He sounded almost teary as he spoke of the lagoon, as if it were his child.
“I love the lagoon too,” she said. She hoped that having a common interest would ingrain some sympathy with him. “I’d like nothing more than to preserve it for the children.”
“If this works, maybe we will,” he said. “Now go. I’ll take care of the girl.”
The Lagoon Watcher brought his hand down and let Mrs. Mint take a step away from him. Wondering whether his sincerity sprang from madness or genuine concern, she spun around for a look into his eyes before he disappeared. His gray-blue eyes peered out at her from beneath a long sun-scorched scalp and a shock of thinning blond hair that hung down his neck. He reminded her of a drunken middle-aged man living on a roaming house boat, not a serious scientist who could help a disturbed little girl.
He reached out to her with a gloved hand that looked deceptively comforting. Mrs. Mint whirled around and dashed out of there. She didn’t even recognize the stabbing pain in her ankles and knees until she reached the parking lot and saw the SUV with the tinted windows.
“The Lagoon Watcher has Mariella! They’re in the trailers.”
* * * *
Moni yanked on the door handle so hard that she cracked a fingernail when it didn’t open. When she saw DeWitt’s smug grin as he held his finger over the master lock, she socked him on his lard-loaded arm. “Open the fucking door!”
“We’re not supposed to leave until we get word from Sneed,” he said. “You would never disregard an order, would you?”
Moni grumbled bloody murder as she dialed into the secure line. “Detective Sneed, I have confirmation from Mrs. Mint that the Lagoon Watcher has Mariella captive in the trailer area. May I have your permission to pursue the suspect?” That last sentence burned her tongue like battery acid.
“We’re having three officers converge on the suspect’s location,” Sneed said. “I’ll go while my partner here keeps an eye on the video. Officer Connors from the playground will go and one more, hmmm…” She grabbed her seat’s armrest and nearly peeled the cover off. The teacher pounded on her window about the kidnapped girl while Sneed took his sweet-ass time. “Moni, you can come too. Everybody else will watch the perimeter and make sure no one leaves. And call for backup to get firepower along that perimeter. Now move!”
The moment that prick DeWitt unlocked her door, Moni bolted from the SUV. She ignored the teacher and raced between the cars toward the trailers. Even though she ran faster than she ever had, the mental torture of worrying about Mariella stretched out each step into a month’s worth of agony. In the time she took one stride, he could snap the girl’s fragile neck and let her head dangle with lifeless eyes. He could thrust a knife into her heart until it stopped beating. He could pinch her flute-like windpipe between his fingers and crush it. Maybe he had brought his precision slicer. Moni couldn’t bear guessing how long that would take him, but she knew that Harrison hadn’t been dead for long when the police arrived at her house and found his headless corpse.
Moni pumped her legs so hard that her thigh muscles throbbed as if they were about to rupture. She didn’t care if she wound up on crutches: Mariella’s life literally hung on every second.
She drew her pistol as she dodged between the trailers. Moni heard a door open on the other side of a trailer. She dashed around it and pointed her gun. A pre-teen boy screamed and nearly fell off the steps leading up to his classroom. Without apologizing, Moni hurried on and circled around more trailers. She didn’t see anything. Mariella couldn’t even yell for her. The girl couldn’t cry out in pain from the horrible devices that the Lagoon Watcher inflicted upon her.
The pressure welled up inside Moni’s head. It pushed on the inside of her skull as dread invaded her thoughts. Had she already taken too long? Those piercing eyes that had stared at Mariella from across the dark parking lot that night had but one intention behind them. It wouldn’t take them much time once they caught her. If she hadn’t found the girl by now, she might not find anything besides a petite decapitated body. Moni would never gaze into the brown jewels of her eyes again.
As the fluid in Moni’s brain lapped around violently like a storm inside a snow globe, she jammed her thumb into her temple and beat back the pain. She wished she could jab her eyes out, and rub the agony away, but she couldn’t stop looking for Mariella for a second. Moni kept scampering around the trailers until the tremors rocking her head literally brought her to her knees. She steadied her hand on the wooden skirt of the trailer. Moni fought to regain her balance. Then she realized that the wood moved easily when she pressed it. She hobbled behind the trailer and scanned the narrow column near the A/C unit. She saw one skirt halfway off. With the pressure in her head mercifully fading, Moni dashed through the opening.
When she ducked underneath the trailer, she couldn’t see a thing in the darkness beyond the narrow angular path of light that spilled from the opening. Realizing that the light reflected off her face, making it a clear target, Moni sidestepped into a dark corner. She hunched down so her head didn’t hit the floorboards. Moni heard the kids in the classroom above her scuffing their feet and shuffling around their desks. They yammered on gleefully without any idea that a mutilator of human beings lurked below them. Moni didn’t see him; she knew it by the way the putrid scent of salty fish intestines stung her nose and made her eyes water.
Some part of her also felt Mariella, waiting for her underneath that trailer. She couldn’t hear the girl breathing or moving with all the commotion from above. But the Lagoon Watcher wouldn’t let his catch stray far from him. He would keep her right in his paws, where he could slice her open at any moment.
With a trail of sweat rolling down the back of her neck as she suffered under the sweltering heat, Moni fumbled for her flashlight. It would reveal her location, but she’d rather have the killer target her than focus his wrath on the little girl. She hoisted her pistol, and turned on the light. In just a few seconds of sweeping the beam through the dusty compartment, Moni spotted the shiny black hair of Mariella in the far corner. The girl stared at her not in surprise, but in relief. Beads of sweat glistened on the girl’s trembling lips. She sat scrunched into the corner with her legs against her chin. She had been so petrified by him, that she couldn’t even reach out her arms. Her sleeves were soaked in blood.
I’ll kill that motherfucking pig.
“Just stay there, baby,” Moni said softly, as if a loud word would set off a stick of dynamite. “I’ll be right there.”
Moni crept toward her with her beam squarely focused on the girl. Mariella’s eyes darted around, casting a wide net through the darkness. The Lagoon Watcher wouldn’t make this so easy. Moni kept an iron grip on her pistol, and her eyes shifted in both directions. It didn’t do much use. She couldn’t see a thing outside of the narrow beam of light bathing Mariella. Suddenly, she heard a footstep that didn’t come from the floor above but from a few feet away. Moni swiveled to her left—directly into a gloved fist that pummeled her cheekbone. Her head snapped around as she stumbled backwards. She dropped her flashlight. Yet she kept her pistol, which she raised in the direction of the blow. Before she squeezed a shot off, a damp jacket brushed over her face, followed by a knee crashing into her ribcage. A gloved hand snared her wrist and another hand swatted the pistol free. Her only weapon fell under cover of darkness. The Lagoon Watcher shoved her into a wooden board that bruised the back of her rib cage.
“The girl doesn’t belong with you,” the Lagoon Watcher said. A breath that stank like rotted squid wafted into Moni’s nose. “It’s inside her, but it’s not my fault. She’s a victim of the money-grubbing agri-processors and politicians that started this mess. Forces beyond nature are making it a hell of a lot worse. I’ll try my best to fix her. If you don’t leave her with me, you’ll lose the girl.”
“I ain’t leaving my baby with you, you pervert!” Moni hollered as she clawed her nails at his face. They nicked his flesh, but he caught her wrists. H
e bent them backwards. Her joints couldn’t take any more.
“My love for the lagoon is no perversion. There’s nothing wrong with caring about nature.”
“There is if you care about nature more than you do about human life.”
Moni stomped on his foot and squirmed out of his grip. She bounced off the wall, and raced for Mariella. The Lagoon Watcher’s gloved hands pinched her under her arms and hoisted her up. Moni’s head bonked off the underside of the floorboard. She saw stars that didn’t belong in such a dark place. When he let her go, Moni collapsed on the pavement. The Lagoon Watcher scooted around her with his sights on Mariella. Moni kicked him in the shin. He growled and hurled his body on top of hers, squishing her back against the unforgiving ground. Moni wrapped her legs around his body like she had learned in jiu-jitsu training, but her hands weren’t strong enough to control his fists. He blasted his knuckles into the side of her neck. Moni wrenched her neck in pain as its tendons contracted. The next blow hammered her on the jaw and even the slightest move of her mouth caused her agony. Even worse, a sticky liquid oozed from the Lagoon Watcher’s head onto Moni’s face. She couldn’t see it, but she remembered how the infected snakes had purple venom dripping from their fangs. Moni swatted the goo off her forehead. She rocked her head from side to side as she tried to avoid getting infected. A steady stream of it kept pouring down on her. She felt the Lagoon Watcher rear back and throw another punch. This time she caught his arm in both hands and clamped it down against her chest. Moni slinked one leg over the trapped arm and pressed her opposite leg atop the man’s head. She bent one leg, locked her ankle behind her knee and pulled down on his head with both hands. That brought the Lagoon Watcher right into her triangle choke. Her flexing thighs cut off the blood flow to his brain before he could utter a word. Like a novice, he pushed against her legs, which only increased the pressure on his neck. In less than a minute, his arms went limp and he passed out.
Moni would have loved nothing more than to keep the choke locked on until the Lagoon Watcher went brain dead, but she couldn’t let Mariella worry for a second longer. She tossed the man’s dead-weight body to the side, scooped up her flashlight and pistol and searched for the girl. She hadn’t left the corner the whole time. Since she couldn’t have seen anything, the girl couldn’t have known how close Moni had come to meeting her end. She would have heard her die. Moni thanked God the girl didn’t have to witness another parent killed.
“You can relax now, baby,” Moni said. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
As she plodded toward the frightened little girl, Moni remembered when she had found Mariella among the mangroves on that blood-soaked day. This time, the girl quivered with fear whereas before she appeared more nervous and shy. Moni hadn’t recognized pure terror in the girl’s eyes until that moment. Yet, with every step closer she took, the chains of dread strewn across Mariella’s face loosened. Finally, her arms reached out. Moni stepped into them. She embraced the girl with all her heart as they stood in the place that might have been a grave for both of them. Mariella tied herself around Moni’s neck like a sweater. She reluctantly untied the girl and rolled up her sleeves. Despite the blood on her clothes, Mariella didn’t have a scratch on her. She better keep it that way. They still had the Lagoon Watcher underneath there with them, but not for long.
Holding the flashlight together with Mariella, she found her pistol and scooped it up. She focused the beam on the man’s sun-beaten head as he lay face down. Moni pointed her pistol along the same line. She wrapped her finger around the trigger.
The bastard deserved it more than anyone, she thought. He had claimed so many lives with his deranged experiment on the lagoon. He had taken everything from Mariella, including her innocence and joy. This man had stalked her and kidnapped her. He had murdered people. The Lagoon Watcher would get the death penalty anyway, so she might as well expedite the process and insure that he doesn’t catch a lucky break in court.
She took a step closer and steadied her aim.
He’s unconscious. This man is no longer a threat. What the hell am I doing?
Moni had never shot a person. She had never felt comfortable making a split-second judgment of whether someone should live or die. The Lagoon Watcher could easily be arrested without any more violence. She would sleep a whole lot better, as would Mariella, if he had a bullet rip through his spinal column. Moni took a deep breath. Mariella squeezed her hand as if she were pleading for an ice cream cone.
“Anybody in here?” Sneed hollered from the opening in the wooden skirt. He nearly toppled over as he squatted down with his hefty gut dragging past his knees. His eyes went wide. “Holy crap! That’s him!” Sneed tried arching his back and ducking under the trailer, but his tank-like frame couldn’t handle anything close to a limbo. “Connors! Get over here and arrest that man.”
Moni sighed as her chance to end the Lagoon Watcher’s pathetic existence passed her by. When she traded her pistol for a pair of handcuffs, she realized that she could at least make the most out of her first big arrest.
“You can tell Connors to hold off,” Moni told Sneed. “I’ve got this one.”
She briefly turned the flashlight on Mariella and herself. Sneed looked like a toddler who couldn’t believe he had just shit his pants.
* * * *
Moni had never been so relieved at the sight of blood all over her face when she looked in the mirror. It sure beat purple bacteria juice.
The blood wasn’t hers. When she wiped it off with a damp towel, she saw a black welt on her cheek, but no cuts. The Lagoon Watcher hadn’t infected her. He bled on her from the gash on his forehead. All of a sudden, Moni felt like bathing in bleach. Mariella would need a bath as well, because the man had bled all over her arms.
With Mariella safely in the SUV with a clean shirt, Moni marched up to the patrol car that held the Lagoon Watcher. The man had come to and immediately started babbling nonsense. The large bandage on his head didn’t make him look any saner.
When he saw Moni, he pressed both hands on the glass and started shouting. She couldn’t understand him through the thick window, but his lips formed the word “girl” several times.
“He said the little girl sliced open his forehead,” Sneed said as he moseyed up behind Moni. His eyes trained on the suspect. “And I’m sure she beheaded all those people too. What a deranged individual. You’re damn lucky you found him when you did.”
Calling her lucky didn’t substitute for congratulating her on formulating and executing a perfectly laid trap, but she’d take anything she could get.
“What makes you think I was lucky?” Moni asked. “Maybe I planned everything down to the tiniest detail.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you did.” Sneed gave a dismissive huff. “I said you’re lucky, because the Lagoon Watcher had a jacket loaded with syringes. We haven’t figured out what the hell he had in them yet, but I have a good idea what he intended to do with them.”
Moni cringed at the thought of the Lagoon Watcher yanking Mariella’s arm out of its socket and jamming a needle into her artery. He had brought a pouch full of poison for the girl’s heart.
Seeing that freak incessantly jabbering from inside the car, Moni smacked her palm on the window square over his face. The Lagoon Watcher recoiled and went quiet. She wished she had the strength to break that glass so that its shards shredded his face. Another punch or two might do it, Moni thought. She turned her back on him and refocused with a deep breath before she did something she would regret.
“I know how you feel. I wanna kick his ass too,” said Sneed, who couldn’t possibly hate the Lagoon Watcher as much as Moni did. Sure, he had killed one of his friends, but he couldn’t love another human being as much as Moni loved Mariella. “We got something even better than that, though. We can finally rest easy knowing we’ve got this case under control. All we have to do is make him tell us where the bombs are. I don’t think you have to worry about your girl anymore.”
Anot
her thing Sneed didn’t understand is that a parent never stops worrying. And she had good reason to.
Chapter 34
Mrs. Mint watched the news casts of the officers marching the Lagoon Watcher into jail over and over. She must have read every news account too. The teacher gazed at his mug shot with those startled blue eyes, and that mouth with a primordial blood lust. Those were the eyes that had her in their sights. Even knowing that he sat behind bars at that very moment with serious charges coming down the pike, the teacher trembled before she rounded corners. She wondered whether someone waited for her on the other side with gloved hands and a jacket full of needles.
She kept shaking her head and snapping herself back into reality. Mrs. Mint sat in the front seat of the school bus as it took her kids for their Friday field trip to the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary in Titusville. Yesterday, she had been prepared to cancel this trip in light of the threat to Mariella, but with the Lagoon Watcher put away, she went ahead with it. Besides, she figured, exploring the 393-acre nature preserve would alleviate some of the anxiety that Mariella and the other kids felt after the police sting on their school.
The kids were their normal chattering selves in the bus. Mariella remained quiet and content. Yet, for some reason, Mrs. Mint couldn’t relax. Maybe it was the glimpses of the Indian River Lagoon she caught between the trees as they rolled up U.S. 1. It still carried such a revolting stench that the bus driver made the kids shut all the windows. Arresting the Lagoon Watcher hadn’t solved every problem, at least not immediately.
No one had explained to her how his killing spree related to the swimming and fishing bans in the lagoon. She had seen the massive fish kills. She had seen video of someone shooting a hawk flying over the lagoon and then it popping back to life a minute later and gliding around impossibly on a broken wing. She couldn’t fathom how all that connected with the murder of Mariella’s parents. But if Sheriff Brandt had gotten on TV and proclaimed the emergency over, and the pollution in the lagoon on the verge of tapering off, that suited her fine. The teacher would much rather see her life return to normal—even if life for some of her students would never resemble how it was before.
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