“It looks like she’s in the Crow’s Nest community,” said Croix.
Angelina hit the gas to pass, scanning the roadsides for police. One more speeding ticket and she’d have to buy a bike. She shuddered at the thought of showing up everywhere sweaty.
She checked her watch again. If it were July she wouldn’t worry about missing the bridge opening, but thanks to it being January, seasonal traffic stretched far ahead of her.
Angelina zipped in front of a landscaping truck and crested the bridge with time to spare.
“Where now?” she asked.
“Next right. Oh, shoot.”
“What is it?”
“Crow’s Nest is gated, isn’t it?”
“No worries.”
They pulled to the Crow’s Nest gate and Angelina handed her license to the man at the booth, rattling off the name and address of a community resident she’d once met at a party. They’d dated on-and-off for a few months.
The man handed back her license without looking at it.
“How you doin’ today, Miss Angelina?”
“I’m good, Joseph. How’s your boy?”
The attendant smiled. “He’s real good. Thanks for askin’.”
Angelina tucked her license back into her small black purse and rolled under the rising gate arm.
Croix looked at her. “Do you know everyone?”
“Yes. Where now?”
The girl returned her attention to her phone. “She’s still here. Make a right.”
Angelina turned and they approached a large Miami-modern mansion tucked at the end of a cul-de-sac.
“Stop here. She’s here.”
Angelina hit the brakes so suddenly Harley rolled forward. Croix caught the dog before she tumbled off her lap.
“I can’t believe this worked,” said Angelina.
“Me neither.”
They exited the car and Angelia retrieved Harley before heading up the walkway toward the home’s door.
“Not there, over here.” Croix pointed to the left where well-manicured grass ended at a low bronze fence. Beyond the barrier, an empty lot of scrub bushes and trees stretched for as far as Angelina could see.
She looked down at her Louboutins. She’d just bought them from the high-end consignment shop up the road. The rough terrain would eat her heel leather, and worse, in Florida, anything could be lurking in the grass.
“I can’t walk through there in these heels.”
Without hesitation, Croix moved to the fence, flush with the fearlessness of youth. She climbed over the fence as if she’d spent her life teaching inmates how to escape from honor-system prisons.
Croix studied her phone, took a few steps into the forest and stopped.
“What is it?” asked Angelina.
“According to the tracker, she should be standing three feet in front of me.”
“Well, is she?”
Croix looked back at Angelina, clearly exasperated.
“No.”
“Maybe she’s behind that tree?”
Croix pointed at the skinny palm in front of her. “How thin is this chick?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s been on Weight Watchers since she left. Just go look.”
Croix took a few steps forward. Through the fence, Angelina spotted something move on the ground near the girl’s feet.
“Snake!”
Croix jumped at the shriek and then stood with her hand on her chest, staring daggers at Angelina.
“Over there,” Angelina added, pointing.
Croix squatted to inspect something on the ground.
“I’m not sucking out the poison. It will ruin my lipstick,” said Angelina.
“It’s not a snake, freakshow.”
“What is it? Is it the drone?”
“A gopher tortoise.”
Angelina frowned. A tortoise wasn’t useful. It wasn’t even as exciting as a snake.
Croix lunged forward, disappearing behind a weedy bush.
Angelina shifted Harley to her other arm. “Careful. It’ll bite you.”
“They don’t bite,” answered Croix, grunting somewhere in the underbrush.
“Isn’t it illegal to touch them?”
Croix reappeared, studying something pinched between her fingers. “Yes. But not because they bite. Because they’re endangered.”
Angelina strained for a better view. “What’s that?”
“The tracker. It was on the tortoise.”
Angelina retracted her neck, scowling. “You’re telling me you shot a flying turtle?”
“It’s a tortoise.”
“Okay, Jacque Cousteau, just tell me—”
Croix folded the tiny tracker in her hand and mounted the fence. “Why would Jacque Cousteau track a land tortoise? He’s the ocean guy.”
“Whatever. Just tell me how you shot a turtle from the roof.”
Croix dropped to the ground and displayed the tracker in the center of her palm for Angelina to see. “I didn’t shoot the turtle. I shot a drone. She stuck it to the turtle.”
“Tortoise,” corrected Angelina with a smirk, suffering a flash of jealousy over how easily the girl had hopped over a fence in flip-flops.
Croix tucked the tracker into her shorts’ pocket. “You really don’t pay me enough.”
Angelina sighed. It seemed Shee hadn’t lost her sense of humor.
This had to be her, didn’t it?
“Maybe the tracker dropped and the turtle rolled on it,” she mused.
Croix peered at her from beneath a lowered brow. “I think they spend a big part of their life trying not to roll. It’s kind of a thing with them.”
“Tortoise. Maybe this one practices yoga—”
“No. She’s messing with us. It was right in the center, top of the shell. She knew exactly what she was doing. Why am I not surprised Mick’s daughter is a smartass?”
Angelina frowned. “Now how are we going to find her?”
The girl thought for a moment. “She must have seen Mick—wouldn’t that make her come to us?”
Angelina pulled her ruby lips into a tight knot. “You’d think so.”
&&&
Chapter Eight
Commander Mason Connelly lay on his back staring at a nail pop in the ceiling. His right leg ached and he wiggled his toes to release the strange pressure in his calf. It didn’t occur him until a moment later that he had no toes to wiggle at the end of that leg.
No toes, no foot, no ankle, no shin.
Kept the knee though.
Lucky, lucky me.
He closed his eyes and pictured himself
