Jaguar Hunt

by Terry Spear

  “No key fob,” she explained.

  “Oh, some old car,” Hans said with a slightly arrogant air. Like she couldn’t afford anything newer on her Enforcer salary. “What does it look like?”

  “Yellow, convertible roadster. Jaguar.”

  ***

  Tammy shouldn’t have given Hans and Peter Fenton a ride in her car. Not until they told her something she needed to know. Like where the cat was. But like when David had protected the other twins from Joe Storm in the shifter club, she thought she had won these over to an extent. Maybe they’d still come around.

  Since she could take only one of the boys with her at a time in the car, Hans had ridden with her out of the Dallas airport. She had to pull over and let Peter switch cars with Hans so he could have a ride. She had been so amused when the boys saw her car. They were in awe. She figured if a she-cat teen had walked by, no matter how hot she was, the boys wouldn’t have given her a second glance.

  “Can’t wait to tell Alex and Nate,” Peter said and thanked her.

  “You sure you don’t want to tell me about the cat?”

  “She’s safe,” Peter said. “You need to find who’s rotten in one of the branches or more.”

  “The cat really means something to each of you. More than just a mission to rescue her and send her back to where she belongs. You wouldn’t have even met her before you saw the news announcing she had been stolen from the zoo. Yet, it seems more personal. Why?”

  He just stared out the window and didn’t say.

  “Peter, had you seen her before? At the Oregon Zoo?”

  “I gotta go.”

  She suspected the boys had seen the cat in person before she was stolen, not just on the news. But when and where?

  Once she arrived home, Tammy’s first order of business was to call her boss before she settled in for the night.

  “We’re back in Dallas. Any word concerning what Weaver and Krustan were doing in Belize?” she asked Sylvan.

  “I haven’t been able to get hold of them. Either they’re not answering their cells or they’re out of range.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m at home, and we’ll be going to the circus tomorrow as soon as it’s close to opening time.”

  “All right. I’ll let you know if I get word from either Weaver or Krustan.”

  “Thanks.” She set her cell on the bathroom counter and looked longingly at the whirlpool tub, but duty called.

  She started the wash first. Before throwing her jeans into the machine, she checked the pockets and felt a crinkly piece of paper. She pulled it out, wondering what it was. Krustan’s and Weaver’s phone numbers.

  What if they just weren’t answering their boss? What if she phoned them and they thought she had an emergency and would pick up when they saw it was her on the caller ID?

  She returned to the bathroom and grabbed her cell phone and glanced at the numbers. The first was Krustan’s. She hesitated. Which should she call?

  Both, she decided.

  She punched in Krustan’s number, and after a few rings, someone picked up the phone. Good.

  “Hello?” a man said, sounding out of breath.

  “Krustan?” She barely recognized his voice. Was he in trouble? Running from danger somewhere in Belize?

  “Anderson?” He sounded shocked to hear from her.

  “Yeah, are you okay?”

  “Hell, Anderson. This is not the time to be calling me, unless… You’re okay, right? Not in any life-threatening danger. Right?”

  “We need to talk.” She didn’t want to answer him for fear he’d think she was okay and cut her off before she asked him what he had been doing in Belize.

  “Not right now. I’m kind of busy,” he said, his tone of voice short.

  “Who’s that?” a woman asked in the background, sounding miffed.

  Tammy closed her eyes. That’s why he was short of breath. She didn’t want to visualize him naked, panting, on top of a woman, when he answered what he must have thought was Tammy’s distress call. She did appreciate him for that.

  “An agent I work with,” Krustan said to his female companion. Then he got back to Tammy. “Call me in the morning. Unless this is an emergency.”

  “Someone cut the zip line I was traversing in Belize. And Joe Storm—you know him? He fired two rounds at me.” She waited.

  “Honey?” the woman said.

  Krustan swore softly. “I thought that JAG agent was supposed to be protecting you.”

  “You said I could ask for your help if I needed it. You said Sylvan asked for you to check on me. He said he didn’t know you were down there. That you were on leave. What is this all about? What do you and Weaver know that you’re not telling me?”

  “Ask David Patterson about Olivia Farmer. He dated her for a year.”

  Tammy felt like the floor had disappeared beneath her.

  “What has she got to do with any of this?”

  “She may have everything to do with the case you’re working on. Ask David.” Krustan hung up on her.

  She stood frozen in place, stunned. Not knowing what to think.

  She called Weaver. No answer. She tried again. This time he answered. She heard jungle noises in the background and lots of laughter and talking. The club. So she and the boys returned home and so did Weaver and Krustan? What was going on?

  “What’s wrong?” Weaver asked.

  “You’re at the club,” she said.

  “Yeah. Did you want to join me?”

  “What were you doing in Belize?”

  Silence.

  “I know the truth about you being on leave. Why were you in Belize?”

  “Krustan already told you to talk to David Patterson.”

  Pacing, she frowned at the tile floor in her bathroom. That meant Krustan must have called Weaver right away and given him a heads-up. “All right, I will. But why were you in Belize?”

  “Tammy, call us back if you’re in trouble.” He hung up on her.

  Damn the both of them.

  She would have called Sylvan back and told him where Weaver was, but she figured she’d already gotten Weaver into trouble once. If he truly did mean to help her out if she needed him, she wasn’t going to ruin that chance.

  She thought to call David, but she was afraid that if she did, he’d want to talk in person. She needed a night off. Tomorrow would be soon enough to learn what he knew about Olivia and how she might pertain to the case. She told herself it didn’t matter that David had been dating Olivia. They must have ended their relationship because Olivia had started dating Joe, and he’d asked her to marry him.

  Tammy sighed and walked into the bathroom. She considered all her bubble bath powders and oils sitting on the little glass shelf below her bathroom window: Blackberry Sweetness, Coconut Comfort, Mint Melody, Luscious Honeysuckle, and Sexy Vanilla. A bubble bath would feel wonderful.

  Within minutes, Tammy was curled up in a warm, sudsy vanilla-scented bath, trying to forget about anything pertaining to the case. She needed to unwind and recharge her batteries for the next day. The silky water caressed her skin as she breathed in the sweet smell, reminding her of baking chocolate-chip cookies with her mother during the holidays. Yet another, more recent, more pressing memory came to the forefront—making love to one sexy jaguar in the warm pool beneath the waterfall.

  She swore if he wasn’t such a hot cat, he’d have looked like a sad little puppy dog when she’d left him standing there in the airport parking tower. But she knew this was the right thing to do. Tomorrow, they’d get back to business. How could either of them keep their minds on the case if they gave in to their jaguar hormones all the time?

  Yeah, so why did she wish he was in her big whirlpool bathtub, sharing her bubble bath with her now?

  The doorbell rang. Her heart skipped a beat. Her ski
n prickled. She frowned. The person standing on her front porch better not be the nosy neighbor across the street. She stopped by every time Tammy got home from a trip to tell her everything that had gone on in the neighborhood while Tammy was away. Gertie Jessup was great as a neighborhood watch of one, but usually she waited until the next day to apprise Tammy of everything that had gone on.

  Tammy didn’t want to hear all the neighborhood news. Not right now. She wanted to relax after her wild adventure in the rainforest. She’d make time for Gertie later—the widow was just lonely because her grown kids lived two states away with their own kids.

  If she ignored her, Gertie would go away.

  Tammy ground her teeth. She knew she was fooling herself. Gertie would keep trying until she got her attention.

  The doorbell rang again, and then her phone played its new ringtone: “Rock and Roar (J-A-G-U-A-R).” The big cat roaring in between lyrics made her smile, despite the annoying interruption to her bath.

  But then Tammy remembered that her neighbor didn’t know her cell phone number. Letting out her breath in a huff, she got out of the water, grabbed a towel, and hastily dried off. Concerned it might be her boss with an update since she’d called him earlier, she seized her phone off the marble bathroom counter and looked at the caller ID.

  David Patterson?

  It better not be him at the front door.

  Chapter 21

  When Tammy answered the phone but didn’t say anything, David worried something was wrong. An open phone line didn’t bode well. “Tammy?” he said, his voice dark with concern. He was ready to break down her door.

  “You’d better not be standing on my front porch,” she said, her voice just as dark, but instead of being concerned, she was highly annoyed.

  Relieved she was okay, he smiled. He should have known. “Boss’s orders.”

  Silence.

  “Martin said I had to watch your back at all times.” And front and whatever else David could watch, he thought. She didn’t say anything. He lost the smile. “Were you busy?”

  “Come back later. Tomorrow. Like we planned.” She ended the call.

  She…hung…up…on…him.

  He glanced around at the red brick homes, upper-middle price range. Older development with established trees in a woodland environment. Nice.

  He noticed a woman peeking at him through the curtains across the street, her hair white and curly, blue glasses perched on her nose. He smiled, hoping to dispel any of the woman’s worries that he was bad news.

  She let the curtains drop. Either she thought he was okay, or she was calling the cops.

  Time to bring out the big guns. He called Tammy’s boss next, watching the house across the street while he punched in Sylvan’s number. The curtains parted again and the woman studied him through a pair of binoculars. He wanted to pull his own pair out of his bag and scrutinize her, just to see what she would do.

  But he didn’t.

  “David Patterson,” Sylvan said on his cell. “Anything wrong?”

  “Yes, sir. My boss wants me to keep an eye on Tammy for her own protection, considering what’s happened to her.”

  “What’s happened to her?” Sylvan asked, his voice hardening.

  “Nothing new since we returned home. But she told you about the zip-line cable snapping, right? The line was precut and the lower pulley rigged so someone could have fallen to their death. I’ll send you the video of the whole thing. We also know Joe Storm, former JAG agent, fired two shots at her. My boss is worried that she needs someone to stay with her 24-7 until we resolve this case. But she doesn’t want that arrangement. I’m standing on her front porch, but she’s not budging about letting me in.”

  “Hell and damnation. She didn’t tell me a thing about the shooting. The zip-line incident—she mentioned that, but without proof it was anything other than an accident… Are the two of you not working well together? I can assign someone else.”

  “No,” David said way too vehemently. “I mean, we’re working great together. She just wanted a night off. But it isn’t safe for her—at least we don’t think so.”

  “I’ll call her.”

  “Okay, thanks.” David ended the call. He glanced at the house across the street. The woman was still eagle-eyeing him through the binoculars. He waved at her in a friendly way and sat down on the front porch swing. He swung back and forth, nice and easy, making him wish he was sitting there with Tammy, rocking gently with her tucked under his arm.

  A butterfly flitted about on a red rosebush next to the porch as he swung some more.

  He expected Sylvan to lay down the law with Tammy, and she’d automatically capitulate. When David didn’t get a call back and she didn’t come to the door, he envisioned her arguing with her boss.

  He sighed and glanced at the house across the street. The woman had lowered her binoculars, but she was still watching him. Probably the most excitement she’d had in a while.

  Ten snail-paced minutes passed. He called her boss, no response, sighed.

  Swung some more.

  His phone jingled and he saw it was Sylvan. Not good if Tammy wasn’t coming to the door. Or maybe she wasn’t quite presentable.

  “Yeah, Patterson here.”

  “Okay, listen, David. She said you and she are working great together—I just had to confirm that bit of information—but she said she needed a night off.”

  “And you told her she can’t be alone, right?” David had a bad feeling about this.

  “She said, and I quote, ‘He can house-sit. Watch the house. And I’ll see him in the morning,’” Sylvan told David.

  “All…right,” David said slowly.

  “Are you okay with that, or do you want me to send another agent to watch the house for her, and you can take a break, too?”

  “No, I’ll live with it.” David wasn’t about to let some other yahoo watch out for her. Not when they didn’t know who was dirty in any of the branches and could be involved in this. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

  “Do that. Thanks for watching out for her.”

  “No problem.” David ended the call and phoned his favorite pizza-delivery place, and then sat back down on the swing.

  The woman watching him had disappeared from the window. He kept expecting the police to arrive at any moment. Half dozing on the swing, he heard a vehicle pull into the drive twenty minutes later. The pizza delivery. He paid for the large pepperoni pizza and two bottled waters, and then set them on the round glass table next to the swing. Pizza slice in hand, David got comfortable again on the swing. Not such a bad deal as house-sitting went.

  The neighbor was at the window again. He motioned to her with the pizza box, offering for her to join him. She vanished.

  He chuckled. He was certain he’d thoroughly rattled her. Her door opened. She was holding a covered plate. Wearing a flowery housecoat of bright purple and yellow and a pair of sneakers, she shut her door and walked across the street to join him.

  Now this got interesting. He was usually good with pets and kids. He hadn’t thought he could add nosy neighbors to the list.

  “Hi, I’m Gertie Jessup,” she said, climbing onto the porch, her gray eyes gazing up at him. “Tammy’s neighbor. I watch out for her. Not that we have much trouble around here, but when she’s gone, I watch her place.”

  “Ah, she’s lucky to have you for a friend,” David said. “I’m David Patterson. You want me to take that from you?”

  She handed him the platter, and he looked at the plastic-covered sugar cookies.

  “For…Tammy?”

  “No,” Gertie said, elongating the word as if she thought he was being foolish for asking.

  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the rocker. “You want some pizza? The other bottle of water?”

  “What kind of pizza?�
�� she asked, eyeing the box.

  “Pepperoni.”

  “Okay,” she said begrudgingly.

  That appeared to be the start of a long-lasting friendship. She began telling him all about the happenings in the neighborhood, including how Fritz, the miniature schnauzer down the street, caught Mitzie, the miniature poodle, and they’d have Schnoodles before they knew it.

  “And two men came to see Tammy,” she said.

  That got his interest.

  “One of them rang the doorbell and then knocked. ’Course I knew she had left, but I didn’t know when she’d be back. They peered in the front picture window, but she had the blinds closed so they couldn’t see anything. Maybe they were listening for someone. They went around the side but found the gate locked.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Hunters. Or…army guys. They had those camouflage fatigues on and boots, and baseball caps in the same camouflage material. My husband served in Vietnam, and that’s what he wore. One had black hair and the other blond. They looked in good shape.”

  “Vehicle?”

  “Blue sedan of some kind. Don’t know the make. But I did get their license plate number just in case they were planning on breaking into her house.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and read it off. He made a note of it on his phone.

  “Thanks, I’ll have someone check into this and make sure they’re okay.”

  “Oh, good,” Gertie said with obvious relief, sighing heavily. “I was so worried no one would take me seriously. You know the old saying, ‘Cry wolf.’ I was afraid if I made a big fuss over it, nothing would come of it. Then if something bad did happen, no one would listen to me.”

  “With the kind of work we do, you never know. I really appreciate you telling me. I’ll let my boss know and Tammy also.”

  “Good, good. You’re such a nice boy.” Gertie went on to tell him about the noisy kids racing bicycles down the street.

  He tried to ignore the passing time, though he had to admit the lady was entertaining, and he figured she enjoyed talking to someone and sharing a meal, even if it was fast food. He disclosed a little about going with Tammy to Belize on a hush-hush mission and how her boss needed him to watch her back for a while, just so Gertie realized he was one of the good guys.