Hurry!”
Parker hustled back to the stern, reached for the control console, and turned the ignition key. The Merc fired up immediately. Keeping it in neutral, he revved the motor—hoping that would send Goliath swimming for its lair. Parker raced back to the bow, still holding Amos Moses.
Wilson was five feet away. He tossed the camera to Parker, but kept Boomer.
“C’mon, c’mon!” Parker dropped Amos Moses in the boat just as Wilson lunged for the bow. Parker grabbed handfuls of shirt and pulled Wilson over the side even as he clawed his way in.
In a final thrust, Wilson tumbled inside and tucked in both feet, falling to the floor.
Parker dropped down beside him. “That was insane!”
Both of them laughed—that hysterical type that only happens when you’ve just had five years scared off your life.
“I made it,” Wilson said. “I made it.”
“Tell me you didn’t pee your pants,” Parker said.
“When you started that engine,” Wilson said, “I almost did a lot more than that.”
They burst out laughing again.
“I didn’t know if you were trying to scare away the gator, or if you were going to leave me behind.”
“It was a toss-up.”
They both rolled on the floor of the boat laughing until Parker’s side ached.
“No more,” Parker said, driving a fist into his side. “I got a massive side-cramp.”
They both lay on their backs, catching their breaths, looking up through a canopy of overhanging branches at a sky that was getting darker with an incoming squall. “Okay, let’s get out of here.”
“We going to look at this thing or not?” Wilson held up the camera.
“Definitely.” Parker scanned the surface of the water. “But I’m thinking we’ll drive a good mile or so away from here first—then we’ll stop and look at it.”
“Because of Goliath?” Wilson shook his head. “We’re in a boat—and that puts us at the top of the food chain here.”
Parker didn’t feel at the top of anything at that moment. “If Goliath is fifteen feet, he’s longer than the Boy’s Bomb. Let’s not test your top-of-the-food-chain theory.”
Wilson reached over and turned off the key. The Merc shuddered to a stop. “I’m the guy who just went in the water to get this thing. Before we pull away I want to see what I risked my life to get.”
The surface of the water was absolutely still. The bread, what was left of it, clumped together in a soggy mess. No sign of Goliath. “Just a quick look.”
The pictures were organized by date and time. Within seconds Wilson scrolled back to the night Maria disappeared. The first frame was time-stamped shortly after midnight. The frame was almost entirely black except for a small light in the center.
“What is that?” Parker said.
Wilson whipped through more frames. The light got bigger. Closer. “It’s a lantern. On a pole mounted on a skiff. Somebody’s out there fishing.”
“Poaching?”
“Could be that, too.”
There was something entirely creepy about looking at the pictures. He had believed Maria was alive—but that was more hope than anything, wasn’t it? What if he saw something on the camera that he really didn’t want to see? What if Goliath showed up? What if the beast attacked? Or what if the mysterious person in the boat had something to do with her disappearance?
More frames slid by. The boat drifted closer to the camera. A smudge of a face appeared. Parker moved in closer. “Can you make him out? Is it Crawley?”
The image was too faint to tell. Wilson whirred through more pictures so fast that the images seemed more like an animated movie. The light ratcheting left and right, closer and farther. He stopped as the light got bigger than they’d seen it yet.
The man was clearer now. Not fishing—but sitting there. “It’s like he’s waiting for something,” Wilson said.
“Or someone.” A sick feeling twisted Parker’s gut. “It’s Crawley, right?”
Wilson scrolled ahead—and then something changed. “Go back, go back.”
Wilson backed the images up—and gasped. The man was standing now—leaning over the side of the boat. The nose of a kayak poked into the frame. “Maria!”
He advanced one. Two. Three pictures. Maria pulled up alongside the boat. Reached out and the man hugged her and helped pull her aboard. Her face looked happy. Relieved. And she should be if she’d just escaped a monster gator.
“Her paddle,” Parker said. “It’s not broken.”
“That’s weird.”
The man grabbed the front of the kayak like he was going to pull it into the boat, but twisted it upside down instead and dropped it into the water.
“He deliberately swamped her kayak,” Parker said. “Why is she not trying to get away from him?”
Wilson shook his head. “This makes no sense.”
The man used her paddle to pole him closer to shore. He hauled back and split the paddle against the cypress with the strangler vine. Maria still sat in the chair—not making any move to stop him.
Wilson advanced one more frame. Maria was on her feet—coming up behind him. “Here we go. She’s on to him. I’ll bet she pushes him right over the bow.”
He swiped to the
next frame. Maria reached out and hugged the guy from behind. The guy turned and hugged her. It looked like he picked her up and half twirled her—and for one frame his face was visible.
“What?” Parker pulled the camera closer. Cupped his hand around the display screen to cut some light from overhead. But the face was unmistakable. “Clayton Kingman.”
Wilson stared at Parker in a kind of stunned silence. “This whole thing was a setup. They faked her death so nobody would suspect she was actually running away.”
“He’s an absolute scumbag.”
There were only three more images of the night encounter. Clayton’s boat moved off the scene. The next picture was taken in daylight—of Parker’s dad and Uncle Sammy in one of the ranger boats.
Wilson lowered the camera, and Parker lay back staring at the darkening sky. “This changes everything.” She wanted to go with him. She was willing to let her dad be in agony—and everybody else—just so she could be with that moron?
“I thought we were keeping them apart,” Wilson said.
“They played us.” How could Maria do that? To Parker?
A massive cloud bank boiled silently overhead. Thunderheads. Dark, with flashes of lightning trapped inside—and threatening to break out. The wind—definitely moving at a frantic pace up there. The clouds crept lower, like they’d been stalking them. Storms rolled in fast off the ocean, and it looked like this one was going to bust open. “We have to get out of here.”
Wilson agreed, and pointed at the camera. “What do we do with this?”
“We get it in the hands of my dad. And Uncle Sammy. The sooner the better. They’ll know what to do.” Parker slipped the memory card out of the camera and zipped it in his pocket. That was all they really needed. But there was no way they were going to retie the camera around the tree. Not now, anyway. Likely the owner had his name on it somewhere. They’d contact him later. “Let’s go.”
Wilson hesitated. “Do you think Jelly knew—about Clayton meeting Maria here?”
Something big and solid thudded into the engine. Like they rammed into a submerged log, except the boat wasn’t moving.
Both of them grabbed the sides to balance themselves, then held perfectly still. “What was that?” But Parker knew. And by the look on Wilson’s face, he did, too.
Another thump, this time directly below them. Then a thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack—like a heavy anchor chain being dragged from port to starboard along the bottom of their boat. Parker could feel every vibration through the thin fiberglass hull.
“I’ve never heard of a gator doing something like that,” Wilson whispered.
Suddenly the entire outboard motor shook and lurched so hard that Parker feared it was going to get ripped right off the transom. The water churned, throwing spray onto both of them. “What’s the thing doing to it?”
Wilson rubbed down the rising hair on his arms. “We gotta get out of here. Now.”
Parker scrambled on all fours toward the wheel and cranked the engine. It caught immediately. He revved it a couple of times—just to scare the beast away. He shifted into reverse and gave it some gas.
The boat didn’t move. Parker gave it more gas.
Wilson rushed to the transom and looked over the side. “Your prop . . . it’s gone.”
“What?”
Parker chanced a peek over the stern into the water. “He must have sheered it. I can’t imagine how much force it took to do that.” With a shaking hand, Parker turned off the ignition.
Wilson dropped onto his knees, staring over the transom at the useless motor. He looked at Parker, eyes wide with disbelief. “We’re stranded.”
CHAPTER 74
ANGELICA STOOD NEXT TO HER DAD as he negotiated the hairpin turns of the Lopez. Her tears had dried, but her dad still had fresh lines running down his cheeks. He looked livid. Hopping mad—like she’d never seen him before. But the love in his eyes when he looked her way made it clear he wasn’t upset with her. Her dad was amazing.
They’d made record time, but it still seemed they were torturously behind. Dad drove the Lopez River faster than Angelica thought humanly possible. Parker’s dad knelt in the bow and used a pole to help them steer clear of the worst of the obstacles in the tight turns. “Hurry, Dad.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand, then went back to his two-handed grip on the wheel. She pulled the visor of Parker’s cap lower on her forehead and strained to see ahead.
Why did she keep the secrets? Why did she not believe her dad could have kept all this from happening? Her secrecy all seemed so stupid now. She should have told her dad so much sooner. She ended up telling him anyway—but too late.
“I’ll never keep a secret like that again, Dad.” She wished making that promise would make her feel better, but it didn’t. It never turned out good when people were pressured into keeping secrets. She’d learned that the hard way.
“If a family member—or a friend—pressures you to keep a secret that shouldn’t be kept at all?” Dad kept his eyes on the river. “They aren’t acting like a friend at that moment. Remember that.”
It was a lesson she’d never forget.
“It won’t be long now,” Parker’s dad said. He pulled the shotgun out of the case and thumbed cartridges into the chamber. Whatever injuries he had from the accident this morning weren’t slowing him down a bit.
She looked at her dad. “What are you two going to do to Clayton?”
His jaw muscles tensed and relaxed. Tensed and relaxed. “What we do to any monster who hurts our kids.”
Exactly what she was afraid of. “Dad—you’re not going to jail over Kingman. Maria wanted to run away. She threatened me to keep me quiet. Remember that.”
He kept his eyes on the river. “Clayton is a coward. There isn’t an honorable bone in his body. He messed with her head. But she’ll come around once he’s off the scene.”
Off the scene? What did that mean? “We need him.”
For a moment, he just looked at her. “I’m not going to kill him, Angelica.” He glanced back at the river and then at her. “I’d never kill another human being unless I truly believed that was the only way to stop him from hurting one of my kids. Although I guarantee you he’ll never get near Maria again.”
That was a promise she absolutely wanted Dad to keep.
“You said we needed him. Why?”
Angelica stared at the twisting Lopez in front of them. “Because he took Maria someplace. Far from here—and Maria wouldn’t say where. Clayton knew a place she could stay where she’d never be found—that’s all Maria told me. She left the phone in the kayak to throw everyone off. If something happens to Clayton, how will we ever find her?”
CHAPTER 75
FOR A MOMENT WILSON THOUGHT about the fiberglass skin on the hull. What was it, an eighth of an inch thick? A gator this size could punch a hole through it with one sweep of its tail. Easy. Goliath had to weigh well over a thousand pounds. That was more than Parker’s boat, motor, and the two of them in it combined. Maybe on an aluminum airboat with a Chevy 350 they’d be at the top of the food chain out here . . . but in this skiff? He kept his thoughts to himself. It wouldn’t do Parker any good to know how bad this could really get. “You have a backup prop?”
Parker nodded. “A cheap aluminum spare—and tools. Under my seat. But neither one of us is hanging over the transom to swap it out while Goliath is around, even with the motor raised.”
“Got that right.” There was a limit to how far Wilson would take that Miccosukee invisibility claim.
“We’ll use Amos Moses as a pole . . . push ourselves to deeper water.”
But Goliath would follow. And if he battered a hole in the fiberglass out there, their chances to get to the trees for cover were out the window.
The boat lurched, like the beast came up underneath and tried to surface. Wilson grabbed the side to steady himself. “It’s just trying to scare us.”
“Or he’s looking for a meal,” P
arker said. “And he sees our boat as a little package he’s got to open first.”
The phones. “Think there’s a signal out here?” Wilson already knew the answer to that.
Parker didn’t look hopeful. He reached for the storage compartment to check the phones anyway—then stopped and angled his head slightly. “Listen.”
Wilson held his breath. He could hear it now. An outboard motor.
Parker scrambled to his feet with Wilson a half heartbeat behind him. “There.”
A lone fisherman in a Boston Whaler sped along the shoreline from the opposite direction of the Lopez—heading roughly their way.
“Hey!” Wilson raised both hands over his head and waved. “Over here!”
Parker let loose a piercing whistle. “Help!” He picked up Amos Moses and swung it back and forth.
The boat altered course slightly so it was coming right at them. “Finally catching a break.” Wilson looked into the dark waters. “Where’d Goliath go?”
Parker scanned the water. “Not far, I’m sure.” He slid Amos Moses into the water and pushed off the bottom and away from the line of cypress trees. “Maybe this guy can tow us far enough away so we can change the prop and get back to civilization.”
It definitely beat staying here. Wilson nodded. “That’s a solid plan.”
The driver of the boat slowed, the bow raised, and he stood at the console.
“Wait a sec,” Parker whispered. He shielded his eyes and stared at the approaching skiff. “Isn’t that—”
“Clayton Kingman.” His royal highness himself, driving King of the Glades. It felt like an anchor dropped in Wilson’s gut. “Right now I’d rather take my chances with Goliath.”
CHAPTER 76
PARKER’S MIND SPUN INTO HIGH GEAR. “Grab Boomer. We need him to see we’re armed.”
“I like that idea.” Wilson slid the leather strap around his wrist and let the black machete dangle.
Parker dropped the trail cam into the storage compartment and rolled up his pant leg so Jimbo—strapped securely to his calf—showed. He picked up Amos Moses and held it there, blade pointing to the tumbling thunderheads above them.
Escape from the Everglades Page 32