She realized how absurd that sounded and started laughing. She got up. “Oh, Mercedes says if you want your linen changed again, ever, you’d better come up with some idea for a curtain around your new pet.”
“Wimp.”
“Not everybody thinks rattlesnakes make good pets,” she pointed out.
“I did notice the padlock,” John said with a speaking glance.
“Listen, I’m not sleeping down the hall from an animal that can get out of a cage. And don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” she interrupted when he opened his mouth.
“Or don’t you remember the night your albino python got loose and Cole and I woke up in bed with him?”
“I remember the screaming,” he had to admit.
“You were so lucky that your father couldn’t find his box of shotgun shells. He was really looking hard,” she added.
He grimaced. “You know Dad likes to sleep like polar bears, summer or winter. The poor snake was just trying to get warm, and you and Dad were the only sources of heat in the room.”
“Where he shouldn’t have been in the first place!”
He held up both arms. “Guilty, as charged. I did get a new lid for his cage,” he reminded her. “One with a good lock.”
“And just in time, too.”
He sighed. “Odalie and I had such fun terrorizing ranch hands with Charlie,” he recalled with a smile. “He was really laid-back for a snake his size.”
“Stasia’s boss, Tony Garza, has one just like him. Have you seen it?”
“No! Really?”
She nodded. “He lives at the Long Island house. Next time you visit your sister, ask Tony to take you out there. His snake lives in a room they call the jungle, because it’s full of exotic plants and grow lights. Stasia says it’s gorgeous.”
“I’d love to see him.”
“I think they’re going to be really happy together one day. Tony and Odalie I mean. They’re enemies right now, though. I was worried once, because of Tony’s reputation as a former mob boss. But, you know, we would never have gotten Tanner back alive if it hadn’t been for Tony.”
“He strikes fear in the heart of a lot of people. Especially that scalawag in DC who’s still going free after killing all those innocents in Iraq.”
“I’d like to see him in front of a congressional committee, too, but he heads one of the premier black ops agencies and makes them lots of money doing it,” Heather said. “He stays free because he’s got something on everybody and threatens to use it.”
“Yes, but Tony’s got something on him,” John said with a smug smile. “Tanner says it’s just a matter of time before the right people are willing to tackle him. Tanner says he’ll go to DC and testify. He was one of two eyewitnesses, which was why Phillip James tried to have him killed. But at the time, Tanner was the only one. Now Tony’s found at least one other witness who’ll testify, and an acquaintance of Tony’s who works for the US Marshals Service is trying to help find another one. Things are looking up.”
“Yes, they are,” Heather said. Her pretty pale blue eyes narrowed. “That girl who was here, you know, you very rarely see people with hair like hers. Red-gold.”
“It could have come out of a bottle,” John commented.
“I don’t think so. She had freckles, did you notice?”
His chin lifted. “Probably painted on,” he huffed.
She laughed. “Lost cause.”
He wrinkled his nose and smiled. He got up. “Where’s Dad?”
“Down at the stable. That new Arabian he bought was just delivered.”
“The white one?”
“There was only one he was willing to bid on,” Heather reminded him.
