woman ten years her junior. There was no coming back after that, and the experience had soured her on men in general.
Hannah’s promise not to explore the caverns was enough for Danni. On this day, after about an hour of swimming in the crystal clear water, which was a constant seventy-two degrees year round, Danni retired to her beach chair to read while Hannah continued to play.
The springs were literally holes in the ground that you had to walk down into, and stairs had been constructed for that purpose. The cedar, the oak, and the pine formed a canopy above so that very little direct sunlight filtered in. Again, it was a Florida the ordinary tourist would never see.
Danni left her book every once in a while and walked over to the springs and looked down on her daughter who was having a ball. She had found a girl her age to play with.
While Danni was sitting in her beach chair reading and relaxing for the first time in months, her cell phone rang.
“Hello.”
“You lost your only witness, didn’t you?” the voice on the other end said.
“Who is this?”
“You know who it is.”
Danni could feel her blood pressure rising. He was getting pretty brave now. “You piece of shit. I’m gonna nail your ass.”
“You shouldn’t leave your daughter in a watering hole where you can’t see her.”
The words took a moment to register. Danni threw the cell phone down and raced for the water, not knowing what to expect. Was that son of a bitch down there? Had he grabbed Hannah?
Hannah was fine. She was still playing with her newfound friend. Danni took a long deep breath and exhaled. For just a split second her life had hung in the balance. Then the cop in her took over. She looked around. There weren’t too many people at the springs that day and most of them were women with their children. She couldn’t see him, but he had to be there somewhere. She ran back to the blanket and chair, retrieved her cell phone and called the desk sergeant at the Apache County Sheriff’s Office. She recognized Bill Rose’s voice right away.
“Bill, this is Danni Jansen. I’m out at Whiskey River Springs and I just got a call from our killer. He’s out here somewhere.”
“I’ll get some cars out there right away, Danni.”
“There’s only one road in and out of here, Bill.”
“We’ll set up roadblocks at each end. If he’s still in there, he won’t get out.”
Danni next called Captain Jeffries directly and gave him the news so he wouldn’t get his information secondhand over the radio.
“I’ll send a task force unit out there as well, Danni. Why don’t you take your daughter home. This could get a little hairy.”
Danni wanted to be there, but she knew that his advice was sound. “I will, Captain. Thanks.”
Getting Hannah out of the water was no easy task.
“Come on, Hannah, we have to go.”
“We just got here, Mommy.”
“I know, honey, but we’ve got to go now.”
The sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene just as Danni and Hannah finished packing up. Everybody was ordered out of the Springs and checked out individually before being allowed to get in their cars and leave. Each car got a pass placed on the inside dashboard by an officer just before leaving, and the people inside received some verbal instructions: “Lock your door and don’t stop for anyone for any reason until you get beyond the police blockade. When they see your pass at the blockade, they’ll let you go.”
The cars left single file so there would be no way for the killer to stop one of them without somebody else observing. Danni and Hannah were in the last car.
The next morning, Danni called the office to say that she wouldn’t be in. She talked directly with Captain Jeffries.
“We didn’t get him,” Jeffries told her.
Danni wasn’t surprised. “Did you check out that phone number he called from?”
“Yes. It belonged to a woman who lives in White Springs. She was at Whiskey River Springs yesterday and she said she’d lost her phone. We’re checking her out, but she sounds legit.”
“He was probably at the Springs, stole the phone, and called me from the road as he was leaving.”
“That would be my guess,” Jeffries replied.
“Listen, he made a veiled threat against my daughter yesterday, and I’ve got to take care of that. It’s going to take me a couple of days.”