by Julia Talbot
“It’s okay,” Rey said. “I should make fries. Do you like fries, Brock? Are there potatoes, Kit?” Rey had typed up a recipe on his phone. So quick to do things no one noticed.
“Always. I love fries. Make bunches.” Kit flipped more meat patties.
“I will!” Rey pulled out the potatoes Kit showed him, then sliced them with the slotted chopper thing Mick had bought just for fries. They were all about the salty potato. All of them, no matter what breed.
Dylan leaned back, then tried for casual. “Rey, you know the job you were talking about, the software company? What did they want?”
“There’s a man trying to buy them out. Daksh Patel. WiseEyes wanted information on him—they wanted dirt.”
“Did you come up with anything?” Mick took his lead, kept the tone easy.
“Not really. I mean, I’m not a private detective like you guys. I deal in information you can mine off the net, from people that want to talk. He’s not a very nice man. Lots of rumors sliding on the web about how he does sketchy business, destroys little companies for fun.” Rey was concentrating on potatoes, the words offered easily.
“So, did you contact anyone who might have proof?” That was James.
“Yes. A young man named Victor Mills. He had a file on Patel, but I never received it.” Rey looked up from his potatoes. “At least, not yet.”
“Where do you get your mail?” That was Brock, leaning back so he could see Rey.
“A locked box at my apartment. I have some in my car. There was a lot that day and I just shoved it in.”
“Brock?” Mick looked at their resident badass, the request clear.
“On it, patrão. Be right back.”
“Be careful. They might be out there,” Rey cautioned.
“I know.” Brock was up and out before anyone could say anything else. The man would get the job done.
“Wow. He’s… intense. I like him.” Rey headed to the pot Kit had heated for him.
Dylan grinned at Rey. His mate had a generous heart. “He’s a good man. He’s just….”
“Complex.” All of them said it at once.
“Right on.” Rey started frying.
“God, that smells good.” Kit’s nose worked like crazy.
“I have to fry them twice, it says. It’ll be a few minutes.”
“That’s okay. Mick is about to make burgers so I can start eating.” Kit had loaded a burger or two on a plate.
“Trade off!” Mick stood, taking the spatula from Kit.
It was fascinating, to watch his team and his fox work together, move around each other like they were dancing. Rey fit right in.
Dylan had to wonder academically if that was because Rey was his mate, or if Rey was just…. Rey.
Brock was back with a handful of mail and some clothes. “I put two loads of your stuff down in the office. I wasn’t sure if you needed it.”
“Oh, thank you!” Rey just smiled like sunrise.
“Thanks, Brock. So, what have you got?” Dylan asked.
“Bills, bills, junk mail, package from ThinkGeek, postcard from a Bobby in Hawaii. Two packages and a box of… tea?”
“Catnip. It was a gift.”
“Catnip?” James peered at the box, eyes wide. “Ooooh.”
“You’re welcome to it. There are four packets.”
“Oh.” James looked at Brock. Brock looked at James. They set the catnip aside on the counter.
“So, do we open your mail, Rey?” Dylan asked.
“There’s nothing scary in there. Go ahead.” Oh, that easy agreement made him want to bounce with pride. Rey had nothing to hide from them.
“Okay, so, James, log this, huh?” Mick grabbed the ThinkGeek box.
“On it.”
Kit did bounce, which was hilarious on such a big guy. “I love ThinkGeek. Love it.”
“So, we have a ThinkGeek box with… a Doctor Who Tardis teapot.” Brock set the package aside.
“And matching teacup?” Kit was bouncing harder. Such a nerd.
“Oh, do you have them too?” Rey asked.
“Yes! Oh my God!”
Dylan shared a long-suffering look with Mick.
“Really? A Whovian?” Mick muttered.
“Man, you just said ‘Whovian.’ You lose all cred.” Dylan shook his head sorrowfully.
“What?” Mick chuckled. “Okay, so I like Doctor Nine.”
“Ten is best,” Kit and Rey said together.
Oh, those two were going to be fast friends, Dylan could tell.
“Second package—pens and a packet of white buttons?” Brock’s brow furrowed.
“Yes. I go through a lot of both.”
“Why the buttons?” Dylan asked, that curiosity about Rey raising its head again.
“I shift, a lot, and my fox chews off shirt buttons to decorate the den. I can’t help myself.” Rey gave him a wry smile.
Oh God. That was hysterical. Dylan loved it. He winked. “My wolf likes shoes. Usually Brock’s, since they’re so fancy.”
Brock growled, the sound very much a jaguar cough. “Canids.”
“Oh, like you aren’t the world’s biggest laser light whore.” James rolled his eyes.
“What’s your weakness, James?” Rey asked.
Kit laughed. “Catnip, so beware.”
“Well, you are welcome to mine, like I said. What’s in the other box?”
James opened this one up. “A SIM card wrapped up in about thirty thousand pounds of bubble wrap.”
Everyone stopped, staring. “SIM card,” Dylan repeated. “Did you buy one?”
Rey shook his head, pulling fries out of the fryer so they didn’t burn, maybe. “No. Why would I? Mine works perfectly well.”
“Is there a receipt?” Mick asked. “A note?”
“Just a postmark from here. Postmarked five days ago.” James shook the box.
Rey blinked over his shoulder. “Is there a place to put it in a phone so we might see what’s on it?”
“I have a SIM card reader upstairs,” James said.
“Of course you do.” Kit rolled his eyes. “Fries first?” He looked so hopeful, his nose twitching again. Even as a human, that big nose gave away everything.
“The crocs can wait ten minutes,” Brock agreed with a fond smile.
“Maybe even twenty,” Mick murmured.
“Oh good. I would hate to have fried these for nothing.” Rey set a bowl of fries on the table. They were golden and gorgeous and smelled like heaven.
“Oh Lord, for this potato-cooking fox may we be truly thankful,” Mick intoned.
“Amen,” they all replied.
Chapter Seven
THE SIM card was from a number Rey didn’t know, but the texts they found on it were odd and enlightening.
He blinked at the screen James had pulled up. “Gracious. I think my contact sent this. About Patel? I need— How do I find out if Victor is still alive?”
“What was the last name?” James asked, reaching for another laptop, rather amazing in tech mode, all signs of lazy cat gone.
“Mills.”
Rey grabbed his phone and started doing his magic too. Surely together they could figure this out.
“Uh, is this him?” James showed Rey a small article in what looked like a local newspaper.
He squinted and nodded. “Yes. Here he is on his Instagram, so they’re the same.”
“Crap.” Mick blew out a breath. “He’s dead, kiddo.”
“Oh.” Rey sat hard. Everyone was dying around him. He should get in his car and drive away. The hamburger and fries sat like lead in his belly, because this was all his fault.
“Rey? You can’t run off.” Dylan took his hand. “Promise me you won’t run off.”
He squeezed Dylan’s fingers, but they both knew what he needed to do. He couldn’t stay here. Oh, he didn’t want to
leave Dylan at all.
“Rey. Stop and think.” That was Mick. “Why did they think you would take this to a PR firm?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t even know they were sending something to me.” So… what was the connection? Where did the lines of information cross between his clients and Patel and all this?
“Right. No running off in all directions without more information. Any of us.” Mick spoke as if his word was law.
“See, Rey? Us. You’re not alone. Not anymore.”
He looked at Kit, who was so sweet to say that. Dylan smiled, nodded, encouraging him.
“Come on, Rey. Help me do this.” James poked him, hard. “We don’t have time for bullshit. I want to figure this out.”
“Ow!” He sighed. “What do you need?” Rey hated the idea of leaving these guys, and who was to say the crocs wouldn’t keep coming after them if he was gone? So he would stay.
“Let’s figure out whose phone this is, first. What number do you have for your contact?”
Rey tugged out his phone and called up Victor. “Here. See. Not the same.”
“Okay, so burn phone? Another person? Other options?” James rattled off stuff.
“Downloaded info onto a random SIM card? Duped info?” Rey shot back.
Brock snorted. “Too much information for a burn phone. Contacts?”
“All jumbled info,” James muttered, so Rey suggested looking for image files.
“Good one.” James tapped away at his keyboard like a mad musician. “Nothing weird except this one. It’s too big.”
“Can you extract it and copy it? I’d hate to ruin it.”
“Yeah. I can pull it over here. Quarantine it to make sure it won’t blow up, then… boom.” James opened the file.
It was a movie file of a wild-looking man with white hair, tipped with bright red. He roared and stomped, and a half-dozen dire crocs moved around him. The soundtrack was horked, but he could hear “kill” and “for me” and “hurry.”
Damn.
“Jesus.” Mick shook his head, his eyes wide as he watched. “Those crocs are some crazy shit.”
“So, that’s Patel and—” Dylan cut off, gasping.
The man onscreen shifted.
Tiger.
Goodness gracious.
Rey had never actually seen a tiger shifter. Honestly, James and Brock were his first nontheoretical cat shifters. Well, except his business contact Louis, who was a Manx. He liked Louis. Which meant he should never contact the guy again; he might get him killed.
He was going to live inside a bubble. A big croc- and tiger-proof bubble in the wilds of Canada, or perhaps Borneo.
“Hey.” Dylan pulled him closer, and before he knew it, he was in Dylan’s lap. “You didn’t get anyone killed.”
“Elise, at the very least, Dylan. They obviously thought I took her the SIM card. What they thought she would do with it….”
“But you didn’t.” Dylan stroked his spine, up and down, nice and easy. Easing him.
“No, but—”
“You were doing your job.” Dylan sighed. “Look, I snoop for a living. All those crocs had to do was bust into your mailbox or something. Those guys get off on killing.”
He looked at his Dylan and chuckled, because the logic of that statement was inescapable. “Okay, that was pretty good.”
“Thank you. I mean it.”
“Should we give you two alone time?” Brock asked, dark eyebrows gyrating.
“Shut up, butthead. I’m going for sensitive.” Dylan stuck out his tongue, the move so young and incongruous with Dylan’s serious demeanor.
“Realmente? I thought you were going for making the rest of us uncomfortable.”
Rey gave Brock as threatening a look as he could. “Hush, or I’ll hug you again. So what do we do?”
They all exchanged glances.
Mick was the one to clear his throat. “Well, I guess we need to get all the info we can on this tiger. The only way we’re gonna beat him is to kinda do it at his own game.”
“Violence?” Rey didn’t think he could do that. And where would they find a crocodile not in Patel’s service, anyway?
“No. Blackmail. Lure him out in the open. Let him know we have proof he’s hurt people. Get him to make another mistake.” Mick crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, lure him out in the open, but I don’t know where the open is,” James muttered.
“I guess that’s where I step in. Let me see the video and do some research.” Rey smiled. “That’s my job.”
“Okay. We’ll move to my office,” Dylan put in.
Mick nodded. “James, get everything you can. Brock, make sure we’re secure and armed. Kit, you and I will do some paperwork and maybe go out and go over Rey’s car again.”
“You got it, boss.” Kit beamed over at Rey. “We’ll make supper together tonight, huh?”
“We will.” Mick gave Kit this look, and Rey wanted to smile. They clearly had a great fondness for each other. Rey wondered if the others saw it or what it meant. Perhaps it was just familial.
“Come on, foxy. Let’s get to work.” Dylan lifted him up, then stood, taking his hand.
“Foxy? Seriously?” He liked it, though, he had to admit.
“My foxy lover,” Dylan said, pitching that rough voice low. “I think it suits.”
“Do you?” He shivered hard, his hair standing up on his head.
“I do.” Dylan ran that free hand over his ass. “You make me a little crazy, Rey. I know we have work to do, but I want you all the time. I ache for you a bit.”
“Just a bit?” He pressed back into the touches.
“Well, give me a chance and I’ll get good and revved up again. We need to get work done, though, or we’ll never live it down.”
Rey sobered a bit. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“I know, honey. It just—we never know how things will work out, you know that, right?” Dylan sounded very cautious. Very private detective.
“I know, but you aren’t used to crocs, I know that.”
That had his wolf barking out a very real laugh. “No, that’s true. We’ve had some amazing predators. Some freaking awful humans too. These are our first crocs. First tiger as well. He sounded like that one in the Jungle Book cartoon movie, kinda.”
“Exactly! It’s a little creepy and a tiny bit cool.”
“Yeah. Are you sure you want to watch this whole video, sweetheart? It might not be pleasant.” Dylan was still touching him, little contacts that never stopped.
“No, but someone wants to kill me because it was mailed to me. I guess I have to.”
“That’s reasonable.”
He let out the breath he was holding. Rey had worried that Dylan would fight him on this. That video was meant for him, so he would find something there. He was the only one here who would know even a bit what he was looking for, and he felt relatively baffled.
“Can you please stay with me?” God, was that honestly the weakest thing ever?
“I intend to.” Dylan pulled up the file after plugging in the card reader to his laptop. “Okay, pulled up a chair, sweetheart. We’ll look at this thing.” Dylan tugged out a new legal pad.
Rey thought that was so cute and analog, the way Dylan wrote down every detail in his neat block printing.
He sighed and started the video, looking for clues. Where was it shot? Above ground? Underground? He tried to make believe it was just a movie. Just make believe. That was the only way he was going to get through this.
“I’m right here, Rey. I will protect you.” Dylan stroked his arm.
“I’m fine. I’m no bunny.” Though what they’d done to the bunny and everyone else he knew didn’t bear thinking about.
“I know.” Dylan finally rested a hand on his leg. “That doesn’t mean you don’t need me.”
That made him smile. The expression slid away when the sound started, the crocs circling around as if this was some sort of ritual.
He frowned. Okay, they were in a… pool area? A fountain?
Something with a lot of water, but tile… not a hot tub. “What does that look like to you?”
“A pool. Like an old Hollywood kind.” Dylan scribbled notes.
“Okay. They have to be local, right? And rare?” Real estate with a marble pool and a fountain. Come on, Google-Fu, and work for me.
Even if the property wasn’t up for sale now, sites like Zillow kept a record of everything that had been up on it. Or not, even. Okay, there were a few mansions and a couple of McMansions. He paused the playback on the scene with the tiled water feature so he could compare.
“You’re amazing, mate,” Dylan whispered.
“Hush, you.” Oh, that praise felt good, perhaps even heated. This was what he excelled at. Patterns. Stuff matching up. He clicked through pictures, finding pay dirt on an estate in the old fancy district not far from the zoo, where stately homes lined a divided, wide street.
“Look!” He pointed, and Dylan squinted at the picture onscreen.
“Huh. Okay, well, that’s good work.”
“Thanks. So let’s find out who owns this place now. I bet it’s a corporate holding, hmm?” Rey tapped at the county deeds and ownership site.
“That’s a sucker bet, baby.”
“Still, if I can link it to Patel somehow. I can backtrack….” He trailed off, scowling at the site, which might be beyond his capabilities.
“If you can’t, James can.”
“He’s kind of a whiz.” Rey’s fingers flew over the keyboard.
“So are you. I’m impressed. I want you with me.”
“Huh? I am with you.”
Dylan laughed, patting his leg. “I mean full-time.”
He stopped to stare, their noses meeting when he turned his head.
“Full-time?” Rey blinked. “Seriously.”
“Seriously.” Dylan kissed him gently, lips so warm and good on his.
They hadn’t known each other for more than a day. They couldn’t be talking about ridiculousness like this, but…. Dylan. His Dylan.
Rey grinned, his entire body buzzing with happiness. “So do we take this to the others?”
“Send the link to James. We’ll all meet once everyone has done their bit. Mick will call.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
Dylan dragged one hand down along his spine, the touch almost stinging.
