Page 76 of Hiss and Make Up
Sierra hopped off her stool. “Jeez, I can take a hint.”
“Not last I checked.”
She followed Seth out and held the curtain open for Liz’s next customer. Then she stuck her head back in to add, “You’ll at least post my bail, right?”
Liz patted the chair where she wanted the new guy to sit and took the picture he handed her. She waved Sierra off with her free hand. “Yeah, sure. Whatever. Just remember, I’m gonna come looking for your butt the next time you don’t come home or answer my texts.”
She shut the curtain and waved goodbye to Seth before letting the screen door shut on her way out.
The visit hadn’t gone as planned, but Sierra could work around today’s roadblocks. She didn’t need Marc for what she had planned next, and Liz had been a long shot anyway.
She’d been able to do a little research at work, calling breeders, dealers, and pet stores. Her biggest remaining hope was Wildlife and Fisheries. But she needed to put in an official request for public records, and it might take forever to get that information.
She couldn’t find anything about Mr. Guidry either. No obituary. No marriage announcements. Nothing. It was weird. Like he’d vanished. No mention of the man after he left town. If the guy bred snakes, that didn’t leave much in the way of transferable skills. You’d think she would have found some listing of him somewhere in the U.S. registered as a breeder. She couldn’t imagine he’d ditch his only source of income like that. And what had happened to all those reptiles after he left?
One person had access to them. One person who might still have them. A person who might be missing a few northern water snakes.
Sierra sat in her car and looked at the torn envelope on her driver’s seat. She picked it up, looked at the address she’d scribbled on the back, and flicked it with her middle finger.
She had a pretty good idea of what she might find at that address. All she had to do now was find a way inside.
18
Sierra turned off the twisting road that ran along the Vermilion Bayou onto a driveway that was nothing but two dirt ruts. She parked in an empty lot and walked toward the aging mobile home.
The grass was patchy and dotted with deep puddles, even though it hadn’t rained in at least a week, and the air smelled like mud and swamp water and garbage. And…feces.
After a quick look around, she found the source. A dirty, plastic doghouse on the other end of the trailer.
Every instinct urged her to check it out, to make sure the animal was healthy and cared for. But the last thing she needed was a dog barking its head off while she tried to break into a place she had no business being at. She made a mental note to assess the situation on her way out, then she tiptoed up the wobbly wooden steps to the small platform in front of the door.
It was quiet behind the small window and thin curtain, but she knocked anyway. She was prepared to ask about some random name and explain that she had the wrong address, but no one answered.
Sierra dug in her pocket for the paper clips she’d swiped from the Nature Station. Liz still kept a tension wrench in her car, but she’d known the chances of getting Liz on board with this had been next to nothing. So she’d brought her own backup.
Between lookout glances, Sierra unfolded two paper clips—one with a ninety-degree bend at the end and the other completely straight. She inserted the bent clip and wiggled it to see which way the lock turned. Pressing down on the shear line, Sierra took a deep breath and stared at the knob.
That was the easy part. She’d seen Liz do this enough and practiced on her own at home to know that she wouldn’t get this right on the first try. That was why she needed Liz. She always needed Liz, but shereallyneeded her for this. Except she couldn’t argue against the logic that her friend had responsibilities now. Specifically, a three-and-a-half-foot responsibility with big brown eyes and a nasty habit of needing things like food and guardianship.
So Sierra accepted the fact that she was on her own this time. It would just take her a little more time to do it. Hopefully, time she had.
She slipped the pick inside then jiggled it, catching the first two pins. Then she slipped.Crap. She was out of practice.
After glancing over both shoulders, she tried again. She twisted her wrist, jiggling each pin while keeping pressure with the wrench clip, and eventually unlocked all five pins. She twisted the other clip and turned the handle.
Success.
Sierra closed the door and exhaled against it as she returned the paper clips to her pocket. It smelled worse inside the mobile home than it had outside. Cigarette smoke and mold.
With no time to waste, she pushed away from the door and tiptoed through the dark living room. She had no idea where this dude was or when he’d be back. She was lucky enough that he wasn’t home. She couldn’t have enough luck left to screw around wasting time.
She crept down the hall, the thin floor vibrating beneath every step. She poked her head in the bathroom, then checked both bedrooms. One room had a bed, a dresser, and a small desk with a computer. The other room was filled with half-assembled computers and assorted parts stacked along the walls. She’d hoped to find a room filled with glass reptile cases, but she’d apparently used all her luck getting that front door open.
Back near the living room, piles of half-opened envelopes, junk mail, and sale ads sat on a round dinette table. Sierra sifted through them, not sure what she was looking for. She didn’t find anything that might implicate the guy in anything more nefarious than landing on a craft store’s mailing list.
The place was a bust.
A flashing neon sign pointing at an empty snake tank would have been swell. But if this guy had taken over his dad’s reptiles, he was keeping them elsewhere. Unfortunately, he hadn’t left a treasure map either.
