Jana DeLeon - The Awakening

He gazed back across the pond and jammed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Well, I guess we’re going to find out if the legends are real.”

Josie stared at him. “So you believe me?”

“I believe you saw what you saw, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But you don’t think it’s a swamp monster.”

“I don’t have to think it’s anything. I just have to track it down and stop it from vandalizing your property.”

He turned and started off down the bank around the perimeter of the pond. She stared after him, trying to squelch the growing frustration she felt over the entire situation. He was humoring her.

Fine by her.

If he was as good a tracker as he claimed, then he should have no problem finding the vandal. Then everyone who thought she was a frightened drama queen could kiss her skinny butt.

Starting with Tanner LeDoux.

Josie put her hands on her hips and glared at the plantation foreman, Emmett Vernon. The man had worked for her father since he was a boy—over forty years—but he wasn’t going to make it to retirement if he kept up with his current attitude.

“I don’t understand your problem, Emmett,” she said. “The detective will take a big weight off our shoulders so that we can go back to the jobs we need to be concentrating on.”

Emmett took a gulp from his water bottle, swished it around in his mouth and spit it into the hedges near the front entrance of the house. She struggled to keep her cool. He knew she couldn’t stand his filthy habits, and she would swear he did it on purpose to aggravate her.

“You mean the business of turning your daddy’s life’s work into a hotel for snooty people?”

“How many times have I told you I don’t have a choice?”

“Yeah, right. You were gone for years prancing on that runway in France. You mean to tell me you didn’t get paid?”

“My financial situation is none of your business. You get your paycheck every week. I’m telling you to do your job to earn it.”

Emmett narrowed his eyes at her. “You saying I’m slacking?”

She drew herself up straight, not about to back down from him again. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Half the time, I can’t find you when I need you and neither can the work crew. You’re supposed to be managing the work on this plantation. Right now that work is in the swamp and that’s where I expect you to be, along with the crew.”

“You want me to stand around watching people work?”

“No, I want you to pick up a post and help. Like it or not, the days of you standing around spitting are over.”

The man glared at her, then spun around and stalked across the lawn to the barn. She let out a sigh and leaned back against one of the huge columns that stretched across the front porch of the house.

“Problems?”

Tanner’s voice sounded from the doorway of the house and she jumped. She’d left him inside earlier to have a sandwich and make some phone calls to Wildlife and Fisheries and see if he could get them to move faster on testing the blood she’d found at one of the work sites. She hadn’t even heard him open the door. Now she wondered how much of the conversation he’d overheard.

“Nothing outside of the norm, lately,” she finally said.

“Is your foreman always so rude to you?”

She frowned. “No, but ever since I went from boss’s daughter to boss, his attitude has gone downhill.”

“You think he could be the vandal?”

“No! I don’t … Oh, wow….”

He sighed. “It hadn’t occurred to you yet. I’m sorry I sprang it on you that way.”

She shook her head. “You’re just doing your job. And no, it hadn’t occurred to me, but I don’t think it’s him. I can see where it would look that way, but I can’t bring myself to believe Emmett would betray my father’s trust that way, even though he’s dead.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to believe it. I’m going to get proof, but I have to tell you, Emmett’s a good place to start. I’ll need to know everything you know about the man, and the rest of the crew, for that matter.”

“Of course. I have personnel files for all of the crew. I’m afraid that’s about the extent of my knowledge of them, but Emmett has been here since before I was born. I can probably tell you anything you need to know about him.”

“Except where he disappears to during the day?”

She blew out a breath. “Yeah, except that.”

He nodded. “If you’ll show me to my room, I’d like to unpack and start on those personnel files tonight.”

“Your room?”

“There’s no hotel in town and I’d rather be on-site until I figure this out. You’re turning it into a B-and-B, right? So I figure you have rooms.”

She couldn’t think of a single good reason to tell him no—at least not one she could openly state without looking like a fool. But the thought of Tanner sleeping under the same roof sent her body tingling in places it had no right to tingle in.

Unfortunately, his idea made perfect sense.

“Sure. I have two rooms ready on the second floor. One on the north side and one on the south. You can have your choice.”

He nodded. “Where is your room located?”

She felt a blush creep up her face. “On the second floor, north side.”

“Then I’ll take the north-side room.”

Her mouth dropped just a bit and she held it there for a couple of seconds, unable to close it or speak. Finally, she said, “You don’t think I’m in danger, do you?”

“Until I can figure out who or what is doing this and their motive, I don’t want to discount any possibilities. If a man is vandalizing your property, then it’s personal, and that’s something I want to explore with you tomorrow. If he doesn’t get you to take whatever action he thinks he’s going to cause, he may escalate. Hiring me may inspire him to escalate more quickly.”

A flood of scenarios that she’d never considered washed through her mind. Locked up in her home with the sexiest man she’d seen in forever or alone with a potential madman or mythical creature on the loose.

She wasn’t sure which was more frightening.

TANNER ROSE FROM THE small desk that held a stack of personnel files and peered out the bedroom window into the dimly lit courtyard behind the sprawling mansion. On the surface, everything appeared so peaceful, so normal, but he knew something was off balance. He’d felt it in the swamp. Something malevolent was at work below the surface at the plantation.

The personnel files had given him no indication of the problem. The men in the crew were from the area, and Tanner hadn’t found anything suspect on them or Emmett Vernon. Tanner had heard Josie talking to someone out front, but he hadn’t gone to investigate until he’d heard her voice rise and could make out her accusation that Vernon was slacking. Josie had looked startled when he spoke, and now he wondered what had been said that he missed.

Whatever it was, she wasn’t repeating it. Sure, she’d given him some information, but he hadn’t mistaken that flash of fear when she’d realized he was behind her. Whatever had transpired between her and the surly foreman, she didn’t want Tanner to know it all.

He sighed. This was so much more complicated than Holt and Max had made it look. In only two months, they’d already solved several cases the police had deemed not viable. At the rate his level of confusion was rising, Tanner seriously doubted he could contribute even a quarter of the success to the agency that his brothers did.

His cell phone rang and he wondered who in the world was calling him this late. Then he saw the number for Wildlife and Fisheries and knew it was his buddy Tommy. Tanner was convinced the man never slept and lived at the office.