Huntley took Melissa’s very cold hand and led her to the couch. They took a seat there while the men sat on the two chairs across from them.
“I’m Alvarez Mendez, and this is my partner Pantepi Cato. We’re looking into poachers who have been trying to steal our cats from the park. You’ve been in the park recently,” the shorter of the two men said, frowning at them.
“Yes. And if this is about calling the park rangers concerning the cougar and the two cubs those guys tried to poach that you caught up with on the beach, yes, we called you. Melissa and I are both undercover,” Huntley said, winging it. Hell, what else was he to say?
Melissa was watching him, her lips parted slightly.
He shrugged at her. “We were undercover.” He said to the men, “We work for an agency called the JAG, and we bring down poachers whenever we can. We don’t take them in. We just report them to your own forces so you can mete out their punishment when we find them. Not just here, but all over. We want these people to be examples of what happens when they try to steal from your parks.
“The poachers we were after are U.S. citizens, and we had men investigating them when they arrived in Costa Rica. One of them got away, returned to the United States, and came here again. He formed a new crew. They were trying to capture a jaguar this time. I tried to stop them, and they shot at me. The bullet nicked my forehead and knocked me out, and I was damned lucky it didn’t kill me. Then Melissa tracked them to the beach, but they had already taken off in a boat.”
“Did they get a jaguar?” Alvarez asked.
Huntley shook his head. “Not that we could tell.”
“You didn’t call it in to our rangers that time?” Alvarez asked, though it was more of a statement of fact because he must have known darn well that neither Huntley nor Melissa had.
Huntley shrugged. “There was no evidence to prove they’d done anything illegal. The first time we called your authorities, the poachers were caught red-handed with the weapons and the cougars in the burlap sacks.”
“What’s to say you aren’t part of this team and lying about all of this? That you were there, but heard us coming and got away?” Alvarez asked.
So Alvarez was one of the men who had arrived at the scene of the crime. “You can verify it with our boss. We have badges and everything, if you’ll permit Melissa to get them to show to you.”
“Who’s to say that your ‘boss’ isn’t the leader of a bunch of poachers, and he’s got the same cover story in case we questioned you?”
“If we were the bad guys, we wouldn’t stay at a resort here. We wouldn’t have called the authorities to let them know we had found the poachers, or knocked them out so that you could get there and take them into custody. We wouldn’t make reservations to enter the park.”
“Yet you’re undercover,” Alvarez reminded him.
“Right, as in we were after the poachers, not knowing if we’d find them or not. Do you think a cougar, one that was drugged, could have taken all those men down at the beach? Even if she hadn’t been drugged, she couldn’t have knocked them out cold.” Only jaguars could do that. A cougar would have torn into them with her teeth. “And who called you to inform on them then? How would anyone but us know about making the calls? I used one of the men’s phones while all of them were unconscious.”
“Why not your own phone?”
“We were supposed to be undercover.”
Alvarez looked at his partner as if checking his take on it.
“We used our martial arts training to knock the men out. Unfortunately Jackson, the ringleader, got away. He had fallen behind. According to his men, he had become ill. He must have reached the camp at some point, seen what had happened to his men, and taken off. If we had been working with the rest of the poachers, we would have taken off in the boat—with the cats.”
“So after you knocked them out, you called us and then left?” Alvarez asked.
“We watched over the she-cat and her cubs. Asleep, they were vulnerable. So we made sure only the police and park rangers discovered them. Then when the mother and her little ones were awake, they took off, and we did too.”
“But…we didn’t see any sign of you.”
“We were—”
“Undercover,” Alvarez said.
“Right.”
“Okay, let’s see that ID. But I’ll go with you,” Alvarez said to Melissa.
Huntley prayed that the cubs stayed hidden and didn’t fuss, and that Alvarez didn’t start poking around in the bedroom. Melissa rose from the couch, her face pale, totally ill at ease. Where were the cubs? Hell, what if they were sitting on the floor by the bedroom door?
“You have to admit this is all hard to believe,” Pantepi said.
“I understand. That’s why we have been conducting these undercover missions. We can’t catch the bastards in the United States. By then, they’ve already sold the animals somewhere else. This is the closest we’ve ever gotten to them. Our job was to catch them in the act with all the evidence present and turn them over to you. Then you could handle the matter. You’d make them serve a sentence in jail here, the cats would still be living in their home, and all would be well.”
Huntley was getting ready to shift if he heard any indication that Alvarez had discovered the cubs in the bedroom.
But then he heard Melissa and Alvarez’s footfalls on the tile floor in the hallway and glanced in that direction, barely breathing.
Alvarez had their badges and passports and her cell. He handed the badges to his partner. Huntley felt a modicum of relief that the officer hadn’t seen or heard the cubs, but Huntley and Melissa weren’t out of the jungle yet. Not until the police officers were satisfied and left.
“I’ll call the director and we can put it on speakerphone, if you like. You can ask any questions you want of him. All right?” Melissa asked. “If he hears a man on my phone he doesn’t know, he’s going to think I ended up in the hands of the bad guys. Like you’re unsure of our identities, he wouldn’t trust yours.”
“All right. Call him.” Alvarez gave her phone back to her and passed off the passports to his partner.
Huntley prayed this would work.
“Martin, this is Melissa Overton.”
Using her full name would clue the director in right away that Huntley and Melissa were in trouble. He would know who she was from his caller ID. Martin was smart and waited to hear what she had to say.
“We’re afraid we had to break our cover with a couple of Costa Rican police officers. We had to tell them about the cougar and her cubs that we rescued on the beach. I have this on speakerphone so they can ask you questions.”
She handed the phone back to Alvarez. “Hello, sir, this is Alvarez Mendez with the police here in Puerto Jimenez. We found a tranquilizer dart in a tree and assumed that whoever had fired it was poaching animals at Corcovado National Park. And we found a round of ammunition below that. We’ve gone over records for those visiting the park, and Huntley Anderson and Melissa Overton were listed as having made reservations during both the time when we caught the first poachers and the second time when shots were fired and we discovered the tranquilizer dart and round.”
“Yes, and the poachers would not be making reservations at the park,” Martin said. “My people obey the restrictions. If we need to get into the park, we call ahead of time and ensure we have the necessary approval.”
Alvarez studied Huntley, then Melissa. “Yes, it seems that was all in order. But why didn’t you tell us why they were there in the first place?”
“They’re special agents who are highly trained to track these men and take them down without killing them.”
“But one got away, and according to Mr. Anderson, he returned to poach again. And got away,” Alvarez said, sounding annoyed.
“That couldn’t be helped,” Huntley said. “After they shot at m
e, I was out for the count.” He had to let the boss know that’s what he’d told these men. “Melissa was on her own, and if she’d called the police, then what? They wouldn’t have had any evidence against these men. Just her word that Jackson had been at the scene of the first crime. But no real evidence.”
“Right,” Martin said. “We take the crimes against the animals seriously. The two agents have worked countless missions fighting against these kinds of people. Both Melissa and Huntley are biologists who have worked extensively with big cats—in particular, jaguars—all their lives. They know them as you would know your own family members. All of us at this branch want the same thing—to protect wildlife in their native habitat. We’re on the same side in this. Give me the name of your superior and I’ll speak with him.”
Alvarez gave Martin the number. “I’ll call him and he can talk to you,” Martin said.
Huntley knew Martin would do so immediately. He had to be as worried as they were that one of the cubs would let out a hair-raising snarl that meant she was hungry. They seemed to need to be fed every few hours, so he hoped that they would continue to sleep as long as the police officers were here. He had heard Melissa close the bedroom door, so at least the cubs couldn’t get up and just wander down the hall.
“Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee?” Melissa asked as the police officers waited to hear from their boss.
They both shook their heads, thank heavens, and handed the passports and badges back to Huntley. Then they turned Melissa’s phone over to her.
They waited what felt like forever, but only a few minutes passed before Alvarez’s phone rang and he answered it. “Sí. Sí.” He looked at Huntley. “Sí.” He raised an objection in Spanish, then tried to explain why they’d come here, while glancing back at Huntley and Melissa. Then he said, “Sí.”
Huntley fought smiling. From his expression and reactions, the guy appeared to be in hot water with his boss. Huntley wondered what Martin had said to the police officers’ supervisor.
Alvarez quickly rose to his feet. Pantepi joined him, looking concerned.
“Sí.” Then he pocketed his phone, wrote a number on a piece of paper, and handed it to Huntley. “If you need to enter the park, just call this number and arrangements will be made right away,” he said to Huntley and Melissa. “No reservations needed.”
A baby began to cry in the bedroom, and then the other started to wail. Everyone glanced in that direction as if they’d never heard a baby cry, ever. What was really bad was that Melissa had just taken the one officer into that same bedroom and there had been no sign of any babies.
Nobody made a move for an instant. Huntley and Melissa’s hearts were beating triple time.
“Feeding time,” Melissa said, but then waited as if to see if the police officers were done with her.
Huntley could just imagine her bringing out the babies, wrapped in towels, no less, and then all of a sudden they would shift into jaguar cubs.
“Good day,” Alvarez said, looking really surprised, just as much as Huntley and Melissa were, that they had a couple of babies on a mission—undercover.
Huntley and Melissa weren’t just surprised, they were horrified. The mother had to have shifted to cause the babies to shift again.
Alvarez made a beeline exit for the door. “Have a nice day.”
Pantepi said in Spanish, “What did he say?”
“We are in trouble. He wants us to report in right away. These people are not to be bothered again under any circumstances or we lose our jobs,” he said, also speaking in Spanish as they headed down the stairs.
Huntley hurried to lock the door as Melissa raced to the bedroom.
He stalked down the hall to help her, and when he reached the bedroom, Melissa was holding one of the two naked babies wrapped in a towel. “Here, take Goldie.” She handed him the baby, her hair in dark ringlets. And then Melissa picked Sweetpea up off the other towel, her hair darker and straighter, and swaddled her. Both were still crying.
“Their mother,” Melissa said, trying to fight tears.
“She might not be dead,” Huntley said, holding the baby away from his body, not sure how to handle it. A cub, no problem. The baby was totally dependent on him to keep her safe. “The mother could have just shifted.”
“Hold her close, so she doesn’t feel like you’re going to drop her,” Melissa said, frowning at him. He did what she did then, cradling the baby in his arms and then they left the bathroom to feed them, not sure if that’s what they needed this time. “Why would the mother shift?” she asked.
“Maybe intending to do what we would do if we were in that predicament. Unlock the cage she must be confined to and escape.” At least that’s what Huntley hoped had happened. “The husband might have already done so, but we wouldn’t have a clue because only the mother’s shifting corresponds with her baby’s shifting.”
“Okay.” Melissa had to trust that was the case. She didn’t want to believe the cubs had shifted for any other reason, but she was damned glad the police officers had left. “I have to go back to that store. It’s the only one I found that had baby articles. They’ll have diapers. I should have gotten some at the time, but I didn’t think the cubs would shift.”
“I keep thinking that the family had to be staying somewhere near the park. If we could locate their rental unit, we could find their passports and baby stuff, and learn who they are.”
“That would take time. We know they’re not at our resort because ours are the only jaguar scents around here. Most of the places I looked up on the Internet are hotels, and I’m certain this family wouldn’t have been running as jaguars through a hotel. So it would be someplace like this that’s more of a single unit, isolated from the rest and close to the park.” She handed her baby to Huntley, and she swore he was going to panic, not certain he could juggle two squalling babies at once.
She hurried to warm up the bottles of milk.
“They might have had a tent in the rainforest, like we set up,” Huntley said, bouncing the babies slightly in his arms to soothe them.
She smiled at him. He was a natural dad. “I thought we were going to be found out when the police officers were here. Did you see the looks on their faces when not one but two babies began to cry?”
“Yeah, I’m certain they were trying to figure that one out—how we could be on a mission and managing two babies at the same time. They were probably dying to ask about that. I couldn’t believe that calling Martin worked.”
“I just want to know what Martin said to their supervisor.” She set the warmed-up bottles on the kitchen counter, relieved Huntley of Goldie, then grabbed a bottle and headed for the living room. Huntley followed her, sat on the couch, and began feeding Sweetpea. But she wasn’t feeding. Still, Melissa smiled when the baby looked content to be sitting on his lap. Maybe they’d just been startled by the change into their human forms and needed to be held. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”
“Might as well get in some practice. When my half sister, Maya, has hers, I might be called on to do babysitting duty.”
She smiled at him. “I would never have imagined you offering. What would your brother say?”
“Everett would be laughing his head off. My sister? Tammy would be the same way. Of course, I’d have felt the same about my brother if he’d been in my situation. Tammy babysat when she was a teen so she would be ready for it.”
“Not me,” Melissa said, glancing down at Goldie. She was just mouthing the nipple, not sucking, but like her sister, she seemed happy just to be held. “I figured I wouldn’t be handling babies until my sister had some.”
“I didn’t know that she’s seeing someone seriously,” Huntley said, surprised.
“She isn’t. But when she does, she’ll have kids. She’s always wanted them.”
Melissa’s phone went off. “How much
do you want to bet it’s the boss, and he’s going to be just as concerned as we are?”
“Just a tad.”
She managed to get to her phone while holding on to the baby, but she set the bottle down because Goldie didn’t seem to want to feed again so soon. Melissa decided she wasn’t half bad at this.
“Yeah, Martin, the cubs turned into babies.”
Silence. Melissa knew that her boss was thinking the worst-case scenario: that in death, the jaguar had shifted in front of human onlookers who just happened to be Costa Rican police officers.
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Are you still there? I just pray the mother is fine. That she just shifted and the babies turned with—”
The babies suddenly shifted from their human forms into cubs.
“Oh, thank God,” Melissa said. “They’re back to being cubs. At least I hope everything’s all right. That the mother wasn’t found out. The babies cried when the police officers were here, unfortunately, but they didn’t question us about why we had babies on the mission. Just wanted to let you know.” She couldn’t manage Goldie, who was squirming to get out of the towel. “I’ll call you right back.” She unwrapped the cub from the towel and carried her into the bathroom so she could use the litter box. Then Melissa remembered that the litter boxes weren’t in the bathroom but in the bedroom closet.
She went to retrieve one, then set the cat and box in the bathroom. Then Melissa quickly called Martin back. Huntley joined her and set his charge on the floor, then wrapped his arms around Melissa and hugged her tight. She smiled up at him. This was turning out to be some wild mission.
Melissa put her cell on speakerphone and said, “Martin, what did you say to the police officers?”
“We gave them a million dollars last year to help fund more rangers for their park.”
Feeling a bit shocked, she didn’t say anything.
“Did we?” Huntley asked.
“Hell yeah, we did. It’s the least we can do to help save a habitat where our people can still enjoy the wilderness in our jaguar coats. And your father, Huntley, footed a fourth of the bill. Which I also told the police officers’ supervisor. I was down there when we handed over the money, so Gonzalez knows exactly who I am and how important this is to us and to our organization.”