Mute (31 page)

Moni reached for a half-open door as another
officer walked through before her. Instead of holding it open for her, the man
pulled it shut in her face. She swallowed the shout of protest before it left
her lips.

He
should have punched me in the nose. I don’t deserve any better.

As Moni gazed at the door that had been closed
before her, Mariella stroked her hand, like how Moni had pet Tropic when the
thunder scared him. With a deep breath and a nod at the girl, Moni opened the
door herself.

She somehow avoided any eye contact and
confrontations on the way to her office. When she opened the door and pointed
the girl inside, Mariella’s gentle caress melded into a steely grip. She
refused walking as adamantly as she refused speaking.

“I’m sorry, baby, but you can’t come with me to
this meeting.” Moni knelt on one knee so she met the girl’s face. “Mr. Sneed is
gonna be there, and he’ll be plenty angry. You’ll be a lot safer over here.
Don’t worry, I’ll come back soon. Why don’t you draw me something pretty while
you wait?”
Mariella slowly nodded, and eased off her death grip. She trudged into the
office, and pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the printer. Moni gently shut
the door. Then she scanned the faces of the officers nearby for any signs of
cruel intentions. They greeted her with more than a few disgusted sneers, but
none of them seemed inclined towards harming Mariella. With the camera in her
office, she doubted any officer would risk it.

Moni still couldn’t get back there fast enough. If
Sneed didn’t accept Aaron’s plan, she might find the room empty save a note
from the DCF.

She arrived at the task force meeting with no doubt
in her mind that Sneed had that sort of punitive punishment cooking on his
skillet. His eyes scrutinized her every movement from the moment she entered
the room. He had gray stubble on his cheeks and chin, and the swollen bags
under his eyes were of a man who had spent every moment of his day dwelling on
vengeance. Instead of instantly berating her as she had feared, Sneed kept his
jaw locked tight. It took all of his might to restrain his teeth from ripping
into her flesh.

This time, Sneed didn’t sit at the head of the
table. He gave that seat up for Sheriff Rick Brandt, a man whose commanding
blue eyes and gray, western-style mustache made his diminutive height almost
unnoticeable. Moni hadn’t seen him much besides for ceremonies, such as the one
they would have when they bury Harrison. He also spoke at press conferences for
major cases. She hadn’t been involved with many of those until now,and her
performance in this case wasn’t exactly something she could boast about.

Sheriff Brandt’s presence lent her a glimmer of
hope. While Sneed eyed her as if he would rejoice in stringing her up a tree by
her neck, Brandt watched Moni apprehensively, but not with outright hatred. He
wasn’t the only one.

Looking over Moni with dark-ringed eyes that must
have been pouring over reports all night, Brigadier General Alonso Colon
appeared more disappointed than enraged. Maybe, the soldier understood that
battle requires tough choices about sacrifice, Moni thought. If only she could
have accepted that concept.

“Well, look who strolled in outta the gator’s
jaws,” Sneed said. “You could have at least answered my calls. Or were you too
busy high tailing it out of town while Harrison and Roberts were getting their
heads cut off?”

It didn’t surprise Moni that Sneed had chosen not
answering his twenty phone calls as the first thing she deserved a reprimand
for.

“I’m sorry if I was a little preoccupied saving the
person who you call the most valuable witness in this investigation,” Moni said
as she grabbed the seat between Aaron and Professor Swartzman. The young man
focused a concerned gaze on her. She craved the sight of his comforting eyes,
and the warmth of his caring hands around her, but she resisted even looking at
him. She couldn’t let Sneed and the sheriff think of her as so weak that she
needed a civilian’s help.

“You had an order to turn that witness over to the
protective custody of the DCF, and my police force,” Sheriff Brandt said. “Why
did you stand in the way?”

“Sir, it wasn’t like that. I was about to hand
Mariella over, but when we got to her room, she was gone.”

Moni figured they wouldn’t uncover her lie with
both witnesses dead. As horrible as Harrison’s beheading had been, at least it
had removed the most telling piece of physical evidence: the imprint of the
handle of her gun on his head. She caught Aaron flinch at her story. She nudged
his foot underneath the table and he settled down.

“The monster in the canal had the girl, but
Harrison and I got her out of there,” continued Moni, who made sure they
acquired more fond memories of their departed friend. “The next thing we knew, the
gator thing killed Agent Roberts. Thank the Lord that Harrison agreed to cover
for us while I took Mariella away from danger.”

She stapled her lips shut during the stretch of
silence that followed. Moni prayed that her story would serve as the final word
on the morning’s tragedy. As usual, Sneed disturbed the peace.

“The noble Harrison volunteered to cover you, and
face the gator by himself, is that right?” Sneed asked as he grinded his thumb
and forefingers together. “If that’s the case, why did your neighbor say she
saw you snatch the keychain off his hip? You couldn’t help being a pickpocket,
could you? I always knew your colors would show.”

Moni balled her fists underneath the table. The
blackness of her skin had always made her the first person accused of stealing,
but rarely had those accusations surfaced so bluntly.

 
“Mrs. McCray
must have seen me remove the keys from his belt. That’s because he gave me
permission to take them. The monster came at him before he could hand them
over.”

“Bullshit,” Sneed said with a shake of his clenched
fist.

The sheriff placed a steady hand on Sneed’s arm
like a trainer making an attack dog stand down. “Unless that 72-year-old woman
has the hearing of a 20-year-old that can penetrate through a window on a rainy
day, I don’t see how we can disprove the officer’s explanation,” Brandt said.
Just as Moni’s lips had begun their arch into a grin, the sheriff caught her in
a stern gaze from his icy blue eyes. “Those circumstances don’t excuse your
conduct, Mrs. Williams. You ignored Detective Sneed’s calls, and drove halfway
to Orlando before you made a U-turn in the middle of the highway.” Moni should
have anticipated that he’d have known that. All the department’s vehicles are
tracked on GPS. Even if she had kept running, she wouldn’t have gotten far
without ditching it. “And you still haven’t handed the girl over. We need to
protect her. This community has lost too many people trying to ensure her
safety in your care.”

“What’s the other option besides me—leaving
Mariella under armed guard all day like she’s in solitary confinement?” Moni
asked. At the sight of the sheriff’s raised eyebrow, she realized that this man
had more concern for the child’s welfare than Sneed. Maybe it came from having
kids of his own. “If you’ll excuse me, sir. This is quite an emotional matter
for me. I know Mariella is a witness, but she’s also like… like my daughter. I
feel like we’ve been together all my life, and all her life. No one is more
dedicated to making sure the Lagoon Watcher and his creatures don’t hurt her
than me.”

Professor Swartzman mounted a protest to the
charges against his research buddy, but Sneed drowned him out with his latest
rant.

“I only wish you’d show half as much dedication to
solving this case. This task force doesn’t need a mother nurturing our witness
and baking her brownies. It needs a ruthless interrogating bitch. That’s not
you, Moni. People like
you,
are only out for yourselves. You feel all
fine and dandy about protecting your loved ones, even if they’re dirtier than
sin. You could give a shit if this county burned.”

Moni had no doubt what he had meant by, “people
like
you
.” Her father had told her the same thing. He accused her of
being selfish every time she asked him for the smallest thing—from a chocolate
bar to her first car. He had berated her until she grew so terrified that she
didn’t ask for anything.

Sneed’s words had shoved Moni into a corner and
drained her of the will to strike back. She faced Aaron and nodded. His cue had
arrived.

“You’re totally wrong about Moni, Mr. Sneed,” Aaron
said. Flexing his stubby fingers, the lead detective would have strangled the
surfing scientist in the middle of the table if the sheriff hadn’t been there.
“She’s been thinking about all of us. That’s why she sketched out this awesome
plan that’ll keep Mariella safe and bag the Lagoon Watcher. I only helped her a
little, so it should still work.”

Aaron’s description of the plan held Sheriff
Brandt’s attention so well, that Sneed didn’t unfurl any of his objections,
which he obviously had, because he looked like a man kissing an onion the whole
time. Sneed nearly fell out of his chair when the sheriff agreed that using
Mariella to lure the Lagoon Watcher into a sting operation would effectively
protect the girl and catch the suspect.

“We’ll set you up in a hotel that has every inch on
camera and then we’ll give a little boost to the surveillance equipment and
security personnel at the girl’s school,” Sheriff Brandt said. “Now don’t you
go running off with her to any place that we haven’t put under watch.” He
pointed at Moni in the most non-threatening way possible. It felt more like a
reminder from a gingerly grandparent.

“Don’t worry, sir.” Moni’s braids bounced off her
cheeks as she shook her head. “I would never put Mariella in harm’s way.”

“What about the other kids at her school?” Sneed
asked. “Isn’t it putting them in harm’s way if you invite the Lagoon Watcher to
their campus?”

Sneed doesn’t give a damn about those kids, Moni
thought as she curled her lips and narrowed her eyes at him. He wanted to
scuttle the whole plan so he could take Mariella away from her.

“If you trusted that the people in this room can do
their jobs, then you wouldn’t doubt that we’ll prevent the Lagoon Watcher from
harming those children,” Moni told Sneed. The sheriff nodded. Then another
spoil sport spoke up.

“You’re wasting your time here,” Professor
Swartzman said as he crossed his string cheese arms. “The Lagoon Watcher isn’t
after the girl. He’s not behind the bacteria, and the animal attacks. The
notion is just plain nonsensical. Harry Trainer doesn’t have the capabilities
to genetically engineer an organism like that. It would take millions of
dollars in funding, and a lab that’s much more elaborate than what we saw in
his home.”

“Your point’s well taken. I suspect Mr. Trainer has
a covert source of funding and a larger facility in an undisclosed location
nearby,” Brigadier General Alonso Colon said. “It’s clear that his operation
has spread beyond one man’s capabilities. Just look at the scale of the damage.
How much of the lagoon is infected with bacteria now, professor?”

“Again, I must respectfully disagree with your
assumption that Mr. Trainer has something to do with this. He’s only studying
it, just like we are,” Swartzman said. Moni grimaced. The Lagoon Watcher had
been doing much more than studying her and Mariella when he spied them from
across the street before the car chase. “Anyway, the mutated strain of
thiobacillus has been detected all the way to the north end of the lagoon near
Scottsmoor down as far as the Sebastian Inlet. It hasn’t gotten through the
inlet into the ocean. The chemical levels in a body of water that large are
much harder to change than in the relatively narrow Indian River Lagoon.”

“No infected animals are escaping into the ocean
either,” Aaron added. “Weird, huh?”

“It’s not weird,” Swartzman countered. “If their
body chemistry has been altered to adapt to the bacteria’s preferred
environment, then they’d thrive in the lagoon where the conditions suit them.
And they’d foster its growth any way they could, even if it harmed people.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Sheriff Brandt
said. “Whoever’s behind this has planned for a lot of casualties. I’m afraid
General Colon has more on that.”

The members of the task force focused on the
military man. Many eyebrows were raised as he puckered his normally proud face
in embarrassment.

“A number of days ago, what we suspect were mutated
creatures from the lagoon broke into Patrick Air Force Base and stole sixteen
powerful explosives. Each one can release enough force to destroy a major
structure. While we’re still investigating how the theft occurred, despite the
best efforts of our security, it’s imperative that we recover those explosives
promptly.”

Moni’s heart swelled bigger with every beat as she
imagined a cascade of fire tearing through the wall of the conference room—or
worse. The African artwork would fly off the shelves in her living room before
the burst of fire dumps the shattered wooden boards and nails of her roof down
atop her and Mariella. If the Lagoon Watcher couldn’t capture Mariella or
behead her, he might settle on simply blowing her up, along with any
unfortunate soul in the same building. Still, sixteen bombs seemed excessive
for one target. If her plan didn’t stop him soon, the current victim count
could turn out as only a warm up before the true massacre.