THIRTY-TWO

Before I had time to retreat from the window and search for some sort of a weapon to discourage the iguana, my phone rang. The creature rose and placed its forepaws on the windowsill as if it might try to climb inside the house.

“Keely,” Punt said. “I thought of another thing that might help me find you. You might…” His voice faded away as my phone battery died. Frantically, I tried to call him back. No luck. Now I felt totally alone and abandoned and threatened by the iguana. And I needed the outhouse.

I looked again at the window and I thought for a moment the iguana had gone away. But no. When I peered outside I saw it sitting in a patch of weak sunshine right beneath the window.

“Scat! Shoo!” I yelled at the creature and leaned out the window to snap the towel at it.

No response.

“Hello, buddy.” I tried softening my voice and smiling at him, but he didn’t smile back, nor did he make any sound at all. But that was better than the snorting I’d heard earlier.

Do iguanas bite? When I’d asked Maxine, she’d said they bite veggies and she’d given Lavonna lettuce. I hoped biting humans wasn’t one of their favorite pastimes. I knew they could climb. What if this one looked inside again then decided to climb through the window? He might be searching for food and view me as his next snack. Or maybe he was merely surprised to see me and curious about my appearance.

Finding a pan and a spoon, I returned to the window and played that pan like a bass drum. The sudden noise breaking the morning silence shocked me as well as the iguana and it took off, heading for the thatch palms at the side of the house. Once I felt sure the creature wouldn’t return, at least for the moment, I crawled through the window and stood on the porch, pan and spoon at the ready, assessing my situation. Not good. I wondered how long this thicket had been encroaching on the house. But at least the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. I’d almost forgotten yesterday’s downpour.

The outhouse! Where was it? I stepped from the porch and staying close to the house, I walked toward the back door, watching for the iguana with each step. A short distance behind the house I saw a small shed, complete with a half moon opening carved in the door that hung open on rusty hinges to reveal—a two-holer. Tentatively, I poked my head inside the shed then backed off, brushing at a web that clung like sticky threads to my face and neck. In the next instant, a brown spider scurried across the splintered bench to a hiding place inside one of the holes. I gave up all thought of using the two-holer and relieved myself behind the shed, one ear alert for sounds of the iguana and the other ear alert for any sound of my captor returning. What if he came back for me? What did he want? What would he do?

After returning to the front of the house, I stooped to examine the tire tracks in the mud near the front door. Had I been a true detective I’d have taken a picture of those tracks or perhaps preserved them in a plaster cast. Too bad I’d forgotten to bring a camera or plaster-of-Paris with me. A hiding place. That’s the thing I needed most now. If I stayed right here, my kidnapper might return at any moment to do whatever he planned to do. If I disappeared into the thicket I might have to face the iguana, or perhaps some of its near relatives. I hated all my options. Had it been a multiple choice test, I’d have checked “none of the above.” But at least the iguana toted no gun.

I stepped into the thicket at the front of the house, walking in the muddy tire tracks, and planning to follow them to the larger road we’d traveled last night. But how dumb! If the guy returned, that’s the route he’d probably use. And he might see me before I could take cover. I stepped into a growth of scrub pines at the side of the tire tracks to rethink my escape, and I froze in place when I heard something near me. Branches broke and dried sawgrass taller than my shoulder swayed against a backdrop of sky. Iguana? Alligator?

I held my breath, every muscle tense, until I saw the intruder. A Key deer had stepped into the underbrush, turned, and now stood looking at me with Bambi eyes. I relaxed, glad to see a deer instead of an iguana.

“Hello there, Bambi.” I approached the deer, no taller than a Great Dane or a Boxer, and it didn’t run. Maybe it wasn’t as frightened as I’d first thought. Pulling a cracker from my pocketed cache, I held it toward the deer’s nose.

“Bambi want a cracker?” The creature sniffed the cracker, then showed total lack of interest.

The deer’s protective coloring made it hard to see against the growth surrounding it. Did deer attack intruders? This one seemed docile. It had no antlers, so an attack seemed unlikely. A doe. It acted unafraid and that told me it might be trying to hold my attention so I wouldn’t notice its fawn hiding nearby. I peered around, seeing no fawn.

I walked closer to the doe, but it didn’t run until I reached to touch it, and I never did see a fawn anywhere. But in the next moment I discovered a raccoon, in fact I saw three raccoons—a mother and two babies. They sat a few feet to one side of me staring with eyes like polished chips of black coral. I hoped they were ready to retreat instead of attack. All three looked scrawny and their coats were scraggly as this thicket they called home. No wonder. What could they find to eat in such brushy country?

Again, pulling a cracker from my pocket, I tossed it toward them and the mother pounced upon it. Then I tossed two more crackers, hoping each of her offspring would take one and go its way, leaving me to go mine, even though I had no idea of where my way might lead me. Raccoons always washed their food before eating, didn’t they? I’d read that somewhere. Ahh! A plan.

“Let’s go, gang. Let’s wash those crackers.” I called to them and stamped my foot, hoping they’d take off toward water. There had to be fresh water around here somewhere. Punt said fresh water enticed the deer and alligators that hung out on Big Pine. There were sink holes that held rain water, and abandoned construction sites sometimes had gravel pits that filled with fresh water. Where there was water, there might also be boats and people. These raccoons could lead me to safety and maybe freedom.

Then I rethought that plan. The raccoons might lead me to water, but any people who lived near that water might not be eager to meet an intruder with a wild tale like mine.

Knowing it was too soon to expect Punt to be flying overhead looking for me, I took consolation in the hope that the Monroe County police might have begun a search. My best plan might be to follow Punt’s suggestion, to start looking for a small clearing where he or anyone else flying over could see me. So that’s what I did, stopping every few feet and looking behind me to make sure no iguanas or alligators were following.

I walked a long distance, beating my way through the underbrush, before I found a clearing of any kind. I could only hope that none of the trees I’d brushed against were manchineel. So far my skin neither itched or burned. Instead of being on a knoll, the clearing lay in a slight hollow where I’d be hard to see. So far I hadn’t noticed anyone out looking.

Fear, worry, and no sleep had left me exhausted and I sat on the ground to rest, planning to stand up and wave the towel the minute I heard a plane or helicopter overhead. I rested my head on my knees, forgetting about any bugs, rodents, or animals that might be near.

“Mustn’t doze. Mustn’t doze.” I repeated the words like a mantra under my breath. I needed to sleep, yet I knew I had to keep alert if I expected to live, to be rescued.

“Don’t doze. Keep alert.” I changed the mantra and tried to keep track of how many times I’d repeated it. I’d counted more or less to five hundred when I heard a car approaching. I stopped talking as if someone might hear me above the crunching of tires against the ground cover.

I eased farther from the sound of the car, taking care not to send the brush around me swaying overhead and thus alert the driver to my location. Stopping, I peered between palm fronds as an ancient Lincoln passed only a few feet from my hiding place. In that moment I realized that humans could be the most dangerous animals of all.

Ace Grovello! Not Slone. Not Gus. Ace Grovello sat behind the wheel of that Lincoln. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d come back to kill me and bury my body where it might never be discovered. How I wished someone would fly over right now and see him, capture him, hold him for questioning. Questioning for what? Trespassing? Officials probably had never enacted laws against driving off the beaten path on No Name Key. In fact, I wasn’t even sure I stood on No Name. Police might be searching on No Name while I stood hiding out in some dangerous spot I’d never heard of.

Ace Grovello. My mouth and throat grew so dry I could hardly swallow. And to think that a few days ago I had massaged the toes of this man who was trying to kill me! To think that Punt and I had sat in his tropical courtyard and talked to him as if he were a rational human being! I wondered what Consuela would think if she knew what I had discovered about Ace. Surely he was the man who had murdered Dyanne Darby. Had he also shot Nicole Pierce? My mind balked at the thought of being near a sociopath who could murder and then hide his deed while another took the rap. How could he have let Randy rot in jail for over twenty years while he owned and managed a successful business, associated with friends, slept with the likes of Consuela?

I sat down, determined that Ace Grovello would never find me in this thicket. He’d look in the house, maybe even in the outhouse, but all he would see would be the broken window. The iguana wouldn’t talk, nor the deer, nor the raccoons. I heard the car stop, the door slam. Then nothing. I willed steel into my spine. I’d let the wild creatures scare me and now Ace Grovello frightened me, too. Fear was an upfront choice, but I mustered courage and refused to panic.

A silence fell around me like no silence I’d ever experienced. Where had Ace gone? After a while I stood, knowing I needed to be quiet yet be on my feet, alert and ready to run, if necessary. Ace outweighed me by many pounds, but I remembered his flabby belly and thought I might be able to outrun him if I had to. Maybe I could even follow the trail of flattened thicket that the car had knocked down. That was a plan. Maybe I should have mentioned that to Punt, but surely he’d think of it. And so would the police. But they’d also know that such a plan would make it easier for Ace to find me and perhaps find me before they did. If I followed the trail Ace’s car had made, it might lead back to a main road of some sort. But what then? No point in trying to plan too far ahead. I’d have outsmarted myself if I ended up on a road where Ace could pick me up again. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. I repeated this new mantra and it helped clear my mind.

I began planning how to move more deeply into the thicket and away from Ace and the house. That’s when I heard a great thrashing through the thicket and Ace called my name.

“Give up, Keely. Give up or I’ll shoot.”

I ran and two shots rang out. One zinged past my head and I heard another shot hit a tree. My heart pounded and my chest felt as if it had been freeze-wrapped in hot iron. I kept running. I’d rather die from a bullet than from whatever else Ace might plan for me. Two more shots rang out. I kept running.