Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(81)

No one noticed as I walked half dressed around the cab, then clambered on board. Jacob fired it to life, and off we went.

He drove in silence. I figured we’d head toward the beach, the strip of bars we’d visited the first night, where the serving girls wore short shorts and midriff-baring white Ts, a look that would’ve been better if most of the women had been younger than forty and not bloated with layers of this-is-what-half-a-dozen-thankless-kids-do-to-your-figure fat.

But he headed away from the strip, turning off the highway, down small side roads. He headed toward a neighborhood.

At the last second, he stopped, pulled over beside a strip of marshland, long-fingered grass blowing in the wind.

“We walk,” he said, looking at my bare feet, challenging me to complain.

I didn’t. I got out. Kept to the sandy side of the smoking-hot blacktop and trudged forward. Movement in the brush beside me. Could be birds. Snakes. Critters. I didn’t think about it. Just kept walking.

Jacob strolled in the middle of the road, smoking a fresh cigarette, not saying a word.

Road was broken up. Potholed in the center, crumbling at the edge. Not the best road, not the best neighborhood. Houses were small and flat, pastel colors as faded as the laundry hanging from drying lines.

I could hear dogs barking in the back, babies crying on the inside. Here and there, tired kids stood in the dusty front yards, staring at the smoking man and half-dressed girl. Jacob kept moving and so did I.

A turn here, a turn there, and then we were behind a row of houses, partially sheltered by a ridge of overgrown shrubs. Jacob slowed, his footsteps faltering.

Just for a moment, I saw something pass across his face. Yearning.

The look of a man who cared.

He stopped.

I faltered, almost ran into his back. This time, something slithered out, over my foot, and it was definitely a snake. I smothered the scream just as Jacob’s hand slapped over my mouth.

“Not one word,” he instructed hoarsely. I could see the fanatic gleam in his eyes. Whatever I was about to see, whatever we were about to do, it was very, very important to him.

I am not myself, I thought as I turned with him toward the last house on the block. Sagging black shutters, peeling pink paint, dilapidated roof. This is not me, I thought as we moved closer and closer, Jacob’s cigarette long cast aside, and now . . .

A knife at his side.

This is not Flora, I thought, a girl who once played with foxes, now standing outside a chain-link fence, peering in.

I spotted my rival immediately. Back slider of the house was open. She sat inside, in the relatively cool comfort, watching TV. She had long dark hair gathered in a loose ponytail. A faded green tank top paired with cutoff jeans. She stared at the old TV, chain-smoking, her long arms shockingly pale for these parts. But it worked for her, the dark hair, cream-colored skin. Like Snow White, all she needed now was blood-red lips.

I knew, before she ever turned around, that she was prettier than some bony New England blonde like me. No, she was dark fringed lashes, razor-sharp cheekbones, and long sultry nights.

My replacement. Jacob’s new toy.

And I realized, in the next instant, he hadn’t brought the knife for her. He’d brought the knife for me. One quick thrust and I’d be all done, rolled into the swamps for the gators to feed on. Just as he’d always promised.

“This is all of Flora, getting some sleep.”

Is that what death would feel like? Finally getting some sleep?

Inside the house, the girl turned her head. Alerted by a noise, our presence? I found myself holding my breath, while Jacob inhaled sharply beside me.

She looked older than I’d expected. Not a sweet young thing. Maybe closer to midtwenties. Which surprised me. Jacob always favored teenagers. Easier to train, he’d told me.

I glanced at him now, trying to understand.

And . . .

The look on his face. Adoration. Fixation. A man fully, hopelessly in love. A man looking at this new girl in a way he’d never, ever looked at me.

My turn to inhale sharply, and in the next moment, I understood. This was no random girl, no spur-of-the-moment replacement.

“That’s Lindy,” I said.

“Shhh. She’ll hear you!”

“She’s still alive?”

“’Course she’s still alive!”

“You didn’t grow tired of her? Kill her and feed her to the gators?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he whispered hoarsely. “I’d never hurt her.”

“You love her.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You do. You actually . . . you love her.”

The girl in the house turned, alerted by our conversation. She rose to standing, looking in our direction.

Beside me, Jacob once more sucked in his breath. He watched her walk toward us, completely transfixed.

I knew then that I hated this girl. She was the true enemy. If Jacob had never loved her, never lost her, he wouldn’t be snatching the rest of us off of Florida beaches. Somehow, she’d inspired him; then she’d twisted him.

And now, after everything I’d survived, everything I’d done, she’d be the one who’d take Jacob from me. Because of her, Jacob would finally use that knife, then feed my body to the local wildlife. My mother would never learn what happened to me. She’d spend years talking in front of all those cameras, wearing her little fox charm and pleading for a daughter who was already dead.