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“Yes, I am. There was an FBI agent here. Sorsha Aberdeen. Asking questions about you and Dante Rosario and your dad.”
“My dad! What was she asking?”
“Fishing around mostly. Like if I’d ever noticed anything unusual. I told her I hadn’t seen you or Dante since Mardi Gras, and I wouldn’t know your dad from Adam.”
“Well, shit.” I scowled. “I saw her out on Highway 51 yesterday arresting some guy. I wonder if there’s a connection.” I needed to tug some strings and find out why she had him stopped.
“Worth looking into,” Bear said. “What did you call about earlier?”
“To tell you to keep your people out of Mudsucker Swamp. Hell, stay clear of any place with alligators.”
“Yeah, Nick told me.”
“Oh. How much did he say?”
“That there are some screwed up gators who can make people sick. Like you. But mindless.”
I blew out my breath. “That about covers it.”
“You need any help dealing with it?”
“I might,” I said, grimacing. “I’ll let you know.”
“Do so. And be careful.”
• • •
I loved biology. Loved it. It was fascinating and cool and right up my alley.
The professor, not so much. Mr. Dingle seemed vitally interested in making sure everyone knew precisely how very smart he was and how fortunate we were to be in his class. Meanwhile, I was like, Dude, this isn’t Harvard. You’re teaching at a community college in bumfuck Louisiana.
It probably didn’t help my attitude that I worked every day in a real lab.
I plopped my backpack on the floor by a lab bench and parked myself on the stool. We’d already dissected formalin-preserved earthworms and grasshoppers, but during our last class, Mr. Dingle had said he was going to have a surprise for us on lab day. Gee wow. Yawn. I dissected people for a living. I doubted his surprise would thrill me.
Most of my classmates chatted or played with their cell phones. One woman at the back bench frantically flipped through notes. Isabella Romero, or something close to it. About my age. Raising a kid on her own.
The instant the clock ticked to the hour, Mr. Dingle strolled in—a gangly man with a wispy, mouse-brown combover. He placed a covered, clear plastic bin the size of a shoebox on the table. Inside, a live frog hunkered, looking lonely and pitiful.
He called the class to order and held up an instrument with a wooden handle and metal pointy end, like a mini ice pick. “This probe,” he said as if announcing an Oscar winner, “will be used as a pith tool.”
I sucked in a breath. “You’re going to kill that poor little frog?” I blurted, aghast.
His lips separated to show teeth in a godawful abortion of a smile. “First off, you will pith your frog. Second, if you double pith the frog exactly as I instruct, you will destroy the brain and spinal cord. The creature will be mindless and pain-free, but very much functionally alive. Third,” he said, before I could point out how much worse that was, “I’m not going to make you do anything.” His mouth widened. “However, anyone who does not follow the proper procedures—which happen to include pithing your frog—will simply receive a grade of zero for this lab.”
Groans and mutters rippled through the class.
A curly-headed guy I didn’t know raised his hand. “Are we all going to dissect that one frog?”
A whisper of existential ennui flashed over the professor’s face. “No, Mr. Jenkins,” he said through his teeth. “The rest of the frogs are in a tank in the supply room at the end of the hall. After I lecture, we will all walk down there, and I will—yes, Ms. Sanders?”
A girl nearly as scrawny as me lowered her hand. “Why do we have to learn about frog guts anyway? It’s sooooo stupid.”
“Comparative anatomy, Ms. Sanders,” he bit out. “Though I don’t expect you’ll take much away from the exercise.”
I hid a scowl. If the dude wasn’t such a tool, I might almost feel sorry for him having to deal with students who either didn’t appreciate or didn’t really want an education. But anything a bunch of newbie biology students could learn from a pithed frog could just as easily be learned from frogs pre-killed and nicely packed in formalin. And yeah, they’d end up dead either way, but there was no way this group would get the pithing right on the first try. And the gleam in Dingle’s eyes told me he wanted us to pith the fucking frogs ourselves because he was an asshole. Asssssshoooooole.
But mostly, I didn’t want to kill a frog. Sure, I’d killed humans—when they were trying to kill or hurt me or my friends. Even when it was “justified,” it still sucked. Besides, the frogs weren’t trying to kill me.
