Hot Water (20 page)

It was bigger than I’d thought—at least seven feet long. Vicious claws gouged the grass as it lay there, its mouth wide open, teeth sharp and ready for dinner.

“Stay right in front of its nose,” I told Morris, my voice dropping low—not sure why, as I doubted the gator cared if I was screaming or whispering. “It can’t see you, especially with its mouth open.”

Maybe the gator did hear me, because it snapped its jaws shut. Morris shuffled a bit so that he remained lined up in front of it, and it didn’t move closer.

“What now?”

Wish I knew. I reached for my cell phone. Who to call, though? Owen. He could alert his security as well as the police and whoever dealt with rabid gators on a rampage. Because there was definitely something wrong with this gator—it couldn’t seem to walk straight and it was acting way too aggressive.

I dialed. Owen’s phone rang. Before he could answer, the gator twisted its head enough to spy me—and for some reason my presence only made it more furious. I decided it must be male, because I seem to have that effect on some men. Okay, most men.

It snapped its jaws again then sprang toward me. I jumped back, dropping the phone. The phone skittered across the black top, Owen’s disembodied voice wavering as it bounced. The gator tracked the phone then pounced on it, crunching it between its massive jaws.

Then it lay there, still except for its gaze searching for me. I realized that its eyes were bloodshot—more than bloodshot, they were actually bleeding. Its snout, too, blowing snot-bubbles tinged blood-red as it hissed.

Gulping back my panic, I edged back into its blind spot, directly behind it again. Morris stayed frozen, now in clear view of the gator.

“Don’t move a muscle,” I told him. “Just stay still. I’ll go get help.”

“Please. Don’t leave me.” He was breathing so hard and fast I was worried he’d hyperventilate.

“You’ll be okay.” Even I didn’t believe me. “I’ll be right back.”

“No. Don’t go.”

I hesitated. Big mistake. The alligator whipped its head around again, spotted me, and lunged forward.

Jeremy pointed over Elizabeth’s head from the porch. “I think I see smoke.”

She shielded her eyes with her hand and looked. AJ’s father was concerned enough that he opened his door and stood on the running board to get higher, also searching the sky. He must have seen something Elizabeth didn’t, because his body jerked straight and he said, “Edna!”

He jumped back into the truck. Elizabeth still didn’t see the smoke, but she opened the passenger side and climbed inside.

“Call 911,” she shouted to Jeremy, who already had his cell phone out. “Tell them it’s the Palladinos’ house.”

Frank peeled away from the curb before Jeremy could reply. He took the corner onto Main with two wheels in the air, leaving Elizabeth grasping at the door handle and bracing herself against the dash. One more sharp left onto Maple and she could see the smoke.

No one else had spotted it yet—too hot today to be outside if you weren’t away at work, she guessed. She didn’t see any flames, just smoke billowing from the rear of the house, silhouetting the Cape Cod’s gables like a storm cloud. It didn’t even smell all that bad—no worse than a trash pit fire, and folks around here were used to those.

Frank skidded to a stop and was out the door before Elizabeth could open hers. He had lung problems but seemed to have forgotten all about them as he raced up the walkway. Elizabeth followed behind, easily catching up as he collapsed, gasping, on the porch steps.

“Edna,” he said weakly, one hand reaching out to the front door.

“I’ll get her.” Elizabeth knew it was crazy talk before the words escaped her lips. Who in their right mind rushed into a burning building without protective gear? But if she didn’t, Frank would, and the way every breath was making his entire body heave with the effort, it would be the death of him for certain.

She took her suit jacket off and used it to muffle her face as she reached for the front door knob, testing it for heat. It wasn’t hot to touch. That should be good. The fire seemed to be mostly smoke, but that could change quickly if she opened the door and fanned the flames with extra oxygen.

“Are you sure she’s in there?” she asked Frank, who struggled to lift his head and nod.

“Go back to the truck, honk the horn, get some help,” she told him, relieved when her voice emerged untainted by the terror pitching through her.

Then she opened the door.

TWENTY-ONE

I’m no squealing girly-girl. I grew up hunting and running feral in the mountains of West Virginia, for goodness sakes.

But I have to admit, the sight of a seven-foot prehistoric throwback armed with fangs and claws coming at me had the grits and shrimp I’d eaten earlier scratching their way up my throat.

The only weapon I had was the knife in my boot—and suddenly I was thanking Mom for whatever crazy impulse had caused her to buy it and give it to me. I pivoted, took a second to reach down and grab the knife, then leapt around to the other side of the road, the side along the riverbank.

The gator didn’t take the hint and slide back under the fence and into a nice cozy mud bath. Oh no. Instead he seemed fixated on me, although now that we were closer I could see that there was blood coming from his mouth as well from his eyes. Leftovers from breakfast, or was he sick?

The way he lurched, stalling then lunging erratically, made me think he was sick. Great. As if it weren’t bad enough having a healthy gator whose movements I might be able to predict, I had to have the rabid gator from hell after me.

“What should I do?” Morris called, now safe on the other side of the road since I’d drawn the gator away from him. “Try to distract him?”

For a genius, that didn’t seem like a very bright idea. Liable to get us both killed.

“Find something I can throw in his path. Maybe he’ll go after it like he did my cell.” Unless I stripped, the only things I had to throw were my belt and the nylon knife sheath.

I skidded the sheath at him first. He jerked his snout in to follow it but then was immediately back on me. Okay, maybe the smell of cowhide would interest him more.

Holding my knife between my teeth, I undid my belt and slid it free. I swung it so the shiny buckle caught the light, hopefully sparking his attention. It seemed to work. He stopped a few feet in front of me, his body heaving like he was short of breath.

I let the belt go, aiming it at the mud at the base of the fence, hoping he’d take the hint. It was obvious that given the tides and shifting mudflats, the fence worked better at keeping people out than gators.

The gator raised his snout, mouth open, sniffing the air as the belt flew past. His jaws snapped shut again—the damn thing had caught it!

I held my breath, hoping he’d settle down for a nice nibble, but no, he simply swallowed and then lunged back towards me again, like a hungry toddler wanting more.

And I had nothing.

Elizabeth braced herself for an explosion like she’d seen in the movies when someone opened the door to a burning building. No pyrotechnics here. Just a billowing cloud of smoke escaping.

Once it cleared, she saw that most of the smoke seemed to be coming through the cracks around the kitchen door. From there it curled up the staircase where the ceiling rose.

All the doors in the foyer were closed—thank goodness for Edna’s compulsions. The bad news was that Edna was most likely upstairs in her office.

Elizabeth gathered her courage and jettisoned the voice of logic that kept telling her she didn’t owe these people anything, that she was no hero, that she should wait the twenty minutes it would take the volunteer fire company from Smithfield to arrive, that her place was outside, watching, not in here doing . . . that she was no AJ.

The thought propelled her forward. In the few months that she’d known AJ, she’d seen AJ put herself in the line of fire—literally and figuratively—to protect total strangers time and again. Elizabeth knew she wasn’t a hero like AJ, but she’d be damned if she’d let AJ’s mother die, not if she had it in her power to do anything about it.

By the time her mind had processed all this, her body had already rushed halfway up the steps, clinging to the railing as the smoke obscured her vision, keeping her head down as low to the floor as possible. Finally, she ended up on her hands and knees in an effort to stick to where the air was fresh.

It wasn’t hot—at least no hotter than outside—but her clothes were glued to her by a layer of fear and sweat. She wasn’t sure the jacket around her face was actually helping much; every time she took a breath she inhaled a lungful of linen fibers and began coughing, but she kept it around her nose and mouth just in case. At the top of the steps she upset a pile of Edna’s junk, raining boxes and unfolded clothing down on top of her.

Nothing heavy, that was good, but it slowed her down as she crawled through it, using her hand to guide her path as much as her eyes. The smoke was thicker up here, the fresh air quickly diminishing, even when she pressed her nose to the floorboards. The sound of a woman coughing carried through the smoke and the ringing in her ears. Her vision had diminished to a small circle directly before her, but she knew the sound wasn’t coming from AJ’s room, where Edna kept her office. It came from the opposite direction—AJ’s dead brother’s room.

Of course. Edna had preserved Randy’s room as a shrine to his memory and all-too-short life. She’d never abandon it.

Elizabeth reached Randy’s room. The door was shut. She reached up. Doorknob cool to touch. She turned it and pushed the door open. Less smoke in here. She dove inside the room and quickly shut the door behind her. Then she looked around.

Edna Palladino lay motionless on Randy’s bed. Was she dead?

Lurching to her feet, Elizabeth took the three steps needed to reach Edna. Edna opened her eyes. “Leave me alone.”

Not dead. That was good. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“I’m not leaving Randy.” Edna closed her eyes again.

Well, hell, Elizabeth didn’t have an answer to that one. More smoke seeped around the door, dark fingers grasping for a way in.

Elizabeth left Edna where she lay—Edna was petite but there was no way Elizabeth would be able to carry her down the steps. She wrenched open the window, hoping the fresh air would buy them some time. When she looked around, Edna still hadn’t moved.

“You want to stay with Randy?” she asked, grabbing the wicker basket half-filled with the fifteen-year-old dirty laundry of a teenaged boy. “Then you’d better get moving.”

She shoved the screen out of the window and emptied the contents of the basket outside as well. Socks and shirts and jeans and underwear fluttered through the air, landing in the shrubs below.

Randy’s room faced the front yard, and she saw Frank sitting with his back against his truck’s front tire, watching. He lurched to his feet, mouth open like he was shouting something but Elizabeth couldn’t hear him.

She wasted no time. She swept the contents of Randy’s trophy shelf into the basket. As she moved to throw them out the window, Edna launched herself off the bed to stop her.

“No!” she screamed.

It wasn’t much of a fight. With one well-placed shove, Elizabeth pushed the older woman back and hoisted the basket high. “You want to save Randy? Then lead us out of here. Now!”

Edna stared, her eyes so dilated that Elizabeth could barely see any color left in them. She heaved in a breath and nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” Elizabeth leaned the basket on the windowsill, judging their chances with climbing down. Not good—there were no handholds, and if they missed the shrubs they’d hit the sidewalk. She readjusted her jacket-muffler. “Take a pillowcase, wrap it around your face. Okay. Let’s go.”

They opened the door and crawled into the hallway. It was totally black with smoke now, and both women began coughing almost immediately. But the stairs weren’t far, and going down was faster than going up. Within a few minutes they found themselves lying on the porch, gasping in the fresh air, each with one hand clinging to the laundry basket of memories.