Violet Eyes (17 page)

“All right, all right,” she grumbled. “So I’m a klutz. You’ve made your point. But…what do you do out there in the Everglades all day? I mean, I know you patrol the trails, but…”

“But do I really just drive around all day?” he asked. Terry grinned. “Yep. I hang out in my pickup, listen to Skynyrd and sometimes even tilt back a cold one out there near the cypress trees.”

Rachel rolled her eyes as she took a bite of the Baja Burger. Pea-green guacamole oozed over her fingers and she began to lick it off her fingers when she saw Terry watching her. Noting his attention, she slowed down the action, and sucked each finger off, slowly.

“Will you keep doing that if I tell you more about my job?” he asked.

Rachel bit her tongue between her teeth playfully. “Maybe.”

He smiled. “You’d be surprised at some of the stuff we do. It is a lot of driving, but we’re not just looking for klutzy joggers. Sometimes we’re rescuing injured or trapped animals, or escorting ’gators off the walking paths.”

Rachel’s eyebrows raised. “They come on the trails?”

He shrugged. “Sure, where do you think the best food is going to be found? Jogging trails are like a smorgasbord.”

Her eyes opened even wider.

“Kidding. But they do tend to wander up there sometimes and it’s safer for everyone if we get them back into the wetter end of the swamp.” He stopped talking a minute and nodded at her fingers. “You stopped.”

Rachel swiped her finger across a clump of greasy ketchup on her plate and then slipped the finger between her lips, sucking it slowly and provocatively. “Tewl meh mo’,” she slurred around the finger. Then her composure cracked and she bit her finger as the laugh took over.

“Well, probably the thing we do the most that you’d never guess is…well, we’re really poorly paid firemen.”

Rachel frowned. “Fires? In the swamp?”

He nodded. “They’re usually started by a lightning strike. In those prairie areas where there is a lot of tall dry grass, or in the areas covered with pines, a lightning strike can start a fire that burns for hundreds of acres. It’s actually a good thing—the fire clears the ground for new growth, and sometimes will open up areas to new water paths. But we need to monitor any burning areas, and step in if the fire is moving towards any inhabited areas. A little fire is good; a lot can be catastrophic.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows and then took another bite of her burger, thinking about the variety of Terry’s work. She envied that.

“And then sometimes, we just walk around and catch pythons,” he added.

Rachel snorted, almost losing her mouthful of food. She swallowed, and then said, “I think your job is a little more interesting than mine.”

Terry shrugged. “They all have ups and downs. If you’re a forest ranger down here, you better like sweating your ass off most days. And I gotta tell you, the pay sucks. But I love the fact that we’re doing something to help and preserve the environment. I used to work as a computer tech—helping people install software and replace video cards and install memory and get rid of viruses. I was helping people, I guess, but I have to tell you…being a ranger is way more rewarding. It just feels like this
means
more, you know?”

Rachel thought about the files she needed to work on when she got back to the office and nodded. What real meaning did anything that she did at work have in the long run? If it didn’t get done…what difference would it really make in the scheme of things? Meanwhile, Terry was actually saving the lives of people and animals and helping to preserve a really special place.

“You stopped again,” he pointed out as she lifted the last of her burger to her mouth.

“Maybe I’ll show it to you again later,” she said.

“Does that mean I need to pick you up for dinner?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Hmmm,” he observed. “Noncommittal.”

Rachel shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be dinner.”

He nodded. “Got it. Have you ever camped out in the Everglades? Maybe you could show me it again over a campfire breakfast.”

“I can’t do sleepovers without Eric,” she reminded. “Plus, I don’t have a tent.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “You can share mine.”

“Wow,” she grinned. “Forward.”

“I like to think of it as…conservation.”

“Uh-huh.”

They both grinned, and Rachel could barely keep herself from laughing. She was really enjoying this guy. But then she noticed the Ham’s clock on the back wall behind the ketchup dispenser. It said 1:03 p.m. She needed to get back.

She didn’t even open her mouth and Terry was already pushing back his chair. “I need to get you back, I know,” he said. “Promise me another chance at this tomorrow night?”

“You got it. But only if you tell me more exciting stories about fires and alligators.”

“Deal.”

Terry opened the pickup door for her, which made Rachel smile. She was pretty sure Anders had never thought to open a door for her.
Ever
. Five minutes later they were back at her office building.

As she reached down to pick up her purse, Terry touched her arm. She looked up a little surprised and saw a serious look on his face.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was quiet.

“What?”

“I really like seeing you.”

Rachel smiled. “I’m pretty happy about the situation myself.” She leaned in to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, but at the last second Terry turned, and she met his lips. Her eyes widened as his hand slipped around her shoulders, but she didn’t pull away.

His mouth was warm and soft, and very, very welcome. Rachel felt her entire body flush as they kissed. But after returning the hug, she pulled away. “I need to get in,” she whispered. Her voice was a little breathless.

He nodded. “I have alligators to mind. And klutzy joggers.”

“I hope you don’t kiss all the klutzy joggers you find,” she said.

“Only the cute ones.” He winked. Then his face got serious again. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to tell you—keep Eric and Feral close to the house the next couple days.”

Rachel frowned. “How come?”

“You’ve heard about the fly swarms around town this week, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, they’re going through some kind of migratory thing from the Everglades, why?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe they’re from the Everglades. Maybe not. I’ve never seen this species at all, and nobody I know has either. We’ve sent a couple samples for identification to the national forest ranger headquarters.”

“But what does that have to do with Eric?”

“Well, it’s not just flies,” he said. “There’s been a swarm of spiders turning up all around town as well. And we’ve found several dogs and cats on the edge of the preserve lately. Almost nothing left of them.”

“You think the spiders have something to do with that?”

He nodded. “The carcasses have all been covered with the things. I think they’re poisonous. And damned aggressive!”

“You know, Billy across the street was on an island a couple weeks ago and got attacked by spiders and flies…” she began.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence. And I’m not sure these things are going away. But I do think the two species are somehow connected.”

“Well, it is odd that we’ve got bug problems from two types at the same time. But how would they be connected?”

“The spiders and the flies are both species that we’ve never catalogued before,” he said. “And they both have one thing in common.”

“What’s that?”

“They both have violet eyes.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Thursday, May 16. 4:15 p.m.

“Cut it out!” Aaron complained, and ran to the backstop to get the ball. His younger brother Tommy thought it was funny to throw the ball just out of range of his glove. “We’re supposed to be playing ‘catch’ not ‘chase’!”

“Sorry,” Tommy answered, but from the way he was smiling, he didn’t look to be very sorry at all.

Aaron swung his arm back and released the ball hard. It hit Tommy’s mitt with a thwack that pushed him back two steps. But it hit his mitt.

“Like that,” Aaron yelled from home plate. “You’re supposed to at least
try
to throw it to the other person’s mitt.”

They had the baseball diamond to themselves this afternoon, and Aaron had brought Tommy out here to practice catching. Aaron had joined Little League this year, and while he did pretty good at hitting, his catching sucked. He was tired of hearing about it from both his coach and his friends…and tired of being embarrassed when someone threw him a great pickoff toss and he managed to bobble the ball. When the coach said, “It’s okay, you almost got him,” Aaron knew it really wasn’t okay at all. The coach’s smile always looked forced. So he’d dragged his brother out here to help him get better. But Tommy throwing it completely out of his range wasn’t helping.

Tommy pulled off his glove and shook his hand, glowering at Aaron for his whipped throw. “All right, all right,” he said. “You don’t have to bust my hand already.”

The next couple tosses were better; Tommy threw them right over home plate, and Aaron managed to snag both in his glove before they hit the ground. He still pitched them back a little hard, but Tommy nabbed them without a problem. It was really embarrassing when your younger brother was a better ballplayer than you.

But Aaron was used to it. Tommy was a whiz at whatever he did. At nine years old he was already slightly taller than his ten-year-old brother, and his report card always had a higher percentage of As and plus marks than Aaron’s. And while she tried not to do it, Aaron’s mom had let slip to Aaron the deadly words on more than one occasion that no sibling wants to hear, “Why can’t you be more like your brother?”

Aaron whipped the ball back at Tommy, who captured it easily, though the smack of the ball in the glove echoed angrily in the air.

Tommy pulled off the glove and shook his had. “Play nice,” he complained. “Or I won’t help you!” Then he lobbed the ball high in the air. “Pop fly!” Tommy yelled.

It was falling near the edge of the backstop again, and Aaron ran to get under it, but misjudged the trajectory and ran past it. The ball bounced to the gray, cracked earth ungloved.

Aaron turned and scooped it off the ground and side-armed the ball at Tommy, who ducked instinctively, instead of catching it. Ha, the kid wasn’t
always
perfect, Aaron thought. The ball just missed breaking his jaw by a centimeter.

“Nice catch,” Aaron taunted.

Tommy stuck his tongue out and then loped out past the baseline. The ball had bounced twice in Right Field and then vanished into the scrubgrass beyond.

“I can’t find it!” Tommy yelled after a couple minutes of pushing the weeds this way and that.

“Serves you right!” Aaron said. He didn’t budge from his position behind home plate. He’d chased enough balls already today.

Tommy’s blond head eventually disappeared from view, and Aaron sat down on the plate and puffed his shirt up and down to cool off. When he complained about the heat, Tommy always needled him and said that it was because he was fat. Tommy never seemed to care that it was sweltering. But Aaron heard plenty of people moan about how disgusting Florida was in the summer. Fat or skinny, living in the wet heat of a swamp was no fun at all. Right now the sweat was trickling down his back in a river, and they’d only been out here for a half hour, if that. But there was no shade at all on the field, and it was a typical eighty-five degree / ninety percent humidity afternoon for Southern Florida. The air was so full of swamp that you could almost taste each breath. Swamp soup.

After a couple minutes of waiting, Aaron got back up and walked to his backpack where he had a bottle of water. He took one quick swig and then squirted two long ones over the top of his head. The droplets came back down like rain on his face. The water felt good for about five seconds…and then it was just another bit of the atmospheric soup that he walked in. He was just about to call after Tommy when his brother beat him to the punch.

Typical.

“Come here,” Tommy yelled from somewhere back in the weeds. “You have to see this!” He sounded farther away than he should have been…the ball couldn’t have gotten that far with the thickness of the grass and scrub bushes.

“Just bring the ball,” Aaron called back, and sat back down on home plate. He wasn’t going out in the swamp to see anything. He didn’t want to be out here at all, but he knew he had to practice before Friday’s game.

“Ow!” he heard Tommy call.

Aaron leaned his head back and looked up at the deep blue sky. There were only a couple of white fluffy clouds lurking above; not much to block the sun at all. The sun felt like a giant hand of heat, pressing down on his shoulders.

“Stop it!” Tommy yelled.

Aaron heard something that sounded like a slap. And then another.

“Aaron, help!”

What the heck? Aaron stood up. There was something in his brother’s voice that did not sound at all like usual. Tommy sounded scared. No, scratch that.
Petrified
.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron called, as he began walking towards the outfield.

“They’re biting me,” Tommy screamed.

Aaron could see the brush moving erratically; Tommy looked to be running back and forth in the middle of the swampy field. “What’s biting you?” Aaron called. Alarm awakened his protective instincts. He began to run.

His brother didn’t answer, but instead started making strange gagging noises as Aaron entered the wild part beyond the field.

“Where are you?” he called and plowed into the tall grass. The leaves bit at his arms and legs, but he only sped up, ignoring the stinging scratches. All rivalry was forgotten now; Tommy was in trouble, and he was the eldest; it was his job to protect his kid brother. “What’s the matter?” he called again, his voice a wheezing gasp.

He took two more steps forward and the leaves parted.

At first he couldn’t understand what he saw. The grass was all trampled and beaten down. Some of it was brown, some still green. But some was also red.

In the middle of it, Tommy lay still. His eyes were open, but his face looked strange. Frozen.