Caroline blew out a breath. She'd given Max names, dates, relationships, even direct quotes in a few cases. She'd turned over recordings, a video or two, documents and emails, and photographs. She knew she was Max's primary source for the big stories Max broke. But Max had to back up the information or try to at least get someone to authenticate it. She was sure Max would be able to find others who could give her dirt on the people they were trying to hold accountable.
“Caroline,” Max said, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “You've been very important. I don't want you to think that's not true.”
“I know. But you can do this job without me.”
Max didn't deny it. She shrugged again. “If it means that you’ll go out and fall in love and have a life that doesn’t revolve around scumbags, then yes, I can do my job without you. But it won’t be as fun.”
“Okay,” Caroline gave her a smile and nod. She didn't need Max to make her feel better about all of this. The stories they'd broken and the people they had exposed had deserved it. She didn’t regret any of the time she’d spent being Max’s informant.
Still, she had a niggling, nagging feeling that she was floating, a little lost, without any specific direction now. Her reason for living the life she lived had been to try to protect her family and to help keep them on the right side as much as possible. Now she wondered if she’d actually done that and if she should just leave all of this to people like Zander and Spencer.
“Listen,” Max told her, turning back to watch Donovan with the lion cub in the pen on the other side of the fence where they stood. “If you need a place to stay, you're obviously going to be in my guest room. And you have a college degree, Caroline. You're smart and bold and resourceful. We'll figure something out.”
“Thanks. I'm gonna take you up on the guest room.”
“This is incredible,” Max said distracted for a moment as Naomi led a German Shepherd into the pen.
Caroline assumed this was Brinkley. The dog was on a leash and Naomi brought her closer to Donovan, who held out his hand. Brinkley sniffed his hand and then bumped against it, asking for a rub on the head. After he'd loved on the dog for a moment, he brought her around to show her the lion cub. The dog sniffed at the cub curiously. The cub mewled softly, and the dog reared back as if in surprise. Donovan chuckled, and Naomi dropped to the ground next to them sitting crisscross, clearly as fascinated by the scene unfolding as Max and Caroline were.
“At least I did this right,” Caroline said, shaking her head. If nothing else, she knew bringing this lion to these people had been the right move.
Max looked at her. “You’ve made a ton of right moves, Caroline.”
“Yeah. I just want to keep making right moves.”
“Oh my God, I almost forgot,” Max dug in the bag she had slung over her shoulder and pulled out a large manila envelope. She handed it over. “This might be what Brantley was looking for.”
Caroline frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you say that Brantley told Zander he came looking for you in the middle of the night because you had something he needed back?” Max asked. “It is not like Brantley to just show up in the middle of the night and sneak around. He's hardly a stealthy kind of guy. Unless there's something that you have that he doesn’t want you to know about.”
Caroline opened the clasp at the top of the envelope and pulled out a packet of papers about five pages thick. “What is this?”
“Names, amounts, dates, and addresses,” Max said. “I'm wondering if these are buyers or sellers. Or both.”
Caroline lifted wide eyes to her. “Where did you get this?”
“Outside pocket of your suitcase. I mean, I was worried when you weren't at the bed and breakfast, but I thought that maybe you had left me a clue or a note or something. So I went through your stuff.”
Caroline laughed. Of course she had. Max would've had no qualms about going through her stuff if she thought Caroline was actually missing. Or even if she thought Caroline was hooking up with a hot cop across town. Max would've wanted to know what was going on.
“I did not put this in my suitcase.”
Max nodded. “Exactly. You said that you didn't pack your suitcase, right? Maybe whoever did, put this in there. Or maybe Brantley just stuck it in there at the last minute. But it makes sense that it's something you had that he needed back and something that he would come sneaking around to get.”
“I have no idea what to do with this information.”
Max grinned at her. “But I do. I'm going to start running these names and addresses.”
Max was a master researcher. She could track down all kinds of interesting information from all kinds of places most people wouldn’t think, or even know, to look. But it drove her crazy that she wasn’t good at computer hacking and didn’t have a lot of the higher tech skills she would kill to have. She’d solved the problem by becoming friendly with several people who existed in the gray area between legal and illegal and had made a few you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours deals over the years.
She'd also tried to have them teach her some of their more useful skills, but she didn't have a particularly techy mind and the two times she’d tried it on her own, her hacker friend Diego had made her swear to never do it again. The fixes he'd had to do to keep them from being discovered had been extensive and had made him sweat.
“You mean you can have Diego run them.”
“Well, I'm gonna start with the stuff I know. But yeah, if there's anything interesting, he can dig a little deeper.”
Diego was just one more way Max could get information that she didn't need Caroline for.
Caroline shook that off though. Max loved her and they were a great team, and it didn't matter if Caroline only gave her half-assed information that she had to further research. Caroline had been useful, dammit.
“You’ve already taken photos of this stuff, right?” Caroline asked, knowing her friend well.
“Of course.”
“Okay, then we should turn this over to Zander and Spencer.”
“Yeah, I guess we should.” Max’s gaze flickered over to the other end of the rehab facility.
Caroline and Max were standing outside where Donovan was working with the lion cub and introducing him to his, hopefully, new foster mom. Zander and Spencer were standing several yards away out of earshot discussing whatever two cops needed to discuss about illegal animal buying and selling in Louisiana.
“Spencer's pretty good-looking, isn’t he?” Caroline asked casually.
Max laughed. “Very much so.”
“Why don’t you like him?”
“He's one of those bossy-in-charge-I-always-know-best guys,” Max said. “You know how I am with those.”
If you told Max not to do something, it became her number one priority to do exactly that thing. She didn't do well with authority.
“What if he brings down an illegal animal buying and selling ring?”
“What if he does?”
“Would that make you like him more?”
“If he doesn't do that, it will make me like him less. It’s his job to do that, isn’t it?”