Doranna Durgin - Survival Instinct

He winced. “I would have used different words, thanks. And the offer of the safe house is open regardless-I’m the one who got you into this mess. I’m not going to leave you hanging.”

She chewed another piece of her sublime concoction, but this time she didn’t really taste it. “How about, if it wasn’t for me, Ellen might have stopped this guy a year ago. Maybe I owe her this. Maybe I owe it to Rashawn and all the others who are still in danger. Maybe I just care.” Maybe I owe it to who I was as a child, needing my own rescue. But she didn’t say that one out loud. She waited for him to digest her words and said, still bitter, “Guess you never thought of that.”

He didn’t respond right away. Then he shook his head. “Caring,” he said distinctly, “is a lot different than actually putting yourself on the line.”

She snorted. A nice emphatic noise, not meant for the breakfast table in the cosy dining nook of the Woodward House. “Hey,” she said. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to walk that line. This guy is ripe for the scam, and in the end I don’t even have to pull it off.”

“And how many times in the course of your…career…have you been investigating and poking around in well-protected places where you don’t belong? It’s not the same, Karin.”

“And it’s not so different.” Okay, she wasn’t so sure of that. She was just mad. First the insult for who she was…and then to imply she wasn’t even good at it? “This started out as a tasty little breakfast,” she told him, and pulled back her melon bowl. “Get your own.”

He was silent, one of those moments at which he seemed to be so good. He said, “I didn’t mean to turn this conversation into this conversation. I just need to understand.”

Still grumpy, thank you very much. “And if you’ve listened, then you do.” But he wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking about it all, and she was ready enough to move on. “Here’s what I don’t understand-none of the others were found.”

Not a new thought to him. He tipped his head in affirmation. “Only Rashawn.”

“So Longsfo-” She broke off, glanced around and decided not to finish the name out loud. “He’s really spooked, then. He wasn’t done…or ready. He got sloppy. Now’s the time, Dave. Now’s exactly the time.”

He regarded her with skepticism. “When he’s all stirred up and unhappy?”

“Yes.” She leaned forward, pushing her plate aside. “Think of who he is. What he is. You’ve worked with enough profilers, right? Well, profiling is just a fancy name for assessing your mark. I bet your people have said he’s taking these boys-building some kind of strange relationship with them-to create a situation where he’s in complete control. Over his young self-that’s the boy-and even his mother. Don’t even try to tell me she’s not overbearing.”

Bemused, Dave admitted, “She’s a strong woman.”

“She’d have to be, to reach the Senate. So he’s creating situations in which he has complete control. When the rush grows old, then the relationship changes…it escalates. The boys are molested, killed and discarded. But this time, he lost control. He wasn’t able to complete his little ritual. He must be furious and confused. So here I come, offering him a way to make money and build face at the same time. To regain control. He’s going to grab it.”

Dave drummed his fingers on the table. He checked around the room-no one was paying attention to them now. “You’re not so bad at this profiling thing.”

She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms in a dare-you gesture. “I’m a people watcher.”

She saw it instantly; he wasn’t going to take that dare. The subject of her past was, for the moment, closed. “What I’d like to know,” he said, “is how you’re going to layer in this extra irresistible face-building opportunity.”

Karin was suddenly hungry again. She pulled the plate over, stabbing up a chunk of toast and apples. “Okay,” she said, hesitating with the fork halfway to her mouth. “But I get to finish this first. I’ll tell you on the way to the thrift store.”

“To-” Dave started, but stopped himself to cover his face and emit a reluctant groan. “This is going to be a nightmare, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Karin said cheerfully. “I’m looking forward to it.” And she tackled her breakfast with renewed anticipation.

Dave walked away from the tiny thrift store with beat-up black jeans, a variety of tight, dark T-shirts and a stonewashed denim jacket with enough styling to give it interest if not class. His gratitude when she declared them ready for checkout was short-lived, for then she declared her intention to drag him into the Fairfax Fair Oaks Mall-and after an hour on the road, she did just that.

The Polo suit fit him right off the Macy’s rack. She frowned at the price tag-normally a scam this big would pay for itself, but this one would never get that far-and smoothed the fit of the material over his shoulders. “I hope you need a new suit.”

“Your farm took care of my last one,” he said. “Now talk. Details, I mean.”

He’d been patient at that, and she didn’t hesitate. “Simple,” she said. “There’s some land in Florida, owned by developers. Let’s call it Ranchwood Acres.”

“Florida? You must be kidding.”

She grinned. “That’s the beauty of it. I’m not. It’s an actual property in Palm Beach County-truly gorgeous-but it’s surrounded by swampland. Perfectly usable, if you don’t mind mosquitoes the size of pterodactyls or boating in and out during heavy rains. Five hundred acres, cypress trees, sweet gum, slash pine, palmetto…can’t get any greener than that.”

He looked at her askance and unbuttoned the three suit buttons, checking the fit of the low-rise slacks. “When did you check this out?”

“Just old habits,” she told him. Not to mention the need to keep an eye on what might be of interest to Rumsey. “And trust me. The pants fit perfectly.” Trust me, it turned out, weren’t the best words she could have used. But she ignored his expression and said, “It’s a million-dollar parcel. And the Florida Conservation Coalition is itching to get their hands on it to establish more territory for the Florida panther.”

He slipped out of the jacket and vest, then headed for the changing room. Karin, jacket and vest slung over her arm, followed him right up to the open entranceway.

“I’m not getting it yet,” he said from the changing booth. Keys and change jingled in his jeans pockets as he pulled the pants up, snapped, and zipped.

“I’m the roper,” she said. “I approach our guy with this deal, playing middleman for the development company that hasn’t been able to unload it. They’re tired of the bugs, the snakes, the gators. So they-meaning I-present it in a single parcel for less than the valued price of the combined individual parcels, but at a decent profit for our developers. Once Longsford’s got the property, he can sell off lots of small parcels at actual market price to recoup his investment, and then sell the rest of it to the coalition cheap. Guaranteed buyers. He more than makes his money back, and he gets great PR points while thumbing his nose at the development company.”

“How’s that?” Dave emerged, now wearing his newly acquired denim jacket and the black jeans. It seemed to Karin that he handed over the suit pants with some regret. Definitely not a boy used to dressing down on the job.

“The developers-and this is for real-have been refusing to deal with the coalition for years. They’re all full of manifest destiny, and anything else that might want to live in that area-the panthers, the Indians, the snakes-is unfortunate inconvenience. So our guy gets his profit, gets his conservationist karma, and shows the developers that he makes his own decisions. Which, as we’ve established, is important to Longsford.”