Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 1 of 2 (21 page)

He laughed without humor. “It's a little late to pull the helpless female act. Now
that's
a lie if I've ever heard one.”

She beamed up at him as if he'd given her a compliment.

“Your name,” he demanded.

“Like it really matters. My name is Faye Star.”

Faye Star? He let the name sink in as he studied her more closely. “Miss or Mrs.?”

Her sinfully luscious lips curved in a suggestive smile. But her eyes were like a road sign flashing a warning,
danger ahead
.

“For you, it's definitely Miss,” she purred.

He ruthlessly tamped down the inappropriate tingle of awareness that shot straight to his groin.

“Miss Star, for the last time, why did you try to shoot me?”

Her brows drew down as if he'd insulted her. “If I was
trying
to shoot you, you'd be dead right now. Like I said, I wasn't aiming at you.”

“Right. How stupid of me to think you
were
aiming at me since you shot out the window and hit the side of the car where I was standing just seconds before.”

“I shot
exactly
what I wanted to shoot.”

“The car?” He didn't bother to mask the sarcasm in his tone.

“No, silly. The snake.” She rolled her head to the side, angling her chin in an effort to point. “Over there.”

He followed the direction she'd indicated. Lying under the driver's door of the car was the longest, fattest snake Jake had ever seen. Its head had been blown clean off. And its enormous body was sliced in half.

The breath hitched in his throat. He blinked in shock, again.

“That's a boa constrictor,” she said, “in case you don't recognize it. It's not native to these parts but there are plenty of the buggers around. People dump them in the swamp after their
harmless
pets grow too big and eat the family dog. It was hanging on a branch above the car and dropped down when you were looking through the window. I saved your life. This is the part where you're supposed to apologize. And let go of my wrists. And get off me.”

He shook his head, grudgingly admiring her skill with a gun. He'd have been hard-pressed to make those two shots himself if the snake really had been falling as she'd said. He climbed to his feet, pulling her up with him.

“You could have shouted a warning instead of almost shooting me.”

“I told you, I always—”

“Hit what you aim at, yeah, got it. You still could have missed.”

Her eyes flashed green fire.

“I'm going to release you,” he said. “But be warned. If you go for your knife it won't end well.”

She glanced longingly at the thick, six-inch blade lying on the ground a few feet away. Where she'd hidden the thing he didn't even want to know.

She shrugged. “I'll get it later.”

“Don't count on it.” He let go of her wrists.

She frowned and tossed her long mane of hair out of her way, before crossing her arms beneath her generous breasts. “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Investigating the disappearance of the man who owns that car. And I'm the one asking questions. What are
you
doing out here? Since I don't see any cuts or bruises, I'm going to assume you weren't in that car when it crashed. But I didn't notice any other vehicles parked beside the highway, either.”

“I live around here.”

“For some reason that doesn't even surprise me. Where? In a tree house?”

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “As a matter of fact, no.” She fluttered her fingers over her shoulder, the moonlight glinting on the half-dozen rings she wore. “A few miles that way.”

“Uh-huh. And you just happened to be wandering through the Everglades at ten o'clock at night.”

She shrugged. “I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk.”

At his skeptical look she added, “A
long
walk.”

“Of course you did.” He retrieved his gun from where it had fallen when she'd kicked his legs out from under him and pulled his cell phone out again.

“What are you doing?” Her voice sharpened as if in alarm.

He gave her a curious glance. “Calling the police. Is that a problem?” He shoved his gun in the holster at his waist.

“It is if you're trying to have me arrested. I told you I wasn't shooting at you.”

“Call me an idiot, but I believe you about that. I'm calling to report that I found Calvin Gillette's car. They'll need to process the scene and get some men out here to search for the driver.”

Some kind of emotion flickered across her face, so quickly he couldn't identify it. Anger? Fear? Or something else?

“Did you see the man who drove that car?” he asked again.

A low rumble sounded from the direction of the bushes where Faye had emerged a few moments earlier.

Jake yanked out his gun and shoved Faye behind his back as he whirled around. Was the panther still out here, stalking them? Or was that more of a curse than a growl? Was Gillette hiding in the trees, armed, ready to make sure Jake didn't make that call?

A full minute passed in silence. No more growls or curses. No rustling of leaves to indicate anything, or anyone, was there. He cautiously straightened and turned back to Faye.

She was gone.

So were her knife and her rifle.

Damn it.

He clenched his hand around his pistol. The one potential witness to whatever had happened to Calvin Gillette had just disappeared. She'd probably orchestrated that growl to distract him. Maybe she was a ventriloquist and a gypsy fairy all rolled into one.

The growl sounded again, closer, vibrating with malevolence.

Jake sprinted to the car, yanked the door open and jumped inside.

CHAPTER TWO

After notifying the Collier County Sheriff's Office about finding Gillette's car, Jake was told there weren't any available units to respond yet and that he should sit tight and guard the scene. He waited, sitting in Gillette's car, watching the woods in case the anticipated panther showed up. But the cat never appeared. Neither did the police. Had he known it would have taken all night, he would have gone home and gotten a much better night's rest than he had in the car—panther or no panther.

While waiting for the police, Jake had given in to the urge to search the car, carefully using his shirt as a glove. But he'd found nothing. He'd also called his client to update him on his progress.

By the time the police arrived and managed to cut through the chain link and get their teams into the clearing, the sun had been up for over three hours.

Jake shifted his weight against the pine tree behind him. The police wouldn't let him accompany them as they searched the woods for Gillette, so he was stuck here waiting, and watching the crime scene techs process the scene. But the hurried manner in which they were working had him clenching his jaw so tightly his teeth ached.

“Something bothering you, Mr. Young?” Scott Holder, the Collier County deputy in charge of the scene, said as he stopped beside him.

“It just seems as if your men are in an awful hurry.”

Holder crossed his arms. “You're not from around here are you?”

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.