The Crocodile's Last Embrace Read Online Free PDF

return.”
    Jade grimaced. “Haunted is right. I thought I saw David.”
    “Blast and damn,” muttered Avery. “When?”
    Jade briefly explained the encounter.
    “Jade,” said Avery, “you held a dying man in your arms, one you cared for, and under horrific circumstances. Men still relive those experiences in their minds.”
    “He was trying to tell me something.”
    “It was the fog and another man in uniform,” insisted Avery.
    Beverly put a comforting arm around Jade’s shoulder. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you go. You’re overwrought. You need a diversion. Alice is asleep just now. Come with me into town. I have some shopping to do.”
    Jade rolled her eyes. “Bev, I love you dearly. I’ll do nearly anything for you, including help you lead those female firecrackers of yours, but I draw the line at shopping. I think I’ll take Biscuit for a good run and go out to see Maddy and Neville.”
    “Splendid. Fresh air and activity,” said Avery. “Tell them hello for us. Ask Neville how his new coffee machine is doing.”
    “And ask Madeline about little Cyril. And remind her that she promised me a start of her blue ribbon cabbage rose,” added Bev as Avery checked the bolts connecting the sidecar to Jade’s Indian Power Plus.
    Jade waved away their requests and called to Biscuit. She took off towards the Thompsons’ coffee farm near Thika, Biscuit loping alongside her. Once she’d crossed the Nairobi River and left the city’s residential districts behind, she cut her cycle across country, giving the cheetah a chance to open up and run without fear of vehicles.
    Even then she had to mind where she rode the bike. So much of the surrounding area was farmed and fenced, but she’d already discovered a route that cut across strips of open grassland, still green from the rains that had continued long past the “short rains” that year. Despite the lush grazing, Jade saw none of the large herds that still marked the Serengeti. These had moved farther away from the town and habitations, and with them had gone most of the great predators: the lion and the leopard. Now the danger lay in African wild dogs and roving jackals. Jade despised them. The dogs were vicious, eating their prey alive. They reminded her of humans who preyed on simple, trusting folk with schemes and promises of wealth.
    The February summer sun had begun its downward run for the day, casting shadows in front of the occasional flame tree. The wind brushed Jade’s exposed cheeks and tousled the hair that peeked from beneath her leather helmet. It felt cleansing, sweeping away the dread and horror of that letter. Biscuit raced just ahead of her, guessing her destination. His long, slender legs stretched ahead, then drove into the ground as the rear ones came forward to join them. Over and over his lithe body lengthened and contracted like a piston, and Jade rejoiced inwardly at the cat’s beauty and grace.
    To the left, a lone male antelope—a gerenuk—stood on his hind legs and browsed a thorn tree branch. He spotted them and galloped away, his long neck raised high. Biscuit swerved towards him momentarily, but the cheetah had already spent most of his energy and dropped back into a trot, then a walk. Jade slowed her machine to allow him to jump into the sidecar for the remainder of the trip. All too soon, they’d reached the edge of the Thompsons’ farm. She spied Maddy taking down wash from a line. Her adopted son, Cyril, played with a ball by the clothes basket. Jade waved and pointed towards the makeshift thorn brush airplane hangar north of the house.
    Maddy cupped her hands and shouted, “Come back to the house for supper.”
    Jade nodded and puttered off to the hangar and Sam Featherstone’s Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny.” Leaving Biscuit to forage up a mess of hapless rodents for a snack, Jade immersed her mind in tending to Sam’s plane. She drained the radiator, refilled it, oiled the multitude of points that called for