The Undead Detective Slays by Jennifer Hilt

Author:Jennifer Hilt [Hilt, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

Once I got back to the hotel, I wasted no time tracking down Ginny. She wasn’t hard to find as she and Esme were busy selling their wares at the booths.

“Silverthorne!” Esme’s face lit up. “You’re out!”

“Yes, thank you.” I didn’t want to go into Fang’s presence now. I was sure she’d contacted him, but I’d rather keep him unknown as much as possible.

“What happened?” Ginny hurriedly handed her customer the desired product, and he hurried away. She didn’t even charge him for it.

“Bit of a misunderstanding.” I glanced around, hoping to avoid Malcolm or Vincent right now. They’d just slow me down.

“Ginny, do you have time to give me a tour of the Everglades?” I asked.

“Sure.”

She glanced from me to Esme. “You mean now?”

“No time like the present,” I said.

Since I knew squat about the local area, Ginny was the logical choice for my guide. Esme promised to look after her merch, so we left the hotel parking lot in record time.

Ginny drove a beat-up pickup truck, but hers was a rusty old mini-sized one, unlike Fang’s behemoth. The air conditioning was also broken. We rode with the windows down, bugs flying in the windows.

She noted my surprise as we drove on. “Every once in a while, the big gators need to be relocated; I call a friend who has a bigger truck, but usually, I just take care of it myself. For transit, I duct tape the mouth together, then chain the body to the truck bed. If it’s a really big one, I hang a red flag off the tail in the truck bed.”

I sure hoped she was well paid for her work, but I doubted it.

We drove away from Miami, taking the freeway until we exited for a series of ever-smaller country roads, noted by a route number, not a name. Ginny drove confidently, turning seemingly at random, sometimes at unmarked corners.

The lights from Miami had long receded; the truck headlights the only light to see. My night vision was pretty good as I spotted the occasional raccoon or other rodent wandering about at night.

Finally, Ginny slowed as we turned into Everglades State Park.

“Quite a drive. And you do this often?” I asked. Compared to California and the mountains of Nevada, the Florida wilderness was like another planet. The frog croaking alone drowned out any other sounds.

“Depends on the calls. A couple of times a week if things aren’t busy. If things are hopping, it can be daily.” Ginny turned to me. “Silverthorne, what’s this about? Nobody wants to tour the Glades at night.”

“Do you get many vampire tourists?”

“Not a one. I thought vampires preferred more urban hunting.”

Yes and no.

“You got me.” I sighed. “I’m FPB.”

Ginny’s jaw dropped. “You’re with the Federal Pararnormals Bureau?”

“It’s very hush-hush.”

“And Esme is your handler?”

“Handler?”

“She does all the office stuff while you are a woman of action.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it did have a certain whimsy to it when put to me that way.

“You guessed it.”

“Why the

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