Missing In The Glades

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 (#ulink_b82e3491-7e99-5f40-a2f7-80f8fd1c6826)

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?”