'Steve. .'
'Calm down.'
Five minutes later, Victoria pulled some cotton sweats from a drawer, but sticky with sweat, she decided to clean up before dressing. She slipped out of the camisole and padded into the bathroom, nearly tripping over a halter sandal she'd left on the floor by the sink.
She opened the shower door and turned on the water, hotter than usual, the steam rising like a cleansing cloud. Once inside, she let the water stream over her body.
Or half Junior, half Steve. A Minotaur of a dream lover. If dreams represent repressed desires, as she had learned in Psychology 101, just which man did she desire?
She grabbed the soap and lathered up, pondering the question.
Suddenly, something grabbed her bare leg.
It tightened on her calf and circled higher, gripping her knee.
She screamed, the sound echoing off the tile, the loudest sound she had ever made. Thick as her wrist, the snake coiled around her thigh. Its head solid black. Stripes of yellow, red, and black along its five-foot length.
Slithering up her leg, tongue flicking in and out.
She screamed again.
She shot a hand out and grabbed the snake near its head. Tugged at it, tried to pull it off her leg. The damn thing was impossibly strong. She braced a foot against the shower wall, yanked as hard as she could. The snake flew off her leg and coiled around her arm, its tail flapping in the air. She shook her arm, but the snake stayed put, opening its mouth to an impossible dimension. Wide enough to swallow an orange. Fangs showing, the head darted toward Victoria's face. She jerked sideways, slipped on the wet tile, and crashed through the shower door, falling to the floor.
Her hip took the fall, and pain shot down a leg. The snake flew off her arm, slid across the tile, and coiled in front of the bathroom door. Blocking her exit. The reptile's head bobbed, left to right and back again, tongue flicking, daring her to move.
Naked. Wet. Hip throbbing. Afraid. Victoria stayed on the soapy floor, her eyes searching for a weapon. What was there? A bar of soap? A towel? A tiny bottle of perfume.
She'd nearly tripped over it. An ankle-strapped, halter sandal with fuschia pom-poms. One of the Manolo Blahniks filched by a client. Nothing more than flimsy scraps of leather, weighing a few ounces. What she needed was a work boot with steel toes.
But look at the heel. A solid three inches. You could pound nails with it. The shoe was three feet away, halfway between her and the damned serpent.
The snake's head swung back and forth, seeming to size up the space between them. Then lowering itself to the floor, the snake slithered toward her.
'Princess! Princess! Are you all right?'
Her mother's voice. From the bedroom. She must have come through the connecting door. The snake stopped. It turned its head toward the sound.
Victoria's hand flew out, grabbed the sandal, swung as hard as she could. The heel caught the top of the snake's snout, pierced its hide, and slammed it to the tile. The snake coiled and shook its entire body, the sandal staying put.
'Princess! Are you in there?' Her mother getting closer.
'Stay out!' Victoria commanded, scrambling to her feet.
On the floor, the snake writhed, and the sandal tore loose. Victoria grabbed the tail and cracked the snake like a bullwhip. There was the
'Princess! What's happening? Why'd you scream?'
The Queen came through the doorway. She'd taken the time to put on a swirling white silk gown and fluffy slippers. A beauty mask was propped on top of her head.
'Omigod!' Her mother shrank back, keeping her distance from the snake. 'Those red stripes. Coral snake?'
Victoria sank to the cold tile floor, trembling. 'Yeah, I think so.'
'Are you all right?'
'I fell pretty hard, but I'm fine.' Victoria rubbed her hip; there'd be a bruise within hours.
'Thank God. I should get some ice-'
'It's okay, Mom. Don't worry about me.'
'Not for you. For the snake.'
Oh. Her mother thinking more clearly than she was. 'For evidence. That's a good idea, Mother.'
'Evidence? What evidence? I've got a craftsman in Miami who can make a killer handbag out of that beauty.'
Twenty minutes later, her mother had gone back to sleep and Victoria had changed into pink cotton sweats and sneakers. Outside, Monroe County deputies roamed the pool deck and parking lot. Inside the hotel suite, Sheriff Willis Rask stood astride the dead reptile and hefted Victoria's fuschia pom-pom sandal.
'You killed that monster with this little-bitty thing?' The sheriff wore a quizzical look.
Victoria shrugged.
When Steve arrived from the houseboat, he hugged her tightly and expressed all the right concerns, saying if he caught whoever did this, he'd pulverize the guy. Break every bone in his body, starting with his knees. Rask told Steve to chill out, then asked Victoria to tell him everything that had happened that night. She did as instructed, skipping the nude-coed-in-turquoisewater dream.
'Snake in a shower's a new one on me,' Rask admitted. 'Saw a toilet filled with mud puppies and scrub lizards once. Men's room at Charlie Harper's Arco on Tortuga Drive. Molly Alter's boy dumped the poor creatures there after Charlie caught him stealing cans of tire glue. Boy was a sniffer.'
'Lizards and mud puppies won't bite you,' Steve said.
'Maybe not, but if one licks your butt, you might trip over your own drawers and bang your head on the wall. Happened to Charlie.'
Victoria pointed a sneakered toe at the carcass. 'That's not a mud puppy, Sheriff. It's a coral snake. Someone tried to kill me.'
'Maybe. Maybe not,' Rask mused.
A little too mellow for Victoria's taste. The sheriff carried the scent of cannabis with him. Either Rask had just captured a freighter stuffed with marijuana or he'd smoked a joint on the drive over.
'Willis, I gotta agree with Vic,' Steve said. 'Whoever broke in planted the snake in the bathroom.'
'Most likely true,' Rask agreed, 'but Ms. Lord could have gotten to the hospital in ten minutes. Plenty of time, and they're damn good with snakebites. If a local did this, he'd know that.'
'What are you saying, Sheriff?' Victoria demanded. 'This was just a practical joke? Like lizards in the toilet?'
'Ever see a baby gator bite a woman in the ass?' Rask asked.
A breathtaking non sequitur, Victoria thought. Weed will do that.
'Trailer park on Stock Island.' Rask nodded at the memory. 'Woman gets in the bathtub, plans to soak a while, file down her corns. Her husband neglected to mention he'd caught a baby gator that morning. Don't know if he planned to eat it or raise it. Woman's ass took thirty stitches, as I recall.'
'Sheriff, someone ran Steve off a bridge. Now someone puts a poisonous snake in my shower. You don't see a pattern here?'
'Pattern, yes. Attempted murder, no. Like I told Steve before, if someone wanted to kill him, they wouldn't
