Killing Dragons

Chapter 9

Nine

Friday, February 12, 4:17 P.M. CST

Bailey’s Key

Eva was exhausted. She’d been up all night with her mother, Soledad, and Luis Junior at his father’s funeral wake. The tradition was important to her mother, but to Eva, staying in the same room with a mutilated body was disturbing. Luis, the man she had known, was gone. Several times she’d had to escape outside to look up at the stars, just to stay sane.

She twisted the bracelet on her wrist. A blue crystal St. Raphael bracelet, given to her at the vigil by Clarissa, a friend of her mother’s. “I foresee a happy meeting,” Clarissa had said as she handed it over. At the time, Eva had fought to not roll her eyes—but she wore it anyway.

It was now the end of the following workday—for Axel and Jose, anyway. Eva’s work never ended. Even after her team left, she stayed on to review what they’d done, labeling Taffy’s whistle signature spectrograms with the marine species they correlated with. She had to finish this whistle library if she wanted to keep the university grant.

And her efforts weren’t just for the grant. Eva’s work gave her purpose. If she could enable bidirectional communication between humans and another species… well, it wouldn’t achieve world peace, nor would it bring Héctor back, but it was a start. A start to… something. A pathway to understanding at the least.

The roar of a boat motor interrupted her work. She could tune out the sounds of the dolphins playing with Rascal in the background or the many meows of all the stray cats abandoned to her care on the key, but not this kind of racket. Worse, the boat was coming up to the dock.

Great. I don’t need a distraction.

She recognized the boat and knew immediately who was here to annoy her: Ignacio. The man gave her the creeps. She watched him as he tied up his boat. Stout, strong, well-dressed with a bolo tie and gold bracelets. His beard and hair were both wavy. Eva grimaced as the breeze blew his reeking cologne toward her.

She’d first met Ignacio on Roatan at a fancy fund-raising party for RIMS. A Mexican national, an oddity on this rural Honduran island, he spent most of the evening bragging about his expertise in aquaculture farms. He managed some crustacean farms on the east end of the island and had expanded them out to an open ocean project she’d never visited called Atlantis, thanks to some capital from an investor in the States. But rumor had it he also ran with the Mexican narcos, the drug cartels, and even if he didn’t, Eva’s gut told her he was bad news.

As he approached her, she pretended to be engrossed in her computer screen.

I am frustrated, not afraid, she told herself, trying to reinterpret what Ignacio evoked in her.

“Good afternoon, querida. I come bringing gifts.” Ignacio set a small crate before her.

“Ignacio, how can I take on any more strays? There’s too many here already. I’m becoming the crazy lady on cat island.”

“Ah, but querida, this is not a stray. It is an expensive pet, and an exotic one at that.” He practically leered at her as he reached down and opened the crate.

A long triangular black head emerged, with a forked tongue that moved in and out rhythmically, like that of a snake. One sturdy claw, then another, appeared, and then the sinuous creature stepped out onto the dock.

Surprised at the unusual creature, Eva nearly jumped back and fell into the water on top of a curious Finn, who whistled at the newcomer.

“That’s not an iguana,” Eva said.

Ignacio tutted. “No, querida. She’s exotic. Like you, she isn’t from here. She’s an Asian water monitor, otherwise known as a black dragon. She’s a cousin to the Komodo dragon.”

Eva tilted her head, appraising the monitor. “She has a purple collar. With rhinestones.”

“That’s a tracking collar. You must keep it on her.”

“So, what’s her name?”

“Call her what you like, but she’ll never come to you like your dog. Just be sure to keep her here, at Bailey’s Key.” He made it sound like a command. “And keep her safe. That’s all I require of you.”

All I require. The man’s dominating presence was infuriating.

Eva crossed her arms. “Where did you get her?”

“My investor gave her to me. I’d hoped to breed her—the babies go for a lot—but she destroyed her own eggs. So, I thought you might like her.”

Eva gave a curt nod. “I’ll take care of her, but… is it safe for her to be here with the other animals? Isn’t she venomous?”

Ignacio laughed. “Are you asking me if this tiny black dragon is safe? You who work with those big fish with lots of sharp teeth? If you fell in, that big dark one could easily snap you in two.”

As if in response, Finn snorted water through his blowhole, drenching Ignacio’s suit.

Eva pressed her lips together, stifling a laugh. “They’re dolphins, Ignacio, not fish. I trust them, and they trust me to care for them.”

Ignacio placed his hand over his heart. “I knew you were an excellent choice, querida.”

Eva looked back at her computer, eager to get back to work. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, actually. I’m opening a dive shop at Parrot Tree and am looking for a divemaster. Would you know if Miguel is available?”

“You’d have to ask him, but he’s been filling in for a friend at Tranquility Bay.”

Ignacio grinned. “Then I will be on my way—after one more thing. A proposal, actually. You know that Lusca the locals are talking about? We think it’s raiding the fish farms. Would you be willing to use your expertise to help us track it down?” He handed her a large conical tooth as if it were his business card.

Eva shivered in the sunlight and tried to not look surprised. The tooth looked just like the one from Luis’s boat. Still, she shook her head. “I don’t have time for that. I’m on a deadline for my grant. It takes money to care for the dolphins and do my research.”

“If you joined forces with me, money would be the last of your worries, querida. All my resources would be at your disposal.”

His statement vexed her, but at the same time, it was a tempting offer. If she lost her grant, Taffy and Finn would be homeless. She knew where Ignacio’s money came from—or thought she did—but she couldn’t just abandon the animals in her charge. And she had her family to consider too.

She paused. “I’ll consider it.”

Ignacio gave her a single nod before striding back down the dock to his long cigarette speedboat, the Venom.

She squatted down beside the monitor, who was sticking out its tongue in her direction as if tasting her, and inspected the purple collar. Embroidered on the collar was a single word: Plata.

“Welcome, Plata, to Stray Cat Island.”