Chapter 7
SEVEN
Liam
Gabriel and I drive separately from Chris and Matthew, in case someone has to head off anywhere, but they arrive around the same time. Pat is waiting for us at the gate, looking just as anxious as she was yesterday, but the moment we arrive, she runs up and wraps her arms around me.
My entire body stiffens and I look at Gabriel for help while Matthew tries to stifle a chuckle and Chris looks quite pleased over my distress.
He actually looks damn near giddy. Like what is this woman doing to me?
Does she wonder what it’d feel like to embrace Death?
Because doing this to me is the closest she’s going to get to it.
I eye Gabriel in a very clear “Get it off” way and Gabriel just gives me a shrug.
A.
Shrug.
Does he not love me enough to spare me from this torture?
“I just… I can’t thank you enough for finding Nadine. I feel just sick knowing she was out there, so scared and alone and hurt and… thank you. You are such a wonderful person to have been so concerned that you thought of such a thing in the dead of night.”
Wonderful person?
Obviously, this woman has me mixed up with someone else.
“Just… doing my job,” I choke out, hoping that puts an end to this harassment, but what does the woman do? She squeezes me tighter and then looks up at me with her leaky eyes.
She is dribbling her tears upon my jacket and now I will need to wash it the moment I get home—or burn it.
I could push her.
I could pull away.
I could choke her just a little.
None of these are viable options, but boy, do they sound beautiful, and I try to envision them to help me live through this torture. And then I’m envisioning choking Matthew just a little as he hides his giggles behind his hand.
Gabriel reaches out and takes her arm, drawing her off me in the most heroic gesture before giving her a hug, which is equally bad. He shall hug no one but me from here on out.
“I’m just so happy we were able to find her. I really hope she recovers. I’ve thought about her constantly since we found her,” Gabriel says.
The woman snots and dribbles tears all over him as I brush my jacket off, but the tears have stained it. I can still feel her touches on me and they make me shudder. What a distasteful experience.
“We must work. No time to waste,” I announce and head off for the golf cart. “Pat, I would also like access to Nadine’s work area and the surrounding offices.”
“Of course. I will take you there. And then I’m going to leave you the keys to this golf cart. You can use it to travel around,” she tells us.
“Thank you,” Gabriel says as we all clamber on. Since there are five of us and four seats, I assume that I will get to place Gabriel on my lap. Instead, the moment I sit, Gabriel jumps into the front seat and Matthew climbs onto my body.
“What are you doing?” I growl.
“I’ve been lonely for so long, aching for the touch of another man,” he whispers in my ear. I try to shove him off as Pat begins to drive, but he’s ridiculously strong when he wants to be. So there I suffer with the man from my nightmares hanging from my body and refusing to let go.
“Sorry for the lack of space; Lacey is going to meet us on the other side so you’re not squished together.”
“Oh, we’re fine like this,” Matthew says while he holds on for dear life. His life is literally in danger as we pass a recessed wolf pen I consider tossing him into, and he insists he’s enjoying it.
“Matthew is a masochist. New information to deliver to Jesse.”
That makes him grimace. “Please don’t.”
“I’m so evil to you and still, you keep coming back. I need to know… have you been enjoying it?”
“Not in the slightest,” he mutters. Yet if he hasn’t, why did he pick my lap to sit on?
Lacey pulls up with another golf cart. I assume Matthew will leave, but he remains cradled in my arms. I stand up and deposit him on the seat before heading over to the other golf cart while expecting that my one true love will follow me, but nope.
I am now left alone with this woman as Pat zooms off with everyone else.
“Have you heard anything else about Nadine?” Lacey asks the moment I sit down. I had moved over here because I’d thought she would be silent when faced with my grumpy expression, but she proves otherwise.
“No.”
“I didn’t know if you were able to get more information with your… status. All of our information is coming from her brother to me, but he’s not the best at keeping me up to date,” she says.
“I see.” Why must humans speak to me? This is why I wanted someone else on here to deal with the brunt of her questions.
“Do you… do you think it’s safe?” she asks. “To be here, I mean? Like… I don’t know. Did the killer know that Zach was a bad person, and that’s why they killed him? Or did they just… get lucky targeting that man? Oh my god, that sounds awful. Not lucky, just like…”
“Everyone is a suspect,” I inform her, which doesn’t seem to ease her concerns for some reason that doesn’t quite matter to me.
“I feel like I’m second-guessing everyone today. Isn’t that awful?”
“I assume everyone is a horrible person every day.”
That also doesn’t seem to reassure her, so I decide I’ll fix what I’ve just said.
“Besides Gabriel, I mean.”
“Who… is Gabriel?”
“Detective Hyde. The beautiful specimen in the front seat of the other golf cart.”
“Ah. Okay… yeah…” Lacey weirdly seems uncertain what to do with this information I’ve just bestowed upon her.
“The old zoo entrance… do others use that often?” I ask.
“No one that I know of. I didn’t even know it was still accessible.
Pat said that it’s kind of an unspoken thing that we’re not supposed to use it, but then she realized that she might not have made sure everyone was aware of this.
She thinks Nadine must have gotten a key from the former director who was pretty close to her.
When you found Nadine last night… do you think she’ll be okay? ”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re not the fondest of talking, are you?” she teases.
“You should be a detective.”
Lacey laughs and shakes her head. “I’ll leave that to you.”
“Can you get me a list of all of the poisonous and venomous animals at the zoo?”
She hesitates and looks over at me. “You… you think someone used an animal to kill that man?”
“Can you get that or not?”
“Oh, yes, of course. I’ll do that as soon as I drop you off.
I’ll also make you a list of who handles them.
The handling and care of the venomous and poisonous animals and insects is pretty specific, as is anything extracted from them.
You can also talk to the veterinarians and scientists to make sure no one is missing anything. ”
“What is your job here?”
“I’m currently in HR, but my plan is to eventually become director. I’ve been taking classes while I prepare for the opening. Pat is planning on leaving us in a few years and I want to make sure I’m a good candidate when it happens.”
Why does she think I care about all of this information?
The two golf carts park outside the office building and we all get off, but before we can get too far, Pat stops us.
“Lacey will be taking you to Nadine’s office. Lacey is the closest person to her, so she can help you out with Nadine’s stuff and any questions you might have.”
“Thank you,” Gabriel says.
We’re led to Nadine’s office, but I get very little out of anything there.
After a while, I leave them to it and wander off to stare at the venomous snakes.
They’re lying there doing absolutely nothing of interest. Then I go into the back area by flashing my badge at the door and examine where they care for the snakes.
I walk around their vetting facility looking for something, but I’m not quite sure what.
Finally, I head over to the conservation center to look around.
I question people wherever I go, but there are detailed records of venoms and antivenoms on hand and all are accounted for.
Just before lunch, we return to the department where I walk right to my desk, not yet sure what I’m looking up but feeling like there is something right there to latch on to.
“Here’s the list of venomous and poisonous animals,” Gabriel says as he rolls his chair around to land next to mine.
“On this list there really aren’t many insects that could just…
kill a man—and kill a man quickly at that.
The death had to have happened within an hour from when Nadine leaves the park at nine and when we see the hyenas out at ten.
That rules out quite a few of the snakes as well.
Obviously, Zach could have had a reaction to anything that bit him which caused him to die faster, but if the person’s intent was to kill, a reaction or a prolonged death is probably not likely.
That leads me to one snake in particular: the black mamba.
Without treatment, there is a nearly one hundred percent fatality rate.
The issue is that death can span between twenty minutes and about fifteen hours. Would our killer take that risk?”
I contemplate this. “How fast would they die if you gave the victim two or three times the amount a snake would normally inject into the body?”
Gabriel raises an eyebrow. “You think someone was collecting the venom from the snakes? You know how hard and risky that would be?”
“No, I’ve never handled a snake before.”
I glance up and see Jesse standing next to Matthew’s desk.
Gabriel must take note of what I’m looking at. “Don’t you dare plan on trotting over there and playing Cupid some more. Or did you think Jesse might know something about snakes?”
“Nah, I was thinking about grabbing some lunch. What do you want?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“It’s taco Tuesday down at the Mexican place on Bellmore.”
His eyes light right up. “Ooh, tacos. While you do that, I’ll talk to Jesse about snakes. And when you get back, I want to stop at the hospital to see Nadine.”
“Okay, sounds good. I’ll be right back.” I walk out of our office and over to Matthew’s desk where I proceed to push his pencil holder over. “Do you want tacos? No. Okay.”
“I do,” Jesse says. “Yes, please.” He pulls out his wallet and grabs a twenty which he tries to pass to me, but in doing so he pulls out nearly half of his money and more than one receipt in the process.
“Why is your wallet packed so full?” Matthew asks him.
“I don’t know, man. I have a problem where people hand me shit, so I just cram it in there.”
“Your problem is that you think twenty dollars is enough for me go across town and carry your tacos back,” I say.
“The tacos aren’t even twenty bucks!” Jesse protests.
“What are you offering, Matthew?” I ask.
“My heart.”
“Keep it. And keep your sad money. I’ll pay. It’ll be my one good deed for the less fortunate for the year,” I say. “Text me what you want.”
“I love you, Liam,” Matthew calls after me.
“I’m spitting on your taco.”
“It’ll be like a French kiss from you to me,” he says.
He knows I hate it when he’s not riled up by my snippy comments, so I glower at him and head on my way.
I walk down the stairs, but instead of going out the door, I head right into the medical examiner’s office, immediately sidetracked by my wandering mind.
Tammy—or Bonnie or whatever the hell her name is—is over there drooling on her keyboard, so she pays me no mind as I walk over to the drawer and pull the body out again.
I stare at it for a minute while I think about the possibility of venom.
If someone did extract venom from a black mamba or just forced it to bite the man, the bite must have happened on the body.
The body in question is mostly gone… consumed by the hyenas.
The venom wouldn’t affect their consumption of him…
did the killer know this? They almost had to have to ensure there were no suspiciously dead hyenas come morning.
Hell, the person had to have been smart enough to extract venom; of course they’d know the effects of it on a body and the consumption of the meat.
I bring up Jesse’s web browser, questioning why he didn’t bother changing his password. Is it because he knows I’d just figure out the new password anyway?
Opening up the tab, I scroll through his computer for a bit before closing it with a sigh. So we know how the man possibly died.
The next question is who… and why.
I wonder if they have any idea that I’m coming for them?