Page 85 of Refuge for Flora

The next morning, Barrett took Flora to Mrs.Murphy’s to shower and dress after he’d gotten ready for the day. They drove to the hospital to find that Mrs.Murphy was still in tests and wouldn’t be finished for a couple of hours, so they headed to the nearest pancake diner to have some breakfast. The day wore on, and Mrs.Murphy came out of surgery and went back to a room for the night, so Barrett took Flora back with him. At least that evening they got some sleep.

It was two more days before Mrs.Murphy got to go home, and by then, Flora really didn’t want to go back there. All she wanted to do was stay with Barrett, but she couldn’t. He brought Conor to pick up the Buick for his use in the plan they would be carrying out that weekend, a move that left Flora with nothing to drive. She knew he did it on purpose, but it was hard to be mad at him. Look what going to the hospital had done?almost gotten her caught by the crazies. She wouldn’t be doing that again.

* * *

“So you know where they went?”

The burly man with the jailhouse tattoos on his fingers nodded. “Yep. Saw ‘em with my own two eyes.”

“Okay. Me and Bradley got work to do today. First chance you get when you know that guy ain’t around, you grab her. Do whatever you want with her, as long as don’t nobody ever get to talk to her again. Once you bring me her ring finger, I’ll give you the money and you can get gone.”

“Sounds good, but you need to know… I’m pretty sure that guy is a wildlife officer. He had some kind of sticker on the side of his truck. You sure you wanna go that direction? ‘Cause if you take that woman, you’re gonna bring him down on you.”

“Not if’n he don’t know where we’s at. And he don’t. We’ll be fine. They ain’t found us yet, so they ain’t gonna.” Darryl grinned. “You go take care of her. And we’re gonna go make some money.”

* * *

They’d startedout looking to catch illegal breeders and smugglers of reptiles, but it had morphed into apprehending a murderer. For Barrett, it had turned into a lot more than that.

They met on Friday evening. Conor would be playing up the idea of going into a new business. Bud had met with one of the vendors, and he’d be working alongside the fellow at the expo, pretending to be a breeder of ball pythons, corn snakes, and red-tailed boas. The man had also begun to breed and sell tegus, although not in quantities similar to his snakes, so that made him look like a good candidate for some of the illegal reptiles. Kirby and Jonas would be nearby. Frankie and another officer would hang out in the hallway near the restrooms and when Darryl or Bradley left, they’d follow like they’d been inside shopping. They’d all be surprised if anyone suspected them.

Saturday morning was bright and clear. Barrett really wanted to go to the expo, but Conor wasn’t sure it was a good idea. They did, however, need someone to stay in the back of the building where there was a small office. Bud would be wearing a wire, as would Conor, Kirby, Jonas, Frankie, and LeeLee, and Barrett could monitor the conversations and communicate with them if necessary.

As Barrett watched out the little window in the door of the expo center’s office, he was surprised. The place was packed with people. Everywhere he looked there was someone handling a snake, people buying things he couldn’t identify, and kids ran back and forth all over the place. There were dozens of families buying all kinds of pets, some carrying hedgehogs, sugar gliders, or rabbits out. Rat breeders purchased more breeding stock to raise and sell live and frozen rats to reptile owners as food for their hungry snakes, and other vendors sold crickets, meal worms, and Dubia roaches for lizards of different kinds. There were vendors with reptile-themed shirts, stickers, hats, toys, jewelry, and everything else you could possibly imagine. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. He could see Bud, and Barrett’s older friend was in his element, talking to kids and showing them different animals his vendor was selling. It took him a while, but he finally spotted Conor at the far end of the room, chatting up a breeder of boas and large python species, so he tuned his receiver to Conor’s wire and listened.

“You can make money raising and selling these?”

“Oh, yeah. Absolutely.”

“So what would I need to get started?”

Barrett listened as the vendor talked to Conor about how to set up for a business to breed and sell snakes. As they talked, Barrett scanned the room and the front entrance from one of the security camera monitors in the office. He purposely hadn’t opened the microphone feed, but something caught his eye and he tapped in so Frankie, LeeLee, Bud, Kirby, and Jonas could hear him. “All ears, heads up. They’re walking in the door now.”

Sure enough, the big glass doors to the convention hall opened and Darryl stepped inside, followed by Bradley. Conor had turned to move to another table, and from the monitor, Barrett saw Bud signal Conor by laying his right index finger against the right side of his nose. Conor mirrored the movement back to Bud, and Barrett knew he understood.

The next table had some large lizards. “So what are these?” he heard Conor ask.

“This is an Argentinian black and white tegu. They come from SouthAmerica.” Barrett could see the vendor pick up the large lizard and hold it affectionately. “They look ferocious, but they’re really pretty docile.”

“Interesting. How much is that one?”

“It’s five hundred.”

“Are they hard to breed?”

“Not too. Are you looking to start a breeding program?”

Conor shrugged. “Maybe. I inherited some money and I’m looking to multiply it. How long would it take me to make my money back, do you think?”

“Depends on how well they breed and how good your husbandry is.”

Conor pointed to something Barrett couldn’t see. “What’s that one there?”

“Oh, that’s a special morph. He’s twelve thousand.”

“Twelve thousand dollars?” Conor almost yelled.

“Oh, yeah. Some of these can be very valuable if you get some nice color morphs from breeding. Wanna hold it?”

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