“Shut up. Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“What did he want?”
I debated how much to tell her, then decided she might actually be able to shed some light on the situation. After all, Logan worked for Brooke’s father—that had to give her some insight.
“He warned me to watch my back.”
“For what?”
“He didn’t say. Any idea why he would call and warn me?”
“No, I mean, except—”
I waited.
She looked away, chewing her lip as she thought.
“I think,” she said, still not looking at me, “maybe he feels kind of bad about what happened. You know, because he didn’t tell you everything when you were looking for me, it put all of us in danger.”
“So he’s making up for keeping me in the dark before by giving me vague warnings now?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Well, you can tell him when you don’t see him again, I said, thanks, but no thanks. He can take his mysterious phone calls and . . .”
I trailed off when I realized Brooke had stopped listening. Her attention had become focused on something over my left shoulder.
Turning to follow her gaze, I discovered the subject of her fixation. A boy, maybe a little older than Brooke, had emerged from the barn. He was a tall, broad-shouldered kid with a mop of dark curls. Even from this distance, I could guess he was related to Ozeal.
“Friend of yours?” I asked.
At my words, Brooke yanked her gaze away from the boy. A flush crept up her neck to flood her cheeks. She seemed self-conscious and almost shy—completely unlike the tough, streetwise kid I’d met not long ago.
The boy saw us and came over.
“You’re Grace?” he asked, after flashing a broad smile at Brooke.
“I am.”
“This is Cody. Ozeal’s his aunt,” Brooke said, still blushing prettily.
“Do you need help with the hay?” he asked me.
“Hay?” I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Oh my God,” Brooke said. “I totally forgot. Emma wanted to see if you had room in the back of your car for a few bales of hay.”
“For . . . ?”
She shrugged. “Decoration, I guess.”
I didn’t ask what my sister planned to festoon with hay bales, just handed Brooke the keys to Bluebell. I’d let the kids deal with finding enough room in the catchall that was the cargo area for “a few” bales of hay.
Turning to the main part of the rescue facility, I saw Ozeal, Emma, and a woman I assumed to be the reporter Anita Margulies approach from the direction of the commissary. Trailing behind them was a rotund, bearded man walking next to Hugh. Emma gestured a couple of times, pointing out this and that. The group stopped near the cougar cages.
The reporter, dressed in a crisp, royal blue button-down shirt and navy slacks, conferred with her cameraman. They nodded and positioned Ozeal with her back to the cougar enclosure.
Emma saw me watching and waved me over.
The man hoisted the camera onto a shoulder and as I neared the group, I heard Anita Margulies say, “Three. Two. One. Ozeal, can you tell us more about your plans for the new tiger exhibit?”
“Well, as you can see behind me, the cougars are currently living in a much smaller enclosure.”
I sent a mental greeting to the cougars who had spotted me and come to the front of their cage to say hello.
“We’d like to move the cougars over to where Boris, our tiger, is now,” Ozeal continued. “But to do that, we’ll have to make significant changes to the fencing.”
An understatement, I thought. Cougars climbed. Tigers didn’t. Not very well at least. In order to contain the smaller, more agile cats, the large area would need to be completely enclosed.
“There are a few varieties of steel netting available, but, as you can imagine, it’s a bit expensive.”
“And the tiger, Boris, where would he go?” the reporter asked.
“Into a brand-new enclosure.” Ozeal smiled broadly and I noticed her lips were tinted with a hint of color. Someone had talked the practical, no-frills woman into wearing makeup.
I cut a sidelong glance to my sister. Emma was beaming with the overzealous pride of a stage mom as she watched the interview.
“There’s a spring-fed pond located on the property just north of us.” Ozeal motioned to her right. “It would be a perfect place for a tiger.”
Ozeal continued to lay out her plans for Boris’s new home. It sounded like a total tigertopia. Suddenly, I understood why she needed the publicity. Procuring the land, building the enclosure . . . it would cost a small fortune.
Not that Boris didn’t deserve it.
They finished up the interview and my sister turned to me. “Grace, this is Anita Margulies.”
I nodded a hello to Ozeal then shook the reporter’s hand before being introduced to her bearded cameraman, Phil.
“So you’re Emma’s sister. It’s nice to meet you.” The woman’s smile was bright and wide but there was a glint to her eyes that made me wary. “We’re ready to get some shots of just Hugh and the tiger in the enclosure interacting. Can you play-fight with him like you can with a puppy?”
I shook my head. “Not a good idea.”
“No?” The reporter glanced at me then pouted at Hugh. I noticed her hand was still on his arm. “You’re sure?”
I gave Hugh a pointed look. “Given your history with Boris.”
“History? What history?”
Hugh flashed her a carefree smile. “Boris got a little frisky with me a few weeks ago. It wasn’t a big deal.”
I felt my brows creep up to my hairline. Frisky wouldn’t have been the word I’d use to describe what had happened.
I didn’t bother to contradict him, just shook my head and said very calmly, “Sorry. No play-fighting. Boris is very sweet and incredibly well socialized. But he’s still a tiger, not a tomcat.”
“Grace—” Emma tried to interject, but I kept talking.
“Boris has four-inch claws. One swipe, even an unintentional one, could cause real damage. It’s not worth the risk.”
Hugh raised his hands and spoke in a tone I’d heard him use once on an angry porcupine. “I agree with you, Grace. Wrestling around with Boris isn’t safe.”
I felt my shoulders relax a bit.
Truthfully, I didn’t know if I could stop a tiger in full-on attack mode and I didn’t want to find out. If something upset the big cat, it would come down to a battle of wills, which, when prepared, I usually won. Stubbornness has some perks.
With Boris, the link to the wild was latent, but it was there—shimmering just under the surface, something I’d learned firsthand. The good thing about my previous brush with Boris’s inner beast: I wouldn’t be surprised by its ferocity.
Still, I was going to have to bring my A game to keep us both safe.
“Okay,” I said, looking around the group. “Let’s get started.”
“Wait!” Brooke, who had clearly finished loading hay bales into Bluebell, jogged to a stop next to me and reached into her back pocket. “I made it for Boris last night. Is it okay if he wears it?”
She looked from Ozeal to me. I blinked at the spangled strap of leather. Ozeal gave a “fine by me” half shrug.
“Wow,” I said, taking the collar from Brooke “I didn’t know they still made Bedazzlers.”
“Isn’t it pretty?” She smiled proudly at her creation. “I used one of my old belts. It already had the studs on it but I added the rhinestones.”
“It’s perfect,” Emma assured her.
“You’ve worn this?” I asked.
“Grace—” Emma made my name into a gentle reprimand for what she probably assumed was going to be an ins
ult to Brooke’s fashion sense. Please. Like I was a qualified judge?
“It’s a good thing.” I waved off my sister’s rebuke. “Boris loves Brooke. Putting something on him that smells like her will put him at ease.”
I’d come to realize one of the reasons Boris liked me so much was not so much for my ability to communicate with him, but that my dark hair and light eyes reminded him of his favorite human, Brooke.
The girl beamed. “So, you think he’ll like it?”
“I do.” I turned back to the rest of the group. “Just let me know when Hugh’s ready. I’ll take care of Boris. Brooke, you can help me.” Hugh, Ozeal, and the news crew started to walk away, but I touched my sister’s arm, holding her back.
I stepped away from Brooke and said quietly, “I’m not sure about this woman, Em. She’s . . . shifty.”
“She’s a reporter, of course she’s shifty.”
“And did you see how touchy-feely she was with Hugh?”
My sister rolled her eyes. “He’s the reason she wanted to do the piece, remember?”
I did. “Just make sure if anything weird happens, you take out the cameraman.”
“Seriously? There’s a chance of that?”
“Probably not. But the only thing worse than one of us getting mauled would be to have it immortalized on film to be played over and over on the news.”
She stared at me, brows raised.
“I mean it, Emma.”
“Okay. I’ll take out the cameraman if anything happens.”
I nodded and turned back to Brooke.
We headed through a small gate and around to the path that ran along the perimeter fence. “You think Boris will like his collar because it smells like me?”
“Yep,” I told her as we walked toward the long cement-block building attached to the rear of the tiger’s enclosure. “I just hope he doesn’t like it too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how dogs chew up their owner’s shoes and stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, usually they do that because shoes, socks, or whatever smell like a person they love and chewing on it envelops them in that person’s scent, which makes them happy.”
“So you think he’ll eat his collar?”
“Only one way to find out, kid.”
I pushed open the metal door to the tiger house. Bright afternoon sunlight streamed through the high, narrow windows and cast a rectangular spotlight on the superstar of that day’s production.
The light made every exquisite detail of the cat’s sinewy body stand out in high relief. He twisted his head around to look at us. The black around his golden green eyes gleamed, his pupils, despite the sun, enlarged slightly when he saw us, then contracted again.
With a happy, moaning growl, Boris rolled to his feet and stepped to the interior cage door.
He let out a few chuffs and pressed his forehead against the chain-link.
Pet.
I scratched him between the ears. As soon as we made contact, his thoughts streamed into my head.
More.
“Scoot back, buddy, I need some room,” I told him as I pushed on the interior gate. At the same time, I mentally urged him to back up.
Boris obliged, and I slipped inside.
He bumped his head against my hip and slid his face along the crease of my jeans. The action both marked me as his and scratched a spot just past his whiskers.
As I went to fasten the collar around his neck, light caught the facets of the rhinestones and bounced off the walls in hundreds of tiny rainbows.
Boris watched the dancing lights for a moment with interest then nuzzled at my hand.
Pet.
I rubbed his ears and under his chin slowly, taking extra time to assess his mood and add a nice layer of good vibrations of my own.
“What’s he saying?” Brooke asked.
“Not much, just happy to get scratched in all the right spots.” I glanced over at her. “See if Hugh’s ready, then come back and open the door.”
She nodded and left. I took the opportunity to pull in a couple of deep breaths and push any negative feelings out of my head.
By the time Brooke returned, I was as calm and centered as I was going to get.
The guillotine door leading to the exterior enclosure operated on a pulley system. I signaled to Brooke that I was ready and she grabbed the rope and hoisted the door. The opening was about a three-by-three-foot square, plenty of space for a tiger, but a tiger and a person was a little tricky.
Boris and I both tried to go through at the same time and I got a little squished against the side in the process.
With a grunt, I stumbled through the opening like a wounded water buffalo, and tried not to think about the camera pointed in our direction.
Hugh, looking handsome and relaxed, sat on the thick log that lay across the center of the enclosure. Boris recognized him instantly.
Doc! He let out a chuff of happiness and greeted Hugh with a good-natured head-butt. Then, with a bit of encouragement from me, he turned and plopped down at Hugh’s feet.
I gave Boris a pat and stepped back so I was out of the camera’s frame.
In situations like this, I try to keep my mind set firmly in ready-for-anything mode.
Unfortunately, some things can’t be planned for.
I’d been focusing on keeping the link open to Boris, and gently poured happy, friendly images and emotions into his mind, all the while halfway listening to the interview.
Hugh talked about how much tigers, and Boris in particular, liked water and how much the cat would love a pond large enough to swim in.
Boris, for his part, was acting like a ham. He rubbed his face on Hugh’s knees and made happy-tiger sounds.
“What the hell?” Hugh’s words prompted me to follow his gaze. I saw two sheriff’s deputies approaching my sister. Taking point in front of the two men was Detective Boyle.
The camera swung around to capture the scene.
“Emma Olivia Wilde.” Boyle’s voice was loud and authoritative. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Anthony Ortega.”
Handcuffs snapped onto my sister’s wrists and Boyle, still with her ridiculous escort, turned my sister and led her away.
Anita Margulies went into attack mode in the blink of an eye. She started asking questions about Ortega.
Understanding hit me when she jammed a microphone toward my sister and asked, “Was the murder retribution for the way he treated you? Or was it self-defense?”
This was a setup. A surge of outrage exploded through me and kept on going—right into Boris.
I wasn’t physically touching the tiger but he reacted anyway. Before I could rein in my temper, the tiger belted out a snarl and shot to his feet. The target of his sudden, confusing rage was, of course, Hugh.
Without thinking, I grabbed the only part of the tiger I could—his tail.
I can promise you this: The warning you’ve heard about tigers and tails is completely, 100 percent legitimate.
Boris whirled on me, jerking his tail out of my hands as he spun.
Two things saved my life.
One—in the milliseconds that passed between realizing we’d been set up and facing vivisection via tiger, my emotions bounced all over the place. Fury, dread, disbelief, confusion . . .
Thanks to our mental connection, I’d brought Boris along for the ride and that left him disoriented.
But what really saved my bacon was this fact: I am a klutz.
The irony that I ended up being named Grace is a cosmic joke.
Half a second after losing my grip on Boris’s tail, I stumble-stepped back, tripped, and landed with a splash in his little pool.
The shock of the cold water was enough to short-circuit all other emotions.
Abruptly, I wasn’t angry or frightened or anything. My mind was utterly blank.
Luckily, Boris’s love of water filled the void with a single idea.
Play!
A moment later, he leapt into the water. Siberian tigers are the world’s largest cat, weighing well over six hundred pounds. Even with the water as a buffer, I felt it when he landed on me.
I would have panicked, if the tiger suddenly standing on my chest hadn’t been so delighted with our game.
His joy and excitement fluttered through me and, despite being trapped underwater, I felt my lips stretch into a smile.
All this happened in less than five seconds, but I was still running out of time.
Not just because I couldn’t breathe—though that was a concern—but because the people who were no doubt watching didn’t know Boris wanted to play, not kill.
To ward off any aggressive action from the humans, I raised my hand out of the water, waved and gave the thumbs-up signal.
Swim! Boris urged.
Sounds good, buddy. You’ve just got to let me up first.
Rather than pushing against his chest, which would have gotten me nowhere, I nudged the leg pinning me with my free hand. Boris understood my request and shifted his weight, sliding his paw off to the side.
Relieved, I moved to sit up, but couldn’t.
What the . . . ?
It took every ounce of control I had not to start flailing around in terror.
Dimly, I realized my shirt must have been caught on one of the tiger’s claws.
My oxygen-deprived brain struggled to cobble together a solution.
An idea came to me with the speed of a sedated manatee. I raised my hand out of the water a second time, opened my palm wide and focused every functioning brain cell I could to issue a single command.
Five!
Boris, gimme five!
The tiger lifted his paw and batted my hand, freeing my shirt from his claw. I popped to the surface, gulped in a breath, coughed, then managed to sputter, “Good boy.”
“Grace?”
Hugh was on his feet, hand on the butt of his dart gun.
I wiped water from my eyes and maneuvered onto my knees.
“We’re okay.” I panted.
Ozeal had made it through the tiger house and was scrambling through the guillotine door.
Horse of a Different Killer (A Call of the Wilde Mystery Book 3) Page 16
