The Reaper Follows by Heather Graham

Author:Heather Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2024-02-13T21:25:47+00:00

10

Amy went tearing toward the door, ripping it open. Someone was fleeing across the grassy area at the rear of the church, an area set with picnic tables here and there, a few shade trees, and an outdoor podium.

That someone wasn’t fleeing quickly, and turned out to be dragging a screaming woman behind them. Amy was close behind, drawing her Glock, and yet she knew she wouldn’t shoot. She stood a good chance of killing or injuring the woman.

But the community had been built on the far western side of the massive built-up areas of Florida’s east coast. The Everglades stretched beyond the manicured section of land that had been claimed from wilderness by the church and the entrepreneurs of the housing district.

She tried to see and to reason even as she ran.

The abductor was big and powerful, or so it appeared. He was a man who could throw the woman over his shoulder and run fast while carrying his burden. She could see little of him; he was dressed in black and wore a black hood along with a mask that would have done Darth Vader proud.

“Stop! FDLE! Stop!” she commanded.

Of course, her words went unheeded.

She heard footsteps on her tail. Hunter. He was coming close behind her as they raced across the line from manicured lawn to dense, twisted foliage.

Amy plunged after the man and his screaming burden. Except now the screams were fading.

But while her suspect might have run into the depths of the Everglades via some unknown trail, he now seemed to be confused as he zigged and zagged. Of course, some of that was the only way to travel through such territory, but the man appeared to be lost in the confusion of trees, vines, brush, and thick, rich grasses. And Amy knew what she was doing might have been foolish; she wasn’t wearing boots, just her low-heeled black shoes. She had been aware all of her life of the dangers on such ground that could prey upon the unwary.

“Stop! FBI! Stop!” Hunter shouted from behind her.

They heard another scream.

This time, it came from the man. And Amy could dimly see through the foliage that he’d apparently tripped or fallen over something and had gone down. She could see his head, and then she couldn’t.

“Hunter!” she called.

“I see!”

They made their way through the growth, arriving at the place where the man had fallen. There had been a break in the foliage; a slim, shallow canal twisted through the wilderness. And just across from where the man lay fallen half in the water and half out, an ankle having been caught by a tangled tree root, was a large gator, a really good-sized creature at least twelve feet in length.

Amy stood still, as did Hunter. They were both armed. And if you aimed for the brain, you could kill an alligator with a Glock.

The alligator wasn’t doing anything. Just basking on the embankment.

The masked figure on the ground still had his arms around the young woman he had seized, who now lay unconscious.

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