Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

Well, she had proven that, hadn’t she? How many men had she killed? They hadn’t all died at her hands, but she had broken Raul’s neck. She had driven a knife into Zack’s brain. Was she dangerous? Definitely. But who had told Zack that she was dangerous? Who knew that about her before she did? Who had unleashed the killers on her, sent them to blow up the boat, sent a drone to track her movements?

This isn’t about Noah at all. It’s about me.

I have to keep moving. I have to find the answers.

One more minute.

She tried counting the seconds, but her time-honored method of measuring the passage of time—one alligator, two alligator—made her think about the local wildlife, so she quickly gave up on that endeavor.

Something splashed nearby. The sound repeated again and again until there could be no doubt that something big was moving through the marsh, headed straight toward her. The memory of alligators, still fresh in her thoughts, was enough to get her moving. She unbuckled the seat belt that held her fast. As soon as it was loose, she slid out of the seat—it had been tilted slightly forward without her realizing it—and she was dumped in the shallow water.

The unexpected baptism snapped her out of her fugue. She stood up and took a few unsteady steps toward the drifting airboat. She half-climbed, half-fell onto the floating platform.

“Jenna?” It was Mercy, calling to her from out of the darkness. “Jenna, is that you?”

“I’m here,” Jenna croaked. “On the boat.”

The splashing intensified and a few seconds later, she felt Mercy’s touch. “Are you all right?”

The question struck Jenna as funny, but she was too tired to laugh. “Not really.”

“Where are you hurt?”

“Everywhere,” she replied, but then she managed to roll over. “Zack… Over there.” She gestured weakly to the spot where she had made her stand. The outline of the half-submerged pilot’s chair jutted up from the water like a buoy marker. “Night vision goggles.”

Mercy seemed to understand. She splashed over to the area Jenna had indicated and began rooting around in the marsh. A few minutes later, she returned. “Got ‘em.” She held the monocular to her eye. “How do you make them work?”

Jenna felt a twinge of disappointment. Had immersion damaged the device? “There’s a…switch.” She couldn’t seem to get out sentences of more than two or three syllables.

“Found it.” There was a pause, then Mercy continued. “Ah, that’s better… Oh.”

“What?”

“Honey, you look awful.”

This time, she couldn’t help but laugh. “Told you.”

Mercy began poking and prodding her, spending almost a full minute probing the gash in her arm. “Okay, the good news is, I don’t think you have any broken bones. Given that little stunt you pulled, that’s nothing short of a miracle. What possessed you—?”

“Bad news?”

“Well, the bad news might not be all that bad if I can get you to an emergency room.”

“No,” Jenna shook her head and immediately regretted doing so. “Gotta get to…Miami. Cort.”

Mercy gave a disapproving sigh. “You’re in no shape to argue. But I suppose if we can get out of this swamp and back to civilization, I can patch you up. But you’re going to need antibiotics. I don’t even want to think about what might have crawled into that cut.”

Jenna had almost forgotten that they were still lost in the Everglades, with no way to orient themselves, much less navigate to someplace where Jenna could get medical attention. “Check…body.” She tried taking a deep breath, felt pain in her chest and wondered if Mercy had missed a cracked rib in her hasty assessment. When she spoke again, she was able to get an entire sentence out. “He must have had a phone or some way to talk to the drone.”

“That makes sense.” Mercy went to Zack’s body again, moving with more certainty now that she could see. When she returned, she was holding something slightly larger than a cell phone. “Found this. I think it’s a GPS receiver.” She played with it for a few moments, then pointed into the featureless darkness. “The alligator farm is just a couple of miles back that way. We can go there.”

“Why there?” Jenna’s brain felt too addled to make sense of this on her own.

“These guys left a car behind, remember?”

“Did you find the keys while you were searching him?”

There was a short pause. “No. But we can hotwire it, if we have to.”

“Hotwire?” Jenna struggled to a sitting position. “I don’t know how to do that. Do you?”

“One thing at a time.”

Jenna couldn’t tell if Mercy’s indirect answer was meant to conceal the fact that she did not possess that particular skill, or rather to avoid admitting that she did. Instead, she helped position Jenna more securely and comfortably for the ride, and then started the engine.

It took Jenna a few more minutes to process the fact that Mercy piloted the boat like an expert. She recalled her friend’s initial ambivalence about using the airboats and contemplated the contradiction. Maybe she’s a quick learner, too. Everybody’s full of surprises tonight.

She was far too preoccupied with what Zack had said to worry about Mercy’s omissions.

They were right about you.

Who?