A Very Jaguar Christmas (16 page)

“So are you taking Corey to your home tonight?” Everett asked Demetria.

She wanted them to stay together, but maybe Everett wanted to cool things down a bit until they got the boy home.

“Yeah. Unless you want to take him.” Everett seemed really attached to Corey, and the boy seemed to feel the same way toward him. Either way, she was going to miss them if they stayed together and she went home alone.

When had she begun to feel like that? That she would be lonely in her own home when she loved her freedom? She did as she pleased, with no one else to worry about.

“I can take him.” Everett looked happy to take care of him. Demetria didn't think she'd ever seen him that way with little kids. Well, perhaps with Lacy. “Maybe it will be dark enough on the way home that we can see houses decorated with Christmas lights.”

“Yeah!” Corey said.

“That would be nice.” But she suspected that if they found the O'Learys, Everett would stay with Leidolf to deal with them, and she would be heading back to her house with Corey.

When they reached the first house on their list, Demetria saw that it was a two-story with brick and white siding. A white car was sitting out front, and a white camper parked off to the side. Her heartbeat drummed as she heard Everett's start to beat faster. Her gaze was riveted to the front door—a shiny, red, aluminum poster, door size, with a big snowman in the center. She couldn't help feeling both excited and hopeful and was barely breathing in anticipation. “I think this is it.”

“I think so too.”

It was getting dark out, but a porch light and their cat night vision made the house fully visible.

Demetria let out her breath and studied the place for signs of life. A couple of rooms were lit up. “Corey, is that the house?”

Everett was taking pictures of the car, the license plate, the camper, and the house.

Corey didn't answer so she glanced back over the seat. He was sound asleep.

Everett looked back over the seat. “Hey, Corey. Wake up, bud. Is that the house where Belinda lives?”

Corey's eyes opened, but not very wide, and he looked really tired. She hated that they had to wake him.

“Is that the house you were staying at, Corey?” Demetria asked.

Corey turned his head and looked out the window. He nodded, then laid his head back against the car seat and closed his eyes.

Demetria drove slowly past the house with Leidolf following her and then called him on the car link. “It's the right house. I'll park up the street a bit and Everett can join you. I'll just wait. Take pictures of the couple and send them to me. I want to show them to Corey just to be sure.”

“All right,” Leidolf said.

She parked a couple of houses down from the house, not wanting to get so far away that they couldn't watch to make sure neither Belinda nor Paddy got spooked and left. Paddy's truck wasn't visible. Maybe it was parked inside the garage. Or maybe the woman Belinda was mad about had finally let him stay the night with her.

Everett got out of the car. “If anything goes wrong, take Corey to your place. I'll catch up to you there.”

“Okay. Be safe.” She was really surprised he'd offer to join her. She had thought he planned to either take Corey home alone or let her take him, but she was glad he wanted to be with them both.

Everett called Howard to tell him they had found the house and would need to take the couple into custody, if they were home. They'd take them back to an exam room at JAG headquarters. Even though they were human, these people had taken in a shifter. So Everett couldn't very well turn this case over to the police. Everett also sent Howard the license plate number to check out.

Everett got into Leidolf's car, and Leidolf turned it around, parking the rental behind Belinda's.

“Ready?” Everett asked.

“Yeah, let's do this.” Though Leidolf wouldn't have any idea how JAG agents dealt with a situation like this.

“We'll take them into custody, which means I'll need to drive us straight to JAG headquarters with the couple, and you can text Demetria and my boss to let him know what our next plan is.”

“Okay, works for me.”

He and Leidolf headed for the front door. The yard was well maintained, and there were colorful Christmas lights on the house and a sparkly Christmas tree in the front window.

Leidolf rang the doorbell, and a woman answered the door after a few minutes. “Yes?”

She looked like the woman Corey had described. Brown hair, brown eyes. And she smelled like chocolate chip cookies.

“Ma'am, we work with the FBI and are trying to verify some information from you concerning this boy.” Everett showed her his badge and then pulled out the picture of the boy and showed it to her.

“Oh?” Her eyes lit up.

Everett took a deep breath of the air, like he always did to catalog someone's scent. She was definitely human and terrified. “Can you tell me anything about this boy?”

The woman looked at the picture and swallowed hard, tears filling her eyes, but she didn't say anything.

“Okay, here's the deal. We know you dropped the boy off at the day-care facility. We have security tapes that show everything. That's how we tracked you here so easily. We're going to take you in for further questioning. Does a Mr. Paddy O'Leary live here?”

“Yes. He's my husband.”

“We need to speak with him too.”

“He's not here.” She snorted. “Who knows when he'll be home. He's out drinking with his buddies. Or sleeping with his girlfriend. Could be middle of the night, tomorrow morning, or after work, if ever.”

“Okay. Come with us. No need to cuff you. Unless you give us trouble.”

“I–I didn't steal the boy.” She sounded panicked.

“You also didn't let any law-enforcement agency know you had a child in your custody. Instead of informing someone, you just dropped him off at the day care and let them deal with it. What if they hadn't called us? What if he had left the building and was nabbed by someone else?”

She locked her door and walked with Everett to the vehicle. “I didn't steal him. He got in the trailer. He was trespassing. That's against the law.”

“A four-year-old?”

She twisted her mouth and got in the backseat.

While Everett drove the rental car to JAG headquarters, Leidolf used Everett's phone to text Demetria and Martin. Demetria followed behind them.

When they arrived at headquarters, Everett parked and got out of the car, along with Leidolf and Belinda. Demetria parked in a distant section of the parking area, staying out of sight with Corey. Two more men in suits met up with Everett and escorted Belinda into the headquarters.

Everett noticed that Leidolf was checking out the people in the area, smelling that they were all jaguars, and they were doing the same with him.

Everett said to Leidolf, “Let me get Demetria and the boy. I'm sure they'll take Belinda to a room with a two-way mirror so he can positively identify her.”

Howard hurried to join them. “I ran her license plate. She's got a few moving traffic violations. Her husband has been in a few fights at O'Flaherty's Pub and has been arrested for it, but no other scrapes with the law. Neither has spent time in jail. He's a construction worker, but also a middleweight boxer in his spare time. She is a homemaker.”

“She said he might be out drinking with friends or with a mistress,” Everett said.

“Okay, as soon as we know more, I'll check it out.” Howard studied Leidolf for a moment and shook his head. “Since I was little, I always said there could be all kinds of different shifters out there—bear, cougar, fox.” He smiled. “Wolves.”

Leidolf returned his smile. “Total shock to me.”

Everett went to get Demetria and Corey while Belinda was escorted inside the building.

“He's sound asleep.” Demetria got out of the car and pulled open the back door.

“I'll get him.” Everett was certain Corey would wake, but he just snuggled up against Everett's shoulder and continued to sleep. He was a cute kid.

The agents were all smiling at the boy.

“I can't believe I was ever like that. Now if anything wakes me, I have a hard time getting back to sleep,” Demetria said.

“Me too. I'm sure meeting all the new people, all the activities he's been involved in, and the long trip here from the Houston area wore him out.” Everett led the way into the building. The whole place was lit up and several people were there. Normally at that hour, everyone was home with their families unless they were on a mission. He suspected the large turnout was because of having a red wolf and the little boy who was an Arctic wolf in their midst.

“Exam room five.” Howard led them all into the viewing room.

Belinda was sitting at a wooden table, the lights in the exam room bright and harsh. Everett's boss was talking with her.

“Corey,” Demetria said softly. “Wake up for just a minute, honey. We need you to tell us if that's the woman who was taking care of you.”

After much coaxing, Corey finally and reluctantly opened his eyes, stared at the woman, and nodded.

“That's Belinda? The woman who dropped you off at the day care?” Demetria asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, you can go back to sleep.”

Corey snuggled again against Everett's shoulder, and Everett smiled.

Howard called Martin. “Corey identified the woman.”

“Okay. Have Demetria and Everett talk to Mrs. O'Leary.” Then he said to Belinda, “Just tell the agents exactly what happened, and you'll be free to go as soon as we can get your husband to corroborate your story.” Then Martin left the room.

Howard said to Everett, “Do you want me to take the little tyke?”

Demetria couldn't believe he'd offer.

“Yeah, sure.” Everett handed over Corey and then said, “Okay. Demetria, are you ready?”

“Am I ever.”

They walked into the exam room and shut the door. They believed Corey's story, but since the O'Learys hadn't contacted the police, they must have had something to hide.

Tammy returned to the room carrying a poster that pictured Corey. She tacked it on a wall, and then she left.

Belinda stared at the picture as if it were of some alien being, her eyes wide, her face ashen.

“We're investigating how this boy came to be in your possession,” Demetria said. “We want to know the whole story. But mostly, we want to know where you were when the boy climbed into your camper and you locked him in.”

Demetria flashed her badge. “We're with an agency of the federal government that specializes in child endangerment cases,” she said, her voice soft, trying to lull the woman into believing they didn't really think she was a kidnapper. “Tell us what happened in your own words.” Demetria took a seat across from Belinda as if she were just a concerned friend.

“I didn't endanger any child.”

“All right. We believe you. Just tell us how you ended up with Corey and then left him off at the day care.”

Belinda clenched her hands together, so pale that she looked like she was ready to pass out. “All right. I didn't do nothing wrong. Paddy, the bastard, had been sleeping with a mutual friend of ours.”

Demetria wondered what that had to do with anything, but she knew to wait unless the woman was straying too far from the story. Everett leaned against the wall and folded his arms, staying out of the picture for the moment. Demetria wasn't used to interrogating a suspect quite like this.

“Well, I knew he was sleeping with her, and I was trying to get him to fess up. And he kept denying it and denying it. But I'm no dummy, and I knew he was sleeping with her. So I kept pushing. And he finally confessed. He got tired of me asking about his late-night phone calls from her. He'd said the call was from one of his poker buddies, who was upset about getting a divorce. I asked him where he'd been because I'd gone to O'Flaherty's looking for him and he wasn't there.”

“What has any of this to do with—”

“I'm getting to it. You told me to tell my story in my own words, didn't you?”

“Go ahead.”

“Okay, so he said he was seeing Millicent O'Brian. She's a friend of mine from school. His too. And they've been sneaking off together and doing it. Well, I hit him with my fishing pole, and he got mad and said, ‘Fine. We'll just go home. Can't go anywhere without you making a fuss.' Fuss? I wasn't fooling around with a friend of his! So he started tearing things down and throwing everything mad-like onto the sled.”

“Sled?” Demetria didn't fish, but a sled sounded like snow to her. And there wasn't any snow this time of year in this part of Texas, if ever.

“Yeah, yeah, it's the easiest way to haul all that stuff to the river.”

“Snow? It was snowing there?”

“No, it wasn't snowing.”

“But if you had a sled…”

“Yeah, it was snowy, but it wasn't snowing. Not until we left.”

Demetria wanted to throw her hands up in exasperation. “Where were you?”

“Minnesota, but don't ask me where in Minnesota exactly. I don't like to drive in snow, and if I'm not driving, I got to take motion sickness pills, so I was sleeping. He knows where he's going, and he doesn't need me to navigate for him. Well, most of the time.”

“Minnesota. You said Paddy might be out drinking. Where?”

“O'Flaherty's Pub. He drinks and plays poker in a back room.”

“What's Millicent O'Brian's address?”

“Are you kidding? How would I know where that traitor lives? If I did, I'd have a knock-down, drag-out fight with her.”

Everett was already on his phone. “Do whatever we have to so that we can locate Paddy O'Leary. Apparently, he's the only one who knows where they picked up the boy.”