“What makes you think I was lucky?” Moni asked. “Maybe I planned everything down to the tiniest detail.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you did.” Sneed gave a dismissive huff. “I said you’re lucky, because the Lagoon Watcher had a jacket loaded with syringes. We haven’t figured out what the hell he had in them yet, but I have a good idea what he intended to do with them.”
Moni cringed at the thought of the Lagoon Watcher yanking Mariella’s arm out of its socket and jamming a needle into her artery. He had brought a pouch full of poison for the girl’s heart.
Seeing that freak incessantly jabbering from inside the car, Moni smacked her palm on the window square over his face. The Lagoon Watcher recoiled and went quiet. She wished she had the strength to break that glass so that its shards shredded his face. Another punch or two might do it, Moni thought. She turned her back on him and refocused with a deep breath before she did something she would regret.
“I know how you feel. I wanna kick his ass too,” said Sneed, who couldn’t possibly hate the Lagoon Watcher as much as Moni did. Sure, he had killed one of his friends, but he couldn’t love another human being as much as Moni loved Mariella. “We got something even better than that, though. We can finally rest easy knowing we’ve got this case under control. All we have to do is make him tell us where the bombs are. I don’t think you have to worry about your girl anymore.”
Another thing Sneed didn’t understand is that a parent never stops worrying. And she had good reason to.
Chapter 34
Mrs. Mint watched the news casts of the officers marching the Lagoon Watcher into jail over and over. She must have read every news account too. The teacher gazed at his mug shot with those startled blue eyes, and that mouth with a primordial blood lust. Those were the eyes that had her in their sights. Even knowing that he sat behind bars at that very moment with serious charges coming down the pike, the teacher trembled before she rounded corners. She wondered whether someone waited for her on the other side with gloved hands and a jacket full of needles.
She kept shaking her head and snapping herself back into reality. Mrs. Mint sat in the front seat of the school bus as it took her kids for their Friday field trip to the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary in Titusville. Yesterday, she had been prepared to cancel this trip in light of the threat to Mariella, but with the Lagoon Watcher put away, she went ahead with it. Besides, she figured, exploring the 393-acre nature preserve would alleviate some of the anxiety that Mariella and the other kids felt after the police sting on their school.
The kids were their normal chattering selves in the bus. Mariella remained quiet and content. Yet, for some reason, Mrs. Mint couldn’t relax. Maybe it was the glimpses of the Indian River Lagoon she caught between the trees as they rolled up U.S. 1. It still carried such a revolting stench that the bus driver made the kids shut all the windows. Arresting the Lagoon Watcher hadn’t solved every problem, at least not immediately.
No one had explained to her how his killing spree related to the swimming and fishing bans in the lagoon. She had seen the massive fish kills. She had seen video of someone shooting a hawk flying over the lagoon and then it popping back to life a minute later and gliding around impossibly on a broken wing. She couldn’t fathom how all that connected with the murder of Mariella’s parents. But if Sheriff Brandt had gotten on TV and proclaimed the emergency over, and the pollution in the lagoon on the verge of tapering off, that suited her fine. The teacher would much rather see her life return to normal-even if life for some of her students would never resemble how it was before.
Mrs. Mint breathed easier as the bus turned west away from the lagoon and then headed up a road pinned in by scrub pines and oak trees so virulent that they had to be pruned so they didn’t overrun the roadway. A few kids scanned the forest for deer and tortoise, but most of them kept their eyes inside the bus on more captivating sights, such as video games and cell phones. After a few minutes, they came across the only building for seemingly miles: the Enchanted Forest Education and Management Center. Its large screen porch served as a haven from the mosquitoes when the hordes were particularly unbearable.
The kids jumped out of their seats. The teacher figured their enthusiasm came more for finally getting off that cramped bus and pumping their legs rather than for observing some woodland creatures and exotic plants. Mrs. Mint held back the entire class with one raised hand. She headed for the exit first so she could herd them into an orderly line with the help of her assistant. Mrs. Sara Fogel, a blond education student, had the body of a preteen and an even less mature understanding of teaching. She better grow up quick, Mrs. Mint thought, because she could use an extra set of eyes watching these 29 kids traverse a forest full of creepy crawly things, and not all of them friendly.
When Mrs. Mint landed on the parking lot, she thanked goodness that her boots had thick soles. By the looks of the sizzling pavement, if she had stepped on it barefoot it would have been like tossing a chicken breast onto a frying pan. In no more than twenty seconds, the sweat had already started dripping from her hair line down her cheeks and they had another two hours of roasting there. At least it wouldn’t feel so blistering hot underneath the canopy of trees.
As the kids started filtering off the bus and into a line, Mrs. Mint kept watch on Fogel, and made sure that she kept Mariella away from the Buckley twins. Luckily, the blond troublemakers were among the first off the bus. Kyle leapt off the top step and did a 180 as if he were skateboarding. Cole mimicked the jump, but he came down on the side of his foot and landed on his bottom. His brother led the chorus of laughter.
“This is a nature park, not a skate park,” Mrs. Mint said as the boy rubbed his sore keister. He got up with the assistance of his embarrassment rather than his teacher’s hand.
Mariella stepped off the bus gingerly along with the stragglers who would rather sit in air conditioned living rooms all their lives. The quiet girl didn’t seem reluctant, though. She gazed at the southern magnolias, cabbage palms and the live oaks elegantly draped in Spanish moss like queens in furry coats. Mariella appeared awestruck.
Mrs. Mint felt a wave of relief. The teacher had worried that this trip would trigger Mariella’s nightmares of the terrifying evening she had spent in a mangrove forest after her parents died. Instead, it might have unlocked the magnificent curiosity of a child.
After the park rangers nearly sapped the imagination out of all of them with their dull lecture, Mrs. Mint led her students on a hike along the trail with Fogel bringing up the rear. The teachers made sure the students stayed between the wooden markers of the trail as they strolled along the walls of slash pines. Live oak trees bent over the top of the trail, making the kids arch their necks back as they gazed up at the birds chirping on the branches above. The humming of the insects, and the singing of the birds, melded into a natural symphony that was rudely interrupted by little feet stomping on leaves and twigs.
“Whoa, cool,” remarked Cole Buckley from near the front of the line.
The brothers stopped, along with all the kids behind them. They stared at the banana spider dangling in its yellowish web between the spiky leaves of neighboring slash pines. Also known as a golden silk spider, the arachnid had yellow and red legs with tufts of prickly black hairs extended almost the width of an adult’s hand. The spider’s head resembled a polar bear with six black eyes. Of course, those were spots on its back and not its real eyes.
Having taken this tour dozens of times, Mrs. Mint knew that the banana spider looked fearsome but it only truly threatened insects. Its bite was milder than a bee’s sting, but try telling that to a hysterical child who’d seen too many horror movies. The spider wouldn’t inject its venom into someone unless they got violent with it. She doubted that the Buckley twins were that stupid as she patiently watched them from the head of the halted line.