Red Tide (Siren Publishing Classic) (10 page)

The Hernando-Pasco county line split the small community right down the center of the island, but Mitch’s house lay on the north side of that line, in Hernando County, even though her neighbors kitty-corner across the road lived in Pasco. The tiny bridges and shallow depths didn’t allow her to bring the
Sun Run
back to the house, but she had a jon boat with a twenty-five-horse Evinrude that she used if she wanted to go upstream to the spring or just offshore to cast for trout or snook by the channel.

She opened the door of the Bronco and Pete jumped in and immediately sat on his towel. She drove the short distance home, planning the side dishes to go with the steaks. As she rounded the final curve in her road, she spotted a great blue heron perched on the peak of the roof. He was a regular, and she had named him Jeeves because of his formal, stiff-legged walk.

The Aripeka house was forty years old, a tall three-story wooden stilt structure that had withstood quite a lot. Surprisingly, it was one of only a few stilt houses in the area. Most of the stilt houses in the community were newer, and she never understood the rationale that had made original Aripekans build on ground level. The FEMA flood plan now mandated raised structures, but there wasn’t that much buildable land left in the area due to the vast amount of surrounding wetlands. Most of the houses in the area had sustained damage during the No-Name storm in March of ’93, but the majority of residents repaired rather than rebuilt due to lack of adequate flood insurance. The Jacksons had just finished repairs to their own utility room, as a matter of fact, when Ray died.

Mitch shut off the engine and listened to the crickets in the saw grass. She loved Aripeka and its quiet pace, its population consisting mainly of fishermen, retirees, and a few artists scattered here and there. In its heyday, Babe Ruth had supposedly frequented the fish camp that used to be on the island, but she had no idea how much truth there was to that story. She felt a longing for the water when she went to live in Tampa with John. It was a relief to come back home when she left him.

She made a mental note to remind herself to ask Ed where to get the waterproofing for the sides of the house. The cypress siding had started to lose its luster and fade from rich golden brown to a dull grey from the sun. Mitch whistled for Pete to follow her upstairs and she locked him in the house.

She went back downstairs, to the bait tank on her dock. When Jeeves saw her, he flew down from his vantage point and strutted down the dock behind her. Mitch scooped several pinfish out of the tank and tossed them, one at a time, to the bird, who expertly speared them with his long beak and gulped them down, immediately ready for the next one.

Mitch knew it wasn’t the best thing to do, but the bird had been hanging around for years, and she considered him a part of the family. It was better he get natural meals from her rather than the ground turkey or other meat products from well-intentioned people who didn’t know how harmful they could be for the wild birds.

Once he’d swallowed eight of the fish, she hung the net back and started for the house. “That’s all, Jeeves. I’ve got stuff to do.”

He carefully eyed her, then decided he wasn’t going to get any more and returned to the roof to preen himself. She watched him a moment longer before going inside to take a shower.

Mitch heard Pete’s excited barking as she pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. A moment later, Ed’s truck pulled into the driveway. She was still towel-drying her hair when she opened the door and let Pete charge out to meet him. Leaving the door open for them, she went back to hang the towel up on the shower curtain rod. She quickly ran a comb through her damp hair and went to greet Ed. He juggled three grocery bags while trying not to trip over Pete while climbing the stairs. She met him halfway up and took a bag from him, shooing Pete up the stairs into the house.

“He sure is happy to see me.” Ed laughed.

* * * *

She smiled back at him, and he felt his throat go dry from the feelings that suddenly surged inside him again.

She laughed, bringing him back to reality. “What’s wrong, Ed? Cat got your tongue?”

He shook his head and smiled. “No, just thinking about how much I’m going to enjoy relaxing tonight.”

God, I’m a bad liar.

He followed her up the stairs and into the house.

“What is all this stuff anyway?” she asked, unpacking the bags.

“Oh, just felt like a few extras,” he said, helping her. Among the spoils were a four-pack of peach wine coolers—Mitch’s favorite flavor—and a couple of ripe avocados.

She opened wine coolers for them and made a bowl of guacamole. They sat on the porch in the evening air and munched on chips while waiting for the grill to heat up enough to cook the steaks. A slight breeze sprang up from the north, just enough to drive away the bugs. Pete curled up at their feet and drifted off into contented sleep as bullfrogs joined the crickets in a chorus by the cattails.

Ed got up to throw the steaks on the fire and she went inside to make the salad and heat up the vegetables. They were eating inside at the counter when the phone rang twenty minutes later.

“Mitch, what the hell have you and Ed gotten yourselves into?” The voice on the other end laughed.

She recognized the caller immediately. “Matt! Oh, geez, I was going to call you and totally forgot.” She motioned for Ed to pick up the cordless and join in.

“Yeah, right, sure you were,” Sami joked on the extension from the other end. “We’re up here in the middle of nowhere, and we’re always the last to know.”

Mitch and Ed had been friends with Matt and Samantha Barry for a couple of years. The Barrys lived in a house in the middle of the Croom section of the Withlacoochee State forest, just east of Brooksville. Sami’s first husband, Steven Corey, had been a writer.

Through a long and mysterious series of mostly unexplained events, he went insane and drowned in an old mining pit near the house while trying to kill Sami. Mitch and Ed headed the team that searched for and retrieved his body. Well after the events of that day, the Barrys contacted them about going out on a fishing trip, and a friendship ensued.

Mitch and Ed spent some time bringing Matt and Sami up to speed with the events of the past weekend and the information Rick gave them. When they finished their tale, Matt let out a low whistle. “Boy, sounds like you two really stumbled onto something.”

Mitch swallowed a mouthful of steak. “You aren’t kidding. I hope I never have to go through anything like this again.”

“Hey, we’ve got a charter going out on Wednesday. Want to come?” Ed invited.

“Do you have room?” Matt asked.

Mitch insisted. “Of course we do. Be at the dock at seven.”

Sami groaned. “There goes my beauty sleep.”

Mitch and Ed said their good-byes and continued their dinner. After the dishes were done, they settled on the couch to watch TV and before she knew it, Mitch found herself drifting off to sleep on Ed’s shoulder.

He smiled as he watched her. He gently touched her still-damp hair and inhaled the floral scent of the shampoo she used. Again he felt the desire stirring within him. He carefully extricated himself, trying not to wake her. He stood over her for a moment, watching her sleep, wanting to reach out and touch her cheek and kiss her lips. As his mind turned in this direction, he knew he had to leave. He reluctantly locked the door behind him and thought “what if” all the way back to his house.

He sat in the parking lot and watched the people going in and out of the bar. While in the mood for the hunt, he did not have an uncontrollable need for it.

Yet.

The weekend’s events disturbed him. The loss of the
Emmerand
was distressing, but he could absorb the cost and replace the shipment that now sat in a guarded federal warehouse. What disturbed him was who discovered the vessel. His agitation over that had brought the need back, but it wasn’t yet so urgent he couldn’t control it.

He was parked outside the same nightclub where he’d met Jenna. She was now safely asleep in her condo, exhausted after an evening of vigorous sex. Jenna was as eager a lover as he’d ever had, but the two orgasms she’d brought him to still weren’t enough to fulfill his urges.

Not this urge, at least.

While he sat and waited, searching for an appropriate prospect, he thought about the night two weeks prior when he first met Jenna. Time blurred and doubled for a brief moment when a red Miata drove up, but the illusion dissolved when a man and a woman climbed out and went inside. He would be with Jenna tonight except friends had asked her to go out with them.

The night he met Jenna had also been hot, like this one. The Orlando nightclub teemed with people when a woman drove up in a red Mazda Miata. Her long blonde hair flowed loose over her shoulders, and she wore a pair of white linen pants with a turquoise silk blouse. He saw from the way she carried herself that she wasn’t here to meet someone in particular, and she didn’t appear to be a prostitute, but something about her stirred him.

He locked his car and followed her inside after paying the cover charge. If he managed to persuade her to go with him, he knew he would spare her. Sometimes, it just happened like that. He didn’t kill every woman he picked up while hunting, just a select few. Sometimes the knowledge that he had the power of life and death over them was enough to quiet his hunger.

He stopped at the end of the bar, ordered a drink, and scanned the room for her. He found her standing at the opposite end of the bar and waiting for a drink. Like a good hunter he watched and waited, studying his quarry. Eventually she selected a seat at the bar. He picked one, too, where he could see both her and the TV.

He sensed she wanted to start up a conversation with someone, but was hesitant about doing so. She wore a slight air of vulnerability, something not noticeable to the untrained eye. He knew, if approached the right way, she would be his tonight. Like the zebra on the savanna, she was wary of the lion that prowled in the distance. The slightest hint of something amiss, the slightest misstep on his part, and she would turn and flee, slipping through his fingers like so much vapor.

He studied her out of the corner of his eye, not wanting her to notice his interest in her yet. The turquoise of her short-sleeved blouse set off her green eyes, and her hair looked natural, not dyed. She had delicate features and her eyes, while beautiful, almost looked sad.

He watched her hands and noticed how she rubbed her left thumb along the base of her ring finger. She wore no rings on that hand, but apparently had in the recent past. She wore modest diamond studs in her ears and a string of pearls around her neck. Her clothes were of nice quality, and the purse on the bar next to her was fairly expensive.

He finally glanced at her, sending her a polite, noncommittal smile as he sipped his drink. If he didn’t appear too forward, let her come to him, he could gain her trust. He turned his attention to the TV at her end of the bar and watched her out of the corner of his eye.

Indecision flashed across her face as she struggled with whether or not she wanted to talk to him. He waited for a commercial to interrupt the baseball game before he looked at her again, openly this time. She smiled at him, and he returned it. She glanced up at the TV and he followed her gaze, wondering if she would look at him again. She started to look his way when the commercial ended and he turned his attention back to the game. She was gaining more courage now. He felt her eyes on him. He let his gaze drift back to her. She offered up a small grin that he returned. He waited for another commercial break to look at her again. She smiled and nodded at the empty barstool next to her. That’s when he stood and made his way over to her.

She smiled as he walked up. “Hi. Would you like to sit down?”

He returned her smile. “Sure, thanks. Are you a Marlins fan?” he asked as the game came back on.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know too much about baseball.”

“You want to know something?”

“What?”

He leaned close to her and whispered in a conspiratorial voice, “Neither do I.” This set them both off into gales of laughter.

She held out her hand to him. “My name’s Jenna.” She didn’t volunteer her last name, and he didn’t risk asking it at that point.

He took her hand in his and kissed it, but not so intimately that he scared her off. “John.” They moved to a table in the corner and talked for a little longer. Jenna opened up to him, and he studied her while she talked. John knew he would have her before the night was out. Her voice was starting to take on the slight edge of too much to drink, but she wasn’t drunk yet. He also knew she would live to see morning’s light. The desire had buried itself deep in the recesses of his dark soul. Tonight would be for fun, not need.

As Jenna talked, her long, delicate fingers absently played with a coaster in the center of the table. He leaned forward as if listening to her and extended his own hands so they almost, but not quite, touched hers. The more she talked the more she opened up, and he finally extended his left index finger to caress her hand.

Indecision flashed across her face. “Would you like to go somewhere else to talk?” she asked. “This place is kind of loud and obnoxious.”