stride, yeah. But you’re talking about constructing a suit that is good enough for Hollywood filmmaking with all the witnesses that are convinced, not to mention someone agile enough to move through the swamp wearing it. If it’s a man, this is the most elaborate hoax I’ve ever heard of.”
“Thanks, man,” Tanner said, and tossed his cell phone on the bed.
More dead ends.
He heard the shower turn on in the next room and realized his bedroom must share a wall with Josie’s bathroom. Stepping back from the window, he sighed. As if he needed the visual of Josie showering playing in his mind. Josie fully clothed, complete with rubber boots and no makeup, was still far more temptation than he’d ever experienced. Picturing her naked might give him a heart attack.
He’d seen her surprise when he pointed out the advantage of him staying on-site and her discomfort when he’d chosen the room closest to her own, but he wasn’t sure what the reason behind it was. She was about to open her house to strangers. Surely, that put her at bigger risk than providing a room to the person she’d hired to protect her investment.
The one thing he was certain of was that it wasn’t personal. As a teen, Josie had never even noticed he existed. Her crowd had been the popular kids—the athletes from the “good” local families. Somewhere in town there was probably a loudmouthed ex-jock who called Josie his “woman” and put her in line behind football, hunting and beer. Maybe not in that order.
The scrawny kid doing odd jobs on her family’s plantation didn’t even catch her eye. Nor did the geeky kid who hid in the back of the classroom. Granted, his mother had moved them to Miel his senior year of high school, so it wasn’t as though he’d been around unnoticed for years, but it had often felt that way.
After his father’s death, his mother had hopped from town to town as often as she’d changed men. The last one, a trucker with a bad temper and a heavy drinking problem—both of which he’d taken out on Tanner—had brought them to Miel.
And that’s where his mother died—holding a bottle of booze and the trucker long gone.
Disgusted that he’d lapsed back into childhood angst and stupidity, he pulled off his boots and lay back across the four-poster bed. He wanted to get an early start tracking in the morning, and it was already close to midnight. If he had any sense left at all, he’d call it a night and turn in.
He stood back up to shed his jeans and shirt, and that’s when he heard a noise outside.
Immediately, he flicked off the lamp next to the bed and slipped up next to the window again. The noise had come from outside, but he couldn’t tell which direction. The patio lights extended only so far into the massive backyard of the plantation, so his field of view was limited. He was just about to decide it was the normal night sounds of swamp creatures when he saw something moving right where the patio lights faded away.
Whatever it was, it was big. And he knew of nothing that big that belonged directly behind the house at this time of night.
He grabbed his pistol from the nightstand and rushed into the hallway to bang on Josie’s door. She opened it a couple of seconds later, with a towel wrapped around her and water dripping from her head.
“What in the world—”
“There’s something in the backyard, just outside the light. I’m going to sneak out the front door and around the house. I need you to lock the door behind me. Do you have a gun?”
Her eyes widened. “Yes, of course.”
“Get it and hurry up,” he said before running down the stairs to the front door.
He heard Josie rushing down the stairs behind him as he slipped out the front door. The hedges across the front lawn provided some cover for him until he was clear of the front porch lights. At the end of the hedges, he slipped quietly across the yard to the barn, which stretched the length of the side of the house, and into the backyard.
It was pitch-black on the backside of the barn. A tiny glow from the moon broke through the dark clouds, but it made only shadows visible and even then, at a distance of ten feet or less, he’d be right on top of whatever was out there before he even knew what it was. Not the best of situations, but it was the one he had.
He inched down the side of the barn, pistol held up near his shoulder, ready to fire, and then drew up short at the sound of dead grass crunching around the side of the barn. Clenching his pistol with both hands, he eased up to the edge of the barn and then spun around the side, gun leveled.
Chapter Four
Josie locked the door behind Tanner and ran upstairs. She grabbed her pistol from the nightstand and checked to make sure it was loaded and ready to fire, then grabbed sweat pants and a shirt and threw them on. She snagged her tennis shoes on the way out of her bedroom, not even bothering with socks.
Socks weren’t necessary for shooting a vandal or a swamp monster.
She pulled on her shoes with one hand while unlocking the door with the other. Then, gripping her pistol, she eased out the door and silently drew it closed behind her. Following the same path Tanner had taken earlier, she edged along the hedges and around the side of the barn. Pausing for a moment, she listened to see if she could pinpoint Tanner’s position, but no sound reached her.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then crept down the side of the barn. At the end of the barn she paused again and stiffened as she heard the crackle of dead grass around the corner. Her heart pounded in her chest and despite the chilly weather, her hand felt clammy as she gripped the pistol. She said a quick prayer, then spun around the corner, gun leveled.
“Whoa!” Tanner said. “It’s me.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath until it rushed out of her in a giant whoosh. She lowered her pistol and tried to will her racing heart into slowing.
“Did you see him?” she asked.
“No, but I found what was moving out here.”
“What is it?”
“Horses. There were two of them wandering around back here. I’ve put one back in the stall, and was going back for the other one when I heard you and came to investigate.”
Panic rushed through her. “My horses!”
She shoved the pistol into her sweatpants, then rushed past Tanner into the open pasture and squinted into the darkness, looking for the remaining horse. Finally, she spotted him about twenty yards away peacefully grazing at the edge of the fence. Softly, she called him and he nickered, then walked over to her, lowering his head to be rubbed. She rubbed his head and then took him by the halter and led him back into the barn.
She flipped the light switch just inside the barn door and flooded the huge structure with fluorescent light. Her heart still racing, she scanned the stalls, doing a mental roll call.
“Are they all there?” Tanner asked.
“Yes, thank goodness.”
“I didn’t know which stall the other horse belonged in, so I just put her in the first one.”
“That’s
