Guarded (7 page)

Shelley, unaware he’d been thinking about her ass, said, “As long as we’re quiet, no one should bother us.”

Famous last words.

A man bearing a striking resemblance to Colonel Sanders—white hair and goatee, white suit, black bow tie, black-frame glasses, even a walking stick—stepped into the path. He blinked twice at Shells, who muttered a small oath under her breath.

“Dr. Morgan, what are you doing here?” he asked in a thick southern drawl. He glanced around, as if confused. “I didn’t ask you to come here today, did I?”

“Um . . . hi, Dr. Kessler.” Shelley nibbled on her bottom lip. A small red flush crawled up her cheeks. She glanced over her shoulder at Dev, a plea in her eyes that he couldn’t decipher. She glanced back at the older man, who was busy patting his pockets. With a smile that made Dev’s insides quiver, she said, “No need to check your notes, sir. You asked me to check on Miah. I was just heading over there. How’d it go with Reverend Morrison’s horse? Has Margo foaled yet?”

Dr. Kessler’s brows drew together briefly before his expression cleared and he stopped patting his jacket pockets. “Why, yes, she did. The foal is healthy. Up and nursing. I was just headed up to give Mr. Jameson the good news. Seems he’d been a right bit worried since he sold her to the good reverend. Don’t understand why he’s worried, myself. Why that zoo owner sold his wife’s mare, didn’t he? But he seems especially concerned about the horse’s well-being. But who am I to judge? Ah well, would you care to join me on my rounds this afternoon?”

As if seeing Dev for the first time, the old doctor smiled wide and extended his hand. “Good afternoon, young man. And you are?”

Dev opened his mouth to speak but was too slow.

“This is an old friend from college who’s visiting me for a few days,” Shelley said. “Dr. Kessler, meet Devon Jones. Dev, this is my boss, Dr. Kessler.” Dev didn’t miss her nervous grin or the fact that she’d left off his title. Odd. She’d asked him to Elkridge for his investigative skills.

Taking his cue from her, he shook the vet’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Dr. Kessler.”

“My, you are a big fella, aren’t you?” the old man asked, a touch of awe in his voice. The gentleman said it kindly, but Dev recognized the wariness in the other man’s gaze.

“Not as big as some of my cousins,” Dev said with a smile and took two steps back. “Growing up, I was the runt in the family. Not anymore, though.”

Colonel Sanders stared with knitted brows for a few seconds, then laughed. “I imagine not. Very nice to meet Dr. Morgan’s gentleman. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Dev turned to Shelley who gave an almost imperceptible head shake.

She sighed and said a little too brightly, “Well, I don’t want to keep you, Dr. Kessler. I’ll meet you back at the clinic after my lunch break.”

“No, no. Enjoy your day with your young man.”

“But the clinic.”

The old man waved away her words. “Tosh, my girl. Take the afternoon off. As soon as I see Eddy Jameson about . . . about . . .” Again, confusion clouded the older man’s features. He started to pat his pockets again. He withdrew a yellow sticky pad with writing on it. Giving it a quick glance, his expression cleared. He smiled. “Ah, here it is. As soon as I tell him the horse and foal are healthy, I’ll be at the clinic.”

Shelley opened her mouth to protest, but the older man simply held up a hand. She fell silent.

“I’ve run that place for four decades before you came along. I can handle one afternoon on my own while you and your gentleman spend a little time together.” He turned to Dev and added in a stage whisper, “This girl works too hard.”

He walked off without another word toward a building that sat atop a berm. Another low-tech sign that read Elkridge Zoo Visitor Center stood high between two mismatched posts in front of a two-story structure. Four windows on both floors of a long wall overlooked the zoo.

“Okay, I guess I’m off for the afternoon. That’ll give us more time to discuss why I contacted you.” But she didn’t appear ready to discuss anything yet. Shelley turned and jogged up the trail in the opposite direction of her boss. “Come on, Dev, we need to hurry.”

“Shells . . .” He started to ask about what just happened but stopped himself.

His neck tingled.

Someone was watching.

That sensation was unmistakable and all too familiar. Between being part of the wealthy McKinnon clan and being a cop, he experienced it enough to know when someone had eyes on him. Striding faster to catch up to Shells he surreptitiously searched the area like a fascinated tourist. Another zing beneath his collar had him searching harder. Then he saw it.

In the building on the hill, a curtain in one of the lower windows moved.

S
H
ELLEY CAUGHT SIGHT
of the tiny monkey’s hand a nanosecond too late. The little guy latched onto her jacket sleeve. She nearly tripped, jerking to a halt to avoid injuring the primate.

“Hi, JoJo. How are we today? I don’t have any snacks for you this time,” she said, facing him. He chattered at her, but the blur of images he sent winging into her mind were jumbled and chaotic. “Slow down, I’m not getting what you mean.”

“Everything okay, Shells?” Dev asked, a frown digging a line between his blond eyebrows. “Who’s this little guy?”

“Hang on, JoJo.” She turned her attention to Dev. “This, my friend, is JoJo. And you’re looking at the Elkridge Zoo Monkey House.”

When Dev frowned at the old cage, she shrugged.

“Don’t judge.” Then she looked at the house again. The cage had two trees in opposite corners connected by ropes. The trees, cut short to keep the monkeys from escaping, spread wide until their branches nearly touched each other. At one time, the trees probably offered a means of exercise for the monkeys as they leaped from branch to branch. Now the primates leaped only when the desire struck, not out of necessity.

“Okay, so it’s little better than a heated barn with a green-colored chain-link cage attached to the front of it. But there are trees in there and a rope for them to play with . . . and why am I defending this place?”

“Is this what you brought me here to see?” Dev frowned at her, curiosity in his gray-blue eyes.

“I wish, but no.”
If only it were that easy.
“I brought you here to see something much scarier.”

“Scarier? He doesn’t look scary to me.” Dev placed his hands on the cage and tugged it, apparently verifying that it was more secure than it appeared. “So why are we here?”

“For something else.” The tamarin grabbed Shelley’s hair and tugged hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. “Ouch, stop that,” Shelley said, untangling the primate’s fingers then massaging her scalp. “Give me a minute, Dev. JoJo has something to talk to me about, and he doesn’t seem willing to wait.”

Dev didn’t say anything, just arched an eyebrow and looked at the primate.

“You do know my gift goes beyond household pets, don’t you? Or maybe you don’t.” She let out a nervous laugh despite the hollow pit opening in her stomach. “Um, seems I can talk to just about any living animal, including monkeys, guinea pigs, and, as I recently discovered, alligators. But that’s a whole story in itself.”

Dev grinned. His straight, white teeth gleamed in the afternoon sunshine. “Except dogs?”

“Right, dogs still don’t talk to me. Hercules, notwithstanding.”

“So JoJo here’s got a story? I’m all ears.” Dev stretched a finger toward the cage. JoJo wrapped his little fist around it. Dev smiled, then said softly, “You know, I’m kind of jealous that you get to talk to this little guy. I’d love to have your gift.”

Shelley let out a pent-up breath. She should have remembered how accepting Dev had been of her Dolittle gift back in college. He’d never once questioned or doubted her abilities. Only her family had ever been so accepting. It was a bit unnerving . . . and wonderful.

JoJo rattled the chain link.

“Okay, JoJo, I’m all ears. What’s on your mind?”

Without warning, JoJo released Dev’s finger with a trilling call and then raced up one of the trees, disappearing behind the leaves.

“JoJo, where are you going?” Shelley shifted in front of the fence trying to see him in the tree. “Come back here or I’m . . . What am I doing? I can’t understand him if he’s not looking at me.”

“Come again?”

She glanced at Dev over her shoulder. “The connection has to be eye-to-eye contact. I thought you knew that.”

“Do now. So you can talk to them all day, but only if they’re looking right at you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You sound skeptical.”

Dev raised his hands and shook his head. “Nope. Just fascinated.”

Shelley glanced at her watch and shifted again to try to see the animal.

“Do we wait?” Dev asked.

Shelley nodded. Although, yikes, did she feel silly. She’d asked him to come help her solve a mystery of disappearing animals that she hadn’t even finished telling him about. And here they stood.

Waiting on a monkey.

“What kind of monkey is JoJo?” Dev pointed to the blurry laminated picture affixed to the front of the gate. The image showed two monkeys climbing the twin trees. With yellow manes, big black eyes, long fingers tipped with claws, and long prehensile tails, they looked like an odd cross between monkeys and lions.

“They’re called golden lion tamarins. Their species is native to Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, actually. But these guys were born in captivity. Or so I’ve been told, though I have my doubts.”

“Why’s that?”

“Sometimes, when they talk to me, I see images of high canopied treetops and no humans around for miles. Something a tamarin born in captivity would never have seen.

“They’re an endangered species. These little guys and the white tiger up the path are the big draw for this zoo. Everyone wants to feed a monkey. I’ve tried to persuade the owner away from that bad idea, but he’s convinced that as long as he
sells
the food to people, nothing could go wrong.” She blew a raspberry.

“You disagree?”

Before she could answer, JoJo was back with his mate. “Hang on, Dev. JoJo and BoBo need to talk to me.”

“
JoJo
and
BoBo
?” The incredulity rang in his words.

“Hey, I didn’t name them,” she said turning away from him to give the primates her full attention. “Okay, what’s up?”

The two raced up the cage and began to chatter at her. It was impossible to understand them both at the same time, especially in their heightened state of anxiety. “Whoa, slow down. One at a time.” Shelley swung her attention left and right trying to lock eyes with one of them long enough to get an image. When she couldn’t do it after thirty seconds, she put her hands up and stepped back. “Stop! BoBo, you talk to me.”

Focusing her attention on the pregnant female, she found the connection she needed. Rapid-fire scenes whipped through her mind at a near dizzying speed.

An image of someone dressed in all black sneaking through the zoo in the dead of night. A tiger roared. Someone crashed through the woods and banged against the monkey cage. A distinct mewling cry went up followed by a second. A white-and-black striped cub’s head popped through the center of the jacket where the zipper hadn’t fastened the two sides together. It let out a mewling roar, small and weak and typical for a tiger so young. The thief pressed a gloved hand against its head and tucked it back, then zipped up the coat. In the distance, another frantic and somewhat odd-sounding roar rent the night.

A chill went down Shelley’s spine. “Oh my God! The cubs?”

The tamarins chattered again. But she’d lost the telepathic connection. BoBo and JoJo were too upset to communicate effectively. They shook the chain-link fence and screeched.

Shelley couldn’t breathe. She sucked in oxygen, but her chest constricted, squeezing her heart into her throat.

“Shells, what’s wrong?” Dev put a hand on her shoulder, but she couldn’t answer him.

“Just wait, Dev. Come on, BoBo, tell me more. When did this happen? Did you see anything else?” All of her attention was focused squarely on BoBo, the witness to the crime. The telepathic link sizzled between them, and the images leaped backward and forward in a jumbled maze for a moment before the little monkey zeroed in on the previous morning.

Eddy Jameson, the drunken owner, brought new toys for the tamarins. He might be a lush, but he made sure to deliver them every Tuesday morning like clockwork. Then the images skipped ahead so fast, Shelley’s stomach gurgled. As quickly as they started, the racing mental pictures froze. In the pitch black, a small, cylindrical red fire glowed brightly then dulled. The same image repeated over and over before Shelley realized it wasn’t repeating. Someone waited in the shadows, smoking a cigarette. The glowing red circle arced to the ground, then the shadowed figure raced up the path.

“Shells! Shelley, talk to me,” Dev said. Both hands on her shoulders, he stepped between the fence and her. His handsome chiseled face wore a mask of concern. “What’s going on? You’ve gone ghost-white.”

“Someone . . .” Shelley cleared her throat, then pushed the words past her lips. “I reached you too late. BoBo saw someone steal a tiger cub last night. She’d been sleeping, but someone was smoking. Over there.” Shelley hiked a thumb over her shoulder to the copse behind her on the other side of the footpath. “Then the person broke in and took the cubs.”

“Cubs or cub?” Dev frowned. “Shelley, did she say if it was more than one?”

Shelley turned back to BoBo, but she and JoJo had already disappeared back into the treetop. Shelley searched her mind, fear and anger mingling inside her. Shaking free of Dev’s touch, she clenched her fists and said, “I’m not sure, but I know how to find out. Come on.”

*   *   *

W
HEN
D
EV WAS
small, his father had once told him to beware of a woman on a righteous warpath. As he chased Shelley through the zoo, his father’s words echoed in his ears. If what those monkeys saw was right, Shelley was not going to be happy.

Thank God, he had good news for her.

Yeah and why haven’t you told her already? Hoping to draw out this private reunion with her a little longer?
His conscience pricked, but he shoved it aside and focused on getting Shelley through the next few minutes.

The tiger house was exactly that. A green-tinned roof, wooden cabin, and an open door with a ramp leading down to a lush green lawn. Centered inside a thousand-square-foot cage surrounded by an eight-foot-high perimeter fence and a three-foot-tall barrier fence, the tiger display was obviously the centerpiece of the zoo. Unlike the tamarin cage where the trees needed pruning, the tiger enclosure was pristine, and the grounds, immaculate.

Dev followed Shelley through the barrier fence.

“Wait here. I need to make sure Miah, the tigress, is secure in her cage, then I’ll let you into the tiger house.” Shelley bounced on the balls of her feet at the gate of the perimeter fence as she spoke.

“Okay.”

Shelley disappeared around a corner.

The tiger house appeared to have two exits. One led down the ramp to the grass, the other led out of the back and into a six-by-six-foot cage. A roar went up from the back of the cage just before Shelley hurried around the perimeter fence near the tiger’s house and raced across the rough path to unlock first the perimeter then the cage gates.

“Come on, Dev. We need to hurry,” Shelley said, taking Dev by the hand and holding it until he passed through the gate. She dropped his hand, hiked up her pencil skirt, and broke into a run. Dev could have easily kept up with her, but given he was the outsider, he let her go first. Still, his training was too ingrained. He swept his gaze all around, searching for any threat as they went into the tiger house. No threat. No one else around. Whoever had been watching them before wasn’t watching them now.

The house itself was little more than walls and floor with fresh-smelling straw for bedding. In a corner, partially hidden by the hay, three white tiger cubs slept on their sides, curled around one another in kitten-like fashion. Dev didn’t get more than a glimpse of them before Shelley dropped down to her knees. Her body blocked the sleeping animals from his sight.

“One, two, three . . .” Shelley made a strangled sort of noise and counted them again before she started digging through the hay. “Dev, come here. Please help me dig. Look for the other two. They’ve got to be here. I couldn’t be a day late. Not by a single, stupid, fracking day.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to wonder what she meant. Dev dropped to his knees and swept his hands through the hay. But in four short minutes they’d dug through the hay enough times; Dev was pretty sure they must have touched every straw. No matter how many times they counted, there were only three cubs.

Tears brightened Shelley’s eyes as she sank into the hay near the snoozing cubs. The sight of her anguished, helpless expression made Dev’s chest tight. “Is there any chance the mother tiger would have put them someplace else?”

“No, Dev.” She let out an exasperated breath. “Miah wouldn’t have separated her young. They were here when I examined them last week. All
five
of them. I weighed them, measured them. They were
here
. What am I going to do? How do I find them now? I don’t even know who took them. I mean, I have my suspicions, but I—”

Shelley’s words were cut off by the tigress’s roar. She actually flinched. Although, truth be told, Dev wasn’t exactly too confident sitting in a tiger’s house with one pissed-off tiger nearby.

Just how reliable is that six-by-six-foot metal cell?

While he trusted Shelley’s gift, he didn’t know how useful it would be against an angry, grieving, man-eating carnivore.

“Shells, maybe we can take this conversation someplace a little less, uh . . . dangerous?”