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“You illegally detained two men who, as of a half hour ago, obtained my services,” Paul said. “I want you to release them. Apologize. And drop all the charges.” He lowered his chin. “Save us both a lot of paperwork. Otherwise, they’re going to bring in some big fancy city law firm and chew you up and spit you out because they can.”

“Nothing illegal about what I did, Paul, and you know it.” Dawson turned, snagging the paperwork off Anna’s desk, who smiled wickedly. “I’ve charged your clients with a misdemeanor because they were loading the dynamite onto their boat?—”

“You’re seriously going to follow through with this bullshit?” Paul tapped his fingers on the counter.

“As I was saying, because your clients chose to move the dynamite from their vehicle to a boat they were about to use to hunt for pythons, a reasonable person would?—”

“You’re making a dangerous assumption.” Paul lifted the paperwork. “This is a bullshit charge that will be tossed out as fast as a city slicker lawyer will have your badge. I don’t think that’s what you want.”

Dawson hated it when he and Paul played this lawyer-cop dance. It had only happened twice before, but it was painful. He held out a file. “We’ve already spoken to the judge. Here’s the bail bond. Let’s just get this part over with.”

Paul took the file Dawson offered and signed the paper. He plucked a cashier’s check out of his pocket and pushed it across the counter.

Dawson found it interesting that he’d had it ready.

“Court date is in the paperwork,” Dawson said. “Please make your clients show up.”

“They won’t be my clients when that happens,” Paul said.

He handed Anna the paperwork to file. As soon as he got rid of the two assholes, he’d make a beeline for the Everglades. If he was lucky, he might be able to get out on one of the airboats before dark.

But not because he was interested in the redhead.

CHAPTER4

Audra slowedher boat down to an idle before cutting the engine. She’d taken her sweet time getting here, partly because she saw some great opportunities for pictures along the way, but also, she hadn’t wanted anyone to see her take the turn through Snake River and Gator Junction. Of course, she ran the risk that people were back here snake hunting. This area would be ripe for the critters, but even the locals got skittish about the folklore after dark.

More than her father had disappeared in this stretch of the Everglades. It was a regular Everglade Triangle.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she glanced around. Not a single other hunter was in sight. It shouldn’t surprise her.

Hector Mendoza had gone missing somewhere back here, and that man had been more of a gator whisperer than her father had been. He’d lived in the Everglades as a young man before he’d met his wife. There were a million stories about Hector. About his heritage. About why he’d chosen to live out here, but it had been Erica—his wife—who’d tamed the beast and brought him to civilization. No one ever knew the real story. Hector had never talked about his childhood or why he'd come to Calusa Cove, but something had happened, and Audra suspected it was traumatic. However, none of it mattered. According to her dad, Hector was a decent, hardworking man who respected the Everglades and loved his family.

Before that, there were stories about a man named Phil. Just Phil. A white guy with blond hair who’d caught massive rattlesnakes with his bare hands and had alligators for pets.

He’d come to the island with no name to release a few gators who had gotten too big and made the townspeople nervous.

He’d never returned.

That had happened when her father was a small child, and the story had grown over the years.

There were many others, but those were the two stories that stuck out.

The Everglades were deep. Lots of little nooks and crannies. Every hunter had a plan. The locals had already scouted the areas beforehand. People like Silas and Paul knew where to look for pythons, and they’d probably already caught one. She didn’t need to concern herself with them outside of staying as far away from them as possible.

Tears welled in her eyes.

This was the last place she’d seen her father alive. The last place she’d heard his voice. According to him, he’d come out here a few days before that fateful night and had seen something he’d never seen before on the small land where the bow of her boat now pointed. Her father had told her a small shack had come into view through the lush trees. That night, he’d flashed a light, and she’d seen it, too. There had been crates with odd markings on the side near the small opening.

But then everything had gone black, and she couldn’t remember anything until she’d woken up hours later covered in her father’s blood. She rubbed her arms as if trying to remove the tacky fluid from her body.

Today, the brush seemed thicker in the sunlight than sixteen years ago. But she knew she had navigated to the exact location.

She pulled out her drone, hooked up her phone to the flying machine’s controller, and prepared it for flight. She could maneuver her boat to the clearing and walk around, but checking out the area first was safer.

Once she had a layout of the land, then she’d hoof it.

“All right, Dad, let’s see if what we saw that night is still back there.”