The ride to the Reed ranch seemed long. All I could think about was Hunter’s comment that Madeleine was dead. But he didn’t know that for certain, did he? He didn’t check to see if she were breathing or had a pulse. No. Madeleine couldn’t be dead.
“Madeleine’s not dead,” I said. “She was just knocked out, and when she wakes up, she’ll call for help. She saw who you were. I’m sure of it.” Who was I trying to convince, him or me? It was the wrong thing to say out loud.
“Think we should go back to reassure Eve that her little friend is a goner?” asked Reed.
I wanted to take back what I’d said.
Hunter laughed. “No way. If she’s not dead, she soon will be. The front end of that car will slowly sink into the lake, and she’ll drown.” He paused. “Or a gator will come along and have her for dinner.” The two men laughed.
I shivered at the thought of a death far worse than dying of a concussion.
As if he felt my body tremble, Reed spoke. “As for you, my dear, you’ll be spending a cold night. But you’ll have every chance to warm up in the morning. In fact, I’m certain you’ll want to warm up as fast as you can. As if it’ll do you any good. We’ve got some eager hunters coming to the ranch tomorrow, and they expect something exotic to shoot. You’re about as exotic as we could find.”
“Except for those cape buffalo. Mean bastards. So you’ll be dodging bullets and a cape buffalo’s fury. It should be quite a day.” Hunter turned halfway around in his seat and gave me an ugly smile.
“Who would be willing to shoot down a human as if she was game?” I asked. “That’s just absurd.”
“These guys coming tomorrow have done it before. This time we’re offering them something a little more interesting, a blonde bitch rather than just some brown Indians.” Reed reached into his pocket, extracted a cigar, and began unwrapping it.
“You’re a monster. You’d offer your workers like animals to be hunted down by people who pay to kill them?”
“Oh you are so quick. You figured that out, did you? And I suppose you think your friend will help you out tomorrow?” Reed bit off the end of the cigar and spit it out. It landed on my bare leg, but he’d tied my hands behind me, and I couldn’t brush it off. I could feel the dampness of Reed’s spit on my skin. My stomach did a flip flop.
What friend was he talking about? “Friend?”
“Your mob boss friend. You think we’re dumb, don’t you? Out of the blue we get a big mob boss who’s interested in hunting my ranch? We asked around town and found out the two of you knew each other. Whatever plan you’ve got cooked up to trap us won’t work. Mr. Napolitani doesn’t know that another mob boss, one of his old enemies, will be hunting tomorrow at the ranch, and he’s gunning for Napolitani. Fingers Bonti says he’s waited a long time to get back at Napolitani.”
I saw Reed’s teeth gleam white in the headlights of an approaching car. His eyes were obsidian. They appeared flat, incapable of reflecting any light, empty and cold. Looking at him was as frightening as listening to the evil acts he intended.
My brain was scrambling to put things together and to find a way to escape, if not tonight then tomorrow, but my thoughts were weighed down by my concern for Madeleine and now my worry that by soliciting Nappi’s help, I’d set him up to be a target as well. Maybe if I kept talking I’d find out something that would help, some piece of information I could use against Reed or Hunter.
“You grabbed Bernard Egret and used him as game, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I tired of dumb illegals from Guatemala. I thought a bright college kid might be more fun.” Reed flicked a lighter and lit his cigar. The smell of the smoke aggravated the nausea I already felt. He’d killed innocent men, men who wouldn’t be missed because they were illegals or had no family to report their absence to the authorities. But Bernard was different, a hometown boy with family, even if they were Miccosukee. I was horrified by what Reed and Hunter were doing, but I was also enraged by it. I couldn’t hold back my anger, so I continued to probe, to poke at them. It seemed the only thing I could do.
“You made a big mistake with Bernard, didn’t you?” I had a moment’s satisfaction pointing out their blunder. “He got away and was found by the authorities. And that brought in his Uncle Sammy. Now Sammy is one Indian to be reckoned with.”
Reed sat back in his seat and exhaled smoke. “Hunter made the mistake, not me.”
I could see Hunter’s shoulders tense.
Reed sucked on his cigar again. Smoke rolled from his mouth when he spoke. “You were supposed to get rid of Bernard’s body, and you didn’t.”
“I made that work for us, didn’t I? I used Dudley’s gun on him. It took Dudley out of the picture as well as David.”
“Try to remember that this is not all about you and your vendetta against David. If you didn’t have me, you’d be nowhere. Those gambling idiots dragged Sammy out to the ranch thinking we could use him. Leopold put a stop to that. I don’t need no smartass big Indian trying to outwit my clients. They pay well, but some of them are bad shots. Scared Guatemalans are easy prey, but that Indian was another story.”
Well, now, that gave me some hope. Maybe I could outrun or outmaneuver or outthink these guys.
Reed tapped me on the leg with his finger. “Don’t get your hopes up, gal. The ones tomorrow are crack shots.”
I tried to hide my fear by continuing to needle them.
“You sure were dumb trying to outsource how you got your game,” I said.
Reed turned his opaque eyes on me. “You think so too? We’ll have to eliminate our gambling friends before they begin to feel the need to talk. Even Sheriff Leopold won’t be able to help us then. Let’s tie up loose ends, and soon. What do you think, Mr. Hunter?”
Hunter’s neck looked sweaty to me. Was he having second thoughts about Reed’s game? Had he only signed on so he could get revenge on David by making him pay for a murder he didn’t commit?
It was a thought I stored to be used later.
“I can take care of that for you.” Hunter didn’t sound eager to do the job, but I heard no reluctance in his voice either.
“You’ll buy David’s ranch, won’t you? Hunter gets his revenge, and you get to expand your operation,” I said.
Reed tapped cigar ash onto the floor. Most of it landed on my shoe. “I will buy his ranch for nothing, and he will sit in jail and watch me succeed where he failed.”
“And he’ll have time to think about what he did to my son. For a while. Until the state puts him to death. It took time coming up with this plan, but it was worth waiting just to see that man sweat and then fry,” Hunter said.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Reed, as if dismissing Hunter’s agenda.
I again noticed Hunter’s shoulder and neck muscles tense.
These two were a matched set of monsters, but how long could this foul bond hold?
There was one last detail I was curious about. “I guess Elvira sent you to get me tonight.”
“Yep. She finds you and your friend annoying. My wife is one smart lady, noticing your partner’s preference for turquoise ink and suggesting we write the phone number on the back of one of Wilson’s cards and plant it on Bernard’s body. She said the authorities would connect the dots and think the ink was from a pen Wilson borrowed from his girlfriend. Nice touch, I thought.” Reed again spoke through an exhalation of smoke.
“And one of you burned down our shop.”
“Mr. Hunter is good with fire,” said Reed. “And now that you have found out all you need to—not that it will do you any good—I suggest you rest up. You’ll need all that sass for tomorrow’s romp through the swamp.”
“He’s not that capable as a fire bug. He was seen setting fire to the Warren house.” I wanted to bite back my words as soon as I said them.
The sudden quiet in the truck indicated neither of them knew this. Oh, Eve, you dope, I said to myself.
“Who saw him?” asked Reed.
I shook my head.
Reed leaned back into the seat and blew out a smoke ring. “No matter. I’ll take care of it after we wrap up things tomorrow.”
I could read his thoughts. He didn’t care who’d seen Hunter. Hunter was expendable. Hunter had to be removed. Did Hunter see this also?
Reed reached up and patted Hunter on the shoulder. “Big day tomorrow, good buddy,” he said.
I was wrong to question it. The bond between the two seemed unbreakable. At least until one of them was dead.
Reed and Hunter shoved me into a shack on Reed’s property. As near as I could tell from the route we took onto the ranch, the building was located a short distance from the waterhole where David’s client had been killed. My accommodation for the night wasn’t much of a shelter—its walls made of boards running vertical to one another. I could see dim light between them. The floor was rough wood also, with gaps in the floorboards. The roof was tin. When I looked up I could see places where the tin had peeled back and the night sky was revealed. It would provide little protection if it rained. I imagined all sorts of bugs and other crawly things coming to visit in the night.
They left my hands tied and slammed a roughhewn door behind me, leaving me alone with my imagination and anxiety over Madeleine and Nappi’s safety. From Sammy’s description of his night of captivity, this had to be the shed where they’d held him also. It was probably where Bernard had spent his last night.
I was horribly thirsty, to say nothing of hungry, but I knew better than to ask them for water before they left. Why slake my thirst when they intended to kill me in a few hours?
With no source of light and the moon hidden behind the clouds, I could see little outside once the truck lights receded into the distance. I walked the length and width of the building to get an idea of its size. I paced off only ten feet by six. I sat on the floor in one corner and with my back braced against the wall, tried to kick through the boards. For once I wasn’t worried about ruining my shoes. Despite its crude construction, the side and door of the shack were solid. I managed to loosen the heel on one of my stilettos and made no impact on the wall.
I leaned my head against the wall and laughed. Here I was fashionably dressed with nowhere to go except to my own death. I should have worn Grandfather’s amulet, regardless of whether it complemented my attire. He’d be so disappointed in me.
I closed my eyes. There was no way I would get any sleep here. Not only was it cold and the floor unyielding against my back and sides, but I needed to keep watch in case something came a-slithering my way.
I must have dozed for a time because I came awake with a jerk. Something was out there. I could hear a sound from the other side of the wall. I sat up and pushed my face against the side of the room and looked out from between the cracks. The moon had come from behind the clouds, washing the open area beyond the shack in silver light. A shadow moved out of the palmetto and emerged into view. A wild pig. It warily approached the shack, grunting and sniffing the air as it got closer. I could see its tusks, top and bottom, long and sharp and lethal looking. I was grateful for the safety of my shack.
Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow I’d have men with guns, cape buffalo and wild pigs to deal with, perhaps even an alligator or two. I felt a tear slide down my cheek. You need to be brave, Eve, I told myself. You always have a plan. Get some sleep now and in the morning you’ll find a way out of this mess.
By the time the sun rose over the palms to the east and the light slipped into my prison, I still had no plan, but my tears had dried. I clenched my teeth in determination. I intended to go down fighting.
Hunter and Reed came for me soon after first light. I knew I was becoming seriously dehydrated, and while my body shook from the cold for much of the night, the tremors had stopped now. I worried that hypothermia was setting in. The pleased looks on my captors’ faces told me they knew my physical condition and applauded it. I’d present a challenging target for the hunters, while still being too weak to escape them.
When Hunter untied my hands, I went for his face with my nails. I knew it was a futile gesture. He slapped me, and I went down.
As he bent down to pick me up, I shook off his hand and whispered to him, “Why do you think Reed is so uninterested in who saw you set fire to the Warren house? Because you’re next. You’re the guy who’s gonna take the fall for all this.”
I wasn’t certain if Hunter heard me, or if he did, whether he believed me.
“Hear that?” Hunter nodded in the direction his truck had come from.
I heard the sound of several engines.
Reed stepped in front of me, a sneer on his face. “My pals are on their way. And they aren’t going to like shooting their prey while she’s cowering on the ground. Oh, they’ll do it, but they won’t like it. Still, you’ll be dead.”
I got to my feet, leaned down and took off my shoes.
“That’s better.” Reed smiled. I hated that smile. How I wanted to claw it off his face.
Last night I had watched the pig move through the clearing where the shack stood and then make its way east. I remembered the condition of the waterhole the day we found David’s client dead nearby—how the wild pigs had torn it up. I assumed it was a favorite place for pigs to gather, and I thought I heard the croaking of frogs and maybe the call of a gator coming from that direction.
“You’d better get going, Eve,” Reed said. “Run.”
Shoes in hand, I took off, my long legs pumping as fast as they could go, heading east toward what I hoped was the waterhole, closer to David’s ranch and maybe closer to Sammy. Sammy might be at the ranch, and he might be patrolling the area. It was a wild chance and a risk. I knew that most animals would be coming to the water to drink in the morning before they went off to do their own hunting for the day. I might have company, but if I got that far, I thought I knew my way from the waterhole to the main buildings on David’s property. Reed couldn’t chance taking his men off his property onto David’s, could he?
The sound of the vehicle engines faded into the morning, replaced by the voices of men and the sounds of them moving through the brush, coming closer despite my attempt to put distance between us. But they’d probably had a full breakfast and a good night’s sleep. The adrenaline rush I was experiencing was from fear. Theirs was from excitement. I was fleeing. They were sportsmen hunting an unusual prey.
I broke through some dense brush and into the muddy area surrounding the waterhole. I stopped and scanned the surface of the murky water and the torn up bank. It looked as if several pigs had visited it recently. I could see their hoof prints in the soggy ground. And there were other prints, larger ones, like those of cattle wandering away from their herd. I stood for a minute listening, but could only hear my pursuers behind me. I took a step into the open and waited.
“Sammy!” I yelled. “Sammy. I need help.”
All sounds behind me ceased for a moment, then the scuffling began again. To my left from among the reeds growing high near the water, a dark shape emerged, its curved horns lethal looking, the broad plate of material across its forehead bulging like armor. It turned toward me, grasses hanging from its mouth. It swung its head as if enraged at the sight of someone invading its domain. Saliva swung in long slimy strands from it nose. It stopped chewing and pawed the earth. Wow, it’s huge, I thought, and then it began to move toward me. I could almost hear the earth shake as it gathered speed. The blackness of the beast’s eyes reminded me of Blake Reed’s, devoid of all that was human, intent upon killing.
I knew I could not outrun it, but a few feet behind me loomed a giant live oak. The lower branches hung near the ground, close enough for me to grab one and swing onto it, then leap from there to a higher one. And yet higher. The angry beast came to rest under me, bellowing as if challenging me to come down and fight. Fear made me giddy, and I laughed.
“I’m staying right up here, fella.” As if to underline my intent to stay far out of reach but not to let the challenge go unanswered, I threw one of my lovely black stilettos at him. The shoe ricocheted off the horn plate and fell to the ground. The buffalo lowered its head, sniffed the offending object for a moment, then began to stomp on it. I watched in horror with the realization that it could as easily have been me beneath those huge hooves. The buffalo tired of its game, raised its head and shook it, then ran off into the brush. I breathed a sigh of relief, but the ping of a shot hitting the tree branch next to my face started my heart racing once more.
Blake Reed moved into the clearing and his eyes came to rest on me. “Now that’s not much fun for anybody. The prey up a tree, just sitting there, waiting to be shot. Get down from there, Eve, or the next shot will wound—not enough to kill, but it will hurt, I guarantee you.”
I shook my head and pointed to what was left of my shoe. “The buffalo did that.”
Reed threw back his head and laughed.
“I’ve got business to attend to so if you insist on sitting there in that tree, maybe I’ll leave you to it. The boys will be here soon. They got sidetracked by a wild pig they decided to pick off before they finished with you. So sit there and think about it. There’s no place you can go anyway.”
I heard his laugher as he made his way back into the brush.
Soon the area grew quiet with only an occasional shout from far way, but I knew Reed wasn’t lying to me. I’d be an easy target for the hunters soon enough. Did I dare come down from the partial safety of this limb? I was puzzling that one out when I heard someone or something making its way through the brush. Hunter emerged from behind a stand of palm trees and moved toward me.
“You think Reed’s going to get rid of me, don’t you?” he asked. “You think that’s why he didn’t care who saw me set that fire.”
“Duh, Hunter. That one’s easy. Why don’t you help me get out of here, and I’ll see to it that the authorities view you as a pawn in Reed’s game. I’ll bet you could make a case for PTSD as a factor in all of this.”
Before either of us could say anything more, the cape buffalo came charging out of the brush to the right of me. At the same time Reed emerged from where he had previously entered the wooded area. Hunter swung around and raised his rifle to shoot the buffalo, got off a shot that went wide. He spotted Reed to his right and yelled at him.
“Shoot him,” shouted Hunter.
Reed remained unmoving, and for a moment, I thought he was paralyzed with fear. Then I saw a smile etch his lips.
“This will work,” he said. I don’t know if Hunter heard him, but Hunter shot again and again missed. The buffalo was on him in a second, butting him nearly across the clearing and sending him into the reeds. The beast moved toward him, and Hunter crawled into the water and behind the reeds at its edge. The last I saw of them, Hunter had his arm raised as if it would be sufficient to fend off the buffalo’s oncoming attack. I heard yells and the sounds of man and animal struggling, and then it was quiet once more. The buffalo did not reappear, nor did Hunter.
“Shame, isn’t it?” Reed said. “Now it’s time for you to come down from there, Eve. Since the hunters couldn’t get to you, I think I’ll bring you to them. Unless, of course, you don’t want to see your friend, Mr. Napolitani, and say a few kind words before he dies.”
What choice did I have? If I stayed up in the tree, Reed would simply shoot me. Going with him to Mr. Napolitani meant I had another chance to save Nappi and me. Maybe together we could deny Reed his kills. I climbed down, my one stiletto still in my hand. I glanced back at the other one, embedded in the mud.
Reed marched me off to my death.