by Sandra Balzo
A five-minute conversation, and the man had managed to undercut the woman in every area of her life. ‘What did you say?’
‘I didn’t get the chance. Laurence just scooped up his cigarettes and matches, turned his back on me and stalked off.’
One of the shoes flew off with enough force that I flinched and nearly had to duck.
‘I couldn’t believe it.’ Missy was sobbing outright now. ‘He stomped right past that cake he’d dropped, with me following. I said he had no right to treat me like this.’
I held the gun ready.
‘Laurence wouldn’t even turn around!’ Missy looked past me, as if she were watching the scene unfold. ‘Just opened the door into that vestibule, intending to go right on into the passenger car. He was shoving his stupid cigarettes into his pocket and dropped his matches by the exit door. I called to him, but he didn’t hear me. Maybe because of the noise of the train or maybe because he just didn’t want to.’
The second shoe went flying, also barely missing me. ‘What did you do then?’
Missy seemed surprised at the question. ‘I picked the matchbook up, of course. But when I tried to hand it to Laurence, he knocked it right back out of my hand. Said the thing was empty and nothing but trash. That he had no further use for it.’
She braced a hand on each side of the doorway and leaned forward. ‘He wasn’t just talking about those matches, you know, Maggy.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ Her eyes were staring at something I couldn’t see. ‘The cake knife was in my hand and when he made to leave again, I … I stopped him.’
‘With the knife?’ I asked in a hoarse whisper.
Missy nodded up and down, up and down, like she was in a marching band and had to perfectly synchronize with its other members. ‘He fell against the door, bleeding. I had it on my hand already, but before it got all over I just … just slid the door open.’ The last words were barely a whisper.
‘It’ being her lover’s blood. Missy took ‘tidy’ to new heights.
I was trying to understand, or at least appear like I understood. ‘Listen, I know you didn’t mean to—’
But before I could finish my sentence, Missy Hudson launched herself from the doorway where she was sitting, toppling us both into the shallow water of the Everglades.
THIRTY-FOUR
I held the revolver high, thinking Missy was going to fight me for it. Instead, though, she put her hands on my chest and shoved me under the eight inches or so of swamp water and kept right on going, as if we were playing a soggy game of reverse leapfrog.
Scrambling back up, I coughed and gave chase.
Missy was already slogging toward the berm/island on the other side. I followed, trying to keep the gun from getting wet.
I didn’t call for help, which was probably dumb, but I was the one waving the firearm and chasing someone. Who would the citizens’ militia behind me choose to shoot?
Missy had made it across to the other bank, the one with the mangroves growing on it. She’d taken about three feet into the sawgrass when she froze and said, ‘Don’t move.’
‘Me?’ I looked at the revolver in my hand. ‘I have the gun. You don’t move.’
Over her shoulder she whispered, ‘It’s a python.’
‘Good,’ I said, much more calmly than I felt. ‘How about you and me retreat slowly back to the train and leave the monster alone.’
‘I don’t think she’ll let us.’
I crept up behind her and peered over a shoulder. A mottled nest of white eggs was not four feet in front of Missy’s bare feet. The nest had a head. A pointy head.
‘Is this the kind that’s pretty protective?’ I asked, backing up. I was remembering the old joke about not having to outrun the bear, just the person with you.
‘Really protective,’ Missy said, grabbing my arm so I couldn’t move without startling the snake. ‘Don’t leave me here.’
‘I won’t.’ I was feeling ashamed of myself. Murderer or not, Missy didn’t deserve to end up as snake food, despite the fact she’d turned her lover into it. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I won’t.’ And with that, she gave a brutal yank on my arm, sending the gun flying and me staggering into the snake’s nest.
THIRTY-FIVE
The female python and I were eye-to-eye.
I tried to get back up, reminding myself that they didn’t bite so much as squeeze you to death.
And then eat you.
The thing started to uncoil almost casually, like a cross-armed street punk, breaking away from his gang with a, ‘Wait here, dudes. This won’t take me long.’
Only this reptilian thug intended not only to put the squeeze on me, but have me for dinner. And not in a Welcome Wagon kind of way.
I managed to get to my feet and take a step, only to be tripped. While I was busy watching the head, the coils had snuck up on me from behind, launching me back nose first into the sawgrass.
Frozen in fear, I felt something thick glide over and then around my leg. The monster would envelope me like the banyan tree did its ‘host,’ first strangling the life out and then enveloping me as if I’d never been there at all.
I pushed up on my elbows hoping to scrabble away, but the coils had continued to climb, reaching my waist. I wanted to scream, but couldn’t seem to get my breath, whether from fear or the creature’s evolving death hug.
Yanked back, I fell off my elbows, my face grinding into the ground. When I turned my head, the python’s head slid into view. A split-tongue lashed out, nearly touching my nose. I tried to evade it, but the rows of backward-pointing teeth drew—
An explosion. And then nothing.
No sound. No light. Nor could I feel the painful, suffocating clamp of the python any longer.
Was this how it felt to die?
If so … hey, not so bad.
Sure, I could use a little music or maybe a pearly gate or two. But I’d settle for a simple dazzling light to move toward. It was awfully da—
‘Maggy?’
I opened my eyes.
Missy was standing straddled over the python. The creature’s head had been blown apart.
Before I could open my mouth to thank her, the girl turned the gun in my direction. ‘I’m so sorry, Maggy.’ She seemed dazed.
‘It’s all right, Missy.’ I was holding up both hands as best I could. ‘I know you didn’t want to hurt anyone.’
But she was shaking her head, back-and-forth, back-and-forth. ‘That’s just it. I think in a way I did. After—’ She swiped at a string of snot hanging from her nose. ‘Afterwards I was glad Laurence was gone. Dropped into the Everglades to be dealt with by animals like him. It seemed … right.’
No muss, no fuss. I hoped I wasn’t her next recycling project.
‘But you—’ She gestured toward me with the gun. ‘You don’t deserve to die.’
I didn’t know what else to say but, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve been nothing but nice to me, Maggy. And I almost killed you. Or, at least, let the snake kill you.’
‘But you didn’t,’ I insisted, hoping it was a self-fulfilling prophesy.
‘Thing is, with you gone no one would ever need to know. They might not even find your body. It would be so … neat, so orderly. Life should be orderly.’ The gun was shaking.
‘Hello?’ Markus’s voice called from the direction of the train. ‘Who’s out there?’
Pushing myself up on my hands and knees, I lunged upward just as Melissa ‘Missy’ Hudson put the muzzle of the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger.
THIRTY-SIX
The shots brought people running from the train at a gallop, Markus in the lead. ‘Oh, my God. What happened?’
I was sitting next to Missy’s body on the ground. She still held the gun in her hand, the back of her head horribly … just not there.
‘Missy killed herself and,’ I hesitated, ‘Potter.’
‘Are you sure?’ Zoe Scarlett had arrived, quickl
y followed by Prudence and Theodore B. Hertel, Jr. ‘I mean, you’re the one who’s alive and she’s not.’
‘The girl still has the gun in her hand,’ Markus pointed out before I could answer.
‘And why would Maggy kill Potter?’ Prudence demanded. ‘She didn’t even know him.’
‘Why would Missy kill him?’
A new voice. ‘Because she loved him and he was an asshole.’ The crowd parted, revealing Audra Edmonds. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t do it myself, years ago.’
‘Well, will you look at that snake in the grass.’ Engineer Hertel didn’t seem to take any notice of Audra or even Missy or me. He was ogling the python. ‘This here’s gotta be another of those rock pythons – look at how broad she is. And them eggs! They’re about to pop and I hear tell they come out striking.’
I got up and took two steps back. ‘We need to get Missy out of here,’ I said. ‘Markus, maybe you and,’ I saw the literary agent coming toward us, ‘Carson can carry her back to the train?’
The germaphobe in his white suit looked down at Missy, covered in swamp water and snake remnants, the back of her skull gone, but he nodded. ‘Of course.’
The two men picked up the pathetic little rag doll, all dressed up with literally no place to go. I followed after them as they conveyed Missy across the shallow water to the train. As I went, I stopped to retrieve first one glittery shoe and then the other.
When we got to the door, Markus climbed into the train. Carson handed the girl up to him and then the rest of us hoisted ourselves in.
‘Wait,’ I said, awkwardly retrieving the semi-automatic and Missy’s e-reader which I’d left on the floor. I kicked my pillow aside and opened the door of the roomette across from Potter’s. ‘Put her in there.’
When they’d placed Missy on the bunk, I covered her with a blanket and put the e-reader next to a hand. Then I picked up her shoes from the floor and we left, softly closing the door as if we didn’t want to awaken her.
The rest of the group continued on to the passenger car, but Carson was standing in the corridor, staring at his filthy hands.
‘Why didn’t you tell Pavlik or me you were representing Danny?’ It didn’t matter now, but I still wanted to know.
‘Danny?’ Carson was holding up both hands like a surgeon who’d scrubbed for an operation, and was impatiently awaiting sterile gloves.
‘Your new client? The one whose sexy book will now take the place of the novel Potter was writing?’
Carson had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I told him to send me the manuscript. I was intrigued. I didn’t say I’d represent him.’
Given the agent’s personality and, more importantly, Danny’s, that made sense. The kid had gotten carried away – just assumed the agent would take him on.
‘If you want to wash your hands …’ I opened the door of the roomette next to where we’d just left Missy and flipped down the sink. ‘And thank you for helping out there. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Carson said, trying to operate the faucet with his elbow. ‘I’ve found I can do these things if necessary. Or … appropriate.’
‘Me, too.’ I leaned in, turned on the water and left him.
Since there was nothing left to guard or anybody to guard it from, I returned to the passenger car, sinking wearily down into a window seat.
‘Here, drink this.’ Zoe Scarlett gave me a plastic cup with about an inch of brown liquid in it.
I sniffed. ‘Kahlua?’
She nodded. ‘I hoarded it for later if I needed a drink. But you’ve earned it more than I have.’
Greater love hath no woman than to share her coffee-flavored liqueur with a sister. ‘Thanks. This is very nice of you.’
‘Not really. In fact, I haven’t been very nice at all.’
I shrugged and tossed back the Kahlua. It was so thick it didn’t toss well. ‘In fairness, you were drunk quite a bit of the time. Besides, you wanted Pavlik and I had him. Correction: I have him.’
I glanced out the window, wanting nothing more than to see my sheriff riding in to save the day, or what was left of it.
Zoe sat down next to me. ‘You can’t blame me. Jaco— Jake’s a good guy.’
‘He is that.’ I was sticking my tongue into the glass to dredge up the remains. ‘I hope he and Boyce are OK.’
‘Me, too. It’ll be getting dark again in a few hours. I really don’t want to spend another night out here. If Missy wasn’t already dead, I’d kill her for getting me into this.’ Zoe tried to laugh, but it didn’t come off.
‘Missy saved my life,’ I said woodenly. ‘Instead of running – and maybe escaping – she stayed there and killed the snake that would have killed me.’
‘Run to where?’ Zoe demanded. ‘We’re in the middle of the Everglades. Besides, you knew she killed Larry Potter. Missy would have been hunted down and tried for murder.’
‘If the snake had finished me, no one would have known,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Missy knew that.’
‘Apparently I have more faith in the sheriff’s ability than you do,’ Zoe said, sounding a bit more like her obnoxious self.
‘I have plenty of faith in him, but we’d … well, I guess if I was dead, he’d be leaving for Wisconsin.’ And in mourning, I hoped. ‘Not staying here to investigate.’
Zoe’s head dropped back on her shoulders and she seemed to study the ceiling of the train. ‘I just don’t know.’
‘Know what?’
When Zoe met my eyes, there were tears in hers. ‘I don’t know if Missy could have lived with what she’d done. She was such a persnickety girl – that’s what made her so good. What made her valuable to someone like me, of the more scattered type. In Missy’s world, everything had to be just so and, given what had happened …’
‘Nothing could be right again. Ever.’
Zoe nodded.
I couldn’t argue with that. In fact, everything I’d witnessed today, everything Missy had told me, bore that out. The girl had tried her best to please, but it hadn’t been enough. At least, not enough for her.
I looked down at the glittery shoes, clutched so tightly my knuckles were white.
Poor, lost little murderer.
It was nearly four in the afternoon when we heard the whistle of a train.
Piling out, we raced around our locomotive to see another engine chugging up the track toward us. Pulling a single car, it stopped on the opposite side of the water-filled breach.
I pushed my way to the front of our little group of castaways just as Pavlik hopped out. He was followed by Boyce and about a dozen men and women in all kinds of uniforms.
Forgetting the dangers of the Everglades – or maybe feeling I’d already faced the worst of them – I splashed through the shallow water to the sheriff and threw my arms around him.
Pavlik kissed me hard. ‘Told you I’d be back. Is everything OK here?’
I looked down at the two glittery shoes I’d carried with me.
‘You’d best sit down,’ I said, pointing toward the doorway of our rescue train. And then I quoted the killer who’d saved my life: ‘It’s a long story.’
