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  That seemed pretty drastic—a shotgun. Death by hyena seemed far more subtle.

  But if I were killed by gunshot and then mauled by hippos who would know the cause of death? Their teeth would mask any gunshot wound. Had the hyenas masked the cause of death for Dr. Higgins too?

  Maybe there had never been a hippo walk. Maybe he saw me alone and seized the opportunity. But Ray was waiting. The hippo walk had to be planned because Ray had been waiting, I corrected myself.

  And that returned me to my primary problem—only Ray knew where I was. If I disappeared, no one would know where I was. No one but Ray had seen me leave with Sonny. And surely Ray would cover for his coworker and friend before helping me.

  My only hope was my phone. With limited cell service at the lodge, it’d be foolish to think I could place a call for help from here. And, really, who would I call? I didn’t know the local number that equated to our 911. If I called Charlotte, what would I say? Send help. I’m near the hippos.

  My only hope was that I could type a quick note or text that Sonny had killed me to cover his murdering another tourist. Surely, Charlotte would decipher my phone’s passcode—1111. If I disappeared, Charlotte would use a location app to find me and my phone.

  If nothing else, she’d want the phone. It was one version better than hers. I knew she coveted it.

  Sonny turned and saw my horrified face. He laughed, mistaking my panic. “Americans and their diverse feelings about guns.”

  He reached back into the truck for something and then threw it at me. I screamed and ducked. I landed flat, on my stomach, on the ground.

  “Naomi!” he yelled.

  I stayed covered on the ground as he approached.

  He tapped on my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

  I slowly looked up, fearing I’d see the shotgun pointing at me. But I saw Sonny, shotgun hung on his shoulder, looking at me with genuine concern.

  He handed me the item he had thrown at me—a bottle of water. “It’s hot out. You have to stay hydrated.”

  I mumbled thanks. I slowly got up and tried to wipe the dust off my front. I got most of it off. I couldn’t wipe off my embarrassment for my overreaction. What did I think he was throwing at me? A knife? A grenade?

  “Didn’t mean to scare with the shotgun,” he said. He appeared sincere and I took the waiting water bottle from him. “We have to take it whenever we leave the cruiser.” I nodded, staring at the weapon that hung on his shoulder.

  “Is it really necessary?” I asked.

  “I’ve never had to use it. But better to have it just in case.”

  “In case of what?” I asked.

  “In case one of the hippos charges at us.”

  I was rethinking coming here for a hippo walk—for the fifth time in the last minute.

  He patted me on my arm. “Don’t look so worried!”

  The smile convinced me. I didn’t think he was going to kill me anymore. Mainly because he would have done it already.

  “See this,” he said, pointing to the trampled grass. “It’s the hippo highway!” He pointed down the hippo-made track. I followed him down the narrow path toward the awaiting snorting hippos. “They drag their feet when they walk, flattening out the land underfoot.”

  When I got to the clearing I gasped. A pod of hippos lay in the water before us. I followed Sonny onto the flat rocks for a closer look. At least six hippos could be seen. They floated in the water. For some, only their heads floated on the surface. Others, their whole back floated on the surface.

  “Hippos are nocturnal. They like to stay in the water this time of the day. Keeps their skin moist. Keeps them cool in the heat of the day.”

  I raised my baseball cap and wiped sweat from my brow. It was hot. I took a sip from the water bottle he had thrown at me, thankful for it.

  “Want a picture?” He held out his hand for a camera.

  “I didn’t bring my camera.”

  “Phone then,” he said, stilling holding his hand out.

  I shrugged and handed him my phone. I turned toward him, and away from the hippos for the picture. I smiled at Sonny, waiting for the quick snap. He studied the phone and pointed at me to walk to my left. I tried to maintain a genuine smile, as sweat dripped down my face. Just take the picture already.

  “A couple steps back.” I glanced back before doing as told. It seemed reckless. I didn’t need to be any closer to the wildlife. I could see the headlines:

  Foolish tourist dies trying to get the perfect photo.

  Photo of a lifetime leads to end of life.

  Death by stupidity caught on iPhone.

  Before panic set in that this was his real plan to knock me off—to have me fall into the water and drown or be devoured by hippos—he took the photo and held the phone out to me.

  I’m sure that photo was going to be a keeper. I doubted my fake smile did little to disguise my genuine fear. I put the phone back in my pocket. I didn’t need to see it now.

  Without realizing it, I was now calm. I breathed a sigh of relief. I now had photo proof of where I was. The picture would go to the cloud or something. With the tension in my body gone, I enjoyed the view. Vacations were supposed to be relaxing.

  And then the tension was rekindled. “Did you know that hippos are the most dangerous land animal in Africa?” Sonny announced.

  “I thought they were vegetarians.”

  “You have been paying attention!”

  I had no idea how I knew that but it impressed the teacher.

  “They are extremely aggressive and territorial. They kill about five hundred humans a year.”

  I glanced back at the floating threats. “Time to go?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Yes, time to go.”

  I followed him after taking one more look at the pod.

  Sonny jolted me from my moment of tranquility. “Actually, mosquitos are far more dangerous to humans.”

  I looked around for the threat. I did my best to suppress my desire to swat my arms around frantically to keep the flying killers away.

  “You’ve been taking your malaria medication, right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, still surveying the area for the annoying killer. Thanks to Charlotte’s always annoying reminder. She sounded just like our mother when she asked me once, and then again five minutes later, if I had taken the daily pill. “And wearing this,” I added pointing to the item clipped on my belt.

  “I was wondering what that was. I’ve never seen one before.” He leaned in and looked closer.

  I pulled it off and handed it to him. “It’s a clip-on fan that has a mosquito repellant in it.”

  “Does it work?” He held it and closely inspected it.

  “I’m not dead yet, so I think so.”

  He laughed. More accurately, I hadn’t found any itchy small pink bumps on my skin.

  We resumed our trek on the narrow path, surrounded by the high grasses. Without our tracker Ray trailing behind, I wondered how safe we were. The rifle hanging on Sonny’s shoulder reminded me I was safe.

  I tripped over something. I looked back and saw something white. “Is that…is that a bone?” I asked.

  Sonny stopped and turned around. “Yes.” He knelt down and inspected the curved bone. “Probably a jawbone from a hyena.”

  I stared at it, trying to keep that bone in my view and not images of Dr. Higgins’ dead body.

  “Thinking of Dr. Higgins?” he asked.

  I nodded. How could I not?

  “So sad. I don’t know how such a thing could happen.” I didn’t either. “I’ve contacted a few friends, a few fellow guides. They’ve never heard of such a thing.” He stood up. “Yep, I think it’s a hyena’s bone.”

  I squatted down for a closer look. “But it’s so big.” I thought hyenas were the size of dogs. This jawbone was bigger than any dog’s jaw I had ever encountered.

  “Hyenas are big. A male will usually get to sixty kilograms.” He added, “About one hundred and
thirty pounds,” before I had to ask. “They range from one hundred to one hundred and ninety pounds.”

  “Wow, that’s much bigger than I expected.” I shook my head. “They’re scarier than I imagined.”

  “Even scarier when you consider they hunt in packs. They work together to isolate a herd animal, usually one that’s sick or old, and pursue it to its death.”

  I shivered despite the heat. Is that what Dr. Higgins was? A lone human from our herd?

  “They’re better known as scavengers, opportunistic. They feast on another animal’s kill.”

  I stood back up. That rang true to me. The hyenas that had been in Dr. Higgins’ room had snatched another animal’s—a human’s—kill.

  Sonny continued, “They’ll eat almost anything, but I’ve never—none of us—have ever heard of them attacking a human at a lodge.”

  I wish he hadn’t added he’d never heard it happening at a lodge. Did it happen outside the lodges? I looked around. There were no hyenas near us now.

  We stood over the bone, the hippos snorting in the distance. “Didn’t you talk to him that morning?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Higgins.”

  He shook his head.

  “But everyone, every morning, gets a wake-up call. You call each of us to wake us up.” I might regret asking but I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Why didn’t you call him that morning?”

  “Oh, Dr. Higgins refused wake-up calls. Guests get one if they want one. He didn’t want one. He cancelled it his first night for the whole trip.”

  I had no idea the wake-up call was optional. I started to cancel mine but knew Charlotte would be furious. Plus, to be honest, I needed it far more than Charlotte.

  Sonny resumed his walk to the cruiser, not realizing I had, multiple times during our walk, thought he was a murderer.

  He put the shotgun back in its sheath while I got in the passenger seat. He hesitated before starting the car. “So how was your first hippo walk?”

  There were many adjectives I could choose—terrifying, life-threatening, enlightening, astonishing, beautiful. I answered simply, “Great.”

  “Do you think you want one now?” he asked.

  “What?” I asked.

  He started singing “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas.” Now, I remembered how I knew a hippo was a vegetarian. I couldn’t help but join in with the tune.

  To my amazement, months away from the holidays, we sang the whole song, while driving in the hot afternoon sun back to the lodge.

  Night

  After an excellent dinner of grilled chicken, in a light tomato and garlic sauce and mixed local vegetables, paired perfectly with white wine, Charlotte and I headed back to our lodgings. With an escort, of course.

  I slipped my shoes off and tossed them in the wardrobe. Charlotte pulled out her night clothes.

  “Do you remember Nan’s friend Norah?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered.

  “The one with all the cats,” I added to prompt her memory.

  “Oh…that friend.” Charlotte shivered. “Tried to block that out. Geez, why would you bring that up?”

  “You remember how she died, right?”

  “Do I remember how she died?” she repeated. “Have you lost your mind? It’s the only thing I remember about her. Goodness, it has to be the only thing anyone remembers about that woman.”

  “Charlotte, she was a nice lady. She made the best spice cookies.”

  “How could you possibly think of food and her in the same thought?”

  I walked over to the mini-fridge and grabbed a cookie. A surprising feature of the rooms was a fully stocked fridge with snacks and drinks, alcoholic and nonalcoholic. And it was complimentary.

  “You didn’t just take the last sugar cookie, did you?”

  “Oh, there’s another.” I held it out to her. “Do you want it?”

  “No, I do not want it. I’m nauseated now.”

  “Want a ginger ale?” I asked, holding out a bottle.

  “No, I would like you to shut up.”

  I took the cookie and the ginger ale and went to the couch. “That’s harsh. What would Mother say?”

  “She’d say that we’ve had a nice day. Don’t ruin it.”

  I plopped on the couch and looked out the window into the brightly moonlit landscape. “So anyway, you remember how she died?”

  She sighed, loudly, but did answer. “One only needs to hear that story once and never want to have cats.”

  “Lucky for you Nan didn’t show you the photos.”

  “No!” Charlotte sat next to me on the couch and held her hand out. I passed her the ginger ale and got up to get myself another one. “How did Nan get the photos?”

  “Nan’s a curious sort. She made friends with one of the responding officers and he texted them to her.”

  “We should have never gotten her that iPhone.”

  “Agreed.” Nan was better with technology than our mother. We learned this the hard way. No one likes waking up to Nan’s Twitter feed loaded with photos of your naked three-year-old bottom.

  We sat quietly drinking our sodas for a few minutes. “I think that’s what happened next door.”

  “You have to let this go, Naomi. Enjoy our vacation!”

  “Maybe someone had gone in there…maybe they planned to kill him, maybe not…but they killed him, probably with a knife to the throat. That would cause a lot of blood, right?”

  “If they cut the carotid artery, yes. Arterial blood flow would be messy.” She mimicked blood squirting out of a neck, in rhythm to a heartbeat.

  “The scent of blood drew the hyenas and they devoured his neck, masking the evidence. Maybe the person knew hyenas would come to mask the evidence. Maybe not and they just got lucky.”

  “Let it go, Naomi.”

  “You were all over it this morning. You believed it then.”

  “That was this morning. Now, well-rested me realizes that’s insane.” She took a sip of her soda. “And if, and I stress if, he was murdered, it’s not our problem.”

  “That’s cold.”

  “It’s realistic.” She finished her soda and placed the empty bottle on the coffee table. “You are not a detective. Is this your next big thing?”

  “No, solving crimes on vacation is not my next big thing. I don’t think there’s any money in it.”

  Without looking at her, I knew she had rolled her eyes. I could almost hear it. “Being a police officer or private detective? Is this a test run? The next thing you’re going to dive into blindly and then get bored with?”

  “I do not dive into things blindly and then get bored,” I snapped back.

  “Oh, yes you do. How’s your job at the salon?”

  “I didn’t like working weekends.”

  “And the classes to become a mechanic?”

  “Very useful.” When my ex-boyfriend’s car broke down, I knew it was the starter. I didn’t know how to fix it but I was able to diagnose the problem. The lessons would have been even more useful if I had continued beyond the two classes.

  She shook her head in disgust. “I don’t know how Dad didn’t raise you to have more focus.”

  She didn’t realize the damage was done long before I left with Dad. “How’s Mom’s Pilates classes?”

  “What?”

  “Or her real estate license? How’s that going?”

  Dad wasn’t to blame for my lack of focus, if there was one. Mom was definitely the source. Nature or nurture, I didn’t know. Maybe that’s why I left with Dad, so I wouldn’t become her. I had seen too much I didn’t want to be.

  I returned us to the problem at hand.

  “And no, I did not suggest we go on vacation in the hopes I could solve a murder.”

  “Solve? You can’t even prove there was a murder.” She got up and threw her ginger ale bottle in the trash can. “In the days you’ve been working on this what have you proved?”

  “That he was murdered.”
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  “You have not proved that.”

  “I’ve proved it enough that you believe it.”

  She pursed her lips. “Fine, I don’t disagree with you that he was murdered. But why? Why would someone kill him?”

  “Motive doesn’t matter,” I retorted.

  “Fine, by who then? That definitely matters. Who killed him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you say who didn’t kill him?”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Other than you or me, can you say who didn’t kill Dr. Higgins?”

  I shook my head. “It could have been any of the travelers or any of the countless people who work here.”

  “You have a problem. You can try to solve a possible murder and you can fail, like you usually do. Or you can choose to enjoy our vacation.”

  I stopped her as she walked away. “Last thing,” I said. “What was the lodge’s reviews on Wi-Fi reliability?”

  She smiled and answered. “Five out of five. Never a problem.” She went to the bathroom to prepare for bed.

  I looked at my phone, which had no internet reception. And that was the problem.

  Morning Game Drive

  Hazel sat quietly on the couch in reception. Her husband paced behind it. They both smiled at me as I sat down. It was too early for words.

  She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and her long-sleeved shirt rode up her forearm, revealing bruising. They were dark purple and ran along her wrist.

  “You okay?” I whispered.

  “Yes, fine,” she answered. She looked up at me and I looked at the bruises. She pulled her sleeve down.

  “It’s nothing, dear.”

  The rest of the travelers arrived, as did Sonny, and we headed for our morning game drive. I tried to look at Hazel’s other wrist, without success.

  I attempted to sit next to her on the second row but Jack pushed me out of the way. “I’ll handle seating today. You like to sit up there. Go there.”

  It was too early to speak, never mind argue, and he was right. I did prefer to sit on the top tier. The better to watch the suspects.

  “Charlotte, good morning, my dear,” he greeted my sister. “Why don’t you sit up front?”