You Had Me at Cougar

by Terry Spear

  “He does stay with me, and he writes novels.”

  “A writer,” Chet said.

  “A novelist. He doesn’t like the term writer because that could mean anything. He writes novels.”

  “Has he been published?” Chet asked.

  “Five books.”

  “Under a pen name?” Travis asked, looking for Hugo, the novelist, on the internet.

  “No, his own. Hugo Ransom.”

  Travis showed his phone to Bridget and Chet. “He writes horror fiction in the vein of Stephen King, he says.”

  “Right,” Nancy said.

  Which made Chet wonder if the guy was murdering women to use for story ideas to get rid of writer’s block.

  “Sure, he writes horror stories, but he’s the most caring man I’ve ever met,” Nancy said, defending him.

  As long as she wasn’t the subject of his murdering spree, if that were the case. “Was Rob meeting Joe in Loveland then?” Chet asked.

  “I guess. Joe said he was going there for a job interview, though I was surprised because he loves it here. But I think he believed I might be marrying Hugo and he wanted me to be able to live with him and start a family here. Though my brothers could stay at the house anytime they want to.”

  Or Joe wanted to get out of the area because the heat was on.

  “Can we come into your house so I can verify your brothers’ and Hugo’s scents?” Chet asked.

  “No,” Nancy said.

  “If it’s not them, we’ll clear them as suspects at least.”

  “No. Did you visit all the places where the victims had died?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you smell the same cougar scent at each?”

  “I did. But there were lots of other cougar scents there too. Some have come forth to tell me they are family or friends, but none of the ones I interviewed had been to all the crime scenes.” Which made Chet wonder, if one of these men did it, why they wouldn’t have used hunter spray. They had to have known that cougars, not the police, would be looking into the deaths.

  The killer, or killers, had purposefully left the bodies in the victims’ homes, so that the general public wouldn’t run across them. All of the victims had been found by family members who were cougars also. Except in Luke’s case, Chet guessed. Which made him wonder if the police, and not just the bear shifter, were looking into Luke’s former girlfriend’s murder.

  Chet had hoped Nancy would let them in the house so that they could continue to talk inside, and he could smell the men’s scents. Not just Joe’s. But now he knew why Nancy was reluctant to allow them to come in.

  “That’s all I have to say. I’ve told you where I think my brother is headed.”

  “Have you talked to Hugo today?” Bridget asked.

  “I did. He said he was going to the coffee shop to write because I am too much of a distraction when he tries to write at home. It kind of annoys me because he lives here off my goodwill. He doesn’t pay for anything except meals occasionally.”

  Chet hoped that she was ready to turn him over to them should she learn he wasn’t at the coffee shop, and she discovered he was hiding out.

  “The Sunshine Coffee Shop,” Nancy said. “Don’t worry. I won’t call Hugo to warn him you’re looking for him. He gets really annoyed with me when I call him or text him when he’s in the zone writing. So it’s not my fault if I don’t warn him.” Nancy smiled.

  Chet suspected there was some trouble brewing with their relationship. “Okay, well, if that’s all you have for us, we’ll be on our way.” He glanced at Bridget to see if she had anything to add or ask, since she could read her thoughts.

  “Thanks for your help,” Bridget said.

  Travis and Chet agreed. Then Nancy closed her front door and the group gathered.

  “So we’re off to the coffee shop?” Cedric asked.

  “Yeah, unless someone wants to hang around here in case Hugo shows up.” Chet said. “Oh, and are the police involved in the business with your former girlfriend’s murder, Luke?”

  “No. A mutual bear friend was checking on her at my request, since he was in the area, and found her dead in her home. The murder was the same as the others. Strangulation,” Luke said. “And the murderer had been in her home. There was no sign of forced entry, and she had no self-defensive wounds.”

  “Like the women knew who he was, were unafraid, and let him into their homes,” Chet said.

  “Exactly,” Luke said. “And I checked out her place and smelled the scent of a cougar, to my surprise. She didn’t have any family and maybe that’s why she was targeted.”

  “I’ll stay here and keep a look out,” Travis said. “But, Bridget, I want you to go with Chet in case Hugo is at the coffee shop and you can learn what you can from him.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you want me to stay with you for backup?” Luke asked Travis.

  Chet thought it was interesting that Cedric didn’t offer.

  “Yeah, maybe that would be a good idea,” Travis said.

  “I believe so,” Bridget said, in mate-protective mode.

  “All right. Then it’s agreed. We’ll go, you two stay here. We’ll let you know what we learn, either way,” Chet said.

  “And if he returns here, we’ll let you know,” Luke said.

  Luke and Travis stayed in Luke’s pickup and Bridget drove the others to the coffee shop.

  “Okay, Bridget, what did you learn that we didn’t hear?” Chet asked.

  “Nancy suspects we won’t find Hugo at the coffee shop.” Bridget turned down another street.

  “Because Nancy lied to us?” Cedric asked.

  “No, because she suspects Hugo has been lying to her,” Bridget said.

  “Does she think he’s guilty?” Chet asked.

  “Of murder? No. Of continuing to play the field while he’s dating her? Yes.” Bridget made another turn and then they were at the coffee shop.

  But would Hugo be there?

  Chapter 12

  Ava was in the middle of baking a birthday cake for a special order when she got a text from Chet. She washed her hands and checked her phone. She was still miffed at him that he hadn’t told her the danger he was bound to be in and that he had been concerned enough to call on Leyton to provide backup. She knew it wasn’t really any of her business, but if she was to be his girlfriend, she wanted to know if he was putting his life in danger.

  Still, she knew that was the case anyway because of the kind of work he did.

  He texted: I may be going to Loveland, Colorado on this case and if I am, I’ll drop by and see you if I’m able to. That means if we’ve taken him into custody and are bringing him to the jail in Yuma Town.

  She texted: Okay, thanks for letting me know.

  Ava was thrilled.

  He texted: I didn’t tell you about the mission, not because I couldn’t, but because I didn’t want to worry you.

  She texted: You know if we’re going to date each other, I need to know I can handle you always being in danger.

  Oh, hell, yeah. And you’re right. Next time, I’ll let you know.

  She texted: What about this case?

  We have three possible suspects we’re trying to track down and clear them from our suspect list if we can.

  She texted: Okay, then stay safe. I’ll let you contact me when you’re able to.

  Sounds good.

  She wished she could have said more to him. But if she got a vision that showed he was in real trouble, she would call him immediately.

  Florence came into the kitchen for some more pastries. “Was that Chet?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know he just didn’t want to worry you.”

  Was nothing sacred in town? No, Ava supposed not. As a retired CIA agent, Florence knew just what it was like to be chasing down bad guys.

  “He’ll be okay. So will Bridget and Travis, unless you see something differently.” Florence put the pastries on plates and then
waited to hear what Ava had to say before she took them out to the customers.

  “I haven’t seen any premonitions of anything,” Ava admitted.

  “Okay, well, good.”

  No, it wasn’t good. It just meant Ava hadn’t seen any of him. He could be in a world of danger any second and she wouldn’t have a clue. She went back to icing a couple of dozen cupcakes to get her mind off Chet’s job and hoping he would make it here to see her. This time, she would make sure her place was neat.

  When they finally reached the coffee shop in Cody, Wyoming, Bridget, Cedric, and Chet piled out of the car and headed inside, the fragrance of coffee making Chet think of Ava working at Florence’s bakery in Yuma Town.

  “Do you want a cup of hot chocolate?” Travis asked Bridget.

  "You could read my mind."

  Travis chuckled. "Not like you can read others. Unless you're rubbing off on me. I just know you well enough.”

  Bridget smiled. “If you could read my mind now, that would be cool. But we can get some hot chocolate if I still feel like it when we call it a night at the hotel. Hey, there’s a man who looks similar to Hugo, don’t you think?”

  They all looked at the man sitting in the last booth. He was busy reading a paper and drinking coffee, a half-eaten, buttered bagel sitting on his plate. He wasn’t typing on a laptop or writing in a notebook, so Chet didn’t think it was him. He was a little taller, grayer haired than he thought he would be.

  Chet suspected Hugo wasn’t here. But where was he?

  Cedric was looking at Joe’s phone. “Hugo’s on his way to Loveland to meet up with the brothers.” He showed his phone to the others to show them what he meant.

  “What?” Chet looked at it, but he saw nothing that would indicate Hugo was going to Loveland.

  Cedric shook his head. “I guess I saw it on his phone in a vision. He’s meeting up with Nancy’s brothers in Loveland at the Park Hotel.”

  “Wow, are you sure you don’t want to work with us on this case?” Bridget asked, sounding impressed.

  Cedric laughed. “I have that other case, or I would take you up on it. But I want to wish you the best of luck on this mission.”

  “And we wish the same for you,” Chet said.

  But Chet was wondering about Ava’s similar ability and if she could help them with the case, when he shouldn’t be considering such a thing. She should be an agent, getting paid to go on dangerous missions, highly trained in combat and in weapons.

  They drove Cedric back to the hotel he was staying at.

  After they parked in the hotel lot, they shook his hand, and Cedric went inside. Then Bridget called Travis on Bluetooth. “Hey, Hugo’s headed to Loveland. And he didn’t tell Nancy. Cedric saw a vision of it. So do you want to meet at the hotel, and we’ll stay the night and leave in the morning?”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, but Chet thought she was saying it to Travis and not Luke.

  But if Luke wanted to go with them to track the three men down, Chet was all for it.

  “Sure. See you in a few,” Travis said.

  Chet was thinking about how Travis and Bridget were going to spend their night and Chet wished he and Ava had the same arrangement.

  “We’ll get up early, have breakfast and head out of here in the morning then,” Bridget said.

  “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan,” Chet said.

  They parked at the hotel and headed into the lobby and waited for Travis and Luke to arrive.

  “I told you Cedric was good,” Luke said. “I only wish he had known earlier, and we could have gotten a head start.”

  “Well, sometimes someone with his abilities has to be in a place where the vision can be triggered. If Hugo had been in the coffee shop when he contacted Rob and Joe on his phone, then that might have helped Cedric to ‘see’ it,” Bridget said.

  Chet wondered if she knew because that’s how it had to happen with Ava and her sister, Nina.

  “Hey, I need to take all of you to the homes of the victims and see if you find anything I’ve missed,” Chet said.

  “Yeah, and we can smell the scents in the residences so we can help you with identifying the culprit if he didn’t wear hunter’s spray,” Luke said.

  Then Chet took them around to each of the victims’ homes, checking each of them over, looking for any clues that they could find, breathing in the scents.

  “Humans and cougars,” Bridget said.

  They couldn’t find anything that would indicate who the murderer was. Each of the women had been suffocated with a pillow. No forced entry. Nothing left behind.

  After investigating the final house, they were ready to call it a night. Then they drove back to the hotel, and everyone said their goodnights. Travis was getting a hot chocolate for Bridget, and Luke and Chet went up to their own hotel rooms.

  Once Chet was in his room, he called Ava. “Hey, our perps are going to Loveland. We’re going there in the morning. It’s a seven-hour drive. I’ll let you know when we get in.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

  “All right. We had another person help us, a bear shifter who has future visions.”

  “Oh, wow. Is he working with you now?” she asked.

  “No, he has another job to do.”

  “Could you use my help?” Ava asked.

  He wished. He would like nothing more than to work with her like Travis did Bridget, but it wasn’t something Ava was trained for. Now her sister could because she was a police officer. But that wasn’t what she was paid to do either.

  Still, if Ava was working behind the scenes and could see something that would help them, all the better. “Possibly. I have to admit I think about you all the time.

  “Good. I wouldn’t want this to be a one-sided affair.”

  “No way.” Then Chet got a call from Chuck. “Hey, the boss is calling, probably for an update. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Night, Chet. Stay safe.”

  “Thanks, you, too.” Then he answered Chuck’s call. “We’re headed to Loveland in the morning. We have Luke Bier joining us.” Chet told him about Cedric too.

  “That sounds like we’re getting more involved in each other’s affairs.”

  “We are. We might end up having to form a United Shifter Force.” Chet explained about the jaguars and wolves working with each other.

  “Yeah, there might be an issue with funding.”

  “That’s what we were thinking. Okay, well, I’ll let you know what happens when we get into Loveland tomorrow.”

  “Talk to you then,” Chuck said and ended the call.

  All Chet was thinking of when he finally retired to bed was about Ava and how much he couldn’t wait to see her.

  Ava settled down for the night and she figured it might still take days for Chet to finish his mission, but at least he would be close to her home, unless the man he was after went someplace else and led him on a wild goose chase.

  She hugged her pillow and thought of being with Chet again. Soon, she hoped.

  The morning came too early, and she headed into the bakery to begin work. She wondered if Chet was still sleeping in Cody while he was on an assignment and figured he was. It was five in the morning. Sometimes, she went in at four, but she didn’t have as much to bake first thing this morning, except for donuts and cheese and sausage kolaches for hungry cougars working early hours too.

  What she hadn’t expected this morning was to see a dark-haired, very pregnant woman wearing designer-looking clothes, a sequined jeans jacket and jeans, high-heeled boots, and a diamond necklace at her throat, approaching her from a souped-up Maserati. Ava had never seen her before, and then she smelled her scent. She was human. Suddenly, Ava recalled the vision of her—the woman who was coming to see Ricky—to renew relations.

  "Hi, I'm looking for Ricky Jones," the woman said to Ava intercepting her as she was about to enter Florence's bakery shop to begin her workday. “I heard he moved to Yuma Town.”

  "Ricky Jones?"
Ava asked the woman.

  She looked like she could have the baby any day now. In her vision, Ava had only seen her face, not her whole body.

  "Yeah. He loves donuts and it’s a small town. I figured you might know him." Then the women frowned. “You had better not be dating him.”

  "Me? No. He's a deputy sheriff and already very happily married." If Ava could send the woman packing without anyone else having to get involved, she was doing it.

  "Married?" The woman held her stomach and looked distressed as if she had just learned the father of her baby was a rat.

  But Ricky and his brother had been living here for too long and before that he’d been dating Mandy in another town. This woman hadn’t been in the picture. Ricky had been with Mandy once she had run him over with her car and he had turned her—accidentally—in Yuma Town. So he wouldn't have been seeing the old girlfriend in Cody. It just wasn't possible.

  "Yes, and they have their own babies on the way. I need to get to work," Ava said.

  Tears dribbled down the woman's cheeks. Ava wasn't buying her distress. She looked like she could cry on demand and get her way with the ploy.

  "He told me he had dated you years ago," Ava continued, figuring she might as well let the woman know that no one would be taken in by any lies the woman thought to tell about the child she was carrying, whoever it truly belonged to. Mel might not even really know who the father was, and Ava suspected Ricky seemed like the perfect scapegoat. Maybe Mel had even tried to blame other guys and they didn't fall for it. Maybe she thought Ricky was such a softy—he certainly could be—she could coerce him into agreeing to marry her. Or at the very least—support her child. Who knew?

  "Oh, you probably don't know about the rendezvous we had." Mel smiled slyly.

  "He probably doesn't have a clue about it either. Look, Mel—"

  The woman's eyes widened.

  Whoops. Ava kept forgetting how she knew things when others hadn't told her about them. "Ricky said he'd dated you way before he met Mandy. So, the thing of it is if you think you're going to make things difficult for him, don't bother. You’ll be wasting your time. If you tried to pin the baby on him, it won't work. He can file a paternity lawsuit, just like that." Ava snapped her fingers as an illustration. Then she frowned. “How did you even know Ricky was living here?”