Missing In The Glades

Really? This again? Jake was tempted to check whether he was wearing a sign around his neck that said “Outsider.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not from around here, not originally. I just moved from Saint Augustine a couple of months ago. Why?”

“If you knew this area, you’d understand how to interpret the signs.”

So they were back to signs again. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, if you look at the branches that were broken along the path the car took to get in here, you’d see they’re turning brown. They aren’t freshly broken. This crash happened several days ago, probably the same day the driver went missing.”

He seemed to be waiting for Jake to say something. “I understand what you’re saying, but what’s that got to do with processing the scene?”

Holder smiled the kind of tolerant smile one would give a toddler. “Any clues outside the car that could have helped us figure out where the driver went have been washed away in the heavy rains we’ve had. So there isn’t much point in spending hours and hours scouring the mud. As for the car’s interior, we’ll process that back at the station. But I haven’t seen anything that will help with the investigation. Where Gillette disappeared to is just as much a mystery now as it was when his friend reported him missing.”

Jake still didn’t agree with going so fast when processing a scene. But he bit back any further comments. He couldn’t afford to make enemies of local law enforcement. His long-distance business partner, Dex Lassiter, wouldn’t appreciate it if Jake’s first big case in their joint venture damaged their chances of cooperation from the police on future cases.

Holder crossed his arms and braced his legs apart as he watched his men combing the ground beside the car for clues. “We looked for Gillette that first day and couldn’t find head nor tail of him. And I certainly never expected he could have crashed out here without triggering the cable warning system. What led you to this location?”

“Incentive.”

Holder raised a brow in question.

Jake smiled reluctantly. “I need to pay my rent, on both my apartment and my new business. The man who hired me to find Gillette is my first well-paying client. So, I’ve been busting my hump to figure out what happened. I interviewed dozens of people in Naples near his home and figured out that he’d driven down Alligator Alley the morning he disappeared. I became a pest at the rest areas asking commuters if they’d seen a maroon Ford Taurus the day he went missing. A handful of them thought they may have seen his car. I was able to narrow it down to a five-mile section of highway.”

Holder had the grace to flush a light red. “Reckon we could have done the same, but our resources are limited with a heavy caseload. And it never occurred to me that he could have crashed his car out here without triggering the cable system.”

Jake didn’t bother to remind him that it had happened once before. He sympathized with Holder’s position. He knew all about budgets and manpower and prioritizing cases.

“I don’t remember you telling me the name of the client who hired you,” Holder said.

“That’s because I didn’t.” And he didn’t intend to. Quinn had been very specific about that. He didn’t want to risk a leak that could spook Gillette if he somehow heard that the FBI was actively looking for him.

Holder’s mouth tightened but he didn’t press the issue.

Half an hour later, the CSI team finished its work, and the tow truck driver began the laborious job of winching the car out of the woods using the long cable attached to his truck parked on the shoulder of the highway.

Jake accompanied Deputy Holder to firmer ground and they both watched from beside Jake’s Charger as the Taurus was hauled up the slope. Less than an hour later, the deputies who’d been searching the woods for Gillette emerged from the trees and climbed up on the shoulder to confer with Holder. Jake figured they’d found something, or were requesting more equipment. Instead, Holder clapped a few of them on the back and signaled to the DOT crew waiting by the fence. The workers immediately rolled the chain link into place and began refastening it to the poles.

“What’s going on?” Jake asked.

Holder turned to him. “The search is over. They didn’t find a trail, nothing to indicate where Gillette might have gone. They went all the way back to the marsh. We’ll do some flyovers in a helicopter, put out the word on the news, but there’s nothing else we can do here.”

Frustration had Jake’s hands tightening into fists at his sides. Gillette was a seedy character who lived under the radar, taking odd jobs for cash. And he was rumored to be a petty thief in addition to the background Quinn had supplied. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t get the same attention a more affluent or socially prominent person would receive in the same situation.

“I don’t understand,” Jake said, trying again. “You know he has to be around here somewhere. He couldn’t have just vanished.”

“If I thought there was any chance he was still alive, or that we could locate his body, I’d throw everything I had at him. But I don’t, and none of my men do either.”

Jake tamped down his anger. He didn’t know this area, its dangers. Maybe Holder was right, even though everything about this felt wrong.

“Then what do you think happened to him?” Jake asked.

“The same thing that happens to anyone lost out here this long—gators, snakes, other wild animals. More than likely his remains will never be found. We had a DC-9 crash into the Everglades just west of Miami years ago. Barely left a trace to show it had ever existed. You have to respect the environment around here and understand how it all works if you’re going to thrive or survive.”

There was no mistaking the hard glint in Holder’s eyes, or his harsh undertone. The double meaning behind his words was clear. Jake needed to respect the Collier County Sheriff’s Office if his business was going to thrive. Jake gave the deputy a curt nod, letting him know he got the message.

The remaining emergency vehicles and DOT truck headed out, leaving Jake and Holder alone on the shoulder beside their cars. What little traffic had backed up at this noonday hour was quickly getting back to normal.

“Did your team find anything useful that would at least explain why Gillette was driving east down Alligator Alley?” Jake asked.

“Not yet. My guys will process the evidence back in Naples, search his apartment again and interview a few more people. I’ll also have some officers canvass the rest stops and recreational areas on I-75 for potential witnesses. If we find anything, I’ll give you a call.”

“What about the potential witness I already told you about, Faye Star? Are you going to interview her?” At Holder’s exasperated look, Jake said, “I know you think Gillette’s dead, but until I know for sure, I have to keep investigating. I think she might know something, or she saw something.”

Holder let out a deep sigh. “Faye Star? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of her. Did she give you an address?”

“Only a vague direction. She wasn’t exactly cooperative. She waved her hand southwest and said she lived a few miles ‘that way,’” Jake said. “Without a car she can’t live far from here. She certainly didn’t walk all the way from Naples. Are there any towns nearby?”

“Not really.” He rubbed his jaw, looking hesitant. “I suppose you could try Mystic Glades.”

Jake pulled out his cell phone and opened up a map on his screen. He typed in the name of the town, but nothing came up. “I’m not finding it. Mystic Glades you said?”

“You won’t find it on any map. It’s unincorporated, not even a real town. It’s more like a collection of houses and a few businesses that just kind of popped up in the middle of the swamp. It was created using leftover buildings that housed construction workers when Alligator Alley was being built decades ago.”

“Is it back toward Naples or the other way?”

“Other way. About ten miles east, around mile marker eighty-four.”

“Ten miles? I don’t think Miss Star would have hoofed it back that far at night in an area this dangerous.”

Holder shrugged. “There’s nothing else around here that I know of, although I suppose it’s possible. You said she was uncooperative, didn’t want to talk to you. Well, maybe she had an ATV. She could have pushed it until she was far enough away that you wouldn’t hear the engine when she turned it on.”

“Maybe so. But I’m still not sure where this Mystic Glades is located. I’ve been up and down this highway since yesterday morning. I don’t remember a town close by, even an unincorporated one.”

“It’s a bit back from the road, sheltered in one of those tree islands in the saw grass marsh, right where it starts to get really wet and the cypress trees begin. There’s a road, of sorts, leading off Alligator Alley to the town. Or so I hear.” He fished his keys out of his pocket, seeming anxious to leave.

“What do you mean, ‘so I hear’? You’ve never been there?”

“Nope. Got no reason to. I’ll call you if we find anything on Gillette.” He hurried to his car before Jake could ask him any more questions. If Jake didn’t know better, he’d think the idea of going to Mystic Glades had Holder...scared. But that didn’t make sense.

The deputy’s tires kicked up dirt on the side of the road as he took off. He headed down the highway to make the turn toward Naples, leaving Jake alone, just like last night—minus Gillette’s car. And minus the mysterious woman calling herself Faye Star.

He shook his head, thoroughly confused and aggravated over Holder’s lack of interest in helping him. But searching the woods where Gillette’s car was found, when the experts deemed it too dangerous, wasn’t an option Jake wanted to pursue on his own. However, finding Faye Star was like a godsend, a bonus. He’d bet money that she knew more about the crash than she’d told him. And she just might be able to lead him to Gillette, assuming Gillette was still alive. Jake sure hoped so. He was acting as a pseudo-bounty hunter on this case. And if he couldn’t produce Gillette, his fee would be cut in half.

A few minutes later he was driving toward mile marker eighty-four, searching for a road to a town that wasn’t even a real town.

The traffic was light, but Jake still kept an eye out for other cars and trucks. Alligator Alley was notorious for accidents. The eastern portion in Broward County was hemmed in by acres of saw grass that lured drivers into boredom and inattention. This western portion was just as monotonous, with its endless miles of pines bordering the highway, hiding the beauty of the marsh, canals and tree islands behind them.

But the deadliest ingredient to the crashes was the high speeds. Jake didn’t want to become a statistic because some driver hitting the hundred-mile-per-hour mark didn’t realize how slow Jake was going until they were on his bumper. For that reason, he pulled to the shoulder whenever he saw a fast-moving car coming up from the rear.

It took two passes and a full hour before he found the entrance to the nearly hidden road. It was where Holder had said, but so hidden he’d never have found it without specifically looking for it. And even though he was heading east, he had to make a sharp 180-degree turn right after a guardrail and drive parallel to the highway on a steep incline beside the wildlife fence to follow the road. It would have been the perfect spot for a speed trap, because no one up on the highway could see it down here.

When he reached a canal that ran beneath I-75, the dirt road turned the opposite way, directly toward the wildlife fence. As he neared the fence, it slid open to allow his car through. It must have had an electric sensor. But since it was right by the area where wildlife was funneled beneath the highway, it was unlikely any of the critters would have a reason to go near this section of the fence. The design of this little road seemed genius—almost completely hidden but still maintaining the integrity of the protective fences to keep drivers on the highway safe from wild animals running across the road.

About eight miles later he’d driven through several groves of oaks and pines, through a small raised section of road surrounded by saw grass, and then back into a thick tree island with bogs and marsh on both sides of the road. But he still hadn’t located the illusive town. And for some reason the GPS map in his car was going nuts, its directional arrows blinking off and on. One moment it appeared he was traveling south, the next moment the GPS said he was going north. The crazy thing was completely useless. He tried punching up a map on his cell phone but there were no bars, no connection. He cursed and shoved it back in his pocket.

He was debating performing a three-point turn to head back to the highway when a black blur ran across the road in front of him. He skidded sideways, narrowly missing a panther—just like last night—and barely managing to keep his car from sliding into the marsh.

The wild cat bounded into the woods on the south side of the road, or at least, the direction Jake thought was south. Apparently the endangered panthers weren’t quite as rare as they were alleged to be in this area. Either that, or the same animal was stalking him.

He shook his head at that fanciful thought and straightened his car out. He decided to give it a few more minutes before giving up and turning around, so he started forward again. He rounded a curve and slammed his brakes. The Charger shuddered to a stop. Ahead of him, a small, faded wooden sign shaped like an alligator declared the scattering of wooden buildings barely visible through the trees behind it as Mystic Glades.

But he didn’t need the sign to tell him he’d arrived at his destination. Just like last night, a little pixie was standing there staring at him. She was in the middle of the road, in a breast-hugging lavender top, her lavender skirts flirting with the tops of her mud-caked combat boots.

And just like last night, she was pointing a rifle at him.

Chapter Three

Faye couldn’t believe her dumb luck and incredibly bad timing as she aimed the rifle at the grille of the black Dodge Charger. With the sun peeking through the trees behind her, she couldn’t see the driver through the glare on the windshield. But she didn’t need to. She’d seen that same car parked on the highway last night as she’d pushed Buddy’s ATV along the edge of the trees. She knew exactly who it belonged to—the incredibly hot, but potentially dangerous cop playing at private investigator, Jake Young.

Pointing a gun at him wasn’t the smartest decision she could have made. But as soon as she’d seen him rounding the curve she’d panicked. She’d tossed her purple backpack behind a tree and brought her rifle up. Now she had no choice but to “bravado” her way through this second meeting, and hope it was their last.

The engine cut off and the driver’s door opened.

“You might as well crank that engine and go back where you came from.” She tightened her fingers around the gun’s stock. “This is private property.”

“You own the whole town?” he quipped as he stood.

It took her several seconds to remember what they were talking about after she saw those broad shoulders again and those yummy muscular arms, that rock-hard-looking chest tapering to his narrow, powerful hips. Yum. Everything about him, from his dark, wavy hair to the boots he was sensible enough to wear out here, had her fighting not to drool. But now wasn’t the right time for those kinds of thoughts. And without knowing why he was trying to find Calvin, it was too dangerous for her to even consider being his friend, much less anything more intimate.

What a shame.

She cleared her throat and hoped she hadn’t stared long enough for him to realize what she’d been thinking.

“We’re all family here in town, more or less,” she said. “I speak for everyone when I tell you that you’re not welcome.” Unfortunately.

“I just want to talk. I need to ask you about Calvin Gillette.” He stepped out from behind the open door.

Faye almost whimpered. In the daylight, he looked even better than he had last night. Too bad she had to make him leave.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” she said, trying to think of how to make him want to go. She debated shooting the car’s radiator. But that would just disable it and give him an excuse to continue into town. And she really couldn’t stomach shooting such a fine car. It was exactly the kind of car she’d have chosen if she could afford one, and if she had a driver’s license. All shiny, glossy black with an engine that rumbled and purred like a well-fed cat.

“Now, why don’t I believe you?” he said.

“Not my problem.”

His boots crunched on the dirt-and-gravel road. She swung her rifle, following his progress.

“Stop right there,” she ordered.

He continued as if he didn’t think she’d really shoot.

Would she? Not normally. But desperate times...

She brought the rifle up to her shoulder and centered a bead on his chest.

He stopped about ten feet away, his eyes narrowing. “How about pointing that thing somewhere else before one of us gets hurt.”

“It’s pointed right where I want it. I’m going to start counting. If you don’t turn around and get back in your car by the time I reach five—”

He charged forward.

She was so surprised, she froze. He was almost on top of her before she swung the rifle a bit to the left and pulled the trigger, hoping to scare him into stopping.

Bam! The rifle cracked, barely missing him, just as she’d planned. But instead of stopping, he lunged forward and wrenched the gun out of her hands. He tossed it away and glared down at her, his dark eyes smoldering with fury.

“Give me one reason not to call the police to arrest you for shooting at me. Again,” he demanded.

She craned her neck back to meet his gaze. “Because your cell phone probably won’t work out here anyway?”

His eyes narrowed to a dangerous slit.

“Okay, okay.” She held her hands up in a placating gesture. “Don’t get so worked up. I wasn’t shooting at you. I missed on purpose.”

The skin across his jaw whitened beneath his tan. Obviously the man had no sense of humor and took things far too seriously.

“You’re one of those ill-tempered Aries, aren’t you?” she accused.

“Sagittarius,” he snapped. “And just how is that relevant to you shooting at me?”

His declaration that he was a Sagittarius surprised some of the sting out of his insult that she’d ever miss something she aimed at. She automatically reached for the chain around her neck, but stopped before pulling it out. “No reason. None at all.” She smoothed her hands down her skirts and tried to gauge his mood.

He took another step toward her, bringing them so close she could feel the delicious heat from his body. But her attraction to him was dwarfed by the formidable anger evident in every line in his body. He was as tense as a wound-up spring, ready to snap. And she was, unfortunately, the object of that anger.

If he were anyone else, she’d sweep his legs out from under him and go for her knife hidden in one of the many secret pockets in her skirt. But she realized two things at once. First, he didn’t seem like the kind of man to fall for the same trick twice. And second, if she didn’t hightail it out of here, right now, she might be in real trouble.

As if sensing she was about to flee, he grabbed for her. She ducked beneath his arms, taking advantage of their difference in height. She ran as if a whole nest of hungry gators was after her.

He shouted some impressively colorful phrases and took off in pursuit, his boots pounding against the hard ground, his long strides rapidly eating up the distance between them. But she figured she had the advantage. He might be spitting mad, but she firmly believed her very survival was at stake, which made her feet fairly fly.

There was only one place of refuge with him so close: his car. She skidded around the open driver’s door and jumped inside. She slammed it shut and punched the electric lock just as he reached her and yanked on the handle.

He leaned down, silently promising retribution as he glared at her through the window.

“Open. The. Door.” His deep voice vibrated with anger, pounding through her skin like a hammer against a nail.

She shook her head, her long hair flying around her face. “Not a good idea.”

“Now.”

Did he think making his voice sound as if he wanted to tear her apart with his bare hands would make her more inclined to remove the only barrier between them? That was the problem with a Sagittarius—too unwilling and impatient to slow down and look beneath the surface to all the subtleties of a situation before jumping into action. Then again, sex with a Sagittarius lover, especially with a Libra—like her—could be explosive and make that overbearing nature superhot.

Counting on the fated attraction between their astrological signs to help her out, she aimed her most seductive smile at him.

If anything, his glare got worse. Oh, dear.

“Open the door, Miss Star.”

“Not until you calm down.” She added a contrite smile this time. But since being contrite wasn’t in her nature, she wasn’t sure she’d succeeded.

He stared at her for a good long while, as if he was considering all the different ways he could torture her before he killed her. Then he shoved his right hand into his jeans pocket. When he pulled his hand out, he dangled something in the air for her to see.

Keys.

Shoot. She hadn’t even thought about starting the car or she’d have realized the keys weren’t in the ignition. She tightened her fingers on the steering wheel, desperately considering her options. Jake Young didn’t know her connection to Calvin or he’d have used her legal name instead of “Star.” Which meant, he probably wasn’t the man Calvin had called her about when he’d taken that disastrous, ill-fated trip down Alligator Alley on his way to Mystic Glades.

But if Jake wasn’t someone from her and Calvin’s past trying to find them, who was he working for? Had Calvin gotten into “new” trouble in Naples? Was that why someone was after him this time? It certainly was preferable to the alternative, and might mean that Jake wasn’t a threat to her. Well, except for the part where he wanted to find Calvin, and she wasn’t about to help him do that. And the part where she’d shot a gun around him several times now, and the stubborn man refused to understand she wasn’t shooting at him.

Sunlight flashed off the keys in Jake’s hand as he shook them out, making them jangle as if he were a prison guard about to take an inmate out for his last walk before his execution. Or hers. His lips curved in a feral smile. He pointed to the small black rectangle on his key chain—an electronic key fob.

Faye’s breath hitched in her chest.

Jake poised his thumb over the unlock button.

She poised her finger over the lock button on the inside of the door.

They faced off like two duelers at dawn, trigger fingers cocked and loaded, each waiting for the other to flinch.

Click. The door unlocked.

Click. Faye locked it again just as he grabbed the door handle.

Click.

Click.

Click, click, click, click.

His eyes narrowed.

She licked her lips, focusing on that damn thumb of his on the key fob.

Click, thump. He managed to unlock the door and lift the handle a split second before she pressed her button again.

Game over.

She scrambled over the middle console, cursing when her left knee slammed against the gearshift, sending a sharp jolt of pain down her leg. She fell on the slippery leather of the passenger seat, fumbling for the opposite door handle. She pulled it and shoved the door open.