Jaguar Hunt

  He raced up the steps and sniffed the air, smelling two male jaguars—not the boys’ scents. But the two men had to be shifters. He grabbed the doorknob to the bungalow and twisted. Locked.

  Fumbling in his pants pocket for the key, he found it, jammed it into the lock, and opened the door.

  “Tammy?” he shouted, panicked as he rushed for the bedroom.

  As soon as David heard the shower running in the bathroom, his racing heartbeat slowed a little, and he turned and stalked in that direction. Reaching the door, he knocked. “Tammy?”

  “David? I’ll be right out.”

  Relief filled him instantly. To let the boys know she was all right, he left the bungalow and observed the jungle surrounding them. He didn’t see either of them, but he called out, “She’s okay. Just taking a shower.” Not that they needed to learn all the details, but he wanted them to know she was safe. He suspected they were within earshot, waiting. He added, “You’re welcome to come see us anytime, day or night. If you’re in any kind of trouble, we’re here to help you and will watch your backs if you let us.”

  When he received no acknowledgment, he wasn’t sure if they had stuck around. He went back inside and decided to take a shower on the patio, as hot and sweaty as he was.

  He was in the middle of soaping up when he heard the back door open. He turned and saw Tammy wearing a different smocked sundress—this one bright blue, short, and strapless. How did he ever get so lucky on a mission?

  “Sorry…I didn’t mean to barge in on you.” She turned to leave.

  “No, stay. Doesn’t bother me. We need to talk. I was worried about you.”

  “I had company.”

  “Yeah, I saw. Nearly gave me a heart attack. Almost killed myself trying to get back here in time to rescue you. It’s not easy getting down from a tree in human form that fast.”

  She smiled and sat down on a bench near the bedroom door. “Thanks for worrying about me. I nearly had a seizure when I smelled their scents on the patio, opened my eyes, and saw them coming up the stairs. They’re Enforcers. Martin must have told my boss he was concerned about my safety. They said Sylvan sent them to get into contact with me.”

  David frowned at her as he continued to soap himself up, amused she was half watching him, as if she were getting used to him. “Do you know them well?”

  “Weaver and Krustan are their names. I’ve worked with each of them on assignments before. I ditched them both each time.”

  He was glad she’d dumped them and not him, but he was also curious. “So why send them to check on you if you didn’t care to work with them?”

  “They’re the only two Enforcers in the area, they said. They’ve got another mission, so they can’t stay here. They just wanted to let me know they’re working an assignment about two hours from here and that I could call if I needed them.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “No, not in the least. They said they were looking for two shifter teens. I’m worried they’re the Taylor twins or their other two friends. I didn’t think my boss would send them to track down the same boys that your boss tasked you to find, though. I tried calling Sylvan to see if he had told them what I was actually doing here. No reception.”

  Tammy glanced back at the bungalow and her face went from worry to wide-eyed recollection. “Oh, I forgot! Be right back.” She ducked inside.

  Chapter 13

  When Tammy didn’t return quickly enough for David’s peace of mind, he rinsed, turned the water off, and secured a towel around his waist. He had just opened the back door to the bedroom when she nearly ran into him with something in her hand.

  “Lion,” she said.

  “Another toy. Where did you find it?” He was really surprised, thinking both of the teens had been with him in the jungle—watching her.

  “Suitcase. Mine.”

  “Oh, from when they packed our bags before they moved them from the cabana. Gotcha. Okay, so we’ve got another big cat. Big-cat sanctuary?”

  “Or zoo,” she said, sitting on the bed, watching him.

  Suddenly, he recalled how people at the shifter club had been dressed and smelled of different kinds of animals, as if they worked with them. He snapped his fingers. “The circus is in town.”

  Her lips parted. “The man that bumped into me going into the jail—he was wearing a handlebar mustache and smelled like a lion.”

  “Yeah. I would have thought he was a zookeeper, but I saw a bunch of them at the club when I confronted the bouncer.”

  “Circus,” she said. “Okay, we’ll have to call that in. Did you locate the boys?”

  “Hell, yeah. Even a human could have smelled them.”

  She raised a brow in question.

  “They were wearing my aftershave. And way too much of it.”

  She laughed. “I take it that they were in jaguar form.”

  “They were. I had quite a talk with them. Well, at least one of them. Mostly one-sided. A grunt and a growl from one of the teens—Alex. I imagine Nate must have been in another tree, hidden from view. If not, he sure as hell missed out on a steamy swimsuit viewing.”

  She smiled at the compliment. “So, did we make any headway?”

  “They both came with me in their jaguar skins to rescue you from your unknown assailants. So I’d say that was a definite yes.”

  “Good. Maybe they’ll come see us.”

  “I hope so. I gave them an open invitation anytime, day or night.” He finished throwing on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you ditch those two Enforcers?”

  She raked David with her gaze, rose from the bed, and patted his T-shirt-covered chest. “They were always removing their clothes in front of me, as if I wanted to see their naked bodies.”

  She headed out of the room.

  He jammed his feet in his sandals and hurried after her. “Hell, did they pull anything with you?” He was ready to kill a couple of Enforcers.

  “You mean, like, kiss me? In a big bed? No. They wouldn’t have lived long.”

  “Good. Your boss would have had two fewer Enforcers.”

  She cast him a warm smile. “So what’s next on the agenda?”

  “The teens have been staying in this area. The JAG in me says to keep trying to locate them and get them to reveal what they know. But I feel they’re reaching out, so for now, I’ll give them a little more free rein. Maybe they’ll approach us soon.”

  “I agree. What if we did something that they don’t have scheduled? Think they might follow us?” she asked.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Kayaking—white-water trip.”

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s see if we can get scheduled.”

  “I already booked it after I came in to take a shower. I thought if the boys came to see us, we’d skip it. But since it’s still iffy about them contacting us in person, we might as well go now and see what happens.”

  With water to drink, sunscreen, dry clothes in a waterproof bag, bathing suits under their shorts and T-shirts, and river shoes, Tammy and David joined a group taking a bus to the river.

  When they reached the river, David pulled off his shorts. He wore a pair of blue swim trunks splashed with pink skies and green palm trees, his tanned legs and toned torso just too hot for her not to take another look. Of course, he had to catch her at it and gave her an amused smile. Not that he wasn’t admiring her shimmering, green one-piece bathing suit, too.

  The water was a blissful seventy degrees, green, and crystal clear. Tammy ended up with a hot pink kayak and David got a lime green one. Eight other guests had signed up. No sign of the teens, but Tammy was still hopeful they might show.

  Vibrant blue, lime green, hot pink, canary yellow, and bright orange sit-on-top kayaks for white-water rafting bobbed in the clear water. Everyone wo
re either red or yellow vests and red, yellow, or blue helmets, making Tammy think the collective group of kayakers looked as colorful as the plumage on the parrots in the trees.

  After a lesson in the basics of maneuvering a kayak, they got on their way. They splashed through several easy rapids, Class I and Class II, and paddled through large, calm pools of water after each drop. Tammy was having too much fun to remember her mission, learning to surf the waves, carving smooth arcing turns, and jumping up on some of the higher drops.

  She was drenched, laughing, and having the time of her life—watching a speedy kingfisher darting into the river for a fish and parakeets flying overhead—when she saw movement in the trees on the bank. A splash of orange in the filtered sunlight. Black spots moving like leaves in the shadows. Jaguar.

  Tammy had been so busy maneuvering the kayak the right way that she’d lost sight of David. Glancing around, she nearly flipped her kayak on the next rapid. Was David ahead of her or behind her? Had he seen the jaguar?

  It had to be a shifter. A nonshifting jaguar wouldn’t be out at this time of day, not this close to the river with humans about. She wanted to beach the kayak, shift into her big cat, and search for the jaguar. The hunting instinct was in her jaguar blood. But she couldn’t leave the tour group without arousing suspicion.

  The group of kayakers ended up in the final pool where a bus would take them back to their resort. She glanced around for David and saw his stern face. Something was wrong.

  “Did you see the jaguar?” he asked her quietly as he removed his soaking-wet life jacket.

  “Yeah, one of the boys, right? Or do you think it could have been a regular jaguar?” she asked.

  “I doubt it. And I don’t think it was one of the boys, either. I saw both of them.”

  Tammy’s stomach fell. “One of our dirty agents?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. The jaguar wasn’t Weaver or Krustan, was it?”

  “I couldn’t tell,” Tammy said. “The jaguar moved too fast. I only got a glimpse of him in the shadowy rainforest, and I was having trouble staying afloat. If it wasn’t one of the boys, why come after us?”

  “Either believing the kids are following us and he hopes to intercept them, or he thinks we’ll lead him to the boys.”

  “That’s just great. We need to let the boys know if they don’t already. Maybe they can leave, and we can stay here and try to catch whoever this man is and learn what he wants.”

  “We can do that, but given what we’ve seen so far, I doubt they’ll tuck tail and run. And whoever is after the boys, once they’re gone, he will be also.”

  They turned in their gear, changed into dry clothes, and climbed onto the bus with the rest of the group.

  When they arrived at their resort, they both got cleaned up at the bungalow and walked to the dining hall for dinner. They’d just sat down when David smiled at her. “Hot damn, they’re here.”

  She turned to look at the entrance to the dining room and saw two boys as tall as David, though not as filled out, one with sandy hair and blue eyes, the other’s hair darker, his eyes just as blue. They nodded in greeting and appeared somewhat like kids who were in trouble, hands shoved in the pockets of their Bermuda shorts, heads bent slightly. “Tammy, I want you to meet Alex and Nate Taylor,” David said, rising and shaking one boy’s hand, then the other.

  Alex, the blond, looked like a surfer dude, his hair streaked by the sun’s rays. Nate looked like he spent as much time outdoors—lighter tan—as he did indoors. She immediately smelled David’s Wild Earth Essence aftershave on the two of them, and he was right. They’d used way too much.

  “Ma’am,” the boys said in unison, trying to sound polite.

  “Will you sit with us?” Tammy asked, motioning to the chairs next to her and David.

  They sat on either side of David as if they’d prefer being in his place, seeing her rather than sitting beside her. Maybe they were shy. She shook her head at that. They didn’t look shy in the least as both smiled at her, and she wondered if that had to do with seeing her in the string bikini earlier.

  The waitress took their drink and beef fajita orders, and when she left, David got down to business and asked the boys, “Okay, so what’s going on?”

  Alex snorted. “You tell us. We’re down here minding our own business—not getting into any trouble—and two agents are trying to track us down. Now we’ve got three more on our case.” He had the good grace to be fighting a smile.

  “You’re not all innocence,” David quickly said, as if he believed Tammy might be snookered into believing the teen. “You know something about the missing jaguar, for one. But what do you mean there are three more? Are you referring to the two agents who talked to Tammy? And now there’s a third?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” Nate said. “We were following your progress down the river today as you went kayaking, watching your backs.”

  David couldn’t help but appreciate the kids for believing they were protecting him and Tammy.

  “You were running as jaguars?” Tammy asked.

  They shook their heads. The waitress deposited their drinks and dinners on the table. When she left, Tammy said, “You couldn’t have been kayaking, unless the two of you were in another group behind ours and we didn’t see you.”

  “We were,” Nate said. “Did you see the jaguar in the trees?”

  “We did,” David said. “I knew it wasn’t either of you.”

  “We figure the jaguar was following the two of you in an effort to catch us.” Nate turned to Tammy. “Do you know if it was one of the Enforcers who spoke with you on the porch?”

  Tammy shook her head. “I didn’t see enough of the cat to recognize him.”

  “I don’t know either of the men,” David said. “So it still could have been one of them.”

  “How did you know they were Enforcers?” Tammy asked, suspicious. Neither she nor David had said which branch the men worked in.

  “They’re chasing after our friends.”

  Tammy’s mouth gaped.

  David frowned. “You’ve been in touch with the other two boys?”

  “Yeah, sure, they’re leading them on a wild cat chase,” Nate said and grinned. “They’ll never find them. Those two are great at leaving false trails.”

  “Krustan and Weaver said they were after two boys. I was afraid they were trying to track the two of you down,” Tammy said, recalling how they warned her not to trust the kids. Was that because the kids knew something about them being bad agents?

  “We’re glad you were assigned to go after us,” Nate said.

  “Yeah, real glad,” Alex added.

  She bet they were after they had seen her showering in her bikini and lying out in the sun later. She wondered what had happened to Martin’s men who had been following the boys’ friends.

  “Thanks for wanting to help me when the cable snapped,” she said to the boys, not sure which to really thank.

  Alex frowned. “Wished I could’ve done something. You were really cool out there. But what if it wasn’t an accident?”

  “What could anyone have hoped to gain by sabotaging the cable?” Tammy asked. “What if one of the members of the family with me had gone first instead?”

  “Maybe it was a warning to leave the case alone,” Alex said. “Both of you were signed up to go on the expedition. So were we. We learned the family didn’t sign up until this morning. If someone sabotaged the cable, it was most likely done last night after everyone had left for the day, and after they knew who all had signed up.”

  “All right, so for the sake of argument, I still ask why? You say a warning. If one of us had died, how would that help whoever had done it? It would just make us all the more resolved to learn who’s behind this.”

  Nate finished his soda. “If Alex or I had been killed, it could have convinc
ed the remaining one of us to hand over the cat and quit trying to get someone to investigate the mole in the Service. If it was one of you, it might have been an attempt to get you out of the picture until they could get to us. Win-win scenario.”

  She still didn’t believe it would have worked if someone had tampered with the cable.

  “Why did you go first, Tammy?” David asked, his brow furrowed.

  “The family of four was arguing about who would go first. The guide said I would—to get us on our way.” She frowned. “Actually, I thought something else was odd. He said I was scheduled first. I just figured he said that because he needed someone to go before we ended up staying there all day. But his saying that there was a schedule gave me pause. I would figure whoever wanted to go first would.”

  “Hell,” David said, fishing out his phone and making a call. “Martin, we need you to check into something else. We need to have the guide who hooked Tammy up investigated.”

  “The man’s name was Juan,” she said.

  David repeated what she said to his boss. He looked at Tammy. “Yeah. Just in case he was paid to have her go on the zip line first. All right. Out here.”

  The waitress gave everyone refills on their drinks and then left again.

  Tammy wondered why David didn’t tell his boss that the kids were here talking to them. Maybe to keep from spooking them.

  “You know we weren’t drinking alcoholic beverages at the club that night. We knew you were following us,” Alex said to David, a twinkle in his eye.

  “And you also know just being in the club meant you were breaking the law,” David said. “You didn’t have to drink anything alcoholic to be in the wrong.”

  The boys exchanged glances.

  “But you didn’t stop us,” Nate said.

  “That’s another reason we let you in on the secret,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, and we wanted you to know we knew about the jaguar because we thought you might be an honest agent. Not for sure, though.” Nate drank his soda.