Her father had introduced them to her when she’d been fifteen, and even made her take courses with it at a martial arts dojo till she knew what she was doing. You’re a woman, baby girl, her dad had said, and you’re workin’ in a man’s world. Some of them guys you take on are gonna show a mean side ever’ now an’ again. No matter that you can scuffle an’ fight, you’re likely gonna be givin’ away a hundred pounds or more an’ maybe a few inches of reach. It’d be stupid for you to work in them conditions an’ not be able to properly take care of yourself.
Over the years, Kate had worn the weapon out in the bush. She’d used it more on snakes, wild pigs and alligators than men. But she’d used it on men before too. It usually shortened the fight any belligerent drunk might want to provoke to a matter of seconds, with no one getting seriously hurt.
“Did you take video of Mathis shooting the wildlife?” Kate asked. That was why they kept the camera. Sometimes as an added feature to the hunt, and sometimes to shoot evidence of poachers.
“Yep. Lotsa footage.” Tyler shook his head. “Dumbass. He wants a copy. Even paid me in advance.”
Kate breathed out in an effort to stay calm. Guys like Darrel Mathis just didn’t understand that shooting video of what they were doing was for a court case, not a vanity recording they could show their friends later.
“We booked five buddies,” Kate said. “How many are still with him?”
“Three.”
“What condition?”
“About as drunk as Mathis.”
“Any idea what set him off?”
“They’ve been drinking since last night,” Tyler said. “I don’t think they’ve come up for air or been to bed.” He was silent for a moment. “What are you going to do?”
“Ask them to leave.”
“Great.” Tyler snorted. “I’m sure they’ll just pack right up and go. Is the sheriff sendin’ somebody around?”
“They’re tied up with the escaping convicts.”
“Goin’ up there is stupid. He’s just gonna laugh in your face.”
“Just make sure you keep the camera on.” Kate willed herself to go cold inside. Sometimes a paying customer went willingly, maybe feeling remorseful about what they’d done, and sometimes they were so drunk they were easy to handle. And sometimes Sheriff Bannock had a deputy that could stop by when Kate pressed charges and produced a digital recording.
The camp was a neat, compact affair, one of the permanent sites she maintained under contract with the landowner. Keeping the guests from shooting up the wildlife—and sometimes the landowner’s livestock—fell under Kate’s purview.
There was a single log cabin with three small bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and two bathrooms with shower facilities. An outside patio provided a brick grill and oven so any game taken could be cooked and prepared fresh instead of packed away and frozen for transport back home.
All of it sat in a hammock of broad-leafed oak trees that looked alien against the backdrop of the cypress trees that were generally the norm this far south in Florida. Most of the hardwood trees never ventured into the wetter climates near the coastal areas.
Shade covered the gleaming SUVs and luxury cars parked under the carport. Any one of them would have cost more than what Kate made in a calendar year as a guide, but she didn’t owe for anything. After her divorce from Bryce, she’d been very careful with her money, saving as much as she could before giving it to attorneys to fight the impossible fight for more time with her children.
Kate didn’t resent her moneyed clients the income they had, but it did remind her of Bryce and the fact that she’d never be able to match what Bryce was able to give Steven and Hannah on what she was doing now. But there was something to be said for being free.
She’d built her cabin in the off-season, after securing the lease. She’d felled the timber, cleaned it up and negotiated furnishings, plumbing and kitchen appliances from building contractors she worked with when hunting and fishing was slow. She’d taken pride in her work. And in the fact that her dad had helped her put it together these past few years.
She only had three sites with permanent housing. The rest were campsites. Permanent housing was a plus. The clients didn’t have to drive in every day from Everglades City or one of the outlying areas, and they didn’t have to rough it in a tent. Being able to get drunk, bring women out or watch satellite television if the hunting trip turned into a lazy vacation made the difference to a lot of clients.
At the door, Kate hooked the Asp to her belt, took a deep breath, then knocked.
“Who is it?” a male voice demanded.
“Kate Garrett, Dr. Mathis,” Kate said.
When dealing with clients, her dad had taught her always to refer to them as Mr. or Mrs. or, in this case, doctor.
“We’re fine, sweetheart,” Mathis said. “Don’t need anything. But I appreciate you stopping by.”
“We need to talk, sir.” The “sir” part sometimes came hard, like it did in this case, when a client turned out to be a trigger-happy fool.
The door opened. Darrel Mathis glared down at her. He was a big man, six feet four inches tall, a lot of it running to fat. His jet-black hair and goatee came out of a bottle, as evidenced by the untreated three-days’ growth of ash-gray whiskers on his cheeks. He wore camouflage pants spotted with blood and a black T-shirt.
“That sounded awfully official,” Mathis said.
“Yes, sir,” Kate agreed. “I’m afraid it was. I’m here to ask you and your friends to leave.”
Mathis looked at her for a moment, then he grinned and stepped back into the cabin. Behind him, three men in varying degrees of sobriety sat at a card table. Clothes lay scattered everywhere, as well as rifles and bows. A porno movie played on the wide-screen television to their left. The dramatic groans of the stars filled the silence in the cabin.
No one made a move to switch off the television.
Kate got the feeling that she’d walked into an NRA frat party.
“Our guide,” Mathis said drunkenly, gesturing to Kate. “Says she’s here to throw us out.”
The three men sat there, obviously not knowing what to do.
Then Mathis started laughing, and the other three joined him. Turning back to Kate, Mathis said, “This is Friday, sweet cheeks. I’m paid through till Sunday. Come back and throw me out then.” He gestured at the cabin. “I’ll probably be ready then. I have to tell you, the atmosphere isn’t exactly what I’d thought it would be.”
He said that with air-conditioning pouring into Kate’s face. She’d worked hard to get air-conditioning to the cabin, had to pull extra shifts at the construction work to afford the units and the gasoline-powered generators to run them.
Mathis tried to close the door.
Kate shoved her foot into it before the door met the jamb. The hiking boots protected her feet from a lot, including weather and impact. She didn’t even feel the door close on it.
“Dr. Mathis,” she stated firmly, “you’re leaving. Now.”
Mathis got red in the face and cursed, not nearly as inventively as Kate thought a medical school graduate should be able to. She stood before him and didn’t react, didn’t let any of it touch her. The last time she’d let herself be hurt by anything a man said had been in divorce court, when Bryce had accused her of being unfaithful in their marriage and had got several of his friends on the stand to swear to the affairs they’d had with her.
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