storm. Tree islands were magnets for lightning bolts, and a metal airboat wasn’t much safer.
“Everybody’s got fresh batteries in their walkie-talkies?” Raven went on. “First-aid kits? Come on, people, look at your checklist.”
Wahoo’s father nudged him and said, “Let’s go grab a snack. Where’s your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Course she isn’t.”
Wahoo hadn’t noticed Tuna slip away from the group. He peered around until he spotted her about fifty yards away, standing by a chain-link security fence that separated the parking lot from the rest of Sickler’s property. Wahoo called out, but she acted as if she didn’t hear him. Once more he called her name, louder, yet she still didn’t turn around.
His father said, “Meet me at the shop. You want orange juice?”
“Sure.”
“Pulp or no pulp?”
“Doesn’t matter, Pop.”
Wahoo was halfway to Tuna when she wheeled from the fence and started running toward him, running so hard that he knew it wasn’t for fun. As she tore past, clutching her tote bag to her chest, her face was a gray mask of fear.
The souvenir shack was so busy selling junk food and stale protein bars to the search teams that at first Sickler didn’t notice him standing in line.
“It’s me again,” the stranger said.
Sickler leveled a granite stare. “What’s up?”
“Well, my daughter Tuna is what’s up.”
“I spoke to the help. Showed ’em her picture.”
“Yeah?”
“They don’t remember any kid like her askin’ to use the phone.”
Sickler hadn’t run across the girl this morning, but he knew she was on the property somewhere. The last thing he needed was for her old man to see her and then the two of them get into it, scrapping like cats and dogs. Somebody might call the cops.
The man asked, “Can we talk private?”
“Now’s not a good time, sport.”
“Just take a minute. Then I’ll be on my way.”
“Sorry.”
The stranger didn’t move from his position in front of the cash register. “I believe you’re lyin’ to me, Slim. I believe my little girl’s round here somewhere.”
Sickler took out the claw hammer. “And I believe you’ve been drinkin’.”
“What makes you say that?”
“ ’Cause you stink of beer. Now git.”
The drunk-smelling man shook his head. “Not till you show me where she’s hidin’.”
“I’ll show you where,” said a voice from behind.
Annoyed, Sickler looked past the drunk and saw the animal wrangler from Derek Badger’s television show.
“In fact, I’ll take you there right now,” the wrangler said to the girl’s father. “We’ll go in my truck.”
“Where’s she at?” the stranger demanded, squinting bloodshot eyes. “Who’re you?”
The wrangler held out his right hand. “Name’s Mickey Cray. What’s yours?”
“Gordon. Jared Gordon,” the man said. His handshake was limp and insincere.
Sickler piped up. “Don’t listen to him, Gordon. He don’t know where your daughter’s at, neither.”
Mickey Cray tilted an eyebrow, hoping Sickler would get the message: Butt out.
“It’s all right,” Mickey assured Tuna’s father. “She’s expecting you.”
Jared Gordon grinned. “How ’bout that?”
Sickler was glad the shop had cleared out. Now it was just the three of them. He was no saint himself, but he didn’t like jerks who beat on their children.
“How’d she get that shiner?” he asked Jared Gordon.
“So you did see her after all!”
“What happened to her eye?”
“I tole you, she’s got the Floyd’s disease. That’s one of the signs-black-and-blue marks on your face.”
“You’re so full of it,” Sickler said.
Mickey cut in: “Come on, Jared. Let’s you and me get in the truck. We got a long drive.”
“Nooooooo thanks.”
“You want to see your daughter, don’t you?”
“I most surely do,” said Tuna’s father, “but I believe you’re lyin’ to me, mister, same as Slim. I believe she’s still here, and I believe the both of you know ’zackly where she’s at.”
That’s when Jared Gordon reached under his grungy Buffalo Bills jersey and whipped out the revolver. “And I do believe you’re gonna lead me to her right this second,” he said, “else somebody’s gonna have a big-time hole in their head.”
It was true that Link’s homemade airboat was the center of his life. It was also true that his life wasn’t very complicated. He lived by himself in a trailer near the tiny town of Copeland on Route 29. His interests were limited to fishing, hunting and tuning his boat’s engine, an old 454 with compression issues.
Link’s mind operated in a simple way, uncluttered by curiosity and ambition. He was mostly comfortable in the Everglades and enjoyed being alone, especially after experiencing such a rough childhood. He wasn’t scared of bears, panthers or alligators, although snakes of all sizes made him skittish. Despite his thuggish appearance he was not a vicious person, but he wasn’t afraid to use his fists. When he did, he usually won.
Few books or magazines could be found in Link’s trailer, for he’d always struggled with reading. He watched plenty of television, although not the nature channels, so he had no appreciation for Derek Badger’s fame. Link had accepted the Expedition Survival! job only because it paid two hundred bucks a day and he got to drive his airboat. So far he hadn’t been impressed by what he’d seen, and he had no plans to start watching the program on Thursday nights. He would stick to cage fights on pay-per-view.
The manhunt for Badger wasn’t Link’s first. Usually the lost parties were amateur airboaters or backpacking tourists who were located within a day or two-sunburned, hungry and freckled with crimson bug bites. Link expected the searchers to find Badger in the same condition, miserable but unharmed. He couldn’t recall the last time anybody had got eaten by a gator or died from a cottonmouth bite.
Of more concern was the fate of his precious airboat, which he’d put together by hand from a kit. He was the only one who’d ever driven the craft, until now. With a guy like Derek at the helm, anything could happen. Fearing that his creation might end up as a crumpled heap of aluminum, Link was a highly motivated searcher.
As the teams gathered at Sickler’s dock to receive their final instructions from Raven Stark, Link fidgeted and paced. He couldn’t wait to get out on the water. Raven had assigned him to ride with a young Miccosukee driver named Bradley Jumper, who was sitting beneath a nearby banyan tree and feasting on a glazed donut.
“Time to go,” Link said.
“Dude, lemme finish my breakfast.”
It seemed to Link that Bradley Jumper didn’t appreciate what was at stake.
“Now!” Link said.
“Chill.”
This wasn’t the response Link had hoped for. Just as he was about to grab Bradley’s long black ponytail and assist him to the dock, the girl named Tuna ran up.
“Help me,” she gasped.
“Okay,” said Link.
She hopped onto Bradley Jumper’s airboat-a twenty-foot swamp-tour special with an eight-bladed turboprop. Link followed her aboard and quickly started the engine.
“Hey!” Bradley protested, spitting donut crumbs.
But Link was already untying the ropes from the pilings. Tuna was joined in the bow by the wrangler’s son,
