Jenny took a steadying breath. “Scared the crap out of me, but I’m okay.” She raked back her curly hair. “I need to find someone who can deal with the problem. The fire department, do you think?”
Cain glanced over at Troy. “Let’s take a look.”
Troy shook his head. “Not me. I hate snakes.”
“I’ll go with you.” It was a black-haired guy in his thirties who’d followed them in from the bar. Cain had met him in there once.
“Marco, right?”
“That’s right. Marco Bandini. My wife and I own the sandwich shop down the street.”
“Cain Barrett.” Cain shook Marco’s hand and turned to Jenny. “You got a couple of flashlights?”
“The overhead fluorescents are on down there, but it’s dark in the corners. I’ll get you some lights.”
Armed with flashlights and a couple of long wooden sticks the busboy had rounded up from the alley, they headed down the basement stairs. Cain paused before he reached the bottom and shined the flashlight around, searching the shadows in the darkness.
Just out of the sight in a corner next to the staircase, a mass of writhing, hissing rattlesnakes spit their forked tongues in Cain’s direction. The deadly buzz of their rattles made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
“Jesus,” Marco said. “Looks like there’s at least four of them. Hard to tell the way they keep curling over and under themselves.”
In Cain’s opinion, four rattlesnakes were more than enough.
Marco prodded them a couple of times with his stick. “These guys are big. I used to wrangle them when I was a kid, but we need the right equipment.” He led the way back up the stairs to the kitchen.
“We need the right gear,” Marco said to Jenny. “I might have something in my garage, but it could take me a while to find it.”
“I called the fire department,” she said. “They have what they call snake-catching equipment. A couple of the guys will be right over.”
“Sounds good to me,” Marco said.
“Me, too,” Cain agreed.
Half an hour later, the firemen used long poles with a hooklike device on the end to lift the snakes out of the pile, one at a time, and place them in burlap bags. Then they loaded them into the back of a pickup for a trip into the desert.
As soon as the firemen had left and the noise had quieted, the bar began to return to normal. People here were used to seeing rattlesnakes, just not that many in one place and not inside a building.
Standing next to him, Jenny surveyed the after-work crowd filling the tables. The country singer, a guy named Cody Reynolds, was setting up to play on the small stage in the corner.
“First murder, now snakes,” Jenny said. “Around here, the fun just never stops.”
Cain didn’t see any humor in the situation. Not when he thought about the deadly serpents in the basement and what might have happened. “You ready to go?”
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Where’s your bag?”
Her gaze fixed on his. “I wasn’t sure I needed one.”
“I want you to spend the night, if that’s what you’re asking.” Especially after what had just occurred. Too much was happening, too many dangerous things. He wanted to keep Jenny as close as possible.
“Okay, I’ll get my overnight bag.” She smiled warmly and something expanded in his chest. He walked her to the foot of the stairs in the lobby, then waited for her return.
He thought about the snakes. Perhaps it was just coincidence. They say bad things come in threes.
Cain wasn’t a big believer.
* * *
