Page 5

CHAPTER 4

Audra slowed her 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.”

Her father had had all sorts of weird ideas crammed into his brain. He hadn’t trusted many people. All those stories about pirates using the Everglades—he’d believed them. He’d perpetuated the rumors. Told them around the campfire. Told her that Calusa Cove was just the kind of town and tiny port that was ripe for that kind of criminal activity because it wasn’t a tourist spot. No one came here intentionally. Those who passed through were headed to somewhere else. They stopped for gas.

It was the kind of town where people stayed one night. If they happened to stay a second night, it was because they fell for its charm but still moved on quickly because there wasn’t anything to hold their attention for more than a day.

For the last three weeks of her father’s life, he’d believed something else was going on back in the Everglades. Something other than pirates from the high seas hiding for a night before moving on. Something bigger was happening, and before he brought it to Trip this time, he wanted proof.

Watching through the screen on her camera, she flew the drone low toward the island. She raised it higher over the trees as it went across the land, making sure to record. She didn’t want to miss anything. She directed the drone to the right and deeper into the island.

She squinted, staring at the small screen, searching for signs of that old shack, looking for anything that would tell her that she—and her father—weren’t crazy.

Nothing.

She pulled it back and to the left.

Ah-ha! A clearing. The shack had to be in that direction. It hadn’t been too far from the waterline. Not too far out of sight. They’d seen it from their boat. It had been dark, and while she knew she’d seen something, her memory was fuzzy at best.

The trees ruffled, and a few birds took flight, zooming overhead. The picture on her phone disappeared, and then her drone dropped from the sky.

“What the hell?”

She glanced between her cell and the area where her drone had been hovering. She’d checked the battery before she’d sent it off. It was fully charged. It shouldn’t have died.

“Goddammit.” The stupid thing was a couple of years old, but it had never failed her before. Setting the controller aside, she fired up the airboat, pushed the lever, and pointed the bow toward a spot between two trees. Just enough space to land her boat. She tied it off to a branch. She put on her heavy-duty pants and snake-proof boots, grabbed her hook, bag, and everything else she needed to deal with a python, including her air gun and screwdriver. She might as well bring in one and start the challenge off right.

That would’ve made her father proud.

But she also wanted to find her damn drone and figure out what had happened to it. Hopefully, it could be fixed by morning. Her funds were limited, and buying a new one wasn’t in her budget.

Not to mention she’d have to drive to a more populated city at least an hour to the west. Calusa Cove didn’t even have a Walmart. They were lucky to have a decent grocery store—if you could call Denny’s Shopmart a market. But it had what you needed at decent prices. Most people made a run to the city once a month and stocked up. Of course, everyone had staples for when a hurricane barreled through.

She trekked through the thick brush, watching where she stepped. All sorts of wildlife could come out of nowhere and do some serious damage to life and limb out here. People in this town might consider her a loon—like her dad—but she wasn’t stupid. Nor did she want to die.

Nope.

Not by a snake or a gator.

She knew the dangers. She also knew where and how to spot them.

This was not her first rodeo, and she wasn’t about to make it her last.

So far, no signs of the creatures, but they were here. This was their home, not hers, and she respected that. She continued inland, glancing at the compass on her cell—which had no reception. By her calculations, the drone had fallen ten degrees northwest of where she’d been on the water. She glanced over her shoulder. It was hard to gauge that exact location now, but she did know the drone had made it to the clearing, so that’s where she needed to go.

She lifted her right foot and out of the corner of her left eye, she saw movement.

Pausing, she focused on the tall grass to her left. A freaking snake was only two feet away, and she guessed it to be about ten feet long.

Damn.

Well, last year, she’d wrangled an eight-footer.

She tucked her phone in her pocket, unclipped her air gun, and gripped her snake hook. She’d seen hunters catch these things with their bare hands. She’d done that a few times with a rattlesnake, but only because she’d had to. A python was a different story, and she wasn’t about to do that. She was confident that she could handle this one with the proper tools and technique.

She sucked in a deep breath.

The python turned its head, stuck out its tongue a few times, and eyed her like she was dinner.

“Dad, I hope you’re watching,” she whispered as she inched closer, raising the hook.

The snake watched her every move. It slithered, coiling its body, preparing to defend itself.

She shifted her position so she could come around the other side of its head. She needed to get the hook in just the right spot. But every time she angled herself, the snake turned its head. As if it knew exactly what she was doing. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear that snake smiled.

Her heartbeat pulsated in her throat, making it difficult to swallow. She couldn’t give this beast time to strike. If she did that, it would be wrapped around her body like a pretzel.

It was now or never.

As soon as she was close enough, she lunged forward. The snake lifted its head, with its mouth so wide she feared it could take off her arm in one bite. Only, pythons didn’t eat their prey that way.

She shoved the hook around the nasty critter’s neck, pushing it back down with as much force as she could. “Gotcha.”

Immediately, the snake’s body looped around the hook, its tail smacking her in the calf. She stumbled one small step backward, nearly losing the hold she had on its neck. She pressed harder, grunting.

Damn, that snake was strong. It constricted and did its best to shimmy its way out of her grip. Its tail slinked up the hook and smacked her midriff, nearly knocking her over. She adjusted her footing and applied more pressure, making sure the snake’s neck and head couldn’t move. If she let go, she was surely a goner.

She pulled out her air gun and aimed right for the sweet spot—between the python’s eyes and jawbone. If she missed, well, she didn’t want to think about that. She pulled the trigger.

The snake went limp.

But it wasn’t dead. She had only seconds to destroy the snake’s brain.

As quickly as possible, she removed her screwdriver, finding what was considered the access point to the cranial cavity, stabbing the tool deliberately in several directions. This was called pithing. It was gross, but necessary.

She sighed. “Well, that was a little anticlimactic.” She stared at the snake. Pride swelled in her chest. Not just because of how much her father had loved the Everglades and wanted to preserve the wetlands. Growing up, this was the kind of life she’d wanted. Being out here had been a calling. A way of life. It had been in her blood, and she missed it.

She grabbed her bag and heaved the animal into it. The thing was heavier than it looked.

Scanning the tall grass, she made sure she wasn’t stepping on another before heading in the direction where she thought her drone had landed. The sound of an airboat whizzing by in the open waters filled the air. Or maybe it was two, since it seemed as though one slowed down and an engine cut out. At least she wasn’t completely alone, although that thought didn’t necessarily make her feel any better because she was alone.

Trinity’s words about not having friends in this town echoed in her ears.

Get the drone and get back on the boat.

She’d hunt more tomorrow. Or maybe not.

This was a dumb idea. She wasn’t a teenager anymore and when she’d done the challenge last time, she’d done so with a partner. Yeah, this wasn’t her brightest idea.

Then again, maybe she was just spooked being out here on this patch of land and searching for clues about a sixteen-year-old mystery.

Carefully, she stepped into the clearing. Ten paces away, her drone came into view. She dropped the sack with the dead snake and picked up her flying machine, examining it.

“No way.” She held it up. “This can’t be right. I didn’t hear a gunshot.” She pressed her finger to the hole. But sure enough, a bullet had damaged her drone, and she knew a bullet hole when she saw one.

A silencer?

“Mother trucker,” she whispered. “Who the hell would do that? And why?” And now she was talking to herself.

Her father used to do that all the time. He’d pace and mumble.

However, the bigger issue was, she was standing on an island that was inhabited by snakes, gators, and possibly someone who wanted to shoot her.

Jesus, she needed to get back to her boat.

However, she couldn’t just run back to it. That would kill her in a different way.

She picked up her snake and slowly headed back toward her airboat. She’d take two steps and look over her shoulder before taking another inch forward. If a python or alligator didn’t get her, a human with a bullet would.

A part of her—the curious part—wanted to continue looking on this small patch of land for whoever had shot the drone—but that would be pure insanity. Sure, it could have been an accident.

Everyone out here had a gun—just in case.

No one was supposed to use them to kill a snake or a gator. That was illegal and considered inhumane. There were rules. But if it came down to a human life or a creature’s life, humans won.

Yet it made no sense as to why her drone had been shot down. Many hunters had one. It was a great resource, and while prize money was awarded, the purpose was still to remove as many snakes as possible.

She should have never come back to Calusa Cove.

It took her twice as long to get back to the area where she’d parked the boat. Her heart dropped like a boulder to the bottom of her gut before lurching to the back of her throat. She stared with horror in her eyes as a masked silhouette boarded her vessel.

“Hey, you,” she yelled. “Get the hell off my boat.”

The man—or woman, because she couldn’t actually tell—glanced up with a quick jerk of his or her arm. A metal object that was gripped in the person’s hand glared in the sunlight.

With a flick of the wrist, her boat was floating in the murky water.

The silhouette hopped onto their small flat-bottom boat with a two-stroke engine. They pulled the cord and sputtered away.

As quickly as she could, she raced through the thick muck, praying she didn’t step on an angry alligator or a spiteful snake. She tossed her belongings on the bow and climbed aboard. Her pulse pounding, it took a few moments for her to catch her breath.

With a shaky hand, she tried the engine.

Nothing.

She reached for the radio and pressed the button.

Nothing.

“Well, hell.” She’d done a radio check before leaving the dock, and it had worked just fine.

She tried again. Still nothing.

Dead in the water.

She rifled through some of her belongings, lifting her camera bag. She gasped.

Tentatively, she raised a bundle of dynamite. “What the hell?”

She had expected a cold welcome from the townspeople of Calusa Cove, but this was something entirely different.

She snagged her cell and raised it toward the sky. There was no reception in this spot, and since the tide was coming in, the current was taking her in the wrong direction. Great. Reception wouldn’t get better if she floated deeper into the Everglades. She checked the time. The sun would set in half an hour. Boats should be flying by, so she should be able to wave down someone. She hoped.

Only, she was a good forty-five minutes to an hour from the dock.

Yeah, good luck with that.