by Karen Harper
“If it gets to be too much at night for us, I’ll hire a guard so we can get some sleep.”
“Ha—who would want that job in the dark where two people recently met disaster in broad daylight? If only Nick Markwood can get some sort of order to keep Tiberia from being shipped to Tampa,” she said with a huge sigh.
Jace kept his gaze straight ahead. It was black as pitch out here as they turned onto the one-lane road that led to the BAA and the ranch. He turned on his brights and drove slower. What if he hit some sort of animal on the road at night? Thank heavens he hadn’t seen that big snake smashed under Darcy’s car, but he could imagine it.
“You know,” Brit went on, “I can ask the Naples Zoo director to write a letter to the Family Friendly Zoo, saying the tiger was promised to them first—but he might not want to get involved. My tiger is Siberian, not Malaysian, though I was trying to make the point to the Naples Zoo that they could then have two distinct areas of the world represented—if the tigers would just get along all right.”
“Are we getting along all right?” he asked, still keeping his eyes glued to the dark road ahead. “I know you’ve been through the wringer. I want things to work out for us. I know men follow their women across the world these days if she has a good job offer, but with Lexi here...”
“Just as Claire has moved on to have a future family with Nick, you and I could do the same.”
“But if I can understand that you don’t want to lose a tiger you love, even though you could visit him, you must see that I could never stand to move away from Lexi, even if I could visit her or she could visit us, so—”
The car hit something in the road, something he hadn’t seen. A bump, more than one. Did he hear gunfire? No, the bangs of flat tires, then their flopping sound as he hit the brakes and lost control of the car. It spun sideways. The rear tilted into the ditch at the side of the road, nearly upending them. They jerked forward in their seat belts, then slammed backward.
The headlights of the car went straight up, through a cypress tree, shooting into the black heavens overhead. He quickly killed the engine. Then silence screamed at him.
“You okay, Brit? We’ve got to get out, get down.”
“What happened—did we hit something?”
“Spike sticks, I think, like the cops use to stop fleeing fugitives. I hope it’s not a setup, but if it is, who did it? Unfasten your belt, and I’ll open my door, and we’ll go out—and down that way. Hurry, before the hydraulics lock up.”
“But there could still be someone out there, waiting to pick us off.”
“Then we’re sitting ducks. But this may just be another warning—a threat like the dead animals for Nick and Claire. Considering the ranch beyond, maybe this wasn’t meant for us. Come on. Quiet. I have a gun in the trunk, but it’s probably not going to open in the ditch. The BAA can’t be far. The dark is our friend, but if you see a light, hit the ground. Brit, damn it, give me your hand and climb over the console! Make sure you have your phone, and let’s go!”
24
Something dragged Claire from heavy, dark sleep. Someone was touching her, pulling her arm. A distant voice. Her mother’s? Or was that Darcy’s voice as a child, and she had to get up to care for her? Daddy had left them. Mother was sick. The doctor said Claire was sick too—falling asleep in the day, nightmares both night and day...
“Mommy, I had a bad dream,” the silvery whisper slid through Claire’s exhaustion and her meds. “Dad said there’s a blind Florida panther we can go see at the zoo, but I dreamed he got shot—the panther, I mean, not Dad.”
Claire awoke with a jerk. Somehow, Nick slept on, but then he was exhausted too. Lexi. Lexi was here in the darkness, looking like a little ghost in her white nightie. The clock read 2:30 a.m.
Claire fought to summon her senses, to face reality when she’d been deep in narcoleptic dreams. Yet if she went without her meds, her nightmares became reality.
“Shh!” Claire whispered. “I’ll come in your room with you.”
Trying to shake off sleep, she got up carefully and followed Lexi out and across the hall. She suddenly felt cold, as if a chill breeze was blowing, but no—that had been in her dream. She had been trapped in a cage with tall fences as a storm circled in.
“I was having a bad dream too,” she told Lexi as they crawled into the child’s bed together where the sheet and blanket were twisted. Claire covered them both and put her arms around the child, who snuggled close with her back to Claire’s chest.
“Like dreams you had when you were little so you had to take pills and that bad-tasting stuff you still have?”
“No, not that bad. Everyone dreams, you know, and sometimes bad ones sneak in. Do you want to talk about yours? Sometimes that helps.”
“Well, I love Dad but I was missing Daddy.”
“That’s okay. It just means you love Daddy too.”
“But the bad dream wasn’t about him. It was about a poor Florida panther like the one we saw on our street, only it’s blind. Its name is Uno, and it’s a sad story, but Brit said she is going to help it.”
Claire tensed up. “Brit told you about that? When?”
“Last time I talked to Daddy on the phone, she got on it and told me all about it, but said it was a secret from Daddy for now, so I guess he wasn’t listening to her then.”
“You didn’t tell me she said all that.”
“She said it’s a secret, so she’ll tell him later. Tell him she wants to help it because he already knows it’s blind.”
“Oh. I see. Well, tell me what she said about Uno.”
“He’s at the Naples Zoo. Some very bad person with a gun shot at him and made him lose an eye and got blind in the other one. Uno couldn’t see but he lived on roadkill—that’s dead animals that get hit by cars, maybe like the snake Aunt Darcy hit, only that was in the driveway. But Uno got saved, and he’s at the zoo, and I was going to tell you and Dad too when she said it’s not a secret anymore, so don’t say I told you now. So can we take Duncan and the other kids there to see Uno, even if he can’t see us?”
The child’s voice trailed off, and Claire gave her a hug.
“The zoo trip sounds like a good idea.”
“Yeah, if no one gets killed when we’re there. But like I said,” Lexi went on, though her voice was slowing, “when I dreamed about poor Uno who can’t tell if it’s dark, I had to tell you. ’Cause Daddy said once if you share a bad dream it won’t come back again.”
Jace’s version of pop psychology, Claire thought. She had nothing to add to that. It was sweet that Brit had shared that animal story with Lexi, and that it had a good ending. And that Lexi had realized it would be a good visit for the Comfort Zone kids. But did any child, even one as cherished as Lexi, really live in a comfort zone anymore?
Maybe this was a sort of warning that she should steer clear of all this right now, stay home, be safe. But with the threats that had been thrown at their front and back doors, were even adults safe these days?
* * *
Jace’s car wasn’t completely on its rear, but it was at such a slant they had to drop a ways to get out of it. Remembering that, if your car went into a ditch with water, you had to get a window down fast or a door open before the electronic system seized up, he had his window down. It would be almost impossible to shove the door open at this angle.
Going out his window feetfirst, Jace held on to the sill, then dropped to the ground, about eight feet down. He landed crooked on the side of the ditch and twisted his left ankle, but not bad—he hoped. He looked up. If it wasn’t for a quarter moon and stars, it would be totally black here. Brit had one leg and her upper body out the window.
“I’ll catch you,” he called quietly up to her after a quick look behind him and then up and down the deserted road.
“I wanted to call 911 first.”
�
��No! Get down here. The car could shift. It seems rocky. And we’ve had a phone tapped recently—I have anyway—so maybe that was the plan, to get our location when we call for help. Now, Brit!”
She squirmed free of the window and let go. Her purse came off her shoulder and fell a few feet away. When he half caught her, they tipped off balance to the ground. Pain shot through his ankle.
“You okay?” he asked. “I hurt my ankle, don’t know how bad.”
“I’m all right—just shaken. Are you going to check what did that to us?”
“I’d hate to have that happen to someone else, but I don’t want to do the obvious or get out from this tree cover.”
“We need it for evidence,” she said, and darted out into the road before he could grab her.
“Brit—damn it, get back here!”
If his ankle wasn’t starting to throb, he would have yanked her back, but here she came, dragging a metal thing with big teeth that looked like some prehistoric dinosaur jaw.
“It’s too heavy to carry far,” she told him. “Let’s hide it in the brush somewhere and get going.”
“Yeah, then let’s go a ways on the other side of this ditch before we try to call,” he said, tugging the spike stop off the berm with her. It wasn’t as heavy as he thought. He remembered he’d heard officers could even heave spike sticks out into the road just before a vehicle approached. Was someone near watching them now?
“Brit, you know this area better than me. How close are we to the BAA?”
“I’d say a half mile. This road is hardly traveled at night except by ranch traffic.”
“We won’t be flagging anyone down for help, not if it’s Helter’s people.”
“But this may have been meant to hurt ranch traffic. If those pro-wildlife groups can picket and threaten a petting zoo, surely they’d hate the idea of a hunt ranch, so they could be behind this and we just happened to come along. Do you agree with Nick that Stan’s probably behind everything—even when I told him I’d sell under certain circumstances?”
“Possibly him behind it with the help of his guide and guards.”
They shoved the spike stick under some leaves at the foot of a big palmetto and started off, Jace limping and swearing under his breath. She moved closer so he could put one arm over her shoulders to take the weight off what he hoped was only a sprained ankle. It was uneven ground, but he was not going out into the road. They picked their way slowly along the fringe of the trees, mostly palmettos and spectral melaleucas, silvery with road dust. Their path was middle ground between the road berm and the darkness of the deeper wilderness.
“You’re keeping calm,” she said. “Lately, not like you.”
“I’ve been through worse, including a plane crash into shark-infested water,” he told her through gritted teeth. The pain was spreading. Surely he hadn’t broken a bone.
“Do you think human sharks are after us? Even if someone was following us, they couldn’t rush ahead to plant the spike sticks, but they could call ahead to give our position to someone waiting.”
“Sadly, you’re starting to think like me. And I just hope we’re out here alone.”
They stopped under a big fica tree and sat on its twisted roots. Jace took out his phone, but covered its light with his hand as he punched in the number.
“You’re calling a longer number than 911,” she said.
“Calling in a favor from my FBI contact. You want a good, armed guard at the BAA tonight—and I can hardly walk—this is our man. I’m gonna ask him to chopper in, and then I’ll call for some tow truck help.”
“What’s his name? Indiana Jones? James Bond?”
Despite it all—his damaged car, their precarious position, his damned ankle and the fact Brit was just as bullheaded as Claire had always been—Jace had to love her nerve and spirit. If he could only trust her all the way to level with him, she was for sure the woman for him.
“’Lo?” a sleepy voice on the phone said. “Mitch here. Oh, it’s you, Hawk. In that case, Falcon here. What?”
“Hawk needs your help. Personal but possibly dangerous.”
“Right up my alley anyway. Give me your coordinates so I don’t have to track you, and read me your recon.”
* * *
Claire jolted awake and sucked in a quick breath when she saw a tall figure looming over her. Oh. Nick. Wearing only the boxer shorts he slept in. She was in Lexi’s bed, and faint light from the hall sifted in.
“You two all right?” he whispered.
She nodded and slowly, carefully extricated herself, put the covers back over Lexi and followed Nick out of the room.
“She had a nightmare,” she told him as they headed for their own bed.
“That’s the name of this game lately.”
It was early yet, barely 3:00 a.m. They got back in their bed and cuddled, Nick embracing her this time. “Nick, Lexi said Brit told her about the blind Florida panther at the zoo and not to mention it to Jace, though—excuse me for putting it this way—the cat is out of the bag since she told me.”
“Brit’s good at going behind people’s backs, but I don’t think we should read too much into that. She’s an independent woman, desperate to get her life back on track. Listen, I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but I’m going to contact the Tampa area zoo, and perhaps something good may come of it, though they may still want the tiger.”
“‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave.’ I agree with you that Brit does things on her own. She didn’t tell her father she was talking to Stan Helter, then didn’t tell Jace what she’s up to with the Naples Zoo. But I’m glad you agree she’s probably not guilty of plotting against her father or Jackson. No way.”
He gave her a little squeeze. “Probably is a pretty big word. Let’s not have that happen around here, going behind the other’s back.”
“Of course not, but I’ve been thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
She gave him a little elbow punch in his stomach, then said, “Actually, I was thinking that I’ll let you and Bronco, even Heck, lead the way in investigating this tiger case. The police have looked at both Lane and Brit. I think I’ve proved that Gracie was not a suspect. I know you’ve been waiting for Bronco to get back from his honeymoon this afternoon—their three days have gone fast—to see what he can uncover about Stan at the ranch.”
“I’d love to have you just advising from the wings, concentrating on Lexi, the baby—me, of course—and your Comfort Zone kids, especially poor Duncan. I think you’re making progress there.”
“I do too. I’ll just act as a sounding board—consultant—but please keep me up on everything. Maybe staying objective will help. But I do think—really—that Brit cannot, absolutely cannot, be guilty of more than frustration and ambition. And she has Jace to take care of her.”
“And you have me. I love you, Claire. You know how people say, ‘You’ve made my day’? Well, my sweetheart, you’ve made my life.”
* * *
“This seemed a lot farther than a half a mile,” Jace gritted out as they approached the BAA gate. His ankle felt like it was on fire.
“You should have had your friend pick us up where we were. Men, when they are hurt or sick, are babies not to let someone else take care of them, if you ask me. Here, I’ll get out my gate key.”
“Why is it so damn dark here? Has the entry light gone out—or been put out? Maybe we are being followed and set up.”
“No, it’s been that way for a while. I think some of the nastier picketers hit it out with stones. The security gate camera up in the palm tree was damaged and isn’t working either.”
“You should have told me!”
“I don’t want to keep asking for money! I know this place is on borrowed financial time. I don’t want our future relationship to be based on that, and you’ve been playing finances clo
se to the vest too.”
“Not the same salary as I was used to, but I’m not paying child support anymore. Which reminds me, I’ve got to support Lexi more with my time. I’m still ‘Daddy’ but am now in competition with ‘Dad’ Nick. Brit, can you unlock that? I can’t stand on this ankle! And we’re getting the light and camera fixed!”
She fumbled with the lock and popped it open. They went in and relocked the gate behind them. Jace had told Mitch he could land just inside the entrance to the BAA, and they’d clear the area and light it. He figured the chopper was about twenty minutes out and hoped it wouldn’t freak out the animals. At least the landing site that Brit hurried to clear and light with four battery lanterns was not near the larger animals, especially the tiger.
Bless her, she made an ice bag for his ankle from an old feed sack. They waited, scanning the sky, listening for the whap-whap of the rotor blades. It reminded him of the night he’d spent on the ground in Iraq after he’d had to bail out, but they’d found him, come in a helo to save him, given him a second life he was trying to get in order now.
“Here it comes,” he said. “Hear it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But it’s coming from the wrong direction.”
“Maybe he circled around.”
“It doesn’t sound like the one he uses to fly the Stingray recorders to his contact. That sound—too big. And it’s coming from the east, maybe the other side of the state. Brit, turn those lanterns off. Now.”
“But he probably just got in a bigger one and—”
“Now!”
Jace dived for the nearest lantern and turned it off, despite his ankle.
“Have you heard choppers here before at night?” he asked as they huddled under the overhang roof of the ticket office in the now dark area.
“No, but I don’t think I’ve ever been here this late—like, nearly 4:00 a.m.”
“Jackson ever say anything?”
“No, but he said he was a sound sleeper. Jace, what are you thinking?”
