Garth shrugged. “Easy. Nowadays, you can get anything on Amazon.”
Chapter Seven
Dusk had fallen on the rural outskirts of Plant City, mercifully softening the hard edges of the rusted out truck chassis and decaying trailer homes that served as points of interest in Garth’s backwoods neighborhood.
We’d waited until dark to begin our search for Jimmy for two reasons. One was for fear Jimmy might recognize Grayson’s old RV and get spooked. The second was that, try as he might, Garth couldn’t get a GPS bearing on Jimmy. Either his brother had driven out of signal range, or Garth’s cellphone battery had died.
While we’d waited to see if the signal would reappear, Grayson and Garth had discussed pertinent geeky details of the case. As for me, I’d taken the liberty to run some errands, including picking up chicken soup and Nyquil for Garth—and disinfectant wipes and zinc lozenges for me and Grayson.
When I’d returned, so had the GPS signal emanating from Garth’s covert cellphone. Grayson and I had dropped off the groceries, then jumped in the RV and headed out before the signal petered out again.
“Which way should I turn?” Grayson asked as he came to a stop at an intersection marked only by a stop sign full of bullet holes.
“I don’t know. How do you work this thing?” I asked, then bitch-slapped the side of the plastic gizmo in my hand. It looked like a transistor radio—without any knobs.
“What are you trying to do?” Grayson asked.
“Track Jimmy’s cellphone, like you said.”
“Drex, that’s a bug sweeper.”
“Eww!”
I flung the device onto the floorboard, then kicked it back under the seat where I’d found it. “Gross! Where’s the hand-sanitizer I bought?”
“Not that kind of bug.”
“Oh.” I grimaced, then smiled sheepishly. “You meant the, ‘Do you think you’re being bugged,’ kind of bug.”
Grayson pursed his lips. “Exactly.”
I frowned. “Well, do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Think you’re being bugged!”
Grayson’s eyebrow arched. “I will if you continue with this line of questioning.”
“Hardy har har.” I crossed my arms, stared out the window, and gnawed resentfully on the Tootsie Pop in my mouth.
“What made you think the bug sweeper was the GPS tracker?” Grayson asked.
I reached down under the seat, snatched up the gizmo and shoved it in my partner’s face. “Maybe because it says, R F Signal Detector on it?”
“R-F stands for radio frequency, not wifi signal.”
“Oh.” My brow furrowed. “What’s the difference?”
Grayson stared at the road ahead for a full minute, then muttered, “There are subtle differences.”
I smirked. “Ha! You don’t know, do you? Finally, a question ‘The Great Grayson’ doesn’t know the answer to! Ha ha!”
Grayson blew out a breath. “Okay. Now you’re officially bugging me.”
“Not according to this thing,” I said, grinning and wagging the device in the air. “See? The light’s green.”
Grayson shook his head. “That means the signal is clear. No one’s listening in.”
“Oh.” I turned down the sarcasm a notch. “Why do you have this thing, anyway? Who would want to listen in on our conversations?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Anger poked a hot finger into my brain. I studied Grayson for a moment, a scowl forming on my lips. “I might be, if you’d ever tell me anything.”
Grayson sighed. “This is a discussion for another time, Drex. Right now, we need to get a bead on the phone Garth hid in Jimmy’s bag.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Fine. How we gonna do that?”
“With the very latest in detection equipment. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
Grayson shot me a sour face and reached into his breast pocket. “It’s a newfangled gadget called a ‘cellphone.’”
“Oh.”
Grayson punched a key on his phone and handed it to me. “Here.”
I snatched the phone from his hand, my face burning with embarrassment. “I thought they just gave out GPS signals. Who knew you could track somebody else’s cellphone with a stupid phone app?”
Grayson’s eyebrow shot up. “Everyone except you, apparently. Weren’t you listening to anything Garth and I said?”
I cringed. I really had tried to. But their geek-speak was like chloroform to my attention span. “I guess I kind of lost it when I saw that video of Jimmy.”
“It was shocking,” Grayson said. “What could make someone gain forty pounds in a matter of days?”
I shook my head. “That’s such a guy question. I once gained five pounds just looking through a bakery shop window.”
Grayson stared at me blankly. “So, which way do I turn?”
I stared at the phone, trying to figure out the app. “Sorry. How’s this thing work?”
“I already input Garth’s phone number,” Grayson said. “All you have to do is press the little green button marked ‘Go.’”
My ears went up in flames. “Oh.”
I clicked the button. A map popped onto the display. “Wow. That’s pretty cool.”
“Handy, isn’t it?”
“Oh, look!” I said. “A red dot. And it’s moving!”
“Excellent. We’ve got a bead on Jimmy. Which way is he headed?”
I grabbed some cheater glasses out of the glove compartment and slapped them on my nose. “Uh ... south. Out of town. Take a right.”
Grayson turned the steering wheel to the right, maneuvering the old Minnie Winnie onto a rural state road not much wider than the one we’d just left.
I glanced down at the phone again. “Okay, good. Go straight ahead for a mile or two.”
“Is Jimmy stationary, or still moving?”
“Moving, I think.”
Grayson gave a quick nod, his gaze glued to the road ahead. “Keep an eye on the signal. Let me know when we’re close.”
“I will.”
But as I watched the dark woods flit by the passenger window, anxiety began to grow in my gut. I studied Grayson for a moment, then posed a question.
“Are you sure it’s such a good idea to be doing this without backup?”
Grayson straightened in his driver’s seat, but kept his eyes on the road. “Why would we need backup?”
“Uh...let’s see. We’re alone. At night. On some backwoods road to Hicksville—tracking a young, possibly plague-ridden cop who happens to be armed with a service revolver and a freakin’ sword. Did I mention he’s been acting unstable lately?”
Grayson shrugged. “There has to be a reasonable explanation for Jimmy’s behavior, Drex. And remember, we’re doing this in the service of a friend. Garth asked us to keep the cops out of it for his brother’s sake.”
I blew out a sigh. “I know. Take the next right.”
Grayson shook his head. “There is no right.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is no time to get philosophical.”
“No,” Grayson said. “There is nowhere to turn right.”
I glanced back down at the display. “There should be. It says on the map here that Jimmy’s vehicle is off to the right about three hundred feet ahead.”
Grayson strained to see the road ahead. “If he is, he’s gone off-road.”
I stared at the woods in the fading sunset. Grayson was right. There was nothing to the right or left of us but an uninterrupted thicket of palmettos, cypress, and pines.
“What the?” I pressed my nose to the window pane for a better look. Suddenly, the RV veered off onto the shoulder, causing me to bang my head on the window.
“Ow!” I grumbled. “You could give a girl some warning, you know.”
“You’re the one who’s holding the tracking device,” Grayson said calmly. “What did you expect me to do? Fly over the trees like ET?”
Well, now that you mention it.
..
“I dunno,” I grumbled. “I guess we’ll have to go the rest of the way on foot.”
I jerked open the door and tumbled out of the RV. “Yuck!” I squealed as I sunk up to my ankles in mud.
“What is it?” Grayson asked.
“Forget it! This place is a bog!” I said as I climbed back in. “We’d better get out of here before we get—”
“Stuck?” Grayson said, then punched the gas.
The tires spun.
The RV shimmied.
But we weren’t going anywhere.
“Great. Just great!” I yelled, and kicked the floorboard with my muddy boot. “We’re gonna need a tow to get out of this mess.”
“Excellent deduction, cadet,” Grayson said. “Call your cousin Earl.”
“What?” I gasped.
Grayson eyed me dully. “You said it yourself. We need a tow.”
“Come on, Grayson! It’ll take Earl hours to get here. We should call someone local.”
“Then Jimmy will find out about our investigation.”
I frowned. “How do you figure that?”
But I already knew the answer. In small towns like these, the local grapevine didn’t have very far to swing. Jimmy would know what we were up to before we could make it back to Garth’s compound.
Still, Earl?
“B...but—” I stammered.
Grayson cut me off. “Given the swampy terrain, we’re going to require Earl’s monster truck to track down Jimmy anyway. It’s a win-win, Drex.”
“Sounds more like a lose-lose, if you ask me.”
Grayson’s cheek dimpled. “The sooner you call, the sooner he’ll get here.”
I swatted a mosquito and groaned. “I know. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter Eight
“Earl says it’ll take him a couple hours to get here,” I said, clicking off the phone.
I glanced over at Grayson. He was busy adding antennae to the smiley faces he’d drawn in the condensation on the windshield.
Not exactly what I’d call a “confidence booster.”
While my partner scrawled a few final flourishes on his windowpane masterpiece, I checked the cellphone display. The blip indicating Jimmy’s location blinked, then faded out before my eyes.
“He’s gone!” I gasped, nudging Grayson with my elbow.
His long, tapered finger jerked on the windshield, spoiling the curlicue on an otherwise impressive alien moustache.
“Earl’s gone?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Jimmy. He just ... vanished!”
“That’s odd,” Grayson said. “The cellphone reception must not reach much further than those woods.”
“Or Garth’s phone just gave up the ghost.” I handed Grayson his cellphone. “So, what are we gonna do now, Da Vinci?”
Grayson tucked the phone into his shirt pocket. “What all good detectives do on stakeouts, Drex.”
Curiosity furrowed my brow. “Discuss the case?”
“No. Break out the snacks.”
Grayson’s gaze shot downward. I followed his line of vision and found myself staring at a scruffy little Igloo cooler on the floorboard beside my seat. Garth had handed the cooler to Grayson as we were leaving his trailer.
My spidey senses tingled. “What’s in there—besides flu virus and salmonella, I mean.”
Grayson smirked. “Open it and find out.”
I bristled. “Why don’t you open it?”
“Because I’m the boss.”
Ugh! That’s the same stupid line Carl used to say.
“Fine,” I hissed. “But if some stupid alien puppet pops outta there, I’m whacking you upside the head with it.”
Grayson laughed. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Sure, it’s not.” I reached over and cautiously slid open the lid, keeping the cooler at arm’s length. I blinked at the contents once. Then twice.
“Twinkies and Pepsi?” I asked.
Grayson grinned. “Well done, Garth.”
“Seriously?” I said sourly. “I think we just solved the mystery of why Jimmy’s as big as a hippo.”
“No,” Grayson said. “You don’t understand. That’s a tribute to his uncle.”
My nose crinkled. “His uncle’s a hippo, too?”
“No.” Grayson pulled a can of Pepsi from the cooler and cracked the tab with a whoosh. “You don’t know the story?”
“Obviously not,” I said, grabbing a pack of Twinkies and wiping down the cellophane to get rid of the cooties.
“Ah,” Grayson cooed. “Then I’ll tell you.”
His eyes glowed with a faraway look—an expression I’d only seen on his face once before, when he was talking about a chance encounter with Gene Roddenberry.
“Ah, what?” I griped.
“You see, Drex,” Grayson waxed philosophically, “legend has it that once—when The Amazing Randi was staking out the trash cans of a purported faith healer—he spent days in his car, surviving on nothing but Twinkies and Pepsi.”
My gut flopped.
Good grief. I hope it doesn’t come to that...
I’D JUST CRAMMED THE last Twinkie in my mouth when I saw it. A faint, pinkish glow emanating from the swamp—right in the general area where Jimmy’s old truck had been when the GPS signal disappeared.
I checked my watch, figuring it must’ve been around midnight.
It was 8:39 p.m.
I groaned, then nudged Grayson, who was draped over the steering wheel, passed out in a sugar coma.
“Wake up,” I whispered.
He grunted, then cracked open an eye. “What?”
I nodded toward the woods. “What’s that?”
Grayson shot up in his seat. “What’s what?”
“See it?” I pointed a finger at the passenger window. “That weird glow over there. Coming from the woods.”
Grayson leaned across me for a better view. “Yes. I see it!”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Damn. I hadn’t just been imagining it.
I grimaced. “Uh ... what do you think it is?”
Grayson snatched a pair of binoculars from the dashboard and pointed them in that direction. “Swamp gas?”
I nearly fell out of my chair. “Swamp gas? Seriously? You of all people?”
Grayson hung the binocular strap around his neck and reached for the door handle. “There’s only one way to find out for sure.”
I cringed. “I thought we were going to wait for Earl.”
Grayson turned to face me. “Earl? Seriously? You of all people?”
My face collapsed like a lemon soufflé.
“Touché,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
“The glow looks like it’s coming from that direction,” I said, my cowboy boots slogging through the ankle-deep mud a few paces behind Grayson.
I took a last glance back at the RV as we left the cleared shoulder edging the road and slipped into the surrounding forest.
Immediately, my senses were overwhelmed.
The fresh, sharp smell of pine mingled with the odor of rotting cabbage to fill my nostrils. My ears pricked to a cacophony of frog calls and insect chirps. Their orations nearly drowned out the gloppy, sucking sound our boots made with each footstep as we cautiously picked our way around cypress knees in the dark, shin-deep muck.
The cypress canopy blotted out the moonlight. I could barely see a thing. In my haste to keep up with Grayson, I’d forgotten my flashlight. I’d fired up the one on my cellphone, but he’d quickly ordered me to turn it off to conserve the battery.
Stumbling behind Grayson, just out of range of the circle of light cast by his flashlight, the thought of what else might be lurking in the swamp made me edge closer to him until I was almost riding on his back.
In the woods to our left, a loud, baritone call rang out in the darkness, like the belch of a drunken giant. The sound stopped Grayson cold. I ran straight into the back of him.
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“Sorry!” I whispered.
“I wonder what would cause that?” Grayson asked.
“I can’t see. If you’d let me turn on my cellphone—”
“Not you,” Grayson said. “That.”
He directed his light beam down the trail about fifty feet ahead of us. Then he turned off the light.
I grabbed him. “What’d you do that for?”
“Shh. Wait and see. Let your eyes adjust.”
I held my breath and reached for my Glock, expecting a pair of glowing red eyes or a set of sharp, yellow fangs. Instead, slowly but surely, an oval ring of light appeared in the trees. It glowed with a faint orange-red light, and appeared to be hovering six or eight feet off the ground.
“Intriguing,” Grayson said.
I dug my nails into his shoulder. “Intriguing my ass! What the hell is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Grayson took another step toward the mysterious, glowing ring.
“Wait!” I said, unable to take my eyes from the object. The center of it was dark as night, and about the size of hot-tub turned on its side.
“You’re right,” Grayson said. “We should exercise caution. Shame I didn’t bring my radiation detector.”
“Radiation?” I gasped. “Are you saying we’re getting nuked?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible.”
I tucked my Glock in my pants and put my hands on my hips where I thought my ovaries might be.
Geez! My eggs are already middle-aged. Are they getting microwaved now, too?
I tugged Grayson by the arm. “Come on! Let’s get out of here!”
“Not yet,” he said, and yanked free of my grip. He straightened his shoulders and tromped two more steps toward the unidentified glowing object.
“Don’t!” I cried out, not wanting to follow, but not wanting to be left behind in the dark, either.
I stared at the mesmerizing, yellow-orange glow. It flickered on the tree trunks, turning them into ghostly visions of pointy-fingered goblins. Every molecule in me wanted to flee—not just to save myself, but my unborn children, too.
“Grayson,” I said, trying to find him in the dark.
He was gone.
“Ack!” I cried out. “Where are you?”
Scatman Dues (Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Book 6) Page 5
