High Tide Read Free Page A

his responsibility. For a moment he glanced up at the plane passengers that were now surrounding them. They were silent, tired after their flight from New York, or maybe they were just awed at seeing what they had hoped to see on their trip to Florida. Whatever, they were just standing there watching this free show while suitcases went unnoticed, round and round on the carousel.
    â€œOkay, so let’s get him back in his box,” Ace said. “Tim, you get the tail, and I’ll get the head.”
    For a moment, Ace hesitated as he tried to figure out how best to get a grip on the beast. In the next second he inserted his hand, then his arm up to his armpit down the alligator’s mouth. When a collective
“Ooooh”
went up from the watching crowd, he smiled. This was going to work, he thought. Over on the other side of the state, Disney was making a fortune with his fake animals, while farms here in Fort Lauderdale were barely able to feed their 450-pound ’gators. And getting ma, pa, and the kids to want to go see a flock of flamingos was a losing proposition—and he had the empty bank account to prove it.
    As Ace and Tim were putting the giant fiberglass alligator back into the box, neither of them saw the inquisitive toddler slip between the suitcases and pick up the remote control that Ace had carefully set on top of his toolbox. The little boy, at eighteen months, just loved to push buttons.

    â€œBloody hell,” Fiona muttered as she disembarked the plane. She’d had a couple of hangovers in her life, mostly while in college, but nothing like this. Not only did her head hurt, but she could feel even the tiny bones in her ankles. She’d fallen asleep on the plane, and the attendant had had to wake her, which made her the last one off the plane.
    Dragging her backpack on over her shoulder sent more pain through her. She and the rest of The Five, as they’d dubbed themselves as kids, had stayed out until two A.M. , laughing riotously over everything in their lives, but most especially over Fiona’s having to go on a
fishing
trip.
    â€œYou?” Jean had said. “I can’t imagine you more than two miles from a manicurist.” Jean was a sculptor and her hands always looked scraped and worn. But all four of the women knew that Jean didn’t need to do anything to make a living; she had a trust fund.
    As Fiona walked into the airport, the bright light coming through the huge windows made her hide her eyes while she fumbled in her bag for the sunglasses she’d bought at La-Guardia Airport. In New York they’d seemed so dark she could hardly see through them. But now the glare made them seem like clear glass.
    The airport seemed empty as she trudged ahead, heraching head filled with nothing but bad thoughts. How was she going to survive the next three days? Would this man require
her
to clean fish?
    When she stepped onto the escalator leading down to the baggage carousels, the movement almost made her retch. Quickly, she fumbled in her bag for a tissue, then held it to her mouth. Why was she here and what did this man Roy Hudson want with her? And why Florida? And if Florida, why not some nice clean, private beach? Why was he insisting on going into the swamps or whatever to look for—
    Because Fiona had a tissue to her mouth and her eyes closed, she had descended the escalator without seeing the silent, watching crowd at the bottom. But when she stepped off, she nearly fell on top of a man with a paunch and not much hair.
    â€œPardon me,” she said in a voice as husky as her brain was feeling.
    The man looked up at her and his face softened. “Any time,” he said, then stepped aside so she could see what they were all watching.
    Later, Fiona said that she didn’t think, she just
moved
. What she saw—her eyes blinking behind the dark glasses, her mind full of swamps and alligators and the treachery of the state of Florida—was