Page 9 of A Dead End Fourth of July (Tiger’s Eye Mysteries #14)

Jack

"Shelley! Put. The alligators. Back!" I yelled, racing across the grass toward the terrified tourists and the tiny witch who'd magically called them to her.

"I just wanted the people to get their pictures," she shouted, her face crumpling. She was a sensitive child, and I hated to yell at her, but there were seven alligators converging on her.

Tess was going to kill me.

"Did you get your pictures?" Shelley asked the tourists, who all nodded frantically and started babbling.

"We did!"

"Oh, yes!"

"Best pictures ever!"

"Fine, then." She put her hands together beneath her chin as if praying, and I could see her lips move. Then she flung her arms out and up, and a shower of silver sparks flew from her fingertips through the air in a circle and landed on the heads of the confused alligators.

The crowd oohed and aahed, and I had to shove my way through them.

"Get back," I ordered through gritted teeth.

One puffed-up old man in a white shirt and orange pants pointed at me with a long, bony finger. "Don’t tell us what to do!"

"Get back!" I snarled, showing him more and longer teeth than a human should possess, since I was perilously close to shifting. "Lucky!"

Lucky and the boys moved in and herded the tourists away from the dock and back up the bank toward their cars.

The gators, in the meantime, had all turned around and were sliding off the dock and into the water, away from the boat and the people and the little girl who was about to be grounded for the rest of her natural life.

I never even slowed down but ran right up to her and snatched her into my arms.

"Shelley, oh honey, you took years off my life. You can't do stuff like that, sweetheart. You just can't. Gators are very dangerous. So, so dangerous."

She hugged my neck, and I could feel she was trembling.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Jack. I just thought it would be fun to show them a gator, but then so many showed up, and I was scared and didn't remember how to make them go away, and then you came, and I knew you'd fix it, but I sent them away, so isn't that good?"

I tightened my arms around her and tried to remember how to breathe. "Kiddo, yes, it's good that you sent them away, but we need to have a long talk about when and how to use your magic. Me, Tess, your Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike, and you. A long, long talk."

Still carrying her, I strode off the dock toward Lucky and the guys, all of whom were now armed with gator poles and guns, ready to rescue my kid.

Niece, friend, sister-in-law or whatever she was to me technically, she was mine. I'd rescued her and saved her life once, but this time I'd been careless. She could have died.

"We don't have to tell them about this, though, do we?"

For a split second, I was tempted to agree. Tess and her family didn't need to live through the terror of this moment, even via description.

But no.

"Sorry, sweetheart. We have to tell them. It's better to tell the truth to family. Always."

"That's not what Tess said after I put that pin on Aunt Ruby," she grumbled into my shirt, and I sighed.

The first day back in town was going spectacularly so far.

Ten minutes later, Shelley was happily sitting at the picnic table with the boys, munching on a cheese and lettuce sandwich, and laughing about some story Mickey was telling her about his girlfriend, the clown, and her circus friends.

Meanwhile, my heart still hadn't dropped back down into its normal rhythm.

Dallas and Austin Fox rode into the parking lot on their motorcycles, and I walked over to meet them. The Fox brothers were identical in blue jeans, Swamp Commando Airboat Rides T-shirts, and boots. Both carried backpacks.

They were computer geniuses, security specialists, and former Army Rangers. Tall, with dark hair, dark skin, and deep brown eyes; Tess had said often enough to almost make me jealous that they should be models for GQ magazine.

To me, they were friends.

"Hey, guys, thanks for coming by."

They parked their bikes and shook my hand.

"Got your text," Austin said.

"Our shift on the boats next, anyway," Dallas added. "Hey, is that lunch?"

"Go ahead. There's plenty for everybody."

"Uncle Dallas! Uncle Austin!" Shelley shrieked, jumping up to race over to meet them.

To Shelley, all the swamp commandos were her honorary uncles. They'd helped her through that rough time after her family died; teaching her to drive the airboat, feeding her junk food, and treating her like a beloved little sister.

I appreciated that more than I could ever say.

"How about we take the boat out for a drive before the next group of tourists gets here?" Lucky asked her.

"Really? Can I drive? Can I?" She twirled around. "I promise not to call the gators over."

"Maybe we'll ride along, just in case," Darius murmured, sidling close to me. "Armed."

I trusted them with her, but I was still shaken up from before, so it took me a minute to agree. But I really needed Austin and Dallas to help me find Sam's granddaughter, so I finally nodded.

"Okay, but you listen to everything Lucky, Mickey, and Darius tell you, okay? And no gators. Let's just say no wildlife of any kind, to be safe, okay?" I folded my arms and gave her my sternest look.

"I promise!" she shouted, hand on heart. "Let's go!"

The Fox twins plowed their way through a couple of sandwiches each while I ate five of my own and told them about Shelley and the gators.

Austin laughed so hard he had to put his head down on the table. Dallas smiled but looked somber.

"Hey, Jack. She needs a teacher. Fast. You guys love her, but you won't be enough, because you can't teach her how to use her magic. And when a witch is already this powerful at her age …" Dallas trailed off.

"Yeah. I know. We're working on it. I have a friend in Atlantis who's finding me someone. I need to ask her to hurry."

"In the meantime, tell us about the girl you're looking for."

"She's not a girl, so much as a young woman. Twenty years old. An old army buddy's granddaughter. He says she had a tough year. Maybe a nasty breakup. Dropped out of college and disappeared. She kept in touch for a while, but nothing for over six months."

"Is he savvy enough to do the usual? Credit cards, bank accounts, whatever?" Austin asked, pulling a small laptop out of his backpack.

"Yeah. But not much deeper. Her name is Katherine Sampson. Here's what I've got on her." I handed him the notepad with her birthday, Social Security number, and other pertinent info. "He hasn't texted me a picture yet."

"Got her," Austin said, turning the screen toward me. "She's pretty."

She was.

"Pretty in a wholesome, girl-next-door way, or at least she was in that photo. College ID. Not so much so in this one." He enlarged a second photo, this one a grainy shot of her pumping gas into an old car.

"She looks sick," Dallas said, frowning. "Or hunted."

"There's some concern about the ex. That he was a pretty bad guy," I told them. "But she never gave them his name or any info about him, so we have no way to check."

The twins rolled their eyes simultaneously.

"Please," Austin said.

Within a few minutes, he had an array of photos up on the screen.

"Social media," Dallas put in. "But this guy is definitely hiding something. See how he never quite faces any of the people taking the photos? Always wearing a hat. Never even a real view of the side of his face."

"Even in those two selfies Katherine took of them, he's wearing a hat and glasses and turning away," I said. "I don't like selfies myself, but this seems deliberate. It's impossible to get the slightest clue of what he looks like."

"Definitely deliberate," Austin agreed. "She scrubbed her social media presence, too. These are shadows I picked up from her old accounts."

"Run a trace with the 6500XK?" Dallas asked his brother.

"The what?"

"New program we're working on," he said absently. "I could explain it, but—"

"Then you'd have to kill me?"

He grinned. "Nothing so dramatic. I could explain it, but you wouldn't understand a word."

"Fine." I unwrapped the last six cookies, took two, and slid the others across the picnic table toward them. "Eat up and let me know if you find anything out. There's the boat coming back. Are they supposed to go that fast?"

The twins glanced up and shot up off the bench, mouths open.

"Shelley's going too fast!"

"She's going to hit the dock!"

Before we could move to intercept the bodies that were almost certainly going to be flung out of the boat, Shelley, laughing like a loon, slowed down at the last possible moment. Then she pulled up to the dock as smoothly as if she'd been doing it for years.

"That girl is going to be the death of me," I muttered, clutching my head.

"Girls." Dallas shook his head. "When our sister was little, she built a rocket and set it off in the backyard."

"That sounds pretty normal," I said. "Dave and I built a model rocket when we were kids and set it off at his place. Eleanor made us cookies and lemonade."

The brothers gave me identical looks of exasperation. "Louise built a five-foot-tall rocket and sent it practically into orbit. When it came down, it set the neighbor's house on fire."

I blinked.

"She works for NASA now, though, so it all worked out," Dallas said, grinning.

"Maybe Shelley will be a zookeeper," Austin said hopefully. "Remember the reindeer she made fly?"

"I'll never forget the reindeer," I said glumly, watching her carefully tie the mooring lines to the cleats on the dock to secure the boat.

"Hey. We're going to take this search home to our real computers. We'll find out what we can about Katherine Sampson and get back to you later today."

"I really appreciate it. And bill me. Bill me extra, even, for moving me to the top of whatever wildly busy workload you have."

Dallas punched me on the shoulder. "Shut up."

"Okay, but barbecue at our place soon, okay? I'll load you up with steaks."

"And pie?" Austin asked hopefully. Everybody in Dead End knew how good Tess's baking was.

"I'll ask, but have you ever known my beautiful wife not to make a pie for company?" I grinned, still getting a kick out of saying 'my wife.'

"You are a lucky man," Dallas said. "Later, dude."

"Jack, did you see me?" Shelley shouted, racing over to me. "I drove the boat!"

"I saw you! Maybe a bit too fast?"

She grinned. "Yeah, yeah. Uncle Lucky said that, too. He sounded stressed. I promised to be more careful next time."

Next time.

I thought about the alligator soiree earlier and the speed-racing airboat just now and wondered if I could avoid ever bringing her out here again.

"Maybe let's head home now."

"Can we get ice cream on the way?"

"Always."

"Yay!"