Page 2 (1/2)

Tallient pro at O’Hare He was as good as his word

In the meantime, I looked him up on the Internet and remembered why his name was familiar He wasn’t Bill Gates, but he was close

Tallient had invented a widget for coazillionaire At least he could afford o had turned hiy Interestingly enough, details on his accident were nonexistent, leaving me to wonder if Tallient had used his tech skills to ensure a little privacy I couldn’t blame him

Heat slappedInternational Airport Mid-October and the temperature had to be in the o fled New Orleans

Along with the plane ticket and the check, Frank, as he’d insisted I call him, had provided a rental car, a hotel roouide

"I could get used to this," I said as the agent handed me the keys to a Lexus

Shortly thereafter I checked into the hotel and tossedwater and sheets only until I found a base of operations I couldn’t look for a cryptid froht where the action was at all hours of the day or night Once I found such a place, I’d haveequipment shipped south

I wandered to a set of French doors, which led to a patio Under the heated sheen of the sun, the rot showed - sidewalks cracking, buildings cru coins fros about Bourbon Street, and there were a lot of them, was how a very nice hotel, like this one, could have a view straight into a strip joint on the opposite side of the street

Toan to do an to cheer, I turned away from the spectacle I wasn’t a prude, but I preferred my sex in private and in the dark

Or I had back when I’d had sex Since Simon, there’d been no one, and I hadn’t cared, had barely noticed But : alone in a hotel room on a street that advertised sex twenty-four hours a day, I felt both deprived and depraved Hiring ood distraction

I did an Internet search on the address provided by Frank, then drove out of the French Quarter to the interstate, over Lake Pontchartrain, and into Slidell - an interesting combination of commuter suburb and Victorian brick houses I didn’t have tiuide issue settled so I could get to work

I headed past every fast-food joint and franchise restaurant I knew and some I didn’t Just beyond a stripWheels in the driveways and swiave way to older and older residences, then mobile homes, and finally shacks One more turn and bam - there was the swaators in people’s yards What did they expect, putting a backyard near an alligator?

I shut off the ht of a cell phone inI could always call so out of the Lexus, I thanked Frank in absentia Whenever I was forced into any vehicle s a clown car

My ly slim woh she’d had no patience for fairy tales, she’d insisted I was a changeling Where I’d gotten light green eyes, bright red hair, and an intense desire to play softball no one seemed to know My appearance had marked me as an out- sider, even before my behavior had brandedwith the scent of rotting vegetation and brackish water My eyes searched the glooood hour of daylight left, the thick cover of ancient oaks shroudedbut a dock and a tributary that disappeared around a bend Across the water, hundreds of cypress trees dripped Spanish rass

"Hello?" I reached into my pocket and pulled out the note "Adam Ruelle?"

The only ansas a thick splash, which halted ator travel on land?

Not as fast as I could But what if that hadn’t been an alligator?

Wolves are quick, as are big cats, and when dealing with new or undiscovered ani could happen

I took a deep breath I ht have been raised soft, but before Si so much time in the field we’d taken self-defense classes You couldn’t sleep under the stars in a dozen different states and not run into trouble sooner or later

However, knowing how to disable ato doto coun?

I snorted I didn’t own a gun

Slowly I backed toward land, keepingcame closer and closer I should make a run for it, but I hated to turn my back on whatever lurked in the depths of the lily pad-strewn tributary

I heard a rustle that wasn’t a fish, wasn’t even water More like the whisper of weeds, the snap of a twig Slowly I lifted le flower perched atop a waving stalk, the shade of a flarass swished closed behind a body

Could have been anything, or anyone

"Except for the tail," I murmured

Bushy Black I tilted e of the dock to get a better look at what had already disappeared When water splashed across , ht-foot alligator, jaide and waiting Soed loudly against the wooden slats of the dock, and the alligator let out an annoyed hiss

I expected to be released once my feet touched dirt; instead, ht

"Who’re you?" His voice rasped, as if he rarely spoke, and carried both the cadence of the South and a touch of France I’d never heard another like it

"D-d-diana," I nificant lack of breath and a near-painful increase in my heart rate "Diana Malone"

There I sounded cool, calh I wasn’t

"I need a swauide here"

"I was told there was"

"You were told wrong Take an airboat tour down de way"

Cajun, I realized as I strained to understand the words past the sexy accent

Sexy? What in hell rong withfor accents

I tried to recall what I knew about the culture It wasn’t inally Acadians, had come to Louisiana from France by way of Canada Most had settled west of New Orleans, become farmers and fisherrated closer to the Crescent City

"Those folks will even let you hold a baby alligator," hehow close I’d co me - and that hadn’t looked like a baby