My eyes landed on the killer and I gasped. I had been expecting it to be Horace, had even prepared for it to be Horace, but it was truly the last person that I had expected.
Confusion filled me as I met his eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I don’t understand,”I said.
“Nobody listens. Nobody ever listens. It doesn’t matter if I file with the Conservation Office. It doesn’t matter if I file with the Fish and Wildlife Office. Nobody cares. Well, now they’re going to care,” the man seethed, a gun in each hand as he paced.
It was the dreadlocked environmentalist that I had seen that night outside Lucky’s, handing off fliers about saving the turtles to patrons as they waited in line. I’d thought he was a little overzealous at the time, but I’d missed the fact that he was a complete lunatic.
Maybe it was time for me to start paying a little more attention to others.
“What are you going on about?” Miss Elva demanded, surprising the man into stopping his rant as he sized her up.
“The turtles,” he said slowly, keeping his eyes trained on her.
“And what do the turtles have to do with killing honest people and shooting at us?” Miss Elva demanded.
“The turtles lay their eggs on this beach. If the condo development gets built here, there will be no place for them to go,” the man said.
“Who are you?” I cut in.
“Darius Masterson. I’m a biologist,” Darius explained, the guns still trained on us.
“Darius, don’t you think there might be a better way to accomplish all this?” I asked gently.
“I tried. I really tried. For a year now. Nobody cares. They take my fliers and throw them away. Nobody listens,” Darius said, his dreadlocks sticking out like crazy and bouncing around his head while he shouted.
“Why did you want us to come here tonight?”
“I only wanted the voodoo priestess. Not the psychic. She can’t do anything,” Darius scoffed. I felt offended.
“Excuse me? I can do plenty of things,” I said, hand on hip. Miss Elva cast me a look and I shut up. I wondered if Cash was on the boat watching all this, and if they were planning to take a shot at Darius. Considering the possibility, I slowly began to move closer to Miss Elva, positioning ourselves so that we weren’t blocking the sightline from the water.
“I want you to put a curse on this beach,” Darius demanded of Miss Elva, and she nodded slowly, listening to him.
“What did you do to Luna?” I asked, my eyes on my best friend on the ground. She was laid out with her back to us, but I could see her arm move a little, so I knew she was still breathing.
“I just knocked her out, she’s fine,” Darius said, dismissing her.
“How come you took Luna?” Miss Elva demanded.
“I heard she was a witch. But she told me she doesn’t do curses and that I had to get Miss Elva.”
Luna was smart, that’s for sure.
“What was with the whole drilling the saplings in that guy’s head, then?” I said, keeping him talking and trying desperately not to glance towards the water to see if the boat was near. At least they would be able to see clearly, thanks to Miss Elva’s charm.
“Wasn’t that great? I knew the Pagan festival was in town; then when I saw you guys doing your ritual on the beach, I figured it would be a perfect spot to lay the body out. It looked really cool, if I do say so myself,” Darius puffed out his chest a bit, seeming very proud of himself.
“Yeah, super cool. So you watched our whole ritual?” I wondered if he knew about Rafe, who was currently flitting around Miss Elva’s head. I tried not to get grossed out thinking about Darius creeping around in the bushes while we were skyclad on the beach.
“Nah, I just caught the end. It was pretty cool. That’s why I wanted to take Luna. She clearly knew what she was doing. You on the other hand…well, you need some work.”
Don’t get offended, don’t get offended. I was tempted to toss some power at this dude to see what he would do, but with one gun trained on Luna’s inert body and the other on us, I felt like my hands were tied.
“Sure, I’ll put a curse on the beach for you. I just needto get my stuff out of my bag,” Miss Elva said, holding her hands up and explaining what she was going to do.
