Free Firefly Island by Lisa Wingate Page B

Ray’s giant alligators out there somewhere, just waiting for a chance to avenge the cousin who’d been hunted down and fried up into gator nuggets?
    A sense of solitude cloaked the car, the weave thick and tight, shutting out sound, giving the feeling that we were stepping off the edge of the world. My lust for adventure wavered, and I found myself again wishing for a hotel room.
    Daniel rested his elbow comfortably on the window frame, seeming completely at peace with the lack of civilization.
    â€œAre you sure it’s okay for us to show up so late at night like this?” I shivered as the water-scented breeze worked its way down the neck of my T-shirt.
    â€œI gotta go tinkie!” Nick’s unceremonious announcement interrupted the flow of conversation.
    Daniel reached back and patted Nick on the knee. “Hang in there, buddy. It can’t be far from here. Just a few minutes.” He held up the paper with the directions, squinted at it in the dash light, then set it down and turned left at an intersectionwhere one gravel road looked about as dark and unwelcoming as the other. “Here we go. Say, see ya later, stop sign.”
    Daniel and Nick fell into a game I’d heard them play before, talking about things as we passed, so as to make the miles speed by.
    â€œLater, gad-or,” Nick chimed in.
    I wished the subject of gators hadn’t come up.
    â€œYou cold?” Daniel asked, and I realized I had my arms clutched tight. All the blood had moved to the center of my body in an instinctive flight response. “Not sorry you threw in with us blokes, are you?”
    â€œNo, of course not.” Don’t complain. Don’t complain. Don’t be a party pooper, fun killer, namby-pamby little fraidy cat. “But what if some . . . security guard mistakes us for prowlers and shoots us or something when we get there?”
    â€œThe place is so remote, I don’t think there’s any need for security. That’s why Jack has his research facility and crop plots there. He’s pretty paranoid about people trying to spy on his work. The only houses close to ours are a little guest cottage of Jack’s and an old cabin on Firefly Island. Jack has a bigger place and a ranch headquarters on another piece of land twenty miles down the county highway. His house there is massive, actually. At the symposium, he was showing pictures of the generator. Solar and wind systems power the house and barns, and he uses modified geothermal units for cooling and heating. Seriously innovative. I’ve never seen anything like it. He designed the whole system himself.”
    The two of us fell silent as an imposing white limestone entranceway came into view, dwarfing the Jeep and the U-Haul. The heavy wooden gates were closed like the barriers that protected the old Spanish missions. Daniel exited the Jeep and punched the magic numbers into a keypad inside a metal box, then slid back into his seat as the gate swungopen, letting us through. We proceeded along the narrow drive toward what appeared to be a grouping of buildings ahead. Oddly, there seemed to be no lighting of any kind, other than what the moon afforded. I had the disquieting thought that maybe we really weren’t expected here at all.
    Corbin’s story swirled through my thoughts, and I considered asking Daniel what he knew about Jack West’s sordid past, but I didn’t. Daniel wouldn’t have brought us here if he thought we were in any danger. I had to trust in that.
    â€œYup, there it is.” He pointed as the headlights outlined a simple, one-story Craftsman-style house with clapboard siding. The structure appeared to be of forties or fifties vintage, with a fence around it made of painted iron pipe and wire. It wasn’t the sort of fence built for decoration, but more for function, to keep something in or out. What? I wondered. Livestock? Wild animals? The gates had been adorned with