Cold-Blooded, Book 2 in the Mattie Saunders Series

Liz could see the flashing red lights of emergency vehicles from a mile away. She’d only been gone four hours, what the hell could have happened? She slowed the van as she approached The Reptile Refuge, its parking filled with police vehicles.

Pull in or drive by? Common sense told her to get as much distance as possible between her and the situation, but if Lee was in trouble or worse, she had to know. She braked, turned and pulled up beside a police cruiser. She’d tell them she was a volunteer, which she was, at least initially.

“What’s going on?”

“This is a crime scene. You can’t go beyond the tape,” the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer said. The cop was a young woman about the same age as Liz, but that was all they had in common. “The Reptile Refuge is closed indefinitely.”

“What’s going to happen to all the animals?”

“We’re notifying the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals regarding the inhabitants.”

“Can I at least speak to Lee?”

“Lee?”

“The owner, Leborg Kovacevic.”

“You know the owner?”

“I volunteer here.”

“I think the lead investigator may want to talk to you. Stay here.” The constable went to consult with her superior.

Maybe this was not such a good idea. Did she really want to talk to the RCMP? They’d run her name, see she had a few priors. The next thing you know they’d think she was somehow involved, which she was, but the cops didn’t need to know.

Liz double-timed it back to the van, got in and pulled onto 184th Avenue and headed north, back toward the city centre with its stores and traffic and lots of vehicles similar to what she was driving.

She didn’t even want to think about what had gone down and no way did she want to get drawn into it. The best thing to do was to ditch the vehicle.

The van belonged to The Reptile Refuge Centre where it was used for, among other things, transporting herps back and forth to school presentations, expos in malls or anywhere else someone would pay a few bucks to see and learn about reptiles and amphibians. Liz was returning from doing that very thing at an elementary school in Vancouver.

She pulled into the massive parking lot at Guildford Town Centre. Get out, walk away, disappear she told herself, but instead she sat there.

Could she do it? Could she abandon the other passengers in the van: two Ball Pythons, two Carpet Boas, a Corn Snake, four Geckos, a Bearded Dragon, an eighteen inch long Blue Tongue Skink, two Red-eared Slider Turtles, Spots the forty pound Leopard Tortoise and Iggy, her pet Iguana?

Of course, she’d take Iggy, but could she abandon the rest?

She could call the SPCA anonymously and tell them about the van and its contents, but how likely were they to find people to adopt these reptiles?

Besides, did the SPCA have enclosures with heat pads that provided the right temperature and humidity? Did they have lamps with full-spectrum UVA and UVB light? And what would they feed them? You couldn’t just put down a bowl of kibble.

Her animals would likely die in the shelter or be euthanized.

No, Liz couldn’t take a chance of that happening. They depended on her. Some of them she’d looked after for nearly two years, a few she’d nursed back from the brink of death. You spend that long with something, even a snake or a lizard and you get to know them. You get attached.

She’d have to take them home to the small basement suite she lived in.

* * *

“Mattie, come look at this,” Bodine called from the living room where he was watching television.

He was taking a break from touring to promote his new album, the first one he’d produced on his own label in the new studio next to the bird sanctuary. He’d been home two days, most of which they’d spent in bed, and Mattie had done zero studying. Tomorrow was her mid-term in mathematics. Why someone who wanted to be an ornithologist and do fieldwork in land management and wild bird conservation had to take math was beyond her, and so was most of the mathematical theory.

“I’m trying to study if you don’t mind.”

“No, really. You’ve got to see this.”

He was starting to piss her off. She had a career too or at least was trying to have one.

“Hurry, it’s coming up right after the commercial break.”

Mattie slammed the textbook shut, pushed back the chair and stormed out of the kitchen.

“Look, Bo, just because you’ve come home after three weeks on the road promoting your career doesn’t mean I can drop everything–”

“Shh.”

The fifty-two-inch screen showed a reporter standing in front of The Reptile Refuge in Surrey. The parking lot, filled with police vehicles, was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.

“Information is coming out about a suspicious death here at The Reptile Refuge on 184th Street in Surrey.” The reporter turned and pointed to the sign. “RCMP arrived on the scene about noon today and shortly after confirmed they found one body and the death was being considered as suspicious.”

The screen showed members of the coroner’s office wheeling a gurney out of the front entrance and loading a bagged body into a van.

“For the past four years, The Reptile Refuge has been owned and operated by Leborg Kovacevic, who rescues and rehabilitates exotic reptiles like snakes and lizards. According to the refuge’s website, they also provide a hands-on educational experience for schools, expos, birthday parties and corporate events.”

A film clip showed a young woman with a four-foot-long, yellow and black python draped over her shoulder. She cradled the snake’s neck in her hand, its black, forked tongue flicking in the air while nervous grade-schoolers stroked its head.

“That’s Liz!” Mattie said. “I know that girl, we went to high school together, at least for a while.”

“Really? She doesn’t look like your type.”

“She was nice, kind of weird, but always friendly.” Mattie studied the larger-than-life face on the high definition set. “She hung out with this group who dressed totally in black, had unhealthy complexions and unnaturally vibrant coloured hair.” Liz had been weird for sure, but at least she had friends at high school and wasn’t a complete loner like Mattie.

“She looks like a Seditious fan,” Bo said, referring to the bad-boy rock band he’d been lead guitarist in. “She’s more exotic than the snake.”

The cameraman had thought so as well, the footage being more of the snake handler than the snake or the school kids.

“The purple hair is different and the ring through her lip is new.”

On the screen, the kids jumped back as the snake made a sudden move. Liz smiled, bent down, whispered something to the reptile and kissed the top of its triangular head.

“Slash had a pet python,” Bodine said. “It was huge. I saw it once when we were jamming at his place.”

“Shh.”

The talking head was back on. “The refuge is closed on Mondays and police are not saying what alerted them. It will remain closed until further notice as the investigation is ongoing.”

“What’s going to happen to the animals, Gavin?” asked the television news anchor.

“The SPCA is taking charge of them, but as you know these animals need special care and the Society is anxious to find good homes for them or at least appropriate foster care until they can be permanently placed.”

“That’s Gavin Perry reporting from The Reptile Refuge in south Surrey.” The anchor looked to her co-host. “Want a pet python?”

Bodine turned off the television. “Speaking of pythons, I could use a squeeze.” He reached for her.

Mattie stepped away. “Those poor animals.”

“Don’t worry, Mattie, they’ll get good homes.”

“Are you joking? The SPCA can’t even find homes for all the cute and cuddly cats and dogs they take in.” The desperation Mattie felt for her birds when they were at risk she now felt for the reptiles. “What kind of people buy animals without any consideration for how they’ll care for them when they double or treble in size?”

“How about going out for dinner?” Bo said.

“Didn’t you hear me say I needed to study?”

“We’ll go for sushi. We’ll be back in two hours.”

“If I study all night I’ll be lucky to get a passing grade. Besides, it’s too much hassle.”

The only people who acted normal around Bodine were those who were just as famous and in Delta, British Columbia, that was nobody. When he was away Mattie counted the seconds until he returned. When he was home it was only a few days until she couldn’t wait for him to leave so life could return to normal.

From the time they’d got together, Mattie had never been comfortable in the spotlight and went to considerable inconvenience to avoid it. But it was impossible to go out with Bodine and not end up with your picture on E-Talk, on the front page of a tabloid or part of a viral social media frenzy. She hated it.

Even when they stayed in the paparazzi, camped outside the compound, could capture almost everything with their powerful telephoto lenses. Like the time she went to the bird sanctuary building very early in the morning to see how some new arrivals had settled in.

A week later, while waiting to check out some groceries at Super Store there she was on the front page of a tabloid in her ragged flannel nightie. The headline read, “Bird Girl flees Bodine’s love nest”. The story quoted unnamed sources “close to the couple” who said they often had violent differences of opinion.

The violence was a lie, the difference of opinions wasn’t.

The fans, the paparazzi, most of his friends, the overall frenetic-ness of his life, it all was driving her crazy. Mattie knew she needed to do something, she just didn’t know what.

“I’ll order in then,” Bodine said.

“No, you go. Your prowling around makes it impossible to study.”

“Really?”

Shit, now his feelings were hurt. “Look, just go. I promise I’ll be in a better mood when you get back.”

“I hope so.”

Mattie watched Bodine drive away in the Land Rover with Bobby and Franco, two of the Big Four, as they called his four-man personal security contingent, then returned to the kitchen table and her textbooks.

“Nasty.” Pickles was on her perch in her cage by the window.

“Do you want to spend the night in the sanctuary?”

Pickles shrieked and flapped her wings. That woke up Manny and the two Macaws had a noisy conversation, likely about what a bitch Mattie was. Finally, she had to cut up an apple and feed it to them before they settled down.

Mattie tried to focus on logarithmic, exponential and trigonometric functions but her mind kept coming back to The Reptile Refuge story and Liz.

Her friend looked the same as in high school. Behind all that mascara, eye shadow and liner she still had that sweet innocent look. And she was sweet ­– and kind and generous and sensitive.

They’d connected when Mattie brought in Pickles and some of the orphans from the bird sanctuary for a biology class show-and-tell session.

It was the last class of the day and Mattie was waiting for her grandfather to arrive with the van to take the birds back home.

“So, you like birds.”

Mattie turned and Liz was standing there smiling. Up close she was even prettier and tinier, like five feet nothing.