"Unreasonably angry, I thought."
"Unreasonable is pretty much part of the definition of the word Naiad. Anyway, that crap needed to stop. So I set a trap, sort of."
"You what?"
"I stopped by Lake Eola—"
"The one in downtown Orlando? That's more like a pond? With the swan boats?"
"Yes, and—"
"Please tell me you rented a swan boat," I pleaded, feeling a wave of wild laughter threatening again. "You could have shifted and given tourists the thrill of their lives! A tiger riding a swan!"
"Are you done?"
"Not really, but okay." I suppressed the laughter, which gave me the hiccups, so they took a few minutes to get rid of, until I turned to look at Lou and Jack suddenlyroaredin my ear, scaring the crap—and the hiccups—clear out of me.
"Don't do that again. It worked, but I almost peed myself."
"I have that effect on people." He grinned at me. "Are you ready to hear this or not?"
"Sure. But… swans," I whispered, before pressing my lips together.
"Anyway. I stopped at Lake Eola and walked right up to the edge and stepped into the water. Which is nasty. Then I said 'hey Erin, if you want me, come and get me.' Not more than a minute later, a swirling funnel of water shot up right next to me and rocketed toward me."
Any urge to laugh I might have still had disappeared entirely. "What? Jack! Using yourself as bait is not the greatest idea."
He shrugged. "It was all I could think of. I wanted to get her one on one, with you out of the danger zone. And, like I said, tigers love water. Plus, her water magic is flashy, but you forget I worked and fought with Atlanteans for years. When it comes to water magic, they are second to none."
"Is she—did you—what happened?"
"We had a chat, after she got done trying to drown me. I pointed out that her actions had nearly killed a child and that I would, let's say, not look favorably on any further bad acts on her part."
"What did she say?"
"To be fair to her, the brakes thing wasn't her. She'd asked a friend to make my truck break down with some idea of taking us out of action. She was horrified to hear about the little boy and how close a call that was."
I wasn't impressed. "Fine, but was she the one who shot at us?"
Jack drank the last of his coffee and put the mug down. "She claims that she was aiming at the flowers, not us. Just trying to scare us off."
"She owes me a flower pot," I said indignantly. "And I'm not sure I buy that, anyway. What about the ledger?"
"She's the one who put the ledger on Lorraine's porch. She knew we'd hear about the gambling debts and wanted to give us more suspects so we wouldn't focus on Nigel."
"So it really is Nigel? He's the killer?"
Jack shook his head. "That's the weirdest part about my day. She has no idea. She has never talked to him about it. She just assumed it must be him from some snippets of things he's said in his sleep, from what I could figure out."
"You got an awful lot of cooperation," I said, more a question that a comment.
"She stopped fighting and started cooperating after I… calmly explained how beneficial it would be."
"Uh huh. Calmly explained. How exactly did you do that?"
"Trade secret."
I just shook my head. "So now we go see Nigel?"
