“Jason,” he yelled as he swung open the liftgate and helped Grace get in. “What do you have for me? Anything?”
“Dr. Avelyn wants to know how long since the last sting.”
Creed glanced at his wristwatch.
“Do you know?” he asked Jason, because he had lost all track of time.
Jason scrolled the screen on Creed’s cell phone and said, “It’s been almost forty-five minutes since you texted the photo.” He scrolled back and punched in the answer.
Then both men waited. Sheriff Holt and his deputy were at their vehicle, ready to go.
“Pinchers are too big,” Jason read. “The bigger the pinchers, the less likely they’re lethal.”
“That’s it?” Creed shoved his fingers through his hair in frustration and only now noticed the swollen sting marks on the backs of his own hands. “That’s what she expects us to bank on?”
“Wait. She said she has some antivenin just in case.” Jason looked up at him. “Seriously? She has scorpion antivenin? Who the hell is Dr. Avelyn Parker?”
Creed heaved a sigh of relief and couldn’t stop from smiling. Then he finally said, “She’s my vet.”
41
Jason had offered to drive Agent O’Dell’s rental car. Creed hadn’t wanted to bother with it but O’Dell had been conscious enough to argue and put up a fuss. All of her belongings were in the trunk. After several attempts at retrieving the keys from her daypack and Creed telling her they didn’t have time, Jason stepped over to her side of the Jeep and made the offer. Relief swept over her face and she struggled but handed him the pack through the window.
She looked bad, flush with fever and drenched in sweat, but he could see her shiver. Her eyes squinted, a bit unfocused, and Jason could tell she was fighting the pain. He had no idea what it felt like to be stung by a scorpion, let alone dozens of them. As a kid he’d found a wasps’ nest and was so fascinated by the honeycomb that he picked it up to go show his mom. He was stung three times before his mom rescued him. To hear her tell the story, it might as well have been dozens of stings. But he could still remember that just those three hurt like hell. He had no memory of pain from his arm being blown off. In fact, he didn’t even know it was gone until he woke up in a hospital bed.
Jason watched the sheriff’s SUV and Creed’s Jeep peel out, both kicking up mud and gravel. He waited for them to wind down the driveway out of sight before he wandered over to the rental. The Ford compact was wedged between a tree and the Montgomery County Crime Scene Unit van. None of the forensic team was anywhere to be seen, and he figured they were either on their way to recover the body from the tree or they were at the scene.
He stood in the middle of the yard and looked around and listened. It was so quiet, only a few birds calling to each other. There was no sign of the chaos that had taken place here. Nothing strewn around the lawn. No broken windows or splintered doorjambs.
No blood.
Maybe he was too used to seeing shelled-out buildings and ripped-up roadsides from IEDs. It would help if explosions would quit invading his sleep. His mom — that same brave woman who’d rescued him as a kid from wasps — told him he needed to stop thinking about all “that stuff” so much and to “think happy thoughts” instead. Pretty hard to do when every morning he reached for his toothbrush and was reminded that his frickin’ hand was gone.
So it was difficult to imagine such chaos happening without bombs exploding or people screaming. Without any blood.
Probably no one would understand, but, ironically, today he felt more alive than he had since he came home from Afghanistan. Finding that woman’s body in the tree — that was nothing. Now, if the tree had been filled with pieces of her — that would be more like what he was used to seeing.
However, his adrenaline had really started pumping when he helped Creed pull Agent O’Dell out of that pit. Swatting away scorpions, tracking and finding the way back through the brush — suddenly he had a purpose again. He missed the urgency. He missed feeling a part of something bigger and more important than himself.
Jason knew Ryder Creed didn’t like him. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t give a rat’s ass. He’d Googled Ryder Creed and couldn’t believe the guy was only twenty-nine years old and had been in Afghanistan. He sure as hell acted like an old man. But Creed was a marine. Jason was a ranger. Maybe it was that simple. Damned marines thought they were something special.
Jason knew the only reason Creed had brought him along today was because of Hannah. He’d overheard them talking. At least Creed was honest. Jason couldn’t figure out if Hannah just thought he was another lost soul at Segway House for her to save. He hated that — just the idea that someone would think he needed to be saved. Son of a bitch, he was the one who was supposed to be out saving people. He did not need saving.
He pointed the key fob at the rental car. He was going to hit the UNLOCK button when he noticed the door was already unlocked. He stopped in his tracks.
That didn’t feel right. Agent O’Dell didn’t seem like the type who would leave her vehicle’s doors unlocked, even in the middle of Nowhere, Alabama. It would be an instinctive habit for someone like her, in her profession.
Jason dropped to his hand and knees. Keeping three feet between himself and the car, he leaned down to look under the chassis. It was a habit from his own most recent profession. He leaned his shoulder into the mud as he scanned the entire length of the undercarriage for anything that might look like an explosive device.
Ordinarily he might consider this a bit over the top. He admitted he had some residual paranoia. Okay, a lot of paranoia. Hell, he couldn’t sit in a bar or a restaurant without knowing where all the exits were. He didn’t care about getting blown up again or some crazy asshole storming in and shooting up the joint. Dying didn’t scare him. Living did, especially if it included having another piece of himself hacked off.
Getting blown up once should be reason enough for a healthy dose of paranoia. But given the day’s events, what he was doing right now seemed totally appropriate. Even if there wasn’t anything attached to the undercarriage of the vehicle. Appropriate or not, as he pushed himself back to his feet, he was glad there was no one around to see him.
Agent O’Dell probably just forgot to lock the car doors. Simple as that.
Still, when Jason opened the driver’s door he did it slowly. He let the door click, and he pulled it open only an inch to make room for his fingers. Then with eagle eyes and trigger-sensitive fingertips — on the only hand he had left to blow off — he carefully caressed the rubber around the entire opening, searching for a thread of wire that didn’t belong.
Again, he found nothing.
This time he cursed and told himself, “Damn it, dude, you seriously need to lighten up.”
He shook his head and plucked his sunglasses from where they dangled on the neckline of his T-shirt. He shoved them back on, pulled the door open wide, and slid into the driver’s seat. He was still berating himself as he adjusted the seat when he noticed the burlap sack dislodge from underneath. It plopped down on the floorboard between his boots. Before he could lift either foot he saw the snake poke out and raise itself up three inches.
Jason had grown up camping in this area and knew how to distinguish a coral snake from the other colorful, but less deadly, snakes. There was a clever saying, and it ran through his head as he kept his feet motionless and felt the sweat dripping down his back.