“I don’t have any idea except that he wanted more of her than just to dance.” Candy wouldn’t budge from the seat.
Wade reached down to grab her arm. “You got a phone on you?”
She nodded.
“Then call a taxi. Or Bettinger can drop by and pick you up, but you’re not coming with us.”
She yanked a Taser gun out of her purse.
Narrowing his eyes, Wade tsked. “Give us the name of your buyer, and we won’t dump you here.”
“I’ll be out of a job.”
“Your choice.”
David wrenched the Taser gun out of her hand. She cried out as he twisted her wrist behind her with his quick action.
She rubbed her wrist. “Okay, okay.”
Wade got back in the car and gave Thompson’s coordinates to Martin. David pulled away from the curb and hightailed it in the direction Maya and Thompson were headed.
“The buyer’s name is?” Wade asked Candy.
“Gunther Smith.” The woman frowned at Wade.
“Your name?”
“Candy.”
Wade looked up from texting, and she shrugged. “It’s the name my mother gave me. So sue me.” She frowned at him. “What are you doing exactly? How are you learning all this stuff so quickly?” Her eyes widened. “Are you the feds?” She shook her head. “You can’t be. We already checked you out.”
“Your last name?”
She hesitated to answer, then asked, “Will you sell us one of the cats?”
“You’re not with the police, are you?” That’s all they’d need was for Candy to be an undercover cop, attempting a sting operation.
She laughed. “You think I’m going to say you’re both under arrest for attempting to smuggle exotic cats into the country for the purpose of selling them? Hardly.”
“We’ll have to think further about selling one of the cats to you.”
“If you say you definitely will, I’ll give you my full name. Oh, and what happened to the other men? Bill Bettinger and the two smugglers?” she asked, sounding a little unsure of herself as if it was a dangerous thing to ask.
“They didn’t make it back. The rainforest can be a deadly place if you don’t know what you’re doing.” He gave her a warning look not to press the issue or she might end up where the others had.
“So you eliminated some of your competition,” she said. “That’s what we suspected.”
Wade said to his brother, “Drive faster. We need to find Maya, now!”
Chapter 24
Maya’s skin prickled with anxiety. She was certain that Thompson wasn’t going to lose the truck following them. The rig painted in camouflage had a Herd grill guard and bull bars in front, so if the driver chose to ram Thompson hard, he would lose control of his truck, guaranteed.
Maya pulled off her seat belt as Thompson made another turn downtown, trying to lose the tail. “What are you doing?” Thompson asked. “You should keep your seat belt on. It’s too dangerous not to.”
“Do you have a gun?”
He stared at her for a second, then watched his driving again. “Tranquilizer gun.”
“Good. But it might not be enough. I’m going to shift. You can’t tell anyone about this, okay? My brother would kill me if he knew. Maybe kill you, too. So we keep it a secret between ourselves, all right?”
“I don’t believe any of this,” Thompson muttered. “Who are those guys following us?”
“Taking a wild guess? Lion Mane and a buddy. Lion Mane was the guy I danced with at the club a week ago. You remember the guy with the blond hair?” Maya climbed over the seat, afraid she was flashing her thong, but hopefully Thompson was watching his driving.
Thompson snorted. “I never thought they’d go this far to get your interest.”
She yanked her dress over her head and tossed it on the seat, then ditched her shoes.
Thompson swung a wild right down another street.
Maya lost her balance and fell against the seat. She quickly righted herself and slid her thong off. Thompson glanced up at the rearview mirror.
“Watch your driving.” She unfastened her strapless bra and left it on the seat. “Don’t watch me.”
Thompson didn’t say anything, but he was grinding his back teeth. “I don’t believe any of this.” But he sounded like he wasn’t real sure of what he was saying.
“Believe what you will. We’ll need every weapon we can use. Oh and, Thompson? Lion Mane is a jaguar shifter, too. If they stop us and we’re out of options, open the door so I can get out of the truck and attempt to deal with them. Okay?”
Thompson stared at her. Thankfully, because of the seat, he couldn’t see her nude body, only the swell of her breasts and naked shoulders. “All right? If you keep me penned up in the truck and they begin shooting, I won’t have a chance to help us.”
“All right.” He sounded so unconvinced that she wanted to shift and give him a small nip to prove she wasn’t making this stuff up. “I’ll let you out if the time comes. And I’ll have my rifle ready.”
“I won’t bite you. No matter how scary I might look, I know what I’m doing. I might growl and sound vicious and deadly. But you’re one of the good guys. You love the jaguars as much as we do. You’re on our side. You just can’t let anyone, not anyone, know we exist.”
Then she called on the need to shift, and in that blur between human and jaguar, warmth seeped through her body, through every muscle, through every tissue, through every cell. She felt the change from being a much less flexible human to becoming a golden furred cat, stretching and purring until the vehicle crashed with a bang.
***
Wade was getting a really bad feeling. For the past ten minutes, he’d tried over and over to reach Maya without success. “I can’t get ahold of her,” Wade told his brother. He contacted Martin. “Any luck with locating her?”
“None,” Martin answered. “I’ve been in touch with her cousins. They’re on their way to your location.”
Wade was afraid they’d be too late. David drove around the area for another twenty minutes, until Wade was ready to shift and run through Houston searching for her.
His brother glanced at him. “You can’t.”
“Hell, I know I can’t. But sitting in a car and not being able to search for her by…” He stopped short of saying scent. He wished they’d dumped Candy’s butt at the convenience store.
“You wouldn’t be able to locate her while she’s riding in Thompson’s truck,” David said.
Wade knew that. He just hated feeling that the situation was so out of his control. They heard sirens, and David headed in that direction.
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere. We haven’t had word, and until we do, I have no idea where to drive to.”
Wade watched for signs of emergency lights and finally saw the flashing, colorful lights partially hidden by a tall glass building. “Fire truck, police cars. Virtually no traffic down here.”
When they drew close, Wade took in the sight of the crumpled truck, wolves painted on the side. Thompson’s truck? Wade’s heart thundered in his ears. David had barely slowed down to see what was going on before Wade was opening the car door.
“Christ, Wade, let me stop before you kill yourself.” David jerked the car to the curb and let Wade out as a policeman hurried toward them to tell them to stay away from the scene of the accident.
“I know the driver and the woman who was with him, Thompson and Maya Anderson,” Wade said to the policeman, trying to draw closer. “What’s happened? Where are they?”
“Mr. Thompson suffered a head injury in the collision. It looks like another vehicle hit him, slamming his truck into the light pole, and then took off. There wasn’t any sign of a… woman.”
“Let me talk to him,” Wade said, trying to get
past the policeman, attempting not to growl too much. He really had to speak with Thompson.
“Sir,” the policeman said.
“She’s my fiancée, damn it!”
David had parked the car farther away and was running in Wade’s direction.
The policeman cleared his throat. “You know this man well?”
“Thompson? Yeah, he’s from the Oregon Zoo, searching for a missing jaguar. We’ve been trying to help him track it down.”
“And your… fiancée was with him because…?”
Wade glowered at the officer. “He was taking her home.”
“Sounds like police business to me.” The officer waved for someone else to talk to them.
Wade glanced at the waiting ambulance as emergency personnel were strapping Thompson on a gurney before they loaded it into the ambulance. “I need to see Thompson.”
“I’m Detective Oberton,” the man said, then dismissed the other policeman. “I overheard you say you know the driver.”
Wade quickly gave him the same spiel as he had the other officer. “I need to speak with Thompson. My fiancée was with him. Where is she now? If the man who forced Thompson off the street did it to kidnap my fiancée…”
The detective let out his breath and glanced in the direction of two officers who were checking out Wade’s rental car. The men shook their heads, and one of them motioned that it was all clear.
Wade frowned at the policemen and then at the detective. He folded his arms. “I didn’t have anything to do with crashing Thompson’s truck into the pole.”
“It appears you didn’t.” The detective continued to jot down notes on his notepad, then looked up at Wade. “Mr. Thompson has a concussion. He’s incoherent, slurring his words, mentioning something about jaguars and Maya. I’m sure if he’s looking for the missing jaguar from his zoo, he’s confused about that and jumbling it together with talk about your fiancée.”
“So let me talk to him.”
“For just a second. They need to get him to the hospital.”
The detective walked with Wade to the ambulance, though Wade was ready to push him aside and sprint for it. He also needed to check out Thompson’s truck.
“Thompson.” Wade reached out to grasp the zoo man’s cold hand. He squeezed it reassuringly.
Thompson’s eyes looked like glassy blue lakes. He stared at Wade without comprehension.
“Was it that blond guy… you know, Lion Mane, who took Maya? Did he say where he was taking her? Thompson?”
Thompson’s lips parted, but he didn’t make a sound. Frowning a little, he looked confused.
“Thompson, tell me. Did he take her?”
“Mr. Patterson,” the detective said, “he’s just too injured to respond. Let them take him to the hospital. You can see him there.”
“Thompson, did… he… take… her?”
Thompson shut his eyes.
Hell. “Okay, we’ll check on you at the hospital in a little while. Hold on, buddy.” For the first time since he’d met the man, Wade noticed that Thompson wore a wedding ring. “I’ll get in touch with your family.”
As the ambulance took Thompson to the hospital, Wade began to walk toward the truck, taking deep breaths and trying to smell Lion Mane’s scent.
“You can’t get close to the truck. It’s a crime scene,” the detective said.
“I’m not going to touch anything.”
David was walking with him but stopped in his tracks to let Wade try and persuade the detective to let him get closer.
“The thing of it is…” the detective said, stopping Wade, “the situation’s a little complicated.”
Wade frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you think Mr. Thompson is a friend of yours and Maya’s, but maybe something else was going on… more than you might think.”
Wade stared at the man, believing he was trying to tell him something without really coming out and saying it. Wade looked back at the truck and tried to imagine why the detective was so antsy about him getting close to the vehicle. What would be inside that would concern him?
Her clothes. Damn it to hell. She couldn’t have shifted. Not in front of Thompson.
He turned to face the detective. The officer thought Thompson and Maya were getting it on when Thompson was already married and Maya was Wade’s fiancée? Not that she was, but close enough.
“She had a change of clothes. She lives with her brother at Anderson Garden Nursery, and he doesn’t like it when she goes to a club dressed in something kind of scandalous. Since I bought it for her, she wore it. She would have changed into jeans and a T-shirt before she arrived home. Were you worried about the dress she left behind?” He imagined she left more than that—panties and a bra, and how could he easily account for that?
“We did wonder.” The detective’s face turned a shade of mottled red, and he cleared his throat.
Wade was certain that the detective had probably seen everything anyone could imagine, but not a woman shifting into a jaguar. He was afraid one human had seen something he should never have. How they were to resolve that mess, he didn’t know.
“Do you have a picture of the lady?” the detective asked, not sounding convinced after hearing Wade’s explanation.
“Yeah. Hold on.” Wade searched for the one he’d taken on his phone at the club when he first met her and she was wearing the T-shirt minidress, smiling, beautiful. “Here it is. That was taken just a week ago at the club.”
The detective had Wade email him the picture. “And we can reach you where?”
Wade gave his information and Maya’s home address where they’d be staying, although they were sticking around Houston while they tried to locate Maya. He also gave the detective her brother’s contact information.
“Who was this… Lion Mane… character?” the detective asked.
“A man she danced with at the Jungle Cat Fever Club. He was interested in her. She didn’t return the interest.”
“I see.” The detective didn’t sound like he believed Wade. That maybe the lady had changed her mind. After all, if she was supposed to be Wade’s fiancée, why was she dancing with other men? “You don’t know what his real name was?”
“No. That was his club name.” Wade wasn’t about to give the detective Lion Mane’s real name. Wade had to take care of this shifter to shifter.
“If anyone contacts you concerning Maya, here’s my number. Call me directly—right away.” The detective handed him a card.
“Thanks. I’ll do that.” Wade walked closer to the truck and smelled that a gun had been fired, and that Jim Bettinger had been here. Another man had been with him. Another shifter. He was sure the two of them had taken Maya.
His hands clenched into fists, Wade felt his temper escalate.
“We’ll get her back,” David said quickly.
Yeah, but alive? Or dead?
When David and Wade returned to the rental car, both brothers were silent, just sitting in the car and saying nothing.
“He won’t hurt her,” Candy said, and they both turned to look at her. She shrugged. “He had the hots for her.”
Ignoring the woman, Wade said to his brother, “A shot was fired next to Thompson’s truck. Since Thompson wasn’t shot, I can only assume Maya was. She was… feral.” He couldn’t say she was wearing her jaguar coat in front of Candy. She wouldn’t have a clue what being feral meant.
David shook his head. “She’s not ready for city life. So where do we go now?”
“Where did Bettinger take Maya?” Wade asked Candy, his voice a growl, warning her to tell him the truth, or else.
Chapter 25
Drifting in and out of a lightless room, Maya felt warmth seeping through her blood, felt him hold her close. Dancing, so light on her feet that she was floating, their bodies as one.
Moving, kissing, she licked her lips. He was touching her breasts, her waist, her buttocks, embracing, holding her tight, murmuring in her ear like a soft, warm summer breeze. No words, just a whispered brush of breath. Wade, she tried to whisper back, but she couldn’t form the word. Only in her mind, his name drifting like a wisp of cloud just out of reach.
Wade. She wouldn’t try to say his name then as she felt his warmth surround her, his love, his comforting embrace.
Maya stretched lazily as a cat—wondering when she’d shifted forms—and bumped into a clinking metal mesh. At the same time she smelled the odor of cat urine mixed with bleach and water, felt the hard concrete floor beneath her and the warm breeze flowing over her. Immediately she opened her eyes. The cat pee smell was strong, burning her eyes. Where the hell was she?
She tried to get to her feet, but all she could do was lift her head and stare at her cage. Drugged. She’d been drugged like Wade had been in the jungle. Only she wasn’t in the jungle. He wasn’t with her. She was in a big-cat run somewhere surrounded by a grassy meadow, trees dotting the landscape, and a heavy pine forest surrounding the area close by.
She stared at the steel, twelve-foot-tall mesh that surrounded the run, the rough concrete slab beneath her, the wooden box behind her that looked like a den to curl up in, and a slight overhang to provide shade. A security light pierced the darkness. She noticed another run next door and saw a female jaguar sleeping. The one from the zoo?
Then she remembered the truck accident, Thompson being injured, her attacking or trying to attack Lion Mane, and him shooting her with a tranquilizer dart. She’d nearly bitten him, then collapsed, a cat ready to rip him apart and then too sleepy to bother.
A man cleared his throat, and she swung her head around, totally thrown off by the fact that he’d been watching her and she hadn’t known it. The drug running through her system had to be making her so clueless—so… unjaguar-like. She should have sensed him right away, though she did notice that the breeze was carrying his scent away from her.