“Where’s that and why are you going there?”
“A town called Shadows Landing, it’s near Charleston, and I’m going there because there’s someone there that I trust that no one can connect me to.”
“Name?” Agent Shaw asked all business.
“Trent Faulkner.”
“Okay, let me see what I can find. I’ll call you back in ten minutes.”
Skye zipped her suitcase and then looked over to Karri. “Let’s get your stuff. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“No complaints from me. The barbeque in Shadows Landing is to die for. If we’re doing this, we can’t tell anyone besides Shaw where we are. That means no flying and no credit card use at all.”
“No problem,” Skye set the bags down at the top of the stairs and headed to the spare room she’d been sleeping in. Karri followed her, asking what she was up to. Skye didn’t answer as she went into the bathroom and opened the cabinet under the sink. There were some extra towels, a hairdryer, and an open package of maxi pads. Skye pulled them all out and then reached into the back near the water pipes. She placed a finger in the hole the pipes went down and pulled up. The cabinet floor came sliding up as she angled it out. The space underneath was filled with ziptop plastic bags of cash. “Mom told me to hide money away in case of an emergency.”
“Way to go, Mom,” Karri said in wonder right before she hurried into the bedroom and came back with a pillowcase. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Me either, but everything here feels wrong. I don’t know who to trust in this town, so the only option is to get out of Hollywood.”
“I agree completely.” Karri held open the pillowcase as Skye filled it. Then they were on the move again.
They were halfway through packing Karri’s things when her phone rang. It was Agent Shaw. “Does Trent pass your test?”
Agent Shaw chuckled. “More than you know. The reason I got this job is because of Agent Ryan Parker who is now in Lexington, Kentucky. I called him after I ran my search on Trent. Turns out he and your friend Trent are cousins. Not only that, but Ryan is friends with the Charleston Agent in Charge, Peter Castle. I’ll notify him of our situation and he’ll be your in-person contact. With your approval, that is.”
“You trust these agents?” Skye asked, not really liking more people knowing about her. But she remembered Trent’s author aunt whose books were all being picked up for movies. She lived near Lexington, so the cousin thing was likely true.
“I trust Ryan Parker with my life. If Ryan says Agent Castle is trustworthy, then I trust him. I’ll talk to him first and let you know what I think. I assume you know better than to fly, right?”
“I’m going to drive my car,” Karri told him.
“No, I’ll get you a car that has no connection to you or any of your friends. If this is serious, they’ll know to look for not only your car, but Miss Hill’s too. Meet me at the FBI office in thirty minutes.”
“Thank you for everything, Agent Shaw. You’re a good man.”
“See you soon, Miss Jessamine.”
5
Skye yawned as her eyes fluttered open behind her large sunglasses. The tinted windows of the borrowed SUV Shaw had signed out of the FBI for training purposes did a good job at cutting the glare of the sun beating down on them.
Skye stretched and Karri glanced at her. “Morning, or should I say afternoon? Agent Shaw called while you were asleep and told me that Jim and Lenny are pissed. He also figured out where the photos were taken from and is working on seeing if he can get more information before he passes it along to us. Mason texted me after he tried to reach you. He wanted you to know we could stay with him if we didn’t feel safe. I thanked him. He’s a sweet guy. Kinda like the real-life version of the superhero he plays.”
“Agreed. I missed a lot while I was sleeping,” Skye said even as she yawned. It was four in the afternoon and they’d been driving since four in the morning. She had taken the first shift, but by eleven in the morning, Karri was ready to drive. “Where are we?” Skye asked as another Interstate 40 sign went by. They’d be on this interstate all the way to Memphis, Tennessee, before they dipped down into Alabama and drove through Atlanta on their way to South Carolina.
“Halfway through New Mexico. I figured we’d stop in Amarillo, Texas, for the night. Also, Agent Shaw said he talked to this Agent Castle guy in Charleston and really liked him. With your approval, he’ll fill him in.”
“What do you think?” Skye asked as she looked around.
“I looked him up when I stopped for gas. He’s a hottie.”
Skye saw Karri wiggle her eyebrows and shook her head. This was why she loved her friend. She could make her laugh under any circumstances. “But was he a trustworthy hottie or a bad boy hottie that you give a fake name to and sneak out in the morning?”
“Definitely a trustworthy hottie. The kind you take home and introduce to your mama and use to piss off your snooty cousin.”
Skye might have snorted as they broke out into belly laughs. “That says a lot since you haven’t brought a man home since our junior year of college.”
“Don’t remind me. I should have known better than to bring a track athlete home. He could run away too fast.”
Skye shook her head as they remembered the day news got out that Karri brought home a boyfriend. Every person on the reservation within three miles had come to check him out. Which was really just a kind way of saying they’d tried to determine if he was good enough for Karri. They believed the right man wouldn’t run. This one had run—fast.
This was how the next four hours passed. They talked, told stories, and Skye listened to Karri lust after Agent Hottie.
It had been a couple of days since Skye’s photos leaked, so Trent thought it would be safe to go out this morning without hearing about them. He was wrong. Trent’s face was buried in his sketchbook as he listened to the knitting club at the table next to him at the Stomping Grounds Diner. He’d thought he’d slipped in late enough to miss the morning rush, but early enough to still grab breakfast. Apparently everyone in town had the same idea.
The knitting club was to his right. Gator and his crew were to his left. Behind him were Maggie and Gage Bell, having been run out of their house as it was fully occupied for some fall festival in Charleston. Their parents ran a bed and breakfast in their old family estate.
“Did you see those pictures of Skye Jessamine?” one of the knitters clucked with disapproval.
Edie Green Wecker, a childhood friend of the family who had moved back to Shadows Landing a couple of years ago after her Navy Seal husband had been killed, shook her head. “It’s horrible. Someone invaded that poor woman’s privacy and then probably sold the photos to every news source they could. How would you like it if someone took a picture of you in the shower and then spread it across the world?”
Edie cast him a quick glance, knowing Trent was so over this discussion. He couldn’t look on social media. He couldn’t turn on the television. He couldn’t go anywhere without talk of Skye, and each time his heart broke for her. He might be mad she’d had her lackey cast him off, but that didn’t mean she deserved this.
Skeeter leaned over to see around Trent and talk to the knitting club. “I swear I see her everywhere.”
The knitting club agreed and broke out into a debate with Skeeter, Turtle, and Gator about Skye and her relationship with Mason Hemming.
Edie stood up and quietly left the table to join Trent. “I assume you know everything?” Trent asked as he dropped his voice. People in town knew he’d built Skye’s table, but they didn’t know about her assistant flying out here and about the night they shared. Nondisclosure be damned, his family knew something personal had happened, he’d had to sign the NDA, and now Skye was texting him.
“I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. Now mine was taken from me, but yours is right there—”
“Right there if I just reach out and talk to her,” Trent s
aid with a sigh. How many times did he have to hear it? Maybe it was finally time to suck it up and talk to her.
Edie shot from her chair and pointed out the window. “No, right there!”
* * *
“I’m exhausted,” Karri groaned as she parked the car a block from Main Street in Shadows Landing. “There’s this great diner up here. Let’s get something to eat, clean up a little, and then find Trent.”
Skye shoved the door open and grabbed her purse. “Great idea. I can’t see him like this. We’ve been in the car thirty-seven hours out of the past forty-eight. He’d run screaming for the hills.” Skye laced her hands above her head and stretched as they began walking toward Main Street. At least no one would recognize her looking like a travel weary hot mess.
“I told you the town was cute,” Karri said with a smile and suddenly looking even more relaxed than Skye had seen her recently. That was when reality hit Skye hard. Karri was her sister. Her ride and die, help you bury the body and give you an alibi bestie. It was her fault that Karri wasn’t relaxed and happy. She would do something about it. Skye didn’t know what, but she’d figure it out. Karri stopped walking and cocked her head. “Do you hear that chirping sound?”
Skye paused and listened. “It’s coming from up ahead. Is it a baby bird?”
Karri listened again. “Not one I’ve ever heard. It also isn’t coming from a tree. Maybe it fell out of the nest.”
Skye and Karri stepped forward as they scanned the palmetto-lined street. They’d just passed a nature area and were approaching the back of what looked like a government building when they heard something else.
“Now I hear something like that T-Rex in Jurassic Park.”
“Lots of guttural vibrato.” Skye paused and listened. “I still hear the chirping and now this rumbling.” Skye turned slowly as she scanned the area and froze. A giant alligator was moving toward them. It was clear it had come from the swamp area behind the town and was now sprinting across the grass behind Main Street buildings.
“Karri, do you run when an alligator is chasing you or play dead?” Skye asked in growing horror as she watched the gator advance steadily toward them.
“I know you’re not supposed to run with bears, right? Why?” Skye didn’t have to tell her as Karri turned as saw the gator.
“Screw it, we’re running!” Skye screamed as she grabbed Karri’s hand and sprinted for the diner.
“Help!” Karri yelled over and over as Skye kept her eyes on the large windows of the diner. She saw faces in them as they turned at the commotion. Someone could open the door, and then they’d fly through it and be safe.
An even larger and even louder alligator hissed as it clambered into the middle of Main Street between them and the diner, which changed everything.
“We’re surrounded,” Karri gasped as they slid to a stop and grabbed onto each other.
* * *
“Gator!” Trent yelled as he ran out of the diner door so fast Bubba snapped at him in surprise.
Gator, Turtle, and Skeeter were by his side in a second.
“This isn’t good,” Gator muttered. “That chirping is Big Bertha’s baby, and you can see her coming to the rescue. In fact, every gator around here will come at that sound, just like Bubba did. “Skeeter, you grab the ladies. Turtle, I need you to help me tackle Bertha. Trent, do you think you can get Bubba?”
“Yup,” Trent said with his heart in his throat. He could catch a gator with the best of them. What worried him was how close Bertha was to Skye and Karri.
“Go!” Gator yelled.
Skeeter took off like a shot. The distraction of him racing by Bubba made Bubba take his eyes off Trent just long enough and that’s when he jumped. Karri and Skye screamed but Trent couldn’t take his eyes off the ten foot, thousand pound gator underneath him. Bubba was feeling ornery today for sure. His tail whipped back and forth as Trent struggled to trap his head so that Bubba’s jaws wouldn’t take him out.
“We gotcha!” Trent heard a moment before Granger Fox, one of Trent’s best friends and the town’s sheriff, leapt on Bubba’s back. “Get his tail, Kord!” he ordered his deputy.
“I got this!” Edie called out before a nearly finished knitted scarf was wrapped around Bubba’s jaws and a tablecloth from the diner was shoved over his eyes.
Only then could Trent look up to see if Skye was safe.
* * *
She was going to die. She was sure of it. She could see the headlines now: America’s Sweetheart Eaten by Alligators. The door to the diner burst open and suddenly Trent was there with a man who looked to be as large as the gators surrounding them.
Then a skinny man shot forward, Trent leapt on the large alligator, and Skye slammed her eyes shut, not wanting to see the man she’d fallen in love with be eaten by an alligator.
“Get back, Big Bertha. They don’t have your baby.”
“That’s the biggest knife I’ve ever seen,” Karri gasped and Skye opened her eyes. Oh my God. Trent was on the gator’s back, then two cops jumped on. She turned her head and the skinny guy in baggy clothes was protecting them with the largest hunting knife she’d ever seen. The big man wearing a hat with COCKS blazoned across the front and a little guy who looked at least a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than the COCKS hat guy ran past them. The little guy broke off to the left and when Big Bertha turned her head, COCKS guy leapt on her.
She and Karri screamed again and clutched at each other. People were wrestling alligators in front of them and behind them and Skye didn’t know what to do.
“Someone go find that baby so Bertha will calm down,” COCKS hat yelled. The diner emptied out and the skinny guy with the gigantic knife turned and smiled at them.
“Howdy. I’m Skeeter. Anne Bonny said you have the spirit of the wolf,” he said to Karri, whose mouth fell open in surprise. “And she said to tell you that you better not hurt Trent or she’ll haunt you until your dying breath.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say Anne Bonny? The pirate I played in Love’s Dangerous Waters?” Skye asked even as she kept her eyes on Trent and the two men holding down the big gator.
“Yup. She said you did her justice, but that she’d never wear makeup, especially during a sword fight. Oh, and your Southern accent needs work. A lotta work.”
Skye finally had to turn to look at Skeeter. “You mean, you say that?”
“No, Anne says it. She lives here in Shadows Landing along with some of the other pirate ghosts. It’s their home. They founded the town after all,” Skeeter told her as Karri turned to him as if forgetting the gator battle raging around them.
“That’s fascinating. Tell me more. How did she know I had the spirit of a wolf?”
“Found it!” a little old lady wearing a cat sweater yelled. She held up a small alligator and Big Bertha went nuts.
“Edie, run the baby down to the river,” the COCKS hat man yelled out. A pretty woman in her early thirties with knitting needles in her hand reached forward, took the baby gator, and sprinted for the river while Big Bertha battled the two men to get free.
“Skeeter, move the women to the diner. Everyone else, inside the nearest building!” COCKS hat man yelled.
“Sure thing, Gator!” Skeeter called out as he turned the women toward the diner.
“You also talk to alligators?” Karri asked, now sounding doubtful. Skeeter laughed.
“Nah, that would be crazy. I only talk to ghosts. Gator is the name of the big guy in the COCKS hat. Right this way, ladies. And welcome to Shadows Landing.”
6
Trent used all his strength to keep Bubba from breaking free as the people scattered inside different buildings. Granger and Kord were grunting with exertion as the big gator battled them.
“Trent!” Skye called out as Skeeter yanked her hand and pulled her past him at a run. Karri eyed them all with a look somewhere between being impressed and thinking she was in the middle of a bad dream.
“I’m okay. Get inside so
we can release him,” Trent yelled back to Skye as she struggled with Skeeter.
“Is that Skye Jessamine?” Kord asked as he pushed up to get a better look and let out a low whistle of appreciation. Bubba’s tail slammed into his chest hard the second he was loose.
Trent could feel Granger rolling his eyes. “One day a woman is going to bring you to your knees and you’ll beg her for monogamy. I’ll laugh when she tells you to take a hike.”
“I’m just making up for your shortfalls.” Kord leaned back down and grabbed Bubba’s tail. “When was the last time you had a date? Right, Trent?”
“I agree with both of you,” Trent said as Edie finally came back into view now sans baby gator. “I’ll laugh when a woman gets Kord wrapped around her finger. I also agree with Kord that you need to date. You used to date all the time and don’t use the accident as an excuse. Every woman in town would jump at the chance to date you.”
“Says the man who ran away from Skye Jessamine.”
“Y’all have no game,” Kord snorted as Edie ran past them and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Okay, guys,” Gator yelled. “On the count of three, let go and haul your asses inside!”
Trent focused on Bubba as Gator counted down. It looked as if Skye had come to him, so one way or another they were going to hash this out—if he didn’t get bitten by Bubba first, that is.
“Three!” Gator yelled.
Trent, Granger, and Kord rolled off Bubba and leapt up in perfect synchronization.
“Here, boys!” Skeeter held the door to the diner open and they rushed inside.
Trent closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, Skye was flinging her arms around his neck, and just like in his nightly dreams, she was in his arms once again.
Trent pressed his face into Skye’s neck and held her as she lost all semblance of being calm, cool, and collected. Skye started rambling with a mixture of tears and sniffles, and all Trent could think about was how good it felt to have her back in his arms and in his life.
Broken Shadows Page 5