Page 15

CHAPTER 14

Audra adjusted her headlamp, taking each step carefully. Pythons, water moccasins, rattlesnakes, and gators were all one misstep away from her demise. As a small child, her grandfather and his brothers would bring her back to this sacred land. They would participate in spiritual rituals. Remy told her the old-timers no longer came to this place but went up around LuLu River and on to Beaver Island, where it was less likely they would encounter a critter that would kill you before you could defend yourself.

Dawson paused. “Do you see that up ahead?” He pointed through the bright light. His hand cast a shadow across the lush green of the Everglades.

Audra squinted.

A grassy hut? Maybe. Yes. Like the newfangled tiki bars that were lined up and down the Intracoastal Waterway.

“Watch your step.” Dawson held her elbow, guiding her through the watery mush of Coonts Island.

If she were any other woman—and this were any other town other than Calusa Cove—she might consider staying more than the ten days. She’d grown bored of her job. It had served its purpose. It had given her a chance to run. To hide. To lose herself in the wilds of beautiful, faraway places.

But she’d been all over the globe. Seen so many different places. Different cultures. Nothing had brought her peace.

She tilted her head and gasped. “That’s a cabin.”

“Not sure I’d call it that, but yeah, it has a roof and walls,” he whispered, crouching down, dimming her light, then his.

We are not Owl Witches. We do not turn into monsters in the dark of night and torment humans. Nor are we gypsies. You, my child, are just a little girl. To the Native American people, you are special because you have fire hair, white skin, and freckles, yet you are still one of them. They do not fear you. They worship you. The wanderers—or the gypsies—well, they see you as a unique child. One with the heart of a gypsy and the soul of someone connected to the elements. Do not ever let the people of Calusa Cove take that away from you. Don’t ever change. Be free. Be you. Be as wild as your heart sings. You were born to be connected to the waters of the Everglades. To the land the Cove sits on. And to the sea that crashes along the shore. It is who you are.

Those were her mother’s words.

And her grandmother’s.

Until their last breaths, they’d reminded Audra of who she was and how she was connected to this part of the world.

Her father had always told her the same thing, and for the first few years after her mom’s passing, she’d skipped through town as if the stares and whispers still didn’t matter.

But they had.

The older she’d gotten, the more she’d understood what they meant. She was the offspring of a crazy man, and she was what legends were made of.

“Stay close,” Dawson whispered.

She looped her finger into his belt loop and followed him toward the shack. A million old stories filled her brain. They had never scared her as a small child, but this morning, before sunrise, they terrified her.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here right now,” Dawson said. “Come on, let’s check out the inside.”

“For a second, I thought you were going to ask me to stay here—by myself.”

He chuckled. “While I know you can handle snakes and gators all by yourself, it’s dark, and well, why risk it?”

Her lips quirked. “Aw, aren’t you the gentleman?”

“Liz accused me of being a Neanderthal just because I neglected to open the door for her a couple of times and then didn’t bring her flowers after we fought.”

“That’s pathetic,” Audra said. “When we fight, I want good, hard sex. The kind of sex that might include those handcuffs of yours.”

“In that case, why don’t you stay put and deal with that python over there giving us the evil stare.” He waggled his finger.

She shifted her gaze, eyeing the ten-foot python slithering through the tall grass. “Something tells me you haven’t been able to get a girl to let you use them.”

He chuckled. “I haven’t dated anyone since I became a civilian cop.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But the answer is no. Let’s just say tying up of any kind hasn’t been in the cards.”

“If I let you, does that mean I get to use them on you?”

“I think that’s only fair.” He stepped between her and the snake that seemed oblivious that his morning meal was twenty paces away. He took her by the hand and helped her up onto a platform. “Holy shit,” he said softly. “There’s another shack over there.”

The structure was well hidden behind all the trees and lush vegetation of the mangrove.

“Both are about fifty feet from the waterline at high tide,” Dawson said. “There’s no way anyone would see them, even if they drove their boat by at a snail’s pace.”

“Probably not,” Audra said, pulling out her cell phone.

Dawson moved closer to her. “Stay right next to me, okay?”

“I hear you. Loud and clear.” She glanced toward the sky. Dark clouds covered the moon, giving way to the sun. She tiptoed through the door, and her heart pulsed like a firecracker going off in the center of her throat. “Are those… bundles of cocaine?”

“It sure is.” Dawson whipped off his headgear and snagged his radio. “ Chumrunner , this is Watchdog . Do you read me?”

“This is Chumrunner . Go ahead,” Fletcher’s voice crackled over the two-way.

Dawson pointed to the far corner of the hut where a crate hung open.

She inched closer and peered inside.

Guns.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

What the hell had they stumbled onto?

A sharp pain filled her skull and rattled her teeth. It vibrated from the back of her head, down her spine, and to her toes. Her legs wobbled, and she crashed to her knees onto the wood floor.

“What the…”

Was that Dawson’s voice?

Thud. Crackle. Smack.

Nausea circled her gut. It twisted and turned while the searing torture that throttled her brain made it impossible to see.

She opened her mouth, but no words formed. They fell off her tongue as if she were tumbling out of an airplane and free-falling without a parachute.

And then the world went black.

* * *

“What the…” Instinctively, Dawson raised his right hand, stopping the blow to his temple. He ignored the sharp pain rippling across his fingertips and down his wrist caused by metal smacking against his skin.

He reached with his left hand for the weapon tucked in his back holster, but his assailant beat him to it.

“Not so fast.” Benson Massey, of all idiots.

Dawson would never live this one down.

And it was made worse by James Huber smacking Audra on the backside of her skull seconds before. The crack had filled his ears as if he’d had a front-row seat to a horror show.

Dawson’s jaw hardened. James would pay for that one. Not that Dawson was a possessive man, and Audra certainly wasn’t anyone’s property, but he’d become…attached.

Damn redheads.

He scanned the hut. One way in, but Eliot had to be around here somewhere. Those two city slickers were attached at the hips.

Three to two odds. Not bad. Only he had no idea how badly hurt Audra was. For now, she wasn’t much help as her head bobbed downward, and she moaned.

A hot rage soared through his veins. He hadn’t felt that in a long while, and it reminded him he was still a man who knew how to care for another human. It also tugged at his heart in a way that he knew would crush it into tiny little pieces.

However, he had to push that into a little box in the corner of his mind and focus on what he could do, and that was assess the situation. Assumptions were dangerous, but there was always one that you had to make in these situations—there were always more bad guys.

At least he’d gotten his radio call off before Benson had plucked it from his fingertips and broken the fucking thing.

Time to make a play.

Dawson lunged toward Audra. He had to try.

Benson raised a rather large semiautomatic weapon.

A little overkill, but it got the point across, and bullets were stronger than muscle.

Dawson skidded to a stop. He growled. “Let her go.”

James fisted her hair before she could fall to the floor.

She groaned. Her eyes rolled up, then shifted left and right. Another groan, but she wasn’t completely out. She caught his gaze and held it for a long moment before her lids grew heavy just as James yanked her hair—a little hard for Dawson’s liking.

Her body twitched, and she mumbled something. It wasn’t words or anything coherent. But it was throaty, and if Dawson wasn’t mistaken, it was a message.

That was a good sign, even as James’s fingertips gripped her red hair and jerked her around as if she were a rag doll.

Dawson fisted his hands, rolling them against his thighs. He scanned the hut, mentally noting everything and its precise placement. Mostly drugs, but there were weapons, and he needed to get himself one of those. It wouldn’t take but a hot minute for Fletcher and the rest of the gang to understand the situation, but it would be a while before they made it to Coonts Island.

That said, they had a go-to-shit plan in place since they’d met.

If they radioed and went dark, wait five minutes. If nothing happened, come running with weapons loaded and a halfway decent extraction plan. That was if they knew any of the details. If not, wing it, and his team was good at doing that.

However, this time, Fletcher would call Remy. He had to. Dawson carried a badge. It would be protocol, and Remy would have to do things a certain way, and that would piss off the boys.

Dawson couldn’t be concerned about that now. He had three things on his mind: Audra and her condition, how to disarm these bastards, and how to ensure he had all the players and enough evidence to make federal charges stick.

“Let. Her. Go,” Dawson said, his voice low and menacing.

“No can do.” Benson jerked his head toward Dawson. “Give me a hand tying up this asshole.”

“I say we just toss them both in the swamp and be done with them.” James worked ties around Audra’s wrists and ankles. She flopped about, moaning and groaning, but each time she shifted, she managed to raise an eyelid and make eye contact with Dawson.

A signal. She was coherent, hearing everything.

Hope swelled in Dawson’s chest. He fought a grin.

Wonderful redheaded woman.

“We wait for my father,” Benson said decisively. He dropped into a chair next to a small table and set his weapon between his legs, staring at his goddamn fingernails as if he’d just gotten a manicure. The lazy jerk couldn’t even be bothered to get off his ass and strap a zip tie around Dawson’s wrists and ankles. That might work in Dawson’s favor because he doubted James knew how to ensure he kept his prisoner’s wrists tied together. Dawson had half a chance to wiggle his way out, and if they didn’t check his pockets, he could use his pocketknife.

“He’s going to tell us to kill them.” James shook his head. “We can’t leave them alive. That’s just stupid.”

“What’s stupid is you questioning me—or my father. We’ve been at this a hell of a lot longer than you have,” Benson said. “So, if I were you, I’d shut the fuck up and do as you’re told.”

Dawson couldn’t believe it. Paul Massey was a drug and arms dealer.

James propped Audra up against the wall. He sauntered over toward Dawson, and all Dawson could do was stare at the man’s brand-new boots. Granted, they were the right kind for being in the swamps of the Everglades, but they looked as though they’d barely been broken in.

“Have you ever been inches from a gator in the wild?” Dawson locked gazes with James. “Seen their snot and eyes emerge from the murky, dark water, barely causing even the slightest ripple. Or watch them glide across the top of the water as smooth as butter, searching for prey, searching for something that will hold their hunger at bay for more than a few hours. Days, maybe.” Dawson leaned a little closer. “A gator will see you—its meal—and then dip back down where it will blend into the darkness, leaving behind not even the tiniest of bubbles.”

James paused. The blacks of his eyes narrowed, then widened.

Dawson chuckled. “Dawn is grazing time for alligators. There are some big ones back here. One that can chew on a grown man’s bones and spit them out like toothpicks. That is if they don’t first pull you under, twist you around, play with you for shits and giggles, and drown you before they tear you?—”

“Shut the fuck up.” James cocked his fist and clocked Dawson on the side of his face.

His cheek exploded with a crack. His eyes watered with the faintest of tears.

It wasn’t a bad punch, but Dawson had experienced a whole lot worse. He thought about letting James know what a pussy he was but decided it was best to bite his tongue. While he could easily overpower James in seconds, Benson yielded all the power with an automatic weapon that would destroy both him and Audra in a quick pull of his finger.

A tightness filled Dawson’s chest. Paul had been one of his suspects, but only because of his son. And even then, he’d struggled with the concept. Paul was the kind of man who followed rules, so at best, Dawson thought maybe Paul could have been covering for something that Benson had gotten his dumb ass involved in.

Not the other way around.

Welcome to the grand illusions of life.

To hear Benson defer to his old man twisted Dawson’s gut. It’s not like he hadn’t been on the lookout for something like this. In that moment, his past failures reminded him of his bad decision.

He couldn’t have another one. He couldn’t fail Audra.

James cinched the zip ties around Dawon’s ankles and then his wrists. Dawson did his best to keep his hands slightly apart. He wasn’t sure he could wiggle them out, but he might be able to access his pocket. Or have Audra do it.

The door screeched open. Eliot Commings strode in, followed by Paul Massey, swinging an automatic weapon over his shoulder like he was the kingpin of a major drug cartel.

Dawson wiggled his wrists. He twisted and jerked his arms in a fast motion, but the plastic ties—the kind that cops, feds, and other law enforcement used—ripped into his skin. He tried three more times. However, he made little to no headway. Warm blood trickled down his hands. He didn’t wince. He knew better.

Seconds later, there was another screech of the door.

Dawson held his breath. He thought he’d cleared Silas. He believed the man had…wait. What the hell?

Mo?

Anna’s husband.

All the air in Dawson’s lungs left in one big flush. It was as if an elephant had flopped on his chest, cracking his ribs and releasing the oxygen. He dared to suck in a breath, but it came in as a pathetic gasp. How the hell had he missed that? As quickly as he could, he raced through the details of the last few days. Mo had gone to visit his mother, and Dawson hadn’t seen him around town. Not once. He hadn’t really thought that strange, but only because of what Anna had said. And then there were all the conversations he’d had with Anna. They’d been so strapped for money.

It always came down to money.

The only question that remained was whether Anna knew.

Audra stiffened. “Mo?” she whispered so faintly Dawson couldn’t be sure it had been an intake of air, or she’d actually said the word.

Paul stomped across the dusty floor and knelt in front of Dawson, staring at him with dark, cold, killer eyes. This wasn’t the Paul that Dawson knew.

Dawson’s blood chilled. It was as if he gazed into the depths of hell.

And then Paul smiled. It wasn’t a sinister grin. It was the same smile that Paul used to greet his guests at the pub, and that’s when Dawson realized who he was dealing with. His throat constricted as if a python had curled its slimy body around it and slowly squeezed, constricting Dawson’s breath, killing him with a quick flex of its powerful muscles.

Paul snorted. “Looks like you grew a brain much faster than your predecessors did.”

When opportunity knocks…take it.

“Predecessors?” Dawson cracked his neck. “I know Trip wasn’t involved in this shit. But I’m really starting to question the extent to which Trevor was immersed in all this.” Dawson spoke fast so Paul couldn’t get in a word. “I say that only because, looking through that young man’s files, he was meticulous.” A little bit of a lie, but what did Paul know? “His arrest records were decent. And he seemed fair in the way he treated everyone. Almost as good as his old man. So, tell me, what exactly was Trevor’s role?”

Paul leaned closer, sucking on his teeth. “Trevor was a wet noodle who thought because he decided to stop snorting the product and slapped on a badge, he was better than the rest of us. Well, it didn’t.” Paul lowered his chin. “That stupid little shit worked for me when he was a kid. I couldn’t have him come back to town thinking he could shut me down or shut down the cartel.”

“How did you get him to go along?”

“That was simple.” Paul shifted his gaze to Audra. “The cartel let him know what happens to a family when you betray them.” He shrugged. “All he had to do was let us do our thing, and we co-existed just fine.”

“Why is he rotting in prison?”

“He fucked up,” Paul said. “One of our shipments didn’t make it through, and we made sure he took the fall. We told him if he didn’t confess, his family would pay the ultimate price.”

“You are one sick bastard,” Dawson mumbled.

“And you’re about to find out just how sick I really am.”