P. Parrish - Claw Back

And it wasn’t on the reservation — it was somewhere isolated, somewhere no one could hear or see the cat.

Louis stared at the photograph. Keno’s eyes stared back, dark and unfathomable. He could read nothing in them. And that bothered him.

“Ginger, I need one more address,” Louis said.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Louis almost hadn’t expected to see Gary Trujillo open the door of the neat green-shuttered trailer. With the flower boxes under the windows and the plastic flamingo in the yard he was sure when he drove up that he had the wrong house.

“I need your help,” Louis said.

“I told you I don’t want to get involved,” Gary said, starting to shut the door.

“Katy’s missing,” Louis said.

“What? What do you mean missing?”

“We were supposed to meet for breakfast and she didn’t show. She hasn’t been to work or called in. I think she’s with a Seminole named Keno and I think he’s the guy who took the panther.”

Gary came out onto the porch. “You think he took Katy, too?”

“I don’t know. She might have gone with him because he told her he knew something about Grace. I don’t know. I just know I don’t like the feel of it.”

“How come you don’t just call out the cavalry?”

“The reservation is off limits,” Louis said. “But I don’t think that’s where they are. I think they’re out in the glades somewhere, but Hendry County is out of my jurisdiction. Besides, the cops wouldn’t know where to start looking.”

Gary was quiet for a moment. “You’re thinking he’s got this panther hidden somewhere. Somewhere isolated, like a hunting camp.”

Louis nodded. “And you know where they all are.”

Gary glanced at the sun, which was already starting its slow descent. “I’ll go get dressed,” he said.

Louis was wearing the same polo shirt and khaki pants he had put on that morning, and now, out here in the sodden-blanket air of the Glades, he was sweat-soaked and mosquito-bitten. It was after five and they were into their second hour of their search.

They had started at Gary’s camp, where there had been no sign of any intruders since Louis’s encounter there. They had done a quick search of all the “live” camps, but they had all been locked up tight with no signs of intruders. That left the abandoned hunting camps.

“No one knows exactly how many there are,” Gary said as they plowed through the brush in his SUV, heading south now. “These camps have been handed down for generations and some families have just given up and left.”

One and a half million acres. That was the figure running through Louis’s head as he took in the desolate landscape of trees and brush. That was how large the Everglades were. How in the hell were they going to find Katy in all this?

He glanced toward the west. There was only about an hour of daylight left. If they didn’t find some trace of Katy or Keno soon they’d have to give up and start again in the morning.

If he could even convince Gary to try again. They had checked out four abandoned camps so far and none had any signs that anyone had been there.

The thick brush parted and Louis spotted a clearing ahead and then a cabin. No, not a cabin, he decided as they drew near, just another listing shack.

There were no fresh tire tracks in the narrow dirt road leading in and no signs of life anywhere in the weed-choked compound. Louis let out a hard breath of disappointment.

“Another dead end,” Gary said as steered the SUV in a wide slow circle. “That’s it. We’re heading back.”

“Have we hit them all?” Louis asked.

Gary was quiet, his jaw clenched, eyes trained on the windshield.

“Gary, are there any more camps?”

Gary braked to a hard stop. “Look man, this is nuts. You realize what the chances are of finding anyone out here? Fuck, you’re not even sure Katy is really missing.”

“I know she is.”

“How? You don’t even know the woman. You don’t know what she’s like. She just does this sometimes.”

Louis stared at him. “What do you mean?”

Gary’s face was red and he was gripping the steering wheel hard. He looked away and shook his head. “Katy and me, we used to be together,” he said slowly. “But it got too hard, you know? It was always work with her, always the damn cats. She’d like disappear on me. I wouldn’t hear from her for days and then she’d come back saying she was out hunting down a cat or nursing a sick cub or going to some school or to talk to a damn politician.”

Katy and Gary? Yeah, it seemed odd. But only on the surface. They both loved the same thing — this awful desolate beautiful place.

Gary finally looked at Louis. “I loved her but there was never any room for me. It just got too damn hard.”

He looked away, jerking the SUV into gear. They rode in silence for a long time. Louis realized they were not heading west back toward Alligator Alley, that they were still going south. The brush was getting heavier, the terrain changing from prairie to swampland.

“I thought we were going back to Fort Myers,” Louis said.

“There used to be two abandoned camps northwest of Copeland,” Gary said. “I don’t know if they’re still there but we might as well check them out.”

Copeland. Louis remembered the place. It was a forlorn little town on the edge of the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve. He and Joe had chased a kidnapper out into the swamp. The man had almost killed Louis before Joe shot him.

Her job had always come first, too. It was why she was now sixteen hundred miles away in Michigan. It was partly why they had split up last Christmas.

He was deep in thought and it took him a moment to realize the SUV had slowed. Gary was leaning forward peering into the thick stand of cypress trees ahead as they inched forward.

“I thought I saw something move,” Gary said.

Louis sat up straighter, his eyes straining into the dusk. Then he saw it — a faint quiver of white light. It was there and then it was gone, like a firefly moving through the trees.

“A flashlight?” Louis asked.

Gary braked. “A lantern most likely.”

He shut off the engine. The quiet rushed in, followed by the soft sounds of the coming night — frogs and crickets.

“We’d better walk from here,” Gary said.

Gary reached in the back and pulled out rifle and a flashlight, sticking the flashlight in his hunter’s vest. Louis slid out of the SUV, landing ankle-deep in warm water. He pulled out his Glock and followed Gary.

The outline of a shack materialized out of the gloom. It was constructed of weathered wood with a corrugated metal roof, its two windows boarded up. Louis couldn’t see a door; they must have approached from the back. A broken picnic table sat in the high weeds next to two rusted oil drums. In the swampy ground, Louis couldn’t make out any tracks. There was no sign of a vehicle, no lights, no sounds. No signs of any life.

“Shit,” Gary whispered at his side. “I could have sworn I saw something.”

“I saw it, too,” Louis said, his Glock trained on the shack’s windows. “Let’s check the front. You go left, I’ll take the right,” Louis said.

He crept up to the shack, flattening himself against the wall. He started slowly toward the front of shack.

A sudden pop!

He knew that sound. A silencer.

“Fuck! I’m hit!”

Gary. Somewhere to his left in the darkness.

A crashing noise, like someone running through brush.

“Gary!” Louis yelled.

A soft moan. Louis headed toward it.

In the darkness, he almost tripped over Gary’s body. Louis dropped to one knee. Gary was lying on his side in the mud, writhing.