by Rebecca York
She was staring at him, as if she knew what had leaped into his mind.
“What just happened?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Perfectly.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “What kind of psychotropic drug would use fire and smoke as a delivery system?”
“That’s not my field. I don’t know.” She raised her head, looking at him with assessing eyes. “Why did you stir up the fire?”
“I was making sure it was really out,” he answered, wondering if she would call him on the lie. “As you pointed out, a fire here could be dangerous.”
She only nodded, then said, “I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. I was planning to stop by your office later today.”
On some other morning, he might have accepted her words with a nod. Instead he said, “But you came out here first.”
“I was anxious to get started,” she answered.
“How did you get onto park property?”
“I have a key to the gate that locks the access road. My car’s over that way,” she said, waving her hand in the direction of the road that ran along the edge of the refuge and then branched off toward the interior. Probably she was glad for the change of subject. And probably he should bring the conversation back to the drug. Instead, he let it go because he wasn’t feeling any more sure of himself than she looked.
“I wouldn’t come in here in a car,” he said.
“Oh?”
“The ground in the swamp can be wet and slippery. A truck with four-wheel drive is more suitable to the road conditions.”
“Too bad I can’t afford one,” she snapped.
“I could ban you from the park.”
“Austen Barnette might have something to say about that.”
“You’ve been in touch with him?”
“It was my understanding that he was in favor of my research. I believe Granville is paying him a fee to allow me to collect specimens here.”
“Yeah,” Adam conceded. Barnette had told him that he’d worked a deal with Granville Pharmaceuticals. At the time he’d been annoyed, because as far as he was concerned, digging up plants for medicinal purposes in the park was incompatible with the concept of Nature’s Refuge. What if Granville found some useful plant that only grew in the swamp? There would be all kinds of people tramping through the place, disturbing the natural environment. He’d wanted to explain that to Barnette, but he’d also been new on the job and unsure of how the owner would take advice from employees. So he’d kept his mouth shut.
Perhaps he was taking out his frustration on Sara when he said, “Do you mind telling me where you were last night?”
“In bed.”
“Alone?”
Her face contorted. “Of course I was alone. What are you implying—that I was here at a drug party last night?”
“I have to check out every lead.”
Her voice took on a sharp edge. “Well, I don’t appreciate you implicating me.”
He wasn’t going to back down. “The park is pretty big. You have to admit, it’s strange that I find a problem in this particular area—then find you here the next morning.”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry if it seems odd to you. Perhaps the proximity of the road is a factor.”
The urge to keep her talking burned inside him. But he didn’t know what else to say. He’d set them up in a confrontational situation, and now he didn’t know how to get out of it.
She took care of that problem for him. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse me; I must get back to work.” She turned and retraced her steps.
He stood watching her. She was acting like she was the only person out here in the swamp, but he knew she had to be aware of his gaze.
She carefully ignored him as she bent to the plant she’d been digging up, looking totally absorbed in the task, except for the rigid set of her shoulders.
He watched her for several more moments, then he went back to the fire circle to look for clues.
This time he was careful not to stir the ashes. He should probably call in the sheriff, Paul Delacorte. As he recalled, there were rules about disturbing a crime scene. But he wanted a crack at the site first. Then he’d see if Delacorte had registered any similar trouble on his radar screen.
He kept his focus pretty much on the area where the orgy had taken place, starting near the fire pit and walking in an ever-widening circle, looking for evidence.
He saw several places where coolers or boxes had been set on the spongy ground. He saw places where he thought the participants might have been writhing together, but that was about all.
Sighing, he continued the visual search and doggedly kept from looking over to where Sara Weston was working.
He saw a stampede of feet where the party-goers had probably taken after the intruder the night before. He followed that trail into the underbrush, but came up with nothing.
Finally, on his way back, he allowed himself to raise his eyes to the spot where he’d last seen the botanist.
She was gone. Somehow, he’d known she would be.
CHAPTER
FOUR
STARFLOWER WOKE AND stretched languidly in her bed, the covers drifting down to expose her naked breasts. They were slashed by a line of scratches where one of her lovers had raked his nails across her tender flesh last night.
She fingered the marks now, gently, possessively, bringing back memories of the wild coupling.
She had loved the fire and the smoke and the frantic dancing. When the dancing had turned to touching and kissing and fucking, she had liked that even better.
She had felt her power build while she was with the others. She had felt as though she could do anything. Even though it wasn’t quite true.
It was always that way when the clan gathered for a ceremony in the swamp. They were the chosen ones. And they had finally come out of hiding to claim their birthright. Their strength was in their melding together. Falcon had said that would be true. And it looked like their leader was right.
Falcon had told them to pick names from nature. When she’d joined the clan, she had chosen Starflower because she loved the combination of sounds and because the name seemed unusual and elegant.
That wasn’t the name she was known by when she went out among the sorry folk who populated Wayland and the area around the town. They thought she was like them. But she had powers they could only dream of.
She sent her thoughts across the room, toward the heavy vase that sat on the shelf below the window. With her mind, she tried to move it. She felt the glass vibrate, but the vase remained where it was.
“Shit!” She had thought that, after the energy flowed into her last night, she could move the damn thing, but it was too frigging heavy. Her gaze darted over the room. A pile of papers sat on the corner of the desk. From where she lay in bed, she was able to riffle them. One flew into the air and drifted downward toward the floor.
She felt a small zing of triumph. She had moved the paper. But it wasn’t enough. She had to practice her talent. Falcon had told her to practice. But practicing alone was no fun. And it was hard work.
It was better when she was in the magic circle of the group, feeling their collective power and their sexual energy.
She smiled as she sat up, then pushed back her flowing golden hair. Her fingers caught on a piece of debris, and she plucked it out, holding it up. It was a twig, and she remembered now that her hair had caught on the low hanging branches of a tree as she’d followed the others headlong into the wilds of the park.
Razorback had seen the intruder and sounded the alarm. And she’d had no choice but to join the wild chase.
An outsider had seen them dancing around the fire under the witching moon, and he must be eliminated.
Secretly, she didn’t go along with that logic. She had sensed the watcher’s presence in the darkness—even as Falcon had played with her breasts and run his hand down
her butt crack.
But her mind had reached toward the man beyond the firelight. She had felt his potency. And she had wanted that potency between her legs.
She leaned back against the pillows again, touching her breasts, bringing the nipples to hard, sensitive points as she thought about the guy who had been watching them—watching her. Last night she had been sated. But this morning, thinking about the stranger in the darkness brought back her sexual desire.
Eyes closed, she let her hand drift down her body as she thought about the intruder. Falcon said he was dangerous. To the clan. To their plans. He had spied on them for his own purposes. But she had sensed his sexual arousal and his desire to join with them.
Then when the group had attacked him, he had run for his life, because he had no choice.
But he was no coward. She knew that.
The rest of the group might not understand. But she knew he was like them. Well, not exactly like them. But he was no one ordinary. She understood that much. And she would find out who he was and bring him into the clan.
She kept her thoughts on him as she stroked her breasts, pinched the nipples, then slid one hand down her body to her slick, wet sex.
Her finger slipped into the hot, swollen folds. She was sore from the night before, and it hurt to stroke herself. All of the men had had her in the frantic riot of sexual need created by the smoke.
But the pain this morning only added to her pleasure. And when her orgasm rocked her, she heard the vase sway on the shelf and tumble to the floor, where it broke in a shower of glass shards.
SHERIFF Paul Delacorte climbed out of his black-and-white cruiser and stood under the branches of a longleaf pine, looking at the open area near the ranger station at Nature’s Refuge. The grounds were well kept, he noted, with plantings of flowers setting off the natural vegetation.
He hadn’t been out here in a couple of months. Now he gave his surroundings his usual thorough inspection. As far as he could see, Adam Marshall was doing a right fine job of keeping up the park ambiance. Marshall had come here with a high level of enthusiasm. He had the place shaped up, but it still remained to be seen how far out on a limb he was willing to go to influence policy.
Paul had done some checking and knew that the man had joined the National Park Service right out of college eight years ago. He’d worked for them until accepting the head ranger position in Wayland. Paul wondered how the new head ranger liked the job, now that he’d been here a few months.
The rules at Nature’s Refuge weren’t quite like the rules that the federal government insisted upon.
Take for example, the large gator that lay sunning himself beside a cabbage palm. The gator’s name was Big Jim, and he’d been a fixture at the park for over fifteen years. Paul knew the creatures looked like big scaly slugs, incapable of fast movement. But in reality, when a gator was hungry, it could strike with lightning speed. Big Jim had once snapped up a miniature poodle belonging to a tourist and dragged if off, squealing pitifully, into the swamp. That was back when Paul had first been elected sheriff, and as a black man, he’d been a little reticent about rocking the boat in Wayland. Basically, he’d figured he’d gotten the job because the population expected him to follow his daddy’s tradition and not make waves.
He wasn’t his daddy, of course. And he’d vowed he wasn’t going to be the black lackey of Wayland, Georgia. But he’d also known he couldn’t come striding in with his degree from the state university and his top honors at the police academy and euthanize a beloved local icon. So he’d allowed Austen Barnette to persuade him that paying a fine—including a substantial sum to the owner of the poodle—would make up for the loss of the animal. And he’d gotten the assurance of the then head ranger, Ray Thompson, that the gator would be fed large portions of raw meat on a regular basis, to keep him away from the tourist’s dogs and children.
Back then Paul was still feeling his way. Now he’d learned that if you were gonna run with the big dogs, you’d better know how to lift your leg in the tall grass.
Straightening his shoulders, he switched his thoughts from himself back to the park. There had been four head rangers since Ray Thompson had retired and migrated south to the Daytona Beach area. Most of them had been good men, except Hank Bradford, who had liked his liquor a little too much.
The face of Ken White flashed into his mind, and he clenched his fists at his sides. Five and a half months ago, Ken had been murdered out in the swamp, and there still weren’t any clues about who had done it. Although Paul had his theories.
Which was why he was keeping a close eye on Nature’s Refuge. From his position under the pine tree, he caught sight of Adam Marshall coming up the path from the boat dock.
Paul moved to intercept him—noting the man’s flash of surprise as he spotted the navy blue uniform. Marshall stopped where he was, waiting for the law to catch up with him.
“What’s new?” Paul said.
The ranger gave him an apprising look. “I have the feeling you might already have an idea,” he answered.
“Nothing concrete,” Paul allowed. It was hard to explain the feeling he’d picked up in town this morning. It wasn’t something he could exactly articulate. It was simply a kind of vibration of dark excitement in the air. The kind of murky vibration he’d felt the morning after Ken White’s death. Some people might have called it cop’s instincts. Maybe that was part of it, but it also made Paul wonder about his own genetic heritage. Over the years, there had been a fair amount of informal interbreeding between the white folks and the blacks in Wayland. He knew he probably had as much white blood flowing through his veins as black. And he suspected some of his ancestors were involved with the strange doings that had erupted in the area over the years.
“Let me tell the staff I’m back,” Marshall was saying. “Then we can go over to my cabin and talk.”
“Appreciate it,” Paul answered, leaning against a railing at the edge of the parking lot where he could keep an eye on Big Jim.
He was watching a flock of sparrows chattering in the bushes when Marshall returned several minutes later. Had it taken him that long to deal with the staff or was he collecting his thoughts?
Paul eyed the manila folder in Marshall’s hand.
“The attendance figures by day of the week and month. I want to see if I need to switch staff schedules around.”
“I guess there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes management involved with running a place like this,” Paul observed, straightening. Together he and Marshall crossed the parking area and stepped into a small grove about a hundred yards from the main complex.
Nestled among the trees were a pair of snug log cabins. They had been used for storage for a number of years. But Ray Thompson had had them cleaned up and turned into living quarters. He and one of his staffers had moved in when the park had had some problems with vandalism. Marshall was living in one of the cabins now. The other was sometimes used for overnight guests.
“You like living out here by yourself?” Paul asked as the ranger opened the door.
“I like my privacy, yeah.”
Was that a warning? Paul wondered, as the head ranger led him into a combination living/dining area with a small kitchen off to the side.
Paul looked around unobtrusively, making judgments about the man by the way he kept his personal space. The rooms were military neat, and Marshall hadn’t bothered to set out any mementos that would give any clues to his past life. If he were going only by what he observed now, he’d think Marshall was trying to hide his background. But Paul had seen his performance appraisals. They were all good.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Marshall asked, walking toward the kitchen area.
“I remember you don’t drink coffee. Or soft drinks.”
Marshall laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got some nice spring water—or some herbal teas.”
“Water is fine,” Paul said.
The ranger brought a bottle out of the refrigerator and poured two l
arge glasses. “We can sit out back,” he said, leading the way to another door that opened onto a small patio shaded by black gum trees.
“Seems like a good place to set a spell,” Paul commented as he settled into one of the two Adirondack chairs that looked out toward the natural area beyond.
Marshall took several swallows of water. “You didn’t come here to talk about the bucolic scenery, did you?” he asked. “I’d like to know what did bring you out to the park.”
“One of my periodic drop-bys to ask if you’d picked up anything on the Ken White case,” Paul replied.
ADAM thought about his response as he set down his glass on the low wooden table between the chairs and glanced up into Paul’s face, which was the color of English toffee.
“As a matter of fact, something did happen here last night,” he finally said. Growing up, he’d developed a healthy disrespect for the law. The attitude came from dear old Dad, who had supplemented his income as an auto mechanic with breaking and entering.
The way kids did, Adam had absorbed some of his old man’s attitudes and prejudices. He’d had to learn the hard way that the law wasn’t the enemy. And he’d also had to discard some of the racist attitudes his dad had brought into the house. To put it mildly, his father had looked down on anyone whose dark skin color wasn’t the result of a nice suntan. It wasn’t until Adam had left home that he’d bothered looking at black people any differently. His first boss in the park service, Henry Darter, had been an African American, and with the background of prejudice Adam had absorbed from his father, he’d resented working for Darter—until he’d seen how the man had handled a flash flood in the Big Thompson River valley. Darter had saved a lot of lives that evening, and Adam had come out of the experience with a totally different view of the man.
Adam didn’t like to think in stereotypes. But he couldn’t help noting that Paul Delacorte was a lot like Henry. He might seem relaxed—even a bit slow, until you saw the intelligence flash in his large brown eyes.
Delacorte got comfortable in his chair. “You plannin’ to share the information with me?”
