Escape the Everglades
Author
Caridad Piñeiro
Reads
19.6K
Chapters
29
His son is in danger, and only one investigator and her K-9 helper can rescue him. Two years after his wife's death, ex-marine Carlos Ruiz isn't looking for romance. But then army vet and security expert Natalie Rodriguez and her incredible K-9 walk into his life in the Everglades. Before long, the purely professional relationship turns all too personal, especially once Carlos's little boy goes missing. Now, as they follow the K-9's every lead, uncovering the truth becomes vital to the child's rescue. And to securing their all too precarious future…
Chapter One
The barrage of gunfire stopped him dead in his tracks.
Carlos Ruiz approached his son’s door slowly and peered inside. Lucas slouched in his gaming chair, attention fixed on the video game playing on the monitor.
“Chico, it’s time to go. I’ve got a hit on Schrodinger,” he said but Lucas didn’t budge in his seat. “Lucas, vamanos. It’s too nice a day to spend it in front of the television,” he chided, and his son finally glanced over his shoulder at him.
“But Papi, I just leveled up,” his ten-year-old complained.
In the nearly two years since his mother had died, Lucas had buried his grief by losing himself in the virtual worlds in his video games. Getting his son to do anything else, even play with his old friends, had become a battle, but Carlos wouldn’t give up.
He walked over and stood in front of the TV, blocking his son’s view of the game. “Por favor, Lucas,” he said, hands held out in pleading. For good measure, he used the one guilt-trip he was sure would work. “Schrodinger was your mom’s favorite panther. She’d like to know she’s doing well.”
His son narrowed his gaze and said, “Isn’t that the whole idea with Schrodinger? That the cat is both alive and dead?”
“Sometimes you can be too smart, sabes? Let’s go. We’re expecting rain later this afternoon.” He reached behind him and shut off the television, ending the game, and any further argument, from his son.
With a twist of his lips and roll of his eyes, Lucas dropped the controller and then shot to his feet. “No more tours today, Papi?” he said, a note of worry in his tone.
Carlos shook his head. “Rain’s keeping the tourists away, but all the boats were full this morning. We’re doing fine,” he said to alleviate his son’s concerns. That was another thing that had changed since his wife’s death: Lucas worried about almost everything. The grief counselor he’d taken Lucas to had said that was normal and would pass in time, but so far it hadn’t, which bothered him. No ten-year-old should have such worries.
He laid a comforting hand on his son’s shoulder and matched his stride to Lucas’s shorter one as they walked to the airboat parked at the dock. It was his personal boat that he’d rigged to hold a tablet he could watch as he piloted the boat through the Everglades. The tablet fed him the position of the female panther that had been tagged with a collar equipped with a GPS tracker.
The software had let him know earlier that morning that Schrodinger was in the area and with no afternoon tours, it was as good a time as any to try to see how the panther was doing.
He helped Lucas onto the boat and handed him his life vest and the headset that provided hearing protection as well as a two-way radio and microphone so they could communicate. After Lucas had belted himself into the seat, Carlos unhitched the ropes tethering the airboat to the dock, tossed them onboard and hopped up onto the operator’s platform.
He slipped on his own headset and life vest and secured himself in the driver’s seat, then positioned the tablet for viewing and connected the lanyard to the cutoff switch in case he got ejected. He powered up the engine and took a quick look at the assorted gauges to make sure all was in order. Satisfied, he stepped on the accelerator pedal and slowly navigated the airboat away from the dock. Keeping the boat in the higher water of the canal behind his property, he gradually increased the speed, staying alert for wildlife, hidden dangers like rogue cypress logs or alligators and the position of the panther.
It would take about thirty minutes to reach the panther’s position, but that was only if Schrodinger didn’t move farther back into the upland forests that the panthers favored. Those areas had the dry ground that held more prey for them to hunt and places to breed.
As he drove, he pointed out some of the sights to Lucas. He gestured to a flock of ibises wading in some shallower water. “Check it out, chico. There are even some pink ones.” The birds had resulted from crossbreeding between American white ibises and the South American scarlet ibises introduced into the area.
A sullen grunt was his only response but that didn’t stop Carlos from continuing as they moved toward the panther’s GPS signal. He identified a roseate spoonbill, with its bright pink plumage, protecting a nest of ugly duckling gray babies. Farther along their trip were wood storks, assorted gray and white herons as well as varying kinds of egrets.
He slowed as an alligator swam in front of them. Formerly endangered, alligators had made a big comeback thanks to conservation efforts and the proliferation of private alligator farms that satisfied the needs for gator meat and the hides prized by fashion giants for luggage, belts and other accessories. But the private farms in Florida and nearby Louisiana had created another kind of problem: illegal poaching of alligator eggs. As his gaze scanned the horizon, motion in the distance had him reaching for a pair of binoculars.
Training the binoculars on the activity, he saw another airboat as well as two men rummaging through the wetlands. His gut tightened with fear as he thought about what they might be doing.
“Tighten your belt, Lucas,” he said and pushed the speedboat in the direction of the men. As he neared, he confirmed why they had been traipsing through the sawgrasses. Three large circles of disturbed soil dotted the area. Alligator nests. A fourth nest had been dug up, exposing the fragile eggs that the men were stealing.
He set a pin on the tablet to mark the location of the nests and was about to radio the local Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission wardens when one of the men whipped a rifle out from the hull of their airboat.
“Hang on, Lucas,” he shouted and, heart pounding, he slowed the airboat and sharply pulled the rudder stick to the rear as the first gunshot pinged the safety cage protecting the propellers behind him. As the stern of the boat whipped around, he boosted the engine power, executing the one hundred and eighty degree turn to make their escape as more bullets slammed into the metal of the hull and engine.
“I’m scared, Papi,” Lucas cried over the headset speaker.
“It’s okay, Lucas. We’re going to be okay,” he said, even as his gut tightened with worry about engine damage as he pushed the boat to its top speed. If the engine failed and the poachers attacked again, he had nothing to protect them. Glancing back at the location of the alligator nests, he realized that the poachers were giving chase in their airboat. The alligator eggs were just too valuable. If Carlos warned the FWC about the location of the nests, the poachers wouldn’t have time to dig up that many eggs.
He engaged the radio via his headset and made a distress call, supplying his airboat’s registration number and location and advising on the nature of the emergency.
An FWC warden for the area immediately came on the line. “Carlos, what’s the situation?” Warden Garcia asked.
He peered back at the poachers still speeding in their direction. “Armed poachers are chasing us, and I have no protection. I have Lucas with me, Gemma.”
“We’re on our way, Carlos,” Gemma said and ended the call.
Leaning forward, as if by doing so he could force the airboat to go faster, he glanced back and to his surprise, the poachers’ airboat suddenly peeled away and raced toward deeper water.
He didn’t slow his speed, not wanting to take any chances with his young son in the airboat. Minutes that seemed like hours passed until he reached their dock and killed the engine. He quickly tied up the boat and when he turned, Lucas launched himself at him.
He fought for balance as the airboat rocked and wrapped his arms around his son. “We’re okay, mi’jo. We’re okay,” he urged over and over, trying to calm Lucas.
The FWC’s airboat pulled up to the dock a few minutes later. It was tied up, and the armed wardens hopped off the airboat and rushed over.
“Is Lucas okay?” Warden Garcia asked.
Carlos nodded, let Lucas slip to his feet and placed a reassuring hand on his son’s shoulder. “He’s okay. Scared, but so am I,” he said to calm his son and not make him feel awkward.
Gemma held out a hand and helped Lucas onto the dock. She ruffled the thick waves of his chestnut brown hair and said, “We’re here now. You’ll be fine.”
Lucas smiled uneasily. “Gracias, Warden Gemma.”
“Do you think you can tell us what you saw?” she said and squatted down, so she was eye to eye with his son.
Lucas shrugged. “Two guys were walking around the wetlands. Then they started shooting at us.”
“Can you describe the men? Were they white? Latino? Black?”
Lucas peered up at him and Carlos dipped his head to urge his son to answer. “White. Kind of dirty looking.”
“Dirty looking?” asked Dale Adams, the male FWC warden.
Lucas glanced at him and nodded. Gesturing to his face and motioning as if he was stroking it, he said, “Like beards. Bad ones like my dad had and my mom begged him to shave it off.”
That prompted laughter from both the wardens and lightened the mood, especially since they were safely at home. “That’s exactly how they looked. My wife would have said scruffy,” Carlos explained which made Lucas frown and tense beneath his hand.
“Can I go now, Papi?” his son asked.
Carlos looked toward the two wardens who nodded. “Sure thing, mi’jo. I’ll be at the house in a few minutes.”
Lucas instantly ran off, leaving him alone with the wardens.
“What else can you tell us?” Gemma asked, gaze narrowed as she rose and looked at him.
“They were poaching four large alligator nests. I can give the location so you can check on them. Like Lucas said—white, possibly Latino. About six feet tall. Nice airboat. Pretty new. Poaching must pay well,” he said with a disgusted shake of his head.
“A typical nest would get them over fifteen hundred dollars,” Warden Adams confirmed.
“Four nests would be a nice day’s pay,” Carlos said and blew out a rough sigh.
“And enough to kill for,” Gemma said and laid a warning hand on his arm. “You need to stay clear of that area. Let us handle this.”
He nodded and raised his hands in surrender. “Got it. I’m not about to take any chances. Lucas needs me now that...” His voice trailed off because the wardens were aware of his wife’s untimely passing.
“Like Gemma said, we’ll take care of this. Just send us the location of the nests so we can make sure everything’s in order,” Adams said.
“I appreciate that,” Carlos replied. He shook Adams’s hand and then Gemma’s. She held on to his for longer than necessary and said, “If you need anything, just call.”
Any red-blooded man would likely take up the beautiful warden’s invitation, but they’d made the mistake of going on a date a few months earlier and it hadn’t gone well. It had been too soon after his wife’s death and he clearly wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship.
“Gracias, Gemma. If you don’t mind, I’d like to see to Lucas. He’s probably still scared about what happened,” he said, excusing himself to go check on his son.
But as he entered the house, the familiar sounds of the video game escaped from Lucas’s room. It was like Lucas was escaping into the fantasy world of the program.
Carlos sometimes wished he could escape as well. Escape the pain of his wife’s loss. Escape the burdens of running the business and parenting Lucas alone. And now, escape the fear that had that spot between his shoulders tingling.
He’d always trusted that instinct when he’d been in the Marines, and he wasn’t about to ignore it now. There was something off about what had just happened. The poachers had given up too easily, but he suspected that they weren’t done with the alligator nests or possibly him. He intended to find out what was up and more importantly, he intended to be ready for them if they decided to attack again.
