Tangled Threat ; Suspicious

by Heather Graham

  Lorena forced a smile. “Sally, I barely know the man.”

  “But you know enough, don’t you?”

  Lorena rose. “Like I said, I barely know the man. Thank you for making sure we could eat.”

  “He’s interested in one thing, and one thing only. So you’d better play like a big girl, if you intend to play.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Lorena said lightly. “Good night.”

  As Lorena started walking away, Sally called softly after her, “Be careful.”

  Lorena spun back around. “Why?”

  “Well, hell!” Sally laughed. “Old Billy Ray—eaten. And Roger... Just goes to show, you can never trust a gator. Believe me, I’m going to be very careful myself.”

  “Are you suggesting that Roger was helped into that pit?”

  “Good God, no! He must have thought he heard something. Then leaned too far over the edge.”

  “So you think he fell in?” Lorena asked.

  “Of course. Who would have pushed him?” Sally demanded.

  “Hey, you’re the one who warned me,” Lorena said lightly, then smiled and left.

  On her way to her room, she paused at the door to Michael Preston’s lab and started to test the knob. Then she heard his voice from inside and stopped, listening. She thought maybe he was on the phone. His voice was low but intense.

  She tried desperately to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t make out his words. Nothing other than giant and hunt. There was nothing suspicious about that. By now everyone knew that Billy Ray had been killed by an alligator, a big one, and that it had to be hunted down and destroyed.

  Still, she lingered, listening, until the sound of footsteps down the hallway warned her that she’d better get going. Worried that he might eventually have said something useful and now she was going to miss it, she gave up and hurried on to her own room.

  * * *

  JESSE TOOK THE airboat back to headquarters and checked in with his staff.

  Brenda Hardy was there, doing paperwork. She perched on the edge of Jesse’s desk. “I don’t care what anyone says. There’s more going on here than just some big gator. Billy Ray had a shotgun with him, he could shoot dead drunk. I’d bet cash money you’re thinking what I’m thinking. All this happening at one time is too much to be coincidence.”

  Jesse nodded to her, then excused himself as his cell phone rang. It was Julie.

  “Jesse.”

  “Julie. You all right?”

  “Yeah...yeah. You know what I’ve been doing? Playing bingo out at the casino. I bought about a million cards. You can’t think when you’re trying to put little dots on a zillion numbers at once.”

  “Good, Julie. I’m glad. Anything that works for you is what you need to be doing.”

  “Right, I know. I had to tell you, Jesse. I drove out by the house before, and...and I drove back here as quickly as I could. I didn’t go in. I didn’t even get out of my car. But I saw the lights. I saw lights...like my mother said. I know why she thought aliens were landing. It was creepy...the way they seemed to come out of the swamp and the sky at the same time.”

  “Julie, don’t go back there. Stay at the casino, stay in the bingo hall, at the machines, or locked in your room, all right? And don’t tell anyone you drove by the house.”

  “All right, Jesse. I just thought you should know.”

  “I should, and I’m glad you called me. But you have to keep yourself safe. You understand?”

  “I will, Jesse. I guess I thought I needed to go back to believe it. But I’ll stay away.”

  “Promise?”

  “I swear.”

  Jesse hung up. As he did, George Osceola walked over to his desk. Jesse looked up.

  “You’re not going to like this,” George warned.

  “What?”

  “Dr. Thiessen, the vet, just called,” George said.

  “And?”

  “He went back into his office tonight to get some notes. He’d decided to send the specimen and his samples to the FBI lab.”

  “And?”

  When he got there, his night security man slash animal sitter was out cold in the kennel area.”

  “And let me guess. The alligator specimen and all the tissue and blood samples were gone?” Jesse said.

  George nodded. “I’m meeting some of the fellows from the county out there now.”

  “I’ve got a drive to make,” Jesse said. “Then I’ll meet you there.”

  He got in his car and started speeding along the Trail, only slowing as he neared Julie’s parents’ house. He turned off his lights before he entered the drive, knowing that, even for him, that was foolhardy, considering the terrain.

  He parked on the embankment that bordered the property. The crime tape still hung limply around the house itself and the place where Maria had died. The whole area seemed forlorn, desolate.

  Whatever Julie had seen, Jesse realized after about twenty minutes of watching from the front seat, it was gone now. Tomorrow night, if Lars couldn’t send a man to keep watch, he would send one of his own men, or even keep watch himself.

  He got out of the car, carrying his large flashlight, and walked toward the water. As he reached the wet saw grass area that fell away from the hummock toward the water, he saw that the long razor-edged blades were pushed down. Once again, someone had been through with an airboat. He looked around but didn’t see anything else suspicious.

  When he got back to his car, he put a call through to Lars Garcia, despite the time. Lars already knew about the break-in at the vet’s and was on his way out there.

  When Jesse arrived at Doc Thiessen’s, he found that the CSI team were already working, dusting for fingerprints, looking for footprints, searching for tire tracks, seeking any small piece of evidence.

  Doc Thiessen had been born into a family of fruit-and-vegetable farmers in Homestead. He’d earned his veterinary degree at Florida State University and determined to come back to his own area to work. Now he had a head full of snow-white hair and a gentle, lined face. He worked with domestic as well as farm animals, and was known in several counties for his abilities to help with pet turtles, snakes, lizards, birds and commercial reptiles.

  He was standing with Lars and the uniforms who had apparently been first on the scene when Jesse arrived. He shook his head as Jesse approached. “Jesse, I’m damned sorry. I was trying to prepare my samples properly, study them myself... I should have sent them straight out.”

  Jesse placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. What about your night man? Jim? Did he see anything?”

  “He’s over there,” Lars said, pointing. “Go on. I’ve already spoken with him.”

  Doc’s night guard was a man named Jim Hidalgo, half Peruvian, half Miccosukee. He and Jesse were distantly related. They shook hands, and Jim looked at him, wincing. “Jesse, I didn’t even see it coming. We’ve got a few dogs in the kennels, you know, belonging to folks on vacation. I heard something, went to check on the pups. One little beagle was going wild, and I walked over to it and...that’s the last thing I remember until Doc was standing over me, taking my pulse.”

  “Thanks, Jim.” The man had a bump the size of Kansas on the back of his head. Jesse stared at it and whistled softly. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”

  “They’re insisting I go to the hospital,” Jim said.

  “Yeah, well...that’s quite a bump. Let them keep an eye on you, at least overnight.”

  Jim sighed. “All right. If you say so.”

  Jesse walked back to Lars, who was waiting for him. He told him about Julie’s call and his trip out to the house.

  “I had officers out there last night,” Lars said with a sigh. “It’s just that the department only stretches so far. But I’ll send some men out again, twe
nty-four-hour watch. Anything else? You find your rogue gator?”

  “Not yet. We’re doing an organized hunt tomorrow night.” He hesitated. “We may be on to something, though.”

  “What?”

  “I need someone else to explain it to you.”

  Lars’s partner, Abe, walked up then. “You know something, Jesse? If so—”

  “Know something? Let’s see. A couple is murdered, and there’s an alligator limb at the scene. A man is attacked and killed by an alligator. A guard falls or is pushed into an alligator pit, and now the vet’s guard has been attacked and specimens have been stolen. Gee. Think anything might be related here? Does the word ‘gator’ mean anything to you?”

  “Go to hell, Jesse,” Abe snapped. “I want to know what you’ve got to go on. I’m Homicide. I look for human killers. You’re the alligator wrestler.”

  “An alligator is a natural predator, Abe.”

  “My point. I can hardly arrest one.”

  “If an animal is trained to kill, that makes the trainer a murderer, doesn’t it?” Jesse asked dryly.

  “I just said that if you’ve got something—”

  Jesse ignored Abe and turned to Lars. “How about lunch tomorrow? The Miccosukee restaurant? On me.”

  “Yeah, we can make it,” Abe answered for Lars.

  Jesse shook his head. “I have someone who may know something. But she won’t talk if we make this too big a party. Abe, just let Lars handle it.”

  “Who is she?” Abe said angrily. “We can just bring her in.”

  “And do what? Issue a lot of threats and get nothing back?” Jesse asked angrily.

  Lars set a hand on Abe’s shoulder. “Partner, whatever I get, you know we share. So...”

  Abe glared at Jesse. Jesse glared back. “Dammit, Abe, I’m not asking Lars to hide anything from you, and I’m not trying to hide anything myself. Hell, I’d invite anyone who could bring justice for Hector and Maria. But, Abe, you’re not a guy with a gentle touch. Let Lars take this one. He can call you the minute he leaves.”

  “Fine,” Abe grated.

  With the crime-scene people busy at the vet’s, Jesse knew there was nothing he could do there for the night. “I’m going to have a last word with Jim,” Jesse said. “Lars, see you tomorrow.”

  They were almost ready to take Jim to the hospital for observation. He was being laid out on a stretcher.

  “Jim?”

  “Yeah, Jess?”

  “You walked back to the beagle. You were hit on the head. Then nothing, nothing at all until Doc was there?”

  “Nothing, Jesse. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Does Doc usually come in at night?”

  “No, but he’d been worrying about finishing up the work you wanted, ’cuz he hasn’t been able to get to it during the day. We’ve been really busy lately. It’s a bitch, huh?”

  “Yeah, it’s a bitch.”

  Then the med tech gave Jesse a thumbs-up and rolled Jim into the vehicle.

  Jesse waved and headed out.

  * * *

  LORENA SHOULD HAVE been dog-tired, but she was nervous. Television couldn’t hold her attention. She found herself prowling the room as the hour grew later.

  He had said he would be here.

  Irritated with herself, she sat down and tried staring at the television again. She thought she was just blanking on the screen, since she didn’t understand a word that was being said.

  Then she realized she was on a Spanish-language channel.

  Insane.

  She should work, she told herself.

  Work, and not wonder if Jesse was really coming.

  Work, and not feel on fire with such breathless anxiety, both physical and emotional....

  What she’d told Sally was true: she barely knew the man.

  It was also true that she needed to work. She hadn’t managed much of her “real job” since she had come here. But then she had happened to arrive just when there had been terrible murders, and when a Native American who knew the canals better than his own features had met with his fate in those waters. There should have been time. Time to become trusted. Time to flirt, if necessary.

  She needed to get into that lab.

  She was convinced there were answers to be found there. She was usually so organized and analytical. But she was afraid to make notes, afraid that her room might be searched and her real purpose discovered.

  She showered more to hear the sound of the water and feel the pounding of it against her flesh than anything else. Then she slipped into a cotton nightshirt and lay on her bed, but she still felt ridiculously keyed up.

  Had he been serious? Was Jesse really coming back here?

  Forget Jesse, she told herself.

  She tried to fathom the truth from what she had been able to glean from Michael’s files. As yet, nothing that was proof positive. He was experimenting with gator eggs, of course. The temperature at which they were hatched determined the sex of an alligator; that kind of manipulation was easy. Breeding was basic biology. And here, at an alligator farm, it made sense to weed out characteristics one didn’t like and fine-tune those features that were favorable to farming. Sex, size, the quality of the meat and hide.

  But selective breeding hadn’t created the monster she had seen today. Steroids and a formula—one that her father had known was too dangerous to exist—were behind what she had seen. Still, even if she got back into Preston’s lab and found out what he was working on, how could she prove he had stolen her father’s work?

  Two days. Jesse had given her two days.

  Just as she thought of the man, she heard a soft rapping at her door. She glanced at her glow-in-the-dark Mickey Mouse watch. It was after 1:00 a.m. She leapt from the bed, her heart thundering, and angry because of it.

  The tapping sounded again. Then, softly, “Lorena, will you open the door?”

  She hurried over, threw it open. “It’s after one in the morning,” she informed him.

  He closed the door. “Shh.”

  “I actually do sleep at night. I have a job to do here. I wake up and start early. I—”

  He drew her into his arms. “Shh.”

  “Jesse, I have to tell you—”

  “Shh.”

  There was warmth in the depth of his eyes as well as amusement. There was something possessive in his hold, and she felt him slipping into her heart even as he inflamed her desires.

  He’s devastated, not dead. He’ll never marry again. He’s interested in one thing, and one thing only, so you’d better play like a big girl, if you intend to play.

  He started to frown, staring into her eyes. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  Lorena placed her fingers against his lips. “Shh,” she said, and moved closer to him. His flesh was rich and warm, burnt copper, vibrant, vital.

  He groaned softly, pulling her to him, and his lips found hers, pure fire. When they broke, she heard his whisper against her forehead, felt the power of his touch against her. “Lorena.”

  Fumbling, she found the light switch. And once again she said very softly, “Shh...”

  Then she was in his arms. And the hour of the day or night didn’t matter in the least.

  When the alarm rang, rudely indicating that morning had come and it was time for the workday to begin, he was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  It seemed to be business as usual at the alligator farm.

  Lorena went through greeting the tourists and taking them to their first stop: Michael Preston’s lab.

  While working with a group of children, she tried to get a good look at the hatchlings and at the cracked eggs.

  They appeared normal, as far as she could tell. She wished she had been more interested in her father’s work at the
time he’d been doing it, but she had simply never liked alligators.

  It was the eyes, she was certain.

  Two more groups of tourists came through. Michael was his usual self, valiantly trying to give a good speech, but obviously uncomfortable. Or maybe he only seemed so to Lorena because she knew he loved research and hated tourists. He did seem happy, however, to have her come through with the groups.

  Happy to have her stay.

  At eleven, her cell phone rang. It was Jesse. “I’m coming to get you for lunch,” he told her.

  “I’m not sure I’m supposed to leave during the day,” she said.

  “Everyone gets lunch. You won’t even be ten miles away,” he assured her.

  At noon, he picked her up in front of the farm. He was in uniform. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  He grinned. “A restaurant.”

  “Okay.”

  She had passed the place on her way out to Harry’s she realized when they got there. It was directly across from the Miccosukee village.

  Jesse glanced her way dryly. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to eat grilled gator or anything.”

  “I never thought I would,” she responded. “You have a chip on your shoulder.”

  “I do not,” he said indignantly, and she had to smile.

  She balked when they reached the place and she saw that Lars Garcia was standing out front.

  “What is this?” she demanded heatedly.

  “You have to tell him what you think is going on.”

  “You gave me two days!” she said.

  “There’s been a complication. The vet’s office was broken into. Another man was attacked. Thankfully, we have hard heads out here. He survived.”

  Jesse was grim, but she was still furious. She had nothing, no evidence at all, really, and he had brought her here to tell her story to another policeman. She was stiff and still angry when they went in.

  Lars was as polite and decent as ever. He chatted about the weather while they waited for their food, and he and Jesse talked about an upcoming musical festival put on by the Miccosukee tribe in the Glades. “People come by the hundreds. It’s great,” Lars said.