Deadly Touch - Heather Graham Page 0,80

He was standing over her.

“Tell us!” he said quietly.

“He, uh, ran into an alligator. Right down there, I think.”

“He’d have had to have been on the hammock,” Nigel said.

“Right. But it looks like there are a few trails through here, a few ways to go,” Andrew said. “Billie, pull her up—”

“Already on it,” Billie said.

He pulled the airboat up on something of a shore, jagged and filled with mangrove roots. Axel helped Raina out.

Titan, barking, leaped out on his own.

They looked around.

Then, slowly, Raina saw something appear before them—no, someone.

Peg-legged Pete.

“This way, I think, quickly. I heard the ruckus from here. I think he’s in trouble now. Serious trouble! Hurry!”

They all ran, Titan bounding on ahead.

They twisted and turned, following the dog and the strange apparition who ran along with him.

Then they found Jordan.

“Oh, my God!” Raina cried.

She’d seen scenes like it in movies.

She’d never expected to see it in real life.

Jordan appeared to be dead—leaned against a tree, caught in the tightening coils of some kind of very large snake.

She went dead still, yelling at Titan to get back. Axel rushed forward with Andrew and Nigel. She wasn’t sure who fired first. She knew they did so very carefully, killing the python while making sure not to hit Jordan.

Billie moved forward, as well. The four men wrested Jordan from the still-powerful weight of the snake.

“Is he alive?”

Her question was barely a whisper. But Axel heard her.

“He’s definitely got some broken bones. I don’t know how much damage. I’ve got a pulse—faint. We’ve got to get him help, quickly.”

Nigel was already on the phone.

“Moving him is dangerous,” Andrew warned.

“Not moving him is deadly,” Axel said. “Help me make a carrier out of our jackets and those branches over there, enough vines to fashion it quickly.”

Raina felt helpless. She stood there, watching. They were swift and efficient.

A makeshift gurney had been created out of the foliage. They carefully got Jordan on to it, and moved as quickly as possible back to the airboat.

Billie put out the report to the other searchers that Jordan had been found.

“I... I didn’t know how to help,” Raina told Axel, shivering by Jordan, careful not to touch him.

“What do you mean?” Axel asked. He took a moment to touch her face gently. “You led us straight to him.”

“Peg-legged Pete—”

“Didn’t know exactly which trail. And if we hadn’t reached him when we did...” He paused and then added grimly, “Constrictors smother their prey. They tighten and tighten until the lungs can get no air. He had a minute or two left at best. You got us down the right trail.”

Raina nodded. She looked back. Peg-legged Pete still stood by the mangrove. She lifted her hand to him and mouthed a thank-you.

She thought the ghost saw her.

Titan barked, whined and laid down by Jordan.

The night became a blur as the airboat sped back to Andrew’s where a helicopter was waiting to bring him to the trauma center.

* * *

Jon Dickson called Axel while they were at the hospital, telling him that he and Kylie had arrived.

Axel brought him up to date on what had happened; Jon and Kylie would head out to the hospital right away.

He had opted to stay. Andrew and Nigel were back out in the Everglades, trying to find any possible clues, no matter how minute they might be.

Titan was with them. They were both aware of the attempted poisoning attack on the dog.

DNA was being processed. The piece of human flesh meant that there was another victim in the case. One they knew nothing about.

Jordan had not regained consciousness. When the doctor finally came out, he was sorry to tell them they’d been forced to put Jordan into a medically induced coma. Between the damage done to his bones and his organs, it was their only chance.

Axel thanked him. Raina stood at his side, anxiously looking at the doctor.

“But he can make it?” she asked.

“No promises, young lady, I’m sorry. But we are damned good here, and I do promise we’ll be doing our best, and we’ll be in contact the minute we can safely wake him.”

Before they left, they met a party of officers, two in plainclothes, two in county uniforms. Nigel was making sure no harm came to their victim while he was in the hospital.

“We can leave, safely,” Axel assured Raina.

“But Jordan,” she whispered.

He understood. The man had been her friend forever. And no, he didn’t believe Jordan was a killer.

But Jordan had known something.

And he hadn’t shared that information. And