“So...” I take another nervous swig of beer and gesture to the screens with my bottle. “What convinced Faulk that something’s happening tonight? Did he give you a reason?”
“The burn on Bruce’s paw.”
I sit up straighter.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Besides the numbers matching the stickers, we found time stamps. Multiple dates. Faulk thinks one’s meant to be a delivery date.”
I see there’s more on his stony face, so mellow and dark in the basement light.
“And?” I whisper, tensing in my seat. “What about the rest?”
He looks at me for a long moment before sighing. “And the other’s probably one of two things: a pay date or a kill date.”
Holy hell.
I don’t know what falls faster, my heart or my stomach, and shatters like a glass ornament.
All the awful blue stickers I’d seen at the rescue since arriving flash through my mind.
I never checked the other animals that went missing for burn marks, but they all must have had them somewhere, those sickening tattoos. A setup marking their price, their transfer, their doom.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
“Tell me more,” I urge, swallowing the lump lodged in my throat. “Grady, I have to know...”
“From what he’s caught, Faulk believes the deaths occur shortly after the animals are shipped, though payment would explain it too. It’s usually several hours after the original stamp, which is what he believes is the pickup time.”
His angry glance at the screen tells me he’s looking at the time.
“Bruce was supposed to be transported tonight?” I ask.
“About fifteen minutes from now,” he says. “Unless the tiger disappearing scared them into delaying business, we should see action soon. Especially if these sick fucks are as greedy as you say, and they’ve got more animals to sell.”
My head hurts, a dull, brutal throb spun by my heart banging on my ribs.
Everything he’s said hits me harder then.
“So Bruce was scheduled to be transferred and...what, killed?” My question comes out hoarse.
“Yes. Last date is marked for roughly twelve hours from now.”
“And picked up in fifteen minutes?”
“Right.”
I wouldn’t call it exhilaration, but a form of grim righteousness that I’d been right hits. Along with sickly gratitude that Bruce is still alive. Relief slams through me like catching myself on a ledge before a ten-story fall.
“Damn them,” I spit, my head spinning as I glance at the screens. “So, even without Bruce, you think they’ll still show up? You think they’ll transfer...”
“Another animal,” he finishes. “Did you ever see more than one go missing at a time?”
“Sometimes. Smaller ones, mostly, but usually with larger animals, it was always just one.”
“We’ll wait and see,” he growls. The edge in his tone says it’s the last thing he wants to do.
My spine quivers as I stare at the screen, staring into the blackness.
It’s like we’re not in his safe, quiet basement, but there, helpless in the night with sinister things on the prowl.
The room grows so silent I jump when the fridge kicks in behind the bar. I rub the tension in my neck, stretching, fighting the urge to grab a second beer and slam it.
I need to be numb for this.
“Want another drink?” Grady asks, reading my mind. “Something stronger, maybe?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Want something else? Water? Coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ll be up all night with caffeine.” I take a deep, shaky breath and release it, trying to regain control.
I wish like hell I’d acted sooner.
It would have saved so many animals. But if I’d taken off like I did with Bruce and hadn’t smacked into Grady—then where would I be?
Those thoughts freeze when the screens shift over.
“Look! Lights,” I whisper, leaning forward.
We both stare intently, our eyes glued to the scene.
All six cameras, each showing different angles, pick up a cube truck coming up the road. It stops next to the airstrip.
A man climbs out then, and his image makes me suck in air so I don’t faint.
“You recognize him? Willow?” Grady asks, his gaze wild with concern.
“That’s...that’s the conservation officer. Wayne Bordell.”
Crap.
There’s no mistaking that face, his block of a head, or his boxy build.
Starting near the truck, he places lights in the poles along the airstrip, illuminating the entire length of it.
“They can’t leave them out there,” Grady explains with a sense that’s better than mine for this sort of nightmare. “Lights would get picked up by other airplanes, sooner or later, causing someone to grow suspicious and come check it out. So they have to put them up and take them down every trip. Every transfer.”
We both continue watching while I try to remember how to breathe.
Sometime in the next ten minutes, a plane lands. It taxies to the end of the single runway and turns around, stopping next to the truck.
A man climbs out of the plane, and though it’s definitely a smaller civilian jet, it has a back hatch in the underbelly, completely in view of one camera. When the door slides open like a gaping mouth, it shows an empty cargo hold.
Empty except for a dolly that the man retrieves, rolling it down the short ramp onto the paved airstrip.
Another man climbs out of the plane. He’s short, wearing a black jumpsuit. The camera doesn’t show his face close up, but I can tell he has a faint pencil mustache.
“Do you recognize him?” Grady asks.
“No,” I whisper, half afraid the people on the screen will hear us. “But I definitely recognize her.”
I point at the woman climbing out of the box truck. Even doing a dirty deal in the middle of the night on a secret runway doesn’t faze her.
She’s wearing one of her signature outfits, a tight skirt and leopard print short jacket, along with zebra-striped heels. Every bit the money addicted junkie looking for another hit to fuel her bad habit for chic designer fashion and comfort bought in blood.
“That’s Priscilla Foss from the rescue,” I tell him, wishing I didn’t have to say those words.
She saunters over and meets the man with the mustache on the airstrip in one fluid devil walk.
We can’t hear them from this distance, but I can tell by her movements—mainly her hands as she talks—that she’s trying to smooth something over.
The evil witch always presses a hand to her heart like she’s oh-so-wounded whenever anyone doubts her.
Guess how many times she did it when she wanted me to shut up, stop asking questions, and believe her.
Now guess what she’s doing right now.
Mr. Mustache shakes his head, his face a scowl. He points at her—or is it something behind her?
She folds her hands across her chest with a haughty eye roll, talks some more, and then gestures for Bordell. He stomps over to the box truck to retrieve something while Priscilla waves her hand at the man with the dolly, as if it won’t be needed.
Wayne returns carrying what looks like a large blue storage tub.