Mouth of the Rat (A Samantha Jamison Mystery) (14 page)

I squeezed Martha’s wrist, warning her not to retaliate.

Bunny’s eyes flashed my way. “Who knows, maybe you’ll break out of this windowless, cinderblock prison unit before too many of you burn to death. I’ll be long gone. The cars will be loaded onto containers out the port of Miami, and then shipped overseas in no time.”

It suddenly dawned on me that Nikko hadn’t returned and I glanced at the exit. Out of nowhere I caught sight of a white shadow and blinked. It was Puff Ball and he was racing right toward me. No one else followed.

Was Thug One here for the purpose of finishing us off?

Bunny’s gun wavered slightly, then steadied when she saw what it was. She relaxed, and then focused back on us.

“I hate dogs. Where the hell did that mutt come from?”

“I don’t know,” I said, reaching down to pet him.

“We can burn him just as well, dammit.”

Now that statement didn’t gel. Wasn’t Thug one of hers?

A note clung to the dog’s collar. I slipped it off and into my hand, and then stood. When Bunny checked her watch, and then her phone, I snuck a look at the note.

“Don’t move, no matter what. Tony.” He’s a good guy?

I stood still, barely breathing.

Tony materialized and stepped behind Bunny. “Drop it.”

Bunny stiffened. “What the…? Where’s Nikko?”

I heard Tony snicker. “Couldn’t make it. He’s tied up.”

The guards entered with Thug Two who nodded to me.

“You’ve got the rest of her mob?” I asked him.

“Being rounded up. We knew Nikko and Bunny were having an affair. And when Nikko fled with her tonight, it confirmed our leak. Tony held back to catch them both.”

I grinned at Tony. “That rental in Boca Bay Colony was Nikko’s, right? When he disappeared, you broke in to see what they were up to. They didn’t know you had already bugged it to find the FBI leak. We showed up after that.”

Tony merely gave a nod and smiled before he and Thug Two headed out with Bunny, who was now handcuffed.

Betty tapped my arm. “I think you broke your record.”

Hazel chuckled. “Solved it in a week.”

Everyone started to file outside.

“This was a good one,” said Betty. “A real whodunit.”

Hazel nodded. “We should team up with Mona again.”

Thug One/Tony turned back to me, laughing. “Just got a text from Clay. He said to dust off your passport and skis.”

I stopped in my tracks. “…Clay said what?”

Martha grabbed my arm all excited. “Did I ever tell you about that time I tried out for the Olympic Ski Team?”

Mona started cracking up. “For what country?”

This ends
Mouth of the Rat
.

For a preview of the next book in the Samantha Jamison Mystery Series,
Volume 5.5
, The Riviera Is Burning, Entr’acte
,
please continue reading right after this:

SPECIAL NOTE TO THE READER

Thank you for reading
Volume5, Mouth of the Rat
: I do hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you liked this book, I hope you choose to check out and read the rest of the mysteries in the series. Here are some other possible suggestions:

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Please read on for the preview excerpt of next book in the Samantha Jamison Mystery Series,
Volume 5.5, The Riviera Is Burning, Entr’acte

The Riviera Is Burning

Entr’acte

A Samantha Jamison Detour

Volume 5.5

A True Story

by

Peggy A. Edleheit

Copyright © 2013 Peggy A Edelheit

Chapter 1

Looking Back

The French term,
Entr'acte
means between the acts. In this case, it is a pause in my series, a brief intermission, so to speak, for a personal memoir of mine.

I remember my father telling me I could smell the damp earth as it traveled on the winds of time and that was how I was able to predict when it was going to rain. Being very young, I was intrigued. I guess that was his simple way of explaining to a small child why I knew when rain was approaching. He said it was my keen
sense
of smell for mother nature: a part of my being, a special gift.

To this day I ask to blank stares, “Did you smell that?”

Whenever I’d pick up a scent, my father’s simple explanation that captured my young imagination always came to mind. His words left no doubt whatsoever. I’d always be forewarned by instinct
.
No problem. I’d have plenty of warning,
or so I thought.

This story begins on a summer day many years later in France at my old villa on the Cote d’Azur. It was a place where predictable and ordinary quickly turned on a dime to become unpredictable and extraordinary. Disturbing and alarming are significant understatements in what was about to happen. And remember my ‘special’ instincts? Well, that was unexpected, too, because…

This time I smelled trouble.

The day started out ordinary enough, with the crickets chirping away as the sun rose. Just another sizzling summer morning, better suited to an iced coffee than a steamy hot one. Like watching the surf incessantly splash against the rocks on the beach, I stared in silence. But then the deadly possibilities looming out there began to unsettle me.

How could this be?

I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. My typical day was falling apart right before my eyes with every minute that ticked by. Just when I thought I’d seen the worst of what could happen, my vulnerability became a reality with my family’s safety hanging in the balance.

This account is from my point of view only and how I experienced it. I don’t want to bore you with statistics, just relate how my family and I got caught up in an incident that escalated into something unthinkable.

Those memories are so vivid that sometimes it feels like it was yesterday, especially that sinking feeling of dread that swept through me and how intense fear, then panic, took hold. To this day, it has left an indelible mark on my psyche, a dent in my usual resilient armor against the unexpected, and a very real and permanent fear of
fire…

Chapter 2

The Landscape

To imagine the French Riviera is to picture a coast that is breathtaking, with its jagged rocks edging its pebble-strewn beaches, market-filled villages, hillside residences and harbors. The terrain, often steep, has rugged mountain ranges that are reddish, intensely stark, yet striking.

To give you a feel for the setting, let me describe it from my point of view, my house, and my terrace, which was my vantage point in this excerpt from my third mystery in my Samantha Jamison mystery series:
86 Avenue du Goulet
.

The coastal residential area and town of Les Issambres has villas and houses that sit among a warren of small little streets that meander in and out of the mountainous terrain. Yachts and jet skis crisscrossed far below, as the sun reflected off the sea’s surface.

To my left, in the distance, were the beaches of St. Raphaël jutting out into the water and the magnificent Esterel mountain ranges beyond. Off to my right, in the distance, was the town of St. Maxine, and bay of St. Tropez.

As I looked downward, the small manicured lawn off the living room directly below was shaped in a half circle, just like the upper terrace where I stood. A stone wall, three feet high, bordered it to protect people from falling below. Part of that curved wall dropped about two stories to the neighbor’s house and their pool, and then it curved around to my villa’s side gardens. Red bougainvillea spilled over it and trailed to the bottom. If you didn’t know where the wall was, it appeared as a lush carpet of red, and although beautiful to the eye, to the veteran, it concealed lengthy thorns, as sharp and painful as miniature daggers.

The wall continued from the back to along the side of the villa where stone arches ran parallel, wrapping around to the front entrance. I looked far to the right where an expansive stone stairway descended from the kitchen patio to a mosaic, tiled fountain.

At the bottom of those steps, a maze of pathways cut from the same stone sloped downward along the lower gardens that contained benches and flower-filled urns. If I leaned out further, I could catch sight of one shaded corner where a cement table and chairs sat under a magnolia tree.

The rest of the 1950’s villa property terraced uphill with more gardens, steps, some statues, and a level area further up, ending at the governmental forest preserve at the top.

I had a great vantage point to see what transpired that day, including the curved coastal road that bordered the Mediterranean Sea as it, too, snaked in and out. Like I said, initially, it was a typically hot summer day, which meant intense heat, tourist traffic, and mouthwatering fresh produce and pastries for sale at the outdoor markets. I was sitting at my laptop, writing on the terrace when I stopped typing and sniffed the air.

I smelled smoke…

Chapter 3

A Normal Summer?

I stiffened in my chair and looked up, my eyes scanning the horizon. Everything appeared okay. Nothing was out of the ordinary. As far as I could see, it was crystal clear. A little uneasy, but relaxing once again, I went back to typing.

We had had several skirmishes off and on that summer with wildfires, which were commonplace with so many campers in the RV parks. On dry and windy days, the flying embers from campfires caused multiple brushfires that would spread, but were quickly extinguished by planes carrying water from the Mediterranean. Those fires often got out of hand when the Mistral,
a strong northerly wind
that could reach well over 80 kilometers an hour, would swoop down from the mountains inland, and then out toward the sea.

After several minutes writing, my head jerked up again.

There! I smelled it! Something was definitely burning.

It was stronger now. I stood to get a better view of down below. Was a neighbor burning rubbish? They wouldn’t, not with the warning of the Mistral forecasted.

Making my way across the curved terrace, something came roaring in low overhead. I ducked in reflex from the sound and looked up. It was a sizeable plane for carrying water heading out toward the sea. I stood there watching as the pilot skimmed the sea’s surface, filled up, took off, veered right, and sharply turned inland. I’d seen this done many times before in the past, but was still curious.

Where was he going? What was burning this time?

Standing at the terrace’s edge, I visually followed the plane carrying its weight in gold: precious water. It aimed to my left and disappeared behind the tree-line and the mountains. Another camper must have been careless. After a few minutes, I began walking back to my laptop, but heard another roar and looked up in time to see the same plane come back to make another run for more water.

I stood there, watching him repeat the same procedure with a feather touch to the sea as he arced back off to the left and out of sight once again. Even though I had seen this happen that summer and others, it always unsettled me until I no longer saw planes flying toward the sea.

I walked into the house to touch base with my husband in his office and my son who was visiting us. They had both gotten used to this coming and going of the planes and gave it little thought. It was that time of year. With so many people there, and accompanied by the extremely bone-dry weather, and now this Mistral, it was expected.

Reassured, I returned to my laptop and sat down with one eye on the horizon,
just in case.
I’d seen the effects of wildfires in the United States and knew the devastation nature, campers, or worse, what arsonists could inflict.

I began typing away and lost track of time until the wind shifted. I looked up and my gaze focused in disbelief toward St. Raphaël.

Smoke! The Esterel mountain range was engulfed in it
.

Chapter 4

Where There’s Smoke There’s
…

My chair fell backward as I jumped up to get my son, my husband, and the binoculars to have a better look. By the time we got back to the terrace, the smoke was already drifting toward St. Raphaël’s beaches. An ominous feeling about this took hold and I turned to my husband.