by Lauren Esker
"Oh yeah, I bet there's loads of jobs for that."
"See? This is what I'm saying. You decide something won't work out before you even try it, and then you never try."
"I don't do that," Casey protested, and then hesitated. "Do I?"
Wendy slung an arm around Casey's shoulders. She smelled like peach shampoo. "Just do it as a favor for me, okay? Go online and find some fun-looking classes. You can show them to me and we can talk about it. Maybe we'll take one together. I think that sounds like a blast."
But, of course, it had never happened. Wendy had disappeared, and Casey had taken classes, all right: classes in Microsoft Word, classes in accounting, a self-guided crash course in skip tracing. She'd finally found a passion, and as it turned out, the passion was pursuing Wendy's killer.
I think I found out what I'm good at, Wendy. I'm a pretty good spy.
Except, no. She wasn't a good spy, because she'd ended up getting caught. Or maybe she was just stupidly unlucky. But of all the things she'd ever thought about doing, the one she'd eventually thrown herself into, body and soul, was spying on her boss.
Wendy would probably have found that hilarious.
Wendy, she thought, if it's the last thing I ever do, I'll make them pay for what they've done.
"Jack?" she called softly. "Do we have a plan once we get there?"
There was no response. Casey sat up and looked over at him, concerned. Then the furry hulk heaved, moved, and collapsed down to Jack's naked human form. He panted for a moment before raising his head.
"Guess we'd better work something out."
"Do you have any ideas?" she asked, wrapping her arms around her knees.
"Trouble is, it's tricky to work out a plan without having any idea what we'll find when we get there. Odds are good they left at least one lion behind to hold down the fort. There might be more of them here than we know about."
Casey looked up the mountainside. It was impossible to believe they'd climbed down that; it looked vertical from here, hanging over them with a scarf of cloud wrapped around its head. "Do you think they're following us?"
"I'm sure they're trying. We managed to lose them pretty good on the mountain, I think. That storm would've washed out our trail completely—maybe not for something like a bloodhound, but cats aren't the world's greatest scent hounds. As I guess you know."
She shrugged, conceding the point. Her sense of smell was perfectly adequate in her shifted form, but not enough to follow a trail through pouring rain.
"So they'll have to do a brute-force search of the area," Jack said. "That gives us a window until they find us again."
Casey sighed, appreciating the irony. "And what we're doing with our precious window of freedom is going straight to them."
"No," Jack corrected her. "We're going on the offensive, circling around behind, and taking the fight to them. They won't expect that."
"Could we do something else? Hide, maybe?"
A weary gesture took in their ragged appearance. "We're dying the death of a thousand cuts here. We can keep circling the island, getting worn down, or just taken out in one swoop. Or we can fight on our own terms." He clenched his jaw and heaved himself to his hands and knees. "And if we want to do that, we better get moving before they catch up. We'll have to work out a plan on the move."
Still, he hesitated for a moment, head hanging, while he gathered the energy to shift.
"Jack, wait." She scrambled to his side and put her hand on his arm. "Can I suggest something? What if I went and scouted ahead?"
He gave her a startled look, jolted out of his exhaustion by surprise. "No. Too dangerous."
"You yourself said time is important. My shifted form is fast, and I'm not hurt." Much. "I can go straight down the mountain, get a close look at their compound, and come back to tell you about it."
"No," he said again. "We need to stay together. I'm the only one who can go toe to toe in a fight with them—and that's not chauvinism, it's just a simple matter of size and physics."
"But if I can bring back some ... what's the right word ... intel, we'll know which way to approach their camp from. We won't be as likely to be spotted."
He looked unswayed.
She decided to appeal to his military background, the part of him that clearly enjoyed his bond with Avery and the rest of the SCB. "We're a team, aren't we? That means we share the work."
For no reason she could completely fathom, this made something sharp and startled go across his face. "A team."
"Yes, Jack, a team. So far you've been pulling most of the weight. But this is something I can do. So let me do my part to help."
Jack chewed his lip. Then he said tightly, "Okay. Fast. In and out. Do you know which way to go?"
"Yes," she said, and then realized this was not at all true. She thought she knew—but she didn't trust her wilderness navigation skills. "But verify it for me."
Jack pointed down the slope at an angle. "This is the bearing we've been on since you pointed the direction out to me from the top. Simple trick for going in a straight line: pick a tree or another landmark in the direction you're going, line it up with another one farther off, and then a third. When you get to the first one, pick a new third in a line with the other two."
That would only work if you could tell apart individual trees, which she decided not to mention. She would have to try. "Okay."
"Do you think you can outrun a lion?"
Honesty was probably best here, as much as she didn't want to damage his tentative faith in her. "I don't know," she said. "I can try. And I can go places they can't." This thought buoyed her spirits a little. "Yeah, these close-together trees will slow them down more than me, I think."
"Yeah. That's good strategic thinking. If they find you, turn around and run back to me as fast as you can."
"But that'll lead them straight to you."
Jack smiled grimly. "So they'll run right into a pissed-off grizzly bear. Sound like a bad plan to you?"
"Well, when you put it that way ..."
"Lions are ambush predators. Remember that. Be very careful."
"I will," she said.
She took a deep breath, then lunged forward and kissed him, hard and sudden. Their kisses in the cave had been gentle, exploring the newness of each other's mouths. This, though—she took his mouth with a confidence she'd never known, biting his lip and drawing it between her teeth, kissing him until both of them were breathless.
"For luck," she explained, pulling away.
Then, before he could speak, she shifted, folding herself smoothly into her lynx body.
This time she took a moment longer to orient herself with her changed senses than she usually did after shifting. Things looked different, smelled different, felt different as a lynx. The forest that seemed like little more than samey green wallpaper to her as a human was a sudden wonderland of scent and sound to her lynx senses. And the navigation that had seemed so challenging to her human mind was a cakewalk for the lynx. She could run in a straight line all day if she had to.
Before Jack could change his mind and try to stop her, she bounded off down the mountainside.
They were past the worst of the climb now, over the unstable scree slopes and bare cliffsides that they'd spent much of the afternoon navigating. And the forest posed no problems at all for her lynx body. She glided like a smoke shadow through brambles and over beds of pine needles that would have torn up her human feet.
Rabbit and squirrel trails through the forest understory made her mouth water. Surely there was time for a little hunting ...
But, no. She had a job to do. She was a lynx on a mission.
It was lion smell that alerted her as she approached the Fallons' base camp. Her ears twitching, whiskers bristling, she slowed to a trot and then a slow prowl, sniffing every twig and leaf. Lots of it here, but older, before the rain.
And now she caught whiffs of woodsmoke, trailing low on the wet breeze. Other things too: diesel, paint, cook
ing smells, garbage. A low drumming sound puzzled her, and she stood still for several minutes, feeling it through the pads of her paws, until she realized it was the deep thumping of a generator.
There was another smell, too, one that had been growing stronger for long enough that she'd almost stopped noticing. It was the wet, mud-and-metal smell of the sea.
Casey glanced behind her, where her passage had bent leaves and parted grass slightly, marking her backtrail by sight as well as scent. If she had to run, she'd need to go in a hurry.
Then she crouched low and prowled forward.
By the time the trees began to open up, she was almost on her belly. She lay flat in the grass and peered ahead. She had come upon the edge of the helipad. The helicopter was parked in a circle of flattened grass, lashed down with a couple of long cables moored to concrete blocks. A narrow, rutted road led away into the trees, the sort that was made by four-wheeled ATVs rather than cars.
There was no sign of movement. No fresh smells of either lion or human. She heard no voices.
Casey ghosted along at the edge of the clearing. She did not step on the road, but stayed beside it in the trees. Every tiny rustle of her paws made her tense. She paused often to look back, partly to check her escape route, and partly because of paranoia about having the Fallons sneak up on her from behind.
Lions are ambush predators.
Comforting, Jack. Thanks so much.
Open space was visible ahead through the trunks of the trees. The thumping of the generator was louder now, the smell of woodsmoke stronger. Casey slowed to a crawl.
The trees opened up into a field of stumps. Wildflowers and meadow weeds grew in masses among them, drooping their heads under their burdens of water. Casey risked standing to see over the tops of the tangle of meadow foliage. She could see the dark, wet backs of several small wooden buildings, some ways distant.
She didn't need a background in military strategy to understand that the Fallons had cleared around their base camp to make sure no one could sneak up on them.
Suspicious bastards.
Okay, now what? She'd found the place, but she didn't know much more than she had when she left Jack. The only thing she knew for sure now was that it wouldn't be easy getting to the dock and the boat without being seen. She still didn't know if anyone was home, or what other advantages the Fallons might have brought with them. Guns? There had been that flash from the hills, as of binoculars or a rifle scope ...
An icy chill went through her. She could outrun a lion, she thought, but she couldn't outrun a bullet.
But she'd come too far to turn back without gathering a little more information to take to Jack.
She turned right and prowled along the edge of the clearing, careful to stay on the downwind side of the encampment. The land rose in a little ridge, and soon she was above the Fallons' camp, among the trees.
Suddenly there was no more land in front of her, just a steep bluff dropping some thirty or forty feet to waves crashing on jagged rocks. She was on a small headland, sheltering the bay where the Fallons had decided to build their dock.
It looked like a good harbor, at least to the extent she could tell. The little bay was a deep cleft in the mountainside—was that what they called a fjord?—very steep on the other side and more gentle and rolling on this side, where the Fallons had opted to build their camp. From up here, through the trunks of the pines and cedars, she had a decent view of the boat, a white cabin cruiser, bobbing at its moorings. There was a short wooden dock and then a beaten muddy road that went up a short, steep hill to the flatter area where they had built their camp.
This appeared to consist of four or five cabins arranged in a rough horseshoe shape around a muddy central yard. They were rough frame buildings with metal roofs, utilitarian rather than pretty. At least one of them was some kind of equipment shed—she glimpsed a brawny red ATV with a trailer under the overhanging edge of its roof—and another was probably the generator shed. The trees were cleared in a broad swath around and behind the buildings. At the far edge of the open field, a bulldozer gleamed like a splash of bright yellow paint amid all that green and brown.
Overall, the place was not beautiful. It was actually something of an eyesore, a plain and homely hunting camp rather than the sort of pretty resort she would have expected the Fallons to favor.
Of course, it wasn't like they brought investors here to impress them. This place was strictly for the family.
But were any of the family home, was the question. The only sound was the thumping of the generator. No engines droned; no vehicles moved. In the late afternoon light, she couldn't tell if lights were on in any of the buildings.
The wind, coming to her from the campsite, brought her smells of lions and people, but it was impossible to tell if it was residual, or if some of them were still in residence.
She gazed down at the tempting target of the white boat. The element of surprise was on her side, and most members of the cat family were capable of short bursts of great speed. She could dash down the hill and leap onto the boat right now. Even if anyone saw her, they couldn't possibly be close enough to do anything about it.
Briefly she gloried in the mental image of the look on Jack's face when she presented him with the stolen speedboat as a fait accompli. A much better gift to lay at his feet than a dead squirrel ...
But then common sense reasserted itself. First of all, she had no way of knowing if any of the Fallons were actually on the boat itself. She didn't see any sign of it from here, but that'd be just her luck, to leap onto the deck and find herself facing a couple of lion shifters on their home turf.
Also, her only experience with boats consisted of a handful of ferry trips to various islands in Puget Sound—and then, of course, the ill-fated cruise that had landed her here. She hadn't the slightest clue how to operate one. Even if it was similar to a car, or as simple as "push the button to go forward", she didn't think trying to figure it out while maneuvering out of a narrow bay, under attack by lions, was a good idea.
And what if a boat, like a car, needed a key?
Focused on the boat and the campsite, she nearly jumped out of her skin when a man's, voice behind her said quietly, "Hi there."
Casey jumped and whirled, ears going flat. She knew that voice.
Roger Fallon, human-shaped and naked, stood at the edge of the low, wind-sculpted trees on the headland.
He was only about twenty feet from her.
She had neither smelled nor heard him approach, and she realized now that he'd taken advantage of the wind in the same way she had. While she was carefully circling downwind of the camp, Roger had been stalking her from downwind as well.
Casey flattened her ears and snarled.
Roger smiled. It was the same pleasant smile he'd always had, with an apologetic note to it. His blond hair fluttered in the wind. He spread his hands to show he was unarmed.
"Hi, Casey. Don't run off. I just want to talk."
Jack had said to run if she encountered the Fallons. But Roger was between her and the escape route. He could shift and block her.
Also—lions are ambush predators. There might be more of his siblings out of sight in the bushes. And, if so, there was very little room to maneuver around them.
She had allowed herself to become trapped on the headland.
Casey took a quick look down the cliffside to the waves pounding on the rocks. It wasn't that much of a fall. Into deep, still water, she could have risked it. But it would be suicide to attempt a leap onto those jagged rocks with surf swirling between them.
Still, if it was a choice between dashing herself on the rocks, or being torn apart by lions ...
"Casey, don't do anything rash," Roger said. He didn't approach her, just remained where he was, hands turned palm-up and body language open. "I'm here to talk to you. We're alone. No one else is nearby."
She didn't believe that for an instant, but she also didn't see she had much choice. She shifted and st
ood up.
"That's better," Roger said, still smiling.
In lynx form she hadn't cared, but as a human she was struck by how handsome he was. All the Fallons had clean, golden good looks. Even their skin was burnished with a golden tint, as if lit by the sun.
And beneath that pretty skin beats the cold heart of a killer. Don't forget that.
Roger didn't leer or check her out. He kept his eyes politely on her face, not even flicking them aside to the wasp stings that must still be visible. He looked so friendly, so reasonable, so normal. Not like a murderer at all.
All a lie. Don't forget it.
"I would have invited you in somewhere warmer, but I didn't think you'd come," he said through that welcoming smile.
"You got that right," she spat. It wasn't until the words were out of her mouth that she realized the depth of her anger.
She had never felt anger like this before. It was a rage so great that it seemed to have its own reality, like another entity dwelling inside her.
This man, this handsome smiling man, had lured her friend to this island, killed her, and left her bones lying in a cave like those of an animal.
He'd smiled at Casey and lied to her face for months, treating her like a valued employee and even a friend, and all the while knowing, knowing that he'd murdered her roommate, that he'd murdered others, that he planned to kill again—
Her hands were shaking.
"I can see you're getting worked up," Roger said, holding his hands up. "Before you get too stressed, listen to me. You don't understand what's going on here, Casey. You were never in danger, not really. This is a test."
"A ... test?" she repeated, derailed from her anger by a wave of confusion.
"I suppose you could think of it as an audition, of sorts. How do you think we test out new people for the upper levels of management?"
Casey stared at him. The words were English; the tone of voice was polite and calm. But there was no sense in anything he said.
"This is a ... a job interview?"
"You can think of it that way." Roger took a cautious, barefoot step toward her; she froze on the verge of flight, and he stopped, too. One step closer.
