“But you don’t actually have a design degree so you can’t be too offended.”
She shrugged. “I’m making it work.”
“Because that’s one way you get into their private files and computers—” He held up a hand before she could respond. “You know what, never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Thankfully, nepotism is alive and well,” Caroline confirmed. “And poor, silly little Caroline needs all the help she can get.”
“But you do have to actually redecorate their offices and homes, right? How do you pull that off when you don’t have a design degree?”
“Seriously?” She gave a short laugh. “I can put any damned thing in these people’s houses. All they care about is that it costs more than everyone else’s. And if they’re the first to have something, no matter how crazy or ugly, they’re a trendsetter. It’s the easiest fucking gig in the world.”
She knew Zander heard the disdain in her tone. She wondered if he was surprised by the f-bomb though. The lift of his brow made her wonder what he was wondering about.
“Why’d you get the criminal justice and pre-law degrees?”
“It was what I was interested in.”
Finally, he actually had a reaction. He didn’t just sit there, watching her, clenching his jaw. He blew out a long breath, closed his eyes, and shook his head. “Of course you have a criminal justice and a pre-law degree.”
Now she raised her brow. “Excuse me?”
He opened his eyes. “You need to stay out of the way of…whatever this is. Give me the information and I’ll…look into it.”
The pause there at the end made her narrow her eyes. “What does looking into it entail?”
“It means, tell me the rest of what you know. Or I’ll walk off this porch and you’re on your own.”
Right. He had the power here. She was, literally, out of options for…anything…except what Zander Landry gave her. A place to stay. A ride to that place. Protection. Help.
Caroline sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Fine. Like I said, Brantley and Chris are transporting the animals. They get a text from someone—I haven't been able to figure out who yet—and that person tells them where to meet. I was hoping that I was going to be able to get one of those incoming texts to Max to try to figure out where they were coming from. Or, that I was going to be able to talk Brantley into taking me along on one of the transports.”
Again, Zander scowled. “You were going to go along? To God knows where, to meet up with God knows who, to do God knows what?”
“I just told you, no one is ever there. So it wouldn’t be meeting up with anyone. But I thought…” She sighed. “I don’t know. Brantley’s an okay guy, but he’s not the brightest bulb. And he doesn’t care. Or pay attention. I thought there might be something about all of it that he was missing that I could catch.”
“He’s an okay guy?” Zander growled. “Really? The guy who’s transporting animals to be sold to private dealers?”
She winced. “Yeah. Okay. He’s…kind of an ass. But I think he’s just…” This was going to sound bad. Like she was defending him. And she wasn’t. Exactly.
“He’s just what?” That muscle in Zander’s jaw was ticking again.
“Bored.”
Zander didn’t respond to that. But she saw his hand curl into a tight fist.
“These rich guys do stupid shit all the time. They’re pricks, I’ll readily admit that. My brother’s not much better. Things come too easily to them. They never really have any challenges. So they do really dumb stuff. They race motorcycles and cars. They gamble. They drink too much and mess with drugs. And they get involved with really stupid, shady stuff because it gives them a thrill.”
Zander still said nothing.
“They’re just—”
“I know exactly what they are, Caroline.”
Zander’s firm, flat tone stopped her.
“You…do?”
“I do. Tell me more about the animals.”
She took a breath. “I know they’ve transported another lion. A cheetah. And some monkeys.”
Zander just listened.
“The addresses change all the time. But they’re always in Louisiana or Texas.”
Zander sat forward at that. “Sometimes they’re in Texas? So, they're taking them across state lines?”
She nodded. “I know that whoever they’ve been in touch with has asked them if they're willing to go into Alabama, Texas, even Oklahoma.”
“Fuck,” Zander muttered.
“Crossing state lines makes this a bigger deal, right?”
“Of course it does.”
“So who do we call? Do you have contacts?”
“We don't call anyone. You're going to finish telling me everything you know. Then I'll figure this out.”
It was essentially exactly what she'd been hoping he'd say. She’d wanted him to say that he’d just take over. But suddenly, Caroline didn't want to just dump it in Zander's lap.
She paused. What? Why? It wasn't because she didn't trust him. Even though it was clear that Zander didn't want to be involved with this. Why would he? This was hardly what he'd woken up this morning expecting to be doing with his day. Transporting exotic animals was illegal in Louisiana. Add endangered species to that and it was an even bigger deal. But if there were other states involved this became a much grander scheme. She knew that this was beyond what a small-town cop would be dealing with, but she sensed that Zander knew exactly what to do.
And she wanted to be a part of it.
That was it. It hit her suddenly. It wasn’t because she didn’t trust Zander to take care of it. It was because she really cared what happened and she wanted to be a part of this. A bigger part. Bigger than just turning over the tiny bit of information she had.
The other time she’d felt this way had been when she'd given Max information about Heath Conner having the affair with Molly Evans. The girl hadn't been physically hurt or even coerced, but she’d been underage, and Heath had been cheating, and everything about the situation had been wrong. Caroline had had no qualms turning that information over and had been thrilled when Max had told her it had all been immediately given to law enforcement.
But Caroline had felt a strange restlessness. Once the information had gone to Max, Caroline had been out of the loop. She’d felt good about her part in the whole thing. Especially when Heath had been arrested, but there had been a part of her that had wanted to do more, to be more directly involved. The embezzlement and tax evasion and other business schemes that she'd uncovered and turned over hadn't been the same. The affair had been directly hurting other people. People she knew. She knew Molly as well as Heath’s wife, Laura, and his two daughters, Steph and Stacy. She’d known the people he was hurting personally. And even if she hadn't, knowing there were direct human victims was different than understanding a multilayered business scheme.
It was the same here. There were animals being directly terrorized, abused, and exploited by what was going on. She had direct knowledge of this. She wanted to put a stop to it and she was aware in that moment with Zander that she was not going to be satisfied just turning the information over. She wanted to see the animals rescued and justice done firsthand.