Karen Harper - Shallow Grave

She heard a rumbling roar, but where did it come from? She was certain she had seen the tiger kill someone already. Why did Mother always have to read them books for adults when they were little? Some were scary and hard to understand. Why did she bury herself in books after Daddy left? Their parents had let her and Darcy down. Now that dead man in the cage had let his wife and children down.

But Claire loved to read to Lexi too, so maybe she was like her mother. She wanted to hide so she and her family would not be hurt anymore. They had almost been killed by a human predator, Nick’s enemy. Mother was at the end of the story, and Claire had to choose which door. She pointed toward one. At first, she was sure that Nick would come out to help her. Maybe Jace was behind the other one. Trial by ordeal...

But no—in the darkness outside their house a big cat crossed in front of her and turned toward her with burning eyes. It had clawed a man and there was blood, but then it leaped at her and she screamed...

“Claire. Claire, sweetheart, you’re having one of those dreams.” Nick’s voice. Was he behind the other door? “You cried out and screamed.”

Nick holding her. In their bed. Dizzy. Crazy. Was this real?

“A t-t-tiger...” she stammered in a whisper.

“Yes, I can see why you’d be dreaming of a tiger, but it’s not real. You were just having a narcoleptic nightmare. You’re here with me. You’re safe. Maybe you’d better go back on your regular meds, not try to get by on those herbal teas.”

“I just got off the timing today, with everything that happened.”

He sat up with his back against the headboard, pulled her to him and held her tighter with his chin on the top of her head as she nestled against him, her face pressed to his warm neck.

“Then for sure we’re not getting involved in this,” he said. “We’ll take the flowers and food to Brittany and her mother tomorrow, but I’ll pass the case on to someone else at the firm, if they still need help.”

Her head began to clear. The image of the animal, the fear began to fade. Yes, they were in their bedroom. She could see the wan glow of the nightlight from their bathroom. Safe here. Safe in their new home. Still, she held on to Nick even tighter.

In a stronger voice she told him, “But if Brittany and Ann still need help, especially if there’s a question of whether it was suicide, that’s what you do, give help. And me too. I help you.”

He kissed her damp forehead and smoothed her tousled hair back from her face. “You do help me. You—Lexi too—are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I will protect you both with my life. The new little one too,” he added, and his voice broke as he put a gentle hand on her rounded belly.

Her head was clearer now. Clear enough to know that, despite her horrid dream, Brittany and Ann were the ones in a cage and they had to help them.

* * *

Sunday afternoon, while Jace took Lexi to the stables for a riding lesson on her beloved pony Scout, Claire and Nick took a basket of gourmet food and a big bouquet of flowers in a vase to the Hoffmans. They had called their house, but when they heard they were at the BAA, decided to go to see them there. Brittany said the gawkers and media were gone now. Claire told her they didn’t plan to stay long.

“I’ve heard that Trophy Ranch just beyond is huge,” Claire observed as they drove for several miles on the narrow dirt road toward the BAA, a speck in the edge of Everglades land.

“Grant said it goes deeper back than what appears along the road, with hundreds of primitive acres. He said it has cabins for hunters to stay in, a lodge and lots of terrain to hunt. I think they guarantee all kinds of kills for big money there. That reminds me, I want to see Grant soon. It’s in the back of my mind that he said something about wanting to buy up the surrounding land, that the orchard owners might sell, but the Hoffmans never would.”

“Sorry for suspecting anyone and everyone right now,” she told Nick, “but that could mean Stan Helter is not such a good neighbor. Like maybe he wants their few acres, but they’ve refused to sell. Maybe he put pressure on them, maybe had words with Ben Hoffman or even Brittany. His voice had a tinge of disdain and anger in it when he referred to her as the beast-loving blonde. You said he was a womanizer. Maybe he came on to her, and she turned him down.”

“Sweetheart, don’t get carried away with fiction. Let’s avoid the ‘maybes’ unless we have to. We don’t need more nightmares, asleep or awake. I think we decided last night that I’d pass this case on to a colleague if it gets sticky.”

“But we agreed that you help people, and I help you.”

He sighed and nodded as they turned into the now nearly deserted BAA parking lot. A big Lexus sat there with a Going for Baroque decal on the back window and a bumper sticker that read STRINGS ATTACHED.

“I’m not a betting man, but I’d say Lane Hoffman’s here,” Nick said.

But they also saw hand-printed signs at the entrance to the lot and the gate that read TEMPORARILY CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Someone had also tacked a piece of paper to the entry gate that read RIP, Benjamin Hoffman. And another—Claire swore it looked like Jace’s handwriting, quite large, that read Semper Fi!

As they approached the closed gate—Brittany had told them to knock and Jackson would let them in—their gazes snagged. Claire tilted her head. “I hear a violin. Lively music.”

“Maybe Lane’s playing to lift their spirits.”

“I wish he’d lift ours.”

Jackson let them in, still shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. A frown made his dark face sag. “Don’t make a bit of sense,” he told them. “Sure, Ben had problems like all of us, but to be off enough to do something like that? No way. ’Preciate it if you can help out Miz Brittany and Miz Ann,” he told Nick, shifting his head shakes to nods. “Now, Lane, like you can hear, he got his own way of dealing with things.”

With a nod toward the music, Jackson locked the gate behind them and headed quickly away, soon lost to their view in the foliage behind the now empty ticket office.

“I suppose in a way it was best that neither Ann nor Jackson saw it happen,” Claire said, taking Nick’s hand. “Remember, Brittany said Jackson and Ben were friends from way back. It was bad enough for Brittany to see her father attacked just before we got to the cage.”

They found Ann Hoffman standing in the petting zoo, stroking a small, nervous ostrich, which had a collar around its long neck. The violinist—likely Lane—seemed lost in his own music and didn’t seem to see them at first, even when Ann nodded and gestured them over. At least the new widow was calm now, though she looked ravaged and haunted. Maybe the music and the animals would help her. Brittany was not in sight.

Claire jumped when the violin screeched out a sound that was a hee-haw, then one she was certain was a roar. Lane lifted his violin, then swept it down to his side and made a flourish with the bow.

Lane Hoffman looked the part of a musician, Claire thought, though she instantly regretted her stereotyping. He wore his blond hair to his neckline and straight; it shifted when he played with such emotion. He had a light brown, perfectly clipped beard. Unlike many Floridians, he had pale skin. He was not really thin, but seemed, well, graceful for a man, or was that just the effect of the music on her?

“I heard you were coming and that you helped yesterday,” he said. “The family appreciates it. You know, this was the most apropos piece I could think of, The Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saëns.”

“Glad to meet you,” Claire said, and Nick echoed that, though Lane began to play again with a mere nod. “As you can see, we come bearing gifts,” she told Ann.