Free Gator Bait by Jana DeLeon Page A

out. All of that was true, and I’d only worked with the agent briefly, but I wasn’t about to leave anything to chance. Time to turn on the girl charm as I never had before. No way could he confuse a regular girl with the shaved-head, militant assassin he’d worked with before.  
    “Miss Morrow?” Fed One—Agent Riker as I knew him—gave me an intense once-over as I stepped up to the bed.  
    “Yes?” I replied, struggling not to cringe as he stared. “And you are…?”
    “You can call me Agent Riker. That is Agent Mitchell.”
    “Oh! Secret agents?” I widened my eyes and put one hand over my chest. “I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    Carter stared at me, his brow scrunched. Awesome. If I had Carter confused, that meant my ploy was working.
    “No, ma’am,” Agent Riker said. “I’d just like to get some information from you.”
    “Well, okay, I guess.”  
    “I understand you pulled Mr. LeBlanc from the sinking vessel.”
    “Yes, that’s right.”
    He gave me a skeptical look. “That must have been quite an effort.”
    “Oh, well, I’m a librarian.”  
    He frowned. “And that qualifies you as a marine recovery specialist?”
    I giggled. Carter’s jaw dropped and he stared at me as if saying “Who are you?”
    “No, of course not,” I said. “It’s just that the library isn’t busy a lot of the time so I read. If I find something that interests me a lot, I take lessons. I read this great book about pirate’s treasure and decided to take diving lessons.”
    “Uh-huh. You had dinner Saturday night with Mr. LeBlanc near the location his boat sank. Is that correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you see anything out of the ordinary?”
    “It was a first date, Agent Riker. I don’t like to see out-of-the-ordinary things until I get to know a man a little better.”
    Carter launched into a coughing fit, covering his mouth with one hand and reaching for a glass of water with the other, but I could tell he was covering a grin.
    Agent Riker’s frustration began to show. “No. That’s not what I meant. I mean did you see anything out of the ordinary in your surroundings.”
    “Well, sure. Hardly anything in Sinful is what I would call normal. There’s alligators and frogs that sound like they’re using amplifiers, the most enormous mosquitoes I’ve ever seen, and none of the people are normal, at least not compared to home back east.”
    Agent Riker’s face fell a bit. “I see. You’re not from here.”
    “No. I’m just here for the summer to settle up my great-aunt’s estate. I can’t even remember the last time I was here—probably too young to recall.” I frowned. “What’s all this about, anyway? Do you know who shot Carter?”
    Agent Riker’s expression went from contemplative to blank. “I’m not at liberty to talk about that.”
    “Not at liberty, my foot,” I complained. “If you know who shot Carter and don’t tell, you’ll have to answer to his mother.”
    Agent Riker looked mildly disturbed, then pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to Carter. “As soon as your memory clears, give me a call.”
    “Sure,” Carter said and placed the card on the tray next to him.
    “I can’t express enough how important this is, Mr. LeBlanc,” Agent Riker said. “Attempting to handle this matter yourself is not advisable.”
    “Got it,” Carter said, not bothering to look at Riker.
    Agent Riker frowned. “I wonder if you do. In case you’re fuzzy on the law as well as what happened to you yesterday, if you interfere with my investigation, you’ll be arrested so quickly, it will probably give you another concussion.”
    Carter looked up at him. “Since you haven’t told me what you’re investigating, you might have trouble making charges stick. I can hardly be expected to sit in my house until you decide it’s all right for me to do my job.”
    Agent Riker smiled. “If you give me any reason to doubt your intentions, that can be arranged.” He motioned