Wicked Game

Prologue

"Tell me you're joking."

"Jokes are funny, Da," she replied, tilting her head to the sky and basking in the smoldering rays of the Central American sun. It reminded her of Africa, of her wild dogs and elephants and cheetahs, of her days watching over the preserve. A pang of regret hit her hard in the chest and she prayed, not for the first time, that her father's concerns weren't going to come and bite her in the ass.

"Not all of them," he retorted sharply; she could envision the deep furrow over his sky blue eyes as he glared down his hooked nose at her and thanked God she wasn't physically present for that disappointed scowl. "This one sure as hell isn't. You weren't there, Crys, you don't know-"

"I know," she growled suddenly, slamming her tumbler of whiskey onto the rickety step beside her hard enough to nearly shatter the glass - or the step, "I do know. I saw what happened, Da. I might notta been there, but I saw what it did. What they did to you."

"And yet you still took the job," he snarled, "even after all they did. That damned place nearly killed me! It'll kill you too if you're not careful-"

"But I am," she stood, rolling the tension from her shoulders and groaning as a slick, silver Mercedes pulled up toward her bungalow, "it's kinda my job - and don't you start on the whole 'it was mine, too,' shit, because I know. God knows you tell me every damn day. Things are different now. I wouldn't be here if they weren't. I'd be on the first plane back to the mainland, willing to hear every last 'I told you so' you had to offer."

He snorted at that, half distressed and half amused. Cracking a grin, she knew she had him.

The threat of him being right gets him every time, she thought with a victorious smirk, noting with a click of her tongue, "Look, Da, I understand your worries. I really do. I don't wanna see what happened to you happen to anyone here. But I've got this. I do. You just have to trust me."

"I do, pet, I do," he conceded, his tone gruffer with reluctance, "it's them I don't trust."

"Well they are marching up to my bungalow as we speak, madder than hell it'd seem," she commented lightly, unconcerned as Claire, the park's operations manager, came striding across the lush lawn with a furious scowl painted across her pale face. A glance at her watch told Crys that she was an hour late to some meeting or other Claire had emailed her about the night before.

Explains the constant buzzin' phone in my ear, she mused with a smothered grin; she didn't want to make the redhead even more upset. The ear-chewings she got were aggravating, to say the least.

"Don't let 'em do anything to endanger you, Crys, you or those fools that actually pay money to go to that death trap," her father warned her, "so help me God, I hear one thing and I'm-"

"'-on the first plane down there,' I know, I know," Crys muttered with an affectionate laugh; truly, for all his paranoia and misgivings, he really did have her best interests at heart, "I gotta go; this is prob'ly gonna get ugly. I'll talk to ya later, alright, Da? Love you."

"You, as well, pet," he muttered, grumbling to himself even as she pulled the phone from her ear and disconnected the call. Rounding on the charging redhead, she raised a hand in greeting and noted cheerfully, "Mornin', Claire. How can I-"

"An hour and-," Claire paused mid-rant to check her dainty silver wristwatch, "seventeen minutes, Crystelle! I called you six times... no answer. Looks like your phone's in working order, though."

She eyed the iPhone Crys tucked into one of the many pockets of her cargo shorts in disdain. Though, truthfully, Crys couldn't be certain if it was the phone, or the shorts that had her more irritated. If Claire was anything - and she was a lot of things Crys wouldn't dare say in her presence - it was professional.