“Then you’ll pay them back after you collect the million. Unless it’s the LeDoux. Leave a bag of money on their doorstep if it makes you feel better. But the reality is if we’re going to buy into this tale then we have to buy into the ending. Taking the ring in exchange for a future payout is better than the alternative where we’re all dead or worse—slaves to some invading douchebags.”

“I’ve already done the servant thing. I’m sorta over it.”

Chapter Twenty

Snooze gave Marina a woeful look when she walked into the cabin.

“Don’t give me that crap,” she said. “I let you out last night and I brought you pizza. I had a situation with Avery that had to be taken care of. You do like Avery, right?”

Single bark.

“Okay, then we’re in agreement. It’s not like you needed me here to listen to you snore anyway. Besides, I have kolache.”

His ears perked up and he did a regal sit.

She laughed. “You know, I kinda like this whole communication thing we have going. I wonder if I could teach you to type so we could have a real conversation. You might be the best guy I know.”

Single bark.

Marina took a kolache out of the bag and tossed it to Snooze, who caught it neatly then trotted off to the living room. She popped one in the microwave for herself, then headed into the bedroom to rummage some matching clothes out of the boxes she still hadn’t unpacked. She’d just started digging through the first box when Snooze started barking.

His angry bark.

She hurried into the living room and saw the old hound standing in front of the back door, almost frozen in place. And he did not look happy.

“Good God, are those hackles? You never get hackles. What’s out there?”

She grabbed the shotgun off the rack next to the back door and peered outside. Maybe it was a bear or a gator. Snooze wasn’t all that active, but his nose and his ears worked as well as any other bloodhound. And something had set him off.

“You stay here,” she said and opened the door to slip outside.

She walked from one end of the porch to the other, scanning the weeds, the tree line, and the bayou for what might have upset Snooze, but she didn’t see anything. She was just about to chalk the whole thing up to Snooze hearing a butterfly flapping somewhere in the woods when she saw something move in the trees. She lifted the shotgun and pointed it toward the area of movement. She’d only seen a shadow but whatever it was, it was tall. At least six feet.

A bear on his hind legs, maybe?

But then it took off and the bear theory flew out the window. It took off fast—on two legs. A bear couldn’t maintain that kind of speed unless on all fours.

The poacher, maybe? But why would he be lurking around her cabin during the day? He hadn’t been squatting here. They would have found evidence of someone living here, and the layers of dust had been a clear indication that no one had set foot inside in a long time. So why all the interest in the cabin now?