But also not the kind to spend a lifetime in the wilds. Then he reminded himself ruefully that his “wilds” were just a forty-five-minute drive from an urban Mecca with clubs, malls, theaters and more.
What was he doing, arguing with himself, convincing himself that his lifestyle was a good one? Because…?
Because he hadn’t felt the way he felt about her in a very long time. In fact, he’d thought he’d buried those feelings along with Connie, that as long as he threw himself back into his passion for the land and the tribe, he could learn to live without all they had shared, the tenderness and sense of being one, loving, laughing, waking together, sleeping each night entwined. There was the chemistry that brought people together, and, if you were lucky, the chemistry, excitement and hunger that remained. And more. The longing to see someone’s eyes opening to the new day, the times when no words were necessary, the nights when life was good just because the world could be shared.
He lowered his head, wincing, feeling as if the scars that had covered his wounds were ripping open. As if they were raw and bleeding, all because of the promise of something, someone, else. But that promise brought with it the one emotion he dreaded more than anything. Fear. No wonder he’d pushed her away.
He clenched and unclenched his fists. This wasn’t the right time. In fact, it was idiotic. And, anyway, she was furious with him, probably regretting the very fact that they’d touched.
He forced his mind onto the case.
He felt that they were closing in, that Lars would be able to get the search warrant after what he had learned from Lorena. There were, however, other alligator farms in the area. It might be tough for him to convince the D.A.’s office, without concrete proof, not only that there really were “enhanced” alligators in the Everglades, but that Harry’s Alligator Farm and Museum was responsible, and that whoever had gone to the extremes of biochemical manipulation was also willing to kill for it.
He hesitated, then decided to take another drive out to Dr. Thiessen’s place to see if the Metro-Dade cops had missed anything, though he doubted it. They were good.
Then again, this was a world he knew far better than anyone else, a world that could not be taught in any lab or classroom.
In her room, Lorena found herself amazed to be carefully considering her wardrobe for the evening.
She hadn’t been asked on the hunt, which made sense. Only experienced alligator trappers were going, and that definitely did not include her.
Nor, she suspected, did it include Michael Preston.
Which was good, because she wanted to spend some time with Michael. She didn’t want to appear as if she had dressed to seduce, but she did want to look attractive.
Not in an aggressive way. Just enough to be compelling, so she could conduct her own hunt this evening.
She opted for casual slacks and a soft silk halter top. When she was dressed, she headed for his lab, listened, and heard movement. She tapped on the door.
“Yes?”
Lorena slipped in. “Hey. Are you going on that hunt this evening?” she asked him.
He arched a brow, grimaced and shook his head. “I’m a scientist. The brains, not the brawn.”
“Ah.”
“I guess you’re into brawn.”
“I am?”
“Well…” He perched on the edge of his desk, still in his lab coat. “You’ve been spending a lot time with our bronzed-and-buff policeman, Ms. Fortier.”
She shrugged casually. “Not really. I wound up driving with him when that poor woman freaked out over her friend having been killed. And I probably shouldn’t have headed out to the casino to begin with, the night I left with him. Too tired. And then someone told him about the incident with the hatchlings, so he wanted to talk to me.”
“Not me.”
“Did you tell anyone here?” Lorena asked.
He lifted his shoulders. “I don’t think so. Maybe the kid complained in the end, I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t have let the little brat off the hook.”
“Maybe not,” she agreed. She walked closer, then sat on the other corner of his desk. She frowned. “Michael, did you ever believe any of those stories about kids buying baby alligators and then their parents flushing them down the toilet, so they wound up in the sewers of New York, that kind of thing?”
He waved a hand in the air. “Science fiction,” he assured her.
“Alligators, even in a sewer, wouldn’t last long in New York. They need the sun, the heat. You know that.”
“Right,” she mused. “But…down here, I wonder how many alligators wind up free after they’ve been lifted from a place like this one by a kid like that brat. I mean it’s possible. We both know that.”
He slipped from his position on the desk and approached her, a smile on his face. She was a bit unnerved when he came very close, leaning toward her, resting his hands on the desktop on either side of her. “Possible,” he said softly, his face just a whisper away. “But no kid is going to steal a hatchling from here, then let it loose in the New York sewers to grow into a monster.”
“But there’s at least one monster alligator out in the canals right now,” she said. “That’s what they’re hunting tonight.”
She saw a pulse ticking in his cheek. He didn’t move. “Just what are you suggesting, Ms. Fortier?” he asked very softly.
“What else could it be?” she asked innocently. “I think that alligator escaped or was stolen from a lab,” she said, and shrugged.
“From here?” he asked.
“From somewhere,” she breathed. He was close. So close. And he might be the brains and not the brawn, but he still had quite an impressive build, and she just might have taken things too far.
“If I could create a super-gator, I’d be rich,” he said, sounding surprisingly disgusted.
But she could see the tension in his face, feel it in his muscles. Her recklessness could prove dangerous. This, however, had been the time to take chances. Dozens of men from around the area would be arriving shortly. If he came any closer…
If she felt a deeper surge of unease…
All she had to do was scream.
He was staring at her intently. Searching her eyes.
He started to raise a hand toward her face, smiling.
“Michael?”
The call and a fierce knocking were followed by the door simply opening.
Lorena slipped from the edge of the desk as Michael turned.
Harry was there.
“Michael, can you get out here and help with the equipment? This is insane, if you ask me. Half the guys have no supplies. Damn Jesse. Leave it to him to get the full cooperation of the Florida Wildlife and Game Commission for a wild-goose chase.”
If Harry had noticed that he had interrupted something, he gave no sign. But maybe he hadn’t noticed, she thought. He seemed much more upset about the hunt than that a man had been killed by a gator.
Lorena grimaced as she caught Michael’s eye, then escaped in Harry’s wake.
Hurrying out back to the canal, she saw an unbelievable lineup of airboats and canoes. Jesse was up on some kind of a huge tackle box, giving instructions. “Remember, folks, we’re looking for something really large—not indiscriminately killing off a population for trophies.”
“How big, Jesse?” a man shouted from one of the canoes.
“Bigger than the norm,” Michael Preston answered for him, hurrying forward. “The biggest gator ever recorded in Florida was seventeen feet, five inches long. The biggest gator recorded in Louisiana was nineteen feet, two inches. So if you find anything smaller than that—wrong gator.”
“Ah, hell!” the same fellow snorted. “We have to have something real to go by.”
“You heard the man. We’re looking for fifteen feet or over. All right?” Jesse asked.
“We get to harvest what we get?”
She saw Jesse defer to a man who looked like he was about to go on safari, in khakis and a straw hat. He was
tall and lean.
Jesse reached a hand down and helped the man up on the box. “This is Steven Bear, Florida Wildlife and Game Commission.”
“We can harvest the fellas, huh?” another man called.
“Gentlemen, the important thing is this—we’re not out on a regular hunt. Make sure your quarry is over fifteen feet. Then the meat is yours. Nothing small is to be taken. Understood?”
She saw both Steven Bear and Jesse jump down from the box. Someone asked Jesse a question, and he answered, then headed for an airboat with a number of men already aboard.
Michael came up behind her. “Half those guys see this as a free-for-all,” he murmured.
She turned to him, frowning herself. “I don’t get it. I mean, there are so many boats. Are they going to try to sneak up on it with all those lights, all that noise?”
“You’ll see,” Michael said.
And she did. It had seemed like chaos, but when the airboats took off, they headed in all different directions. Once again, she had forgotten that what appeared like solid ground in this area most often wasn’t.
River of grass.
They were taking off over that river in a dozen different directions.
“Well, they’ll be gone awhile,” Michael said. “Why don’t we have some dinner?”
“Sure.”
They ambled to the cafeteria together, chose pork chops for their meals, and sat together.
The place was almost eerily empty. “Did Sally go on the hunt?” Lorena asked, curious that the outspoken, sexy redhead was nowhere to be seen.
“I didn’t see her,” Michael said.
“Does she help with the research here at all?” Lorena asked.
Michael laughed. “There’s only one green thing that Sally would research—money,” he told her.
“Oh?”
“Um.”
Lorena smiled, smoothing back a lock of hair. “I don’t get it then. Why is she working out here?”
“I think she’s trying to be so indispensable to Harry that he makes her a partner. He owns land all over the place. And we’re doing well here…but I think he’d like to open another facility, closer down by the Keys. He’s already opened a few shops in Key Largo.”
She frowned again. “Michael, this is a totally dumb question. But Harry raises gators for their meat and hides, right? So where does he—”
“Lorena!” Michael said, grinning. “You don’t ‘harvest’ animals where you show them off to the tourists! I told you—Harry owns a lot of land closer to the Keys, down in the Florida City–Homestead area.”
“Ah.”
“You really are interested, aren’t you?” When she nodded, he said, “I can show you a few things, then. Are you done?”
“Um, yes,” she murmured.
He wiggled his eyebrows in a manner suggestive of a hunched Igor in a horror movie. “Come, my dear, I’ll show you my lab,” he growled jokingly.
Lorena froze for a moment. She’d been doing everything in her power to sneak into the lab, and now he was making this offer.
While anyone who might have come to her rescue was off hunting for a rogue alligator.
No. There were more live-ins around the compound. And Harry hadn’t gone on the hunt; he was around somewhere.
Besides, she had waited far too long for this opportunity. She could take care of herself.
And she was going in.
“Let’s see what you’ve got to show me,” she said with a smile.
He flashed her a smile in return, showing very white teeth. They rose and walked across the compound. She noted that there was another guard on duty.
She noted as well that he was spooked. When he heard their footsteps, his hand flew to the hilt of his gun, buckled at his hip.
“Just Ms. Fortier and me,” Michael said.
“Evenin’,” the guard replied.
When they reached the door to the lab, Michael drew out his keys and opened it, pressing the small of Lorena’s back lightly to get her to proceed inside.
He followed, closed the door, then locked it.
Then he turned and stared at her. “I don’t know why I bother. Someone picked it open the other day.”
“Oh?”
He shook his head, approaching her. She cocked her head, looking at him. The guard had just seen the two of them together. He couldn’t possibly be planning anything…evil.
Not unless he meant to go back out and kill the guard as well!
He was still smiling, as if his intent was to seduce, but she knew it wasn’t. She found herself backed against the desk.
He was the brain, he had said, not the brawn. But he was a liar. She could feel the heat and strength of his muscles.
And his anger.
His menace…
“You picked the lock, Lorena, didn’t you?” he asked softly.
“What?”
“Ah, the innocence. Like hell, Ms. Fortier. You’re flirting madly with me, while it’s more than obvious that it’s Jesse Crane who’s really stirred your senses. And yet you’re charming as hell to Jack and Hugh, too. Are you just a little vamp, Ms. Fortier? I don’t think so. I think you’re up to something. You want something in this lab. Tell me what it is. Here we are, you and me, alone, finally. So…it’s time. You want to see what’s going on in here? You might as well. I think you should see exactly what you’ve been wanting to see. Now. Right now.”
Chapter 10
Nighttime in the Everglades, and it was eerie.
No matter how well a man knew the place, the near-total darkness hid the predators haunting the swamp and made this a dangerous place.
When light touched the gators’ eyes, they glowed, as if they were demons from hell, not of this world at all.
Jesse was accustomed to the glowing eyes, and yet even he found them chilling in the dark of the night.
Despite his familiarity with the creatures, it was difficult for him to determine the size of one with only the eyes to go on. Sometimes, he knew instantly when he was looking at an animal of no more than five to eight feet, but with just the eyes above the water to go by, more often than not it was a crap shoot.
Twice they snared a creature only to realize that the specimen they had in their loops was no more than nine feet, ten tops.
Each time they released their catch. Enraged, the alligators made swift departures from the area once they had been freed.
The rest of the group on the airboat, Jack, Leo and Sam Tiger, were soaked and exasperated, but no one suggested giving up as they moved closer to the location where Billy Ray had been attacked and killed.
They had been out a few hours and had just cut the motor, and only the noises of the night were echoing in the air around them, when Jack Pine said softly, “There,” and pointed.
Jesse looked in the direction Jack was indicating.
The alligator wasn’t completely submerged. The length of the head was incredible. He focused hard and saw the length of the animal as it floated just beneath the surface.
And he knew they had found the beast they were searching for.
Sam whistled softly. “I have never seen anything remotely near that size before,” he said.
“Let’s bait it,” Jesse murmured.
Their bait was chicken. He tied several pieces on the line.
The alligator watched them as they approached. It didn’t move; it showed no fear.
When the line was cast in the water, the animal moved at last.
It went for the bait. They were ready with their snares.
A massive snap of the mighty jaws severed the lines as well as securing the meat, but Jack managed to get a noose around the neck.
The alligator made one swing of that massive head. Jack went flying off the airboat, a shout of surprise escaping his lips. The animal instantly began to close in on him.
Sam quickly started the engine and headed in for a rescue. Jesse went for one of the high-powered revolvers. He aimed and fired, aimed and fired,
as they neared Jack.
Sam swore, shouting to Jack.
In a frenzy, Jack moved toward the airboat.
Jesse, taking care to miss the man, fired again and again.
Ten bullets into the gator.
It kept coming, heedless of the men, heedless of the bullets that had pierced its hide.
They reached Jack. Sam and Leo instantly reached for him, and he reached back, grabbing their hands, the muscles bulging in his forearms and a look of dread in his eyes.
They were just dragging Jack over the edge of the airboat platform when the gator’s head emerged, mammoth jaws wide with their shocking power.
Jesse aimed again, dead into one of the eyes.
The explosion ripped through the night.
The eye and part of the head evaporated.
And at last, with Jack’s feet just clearing the water, the creature began to fall back.
Jesse fired again and again, aiming at what was left of the disappearing head.
He felt a hand on his arm. Sam’s. “You got it,” Sam said softly.
And from where he lay on the floor of the airboat, Jack said softly, “Dear God.”
In the silence that followed his statement, they heard the whir of motors, saw approaching lights and heard the shouts of others.
More airboats and canoes arrived, and the area was suddenly aglow with floodlights.
“You got it?” Hugh called from another vessel.
Jesse realized that he was shaking. He nodded, turned, lowered his gun and found a seat.
The others began to haul the creature in.
“Well, Lorena?” Michael asked huskily.
Great, she thought.
She had a gun, and she was a crack shot. But she had let her eagerness to find the truth lead to stupidity, so here she was, boxed in by her main suspect, and he was challenging her….
She slid her hands backward on his desk. In all the old movies, there was a letter opener on a desk, ready to be used by a desperate victim as a weapon.
There was nothing on Michael Preston’s desk but his computer and a few papers.
Not even a paperweight.
“Well…” she murmured, as he came closer. Closer.