She focused on Brantley. "You have to stop what you're doing.”
Brantley frowned. “What do you mean? What do we need to stop doing?”
“The transporting. You have to stop helping these people do what they're doing to these animals.”
He frowned, then cast a glance in the direction of the four men at the next table. Caroline knew there was no way for Zander and Spencer to see that particular reaction but it told her everything she needed to know.
“Caroline, let’s just talk about us.”
“I can’t. This is what I care about,” she told him honestly.
She slid her chair closer to him, put a hand on his arm and leaned in, whispering now as if they were two lovers having an intimate conversation.
She was sure Zander was going to love that. But she couldn’t risk the men at the next table overhearing.
“Brantley, you're a good guy. I've known you for years. I don't know why you got mixed up in this, but you have to believe me when I tell you this is not good.”
She leaned over and took her phone from his jacket pocket. She pressed the button to stop the recording. From here, Spencer was just going to have to believe what she told him transpired between her and Brantley. She opened her photos and flipped through until she found one of Mwanzo. She showed Brantley. “This is the lion cub you gave me. His name is Mwanzo. Do you see that dog he’s with? That's his new mother. That German Shepherd is fostering him as if he's her own.”
“No shit?” Brantley asked, staring at the photo.
She nodded. “That's pretty cool, right? But do you know what happens when lion cubs are taken from their mothers so young?”
She flipped to another photo of Mwanzo being held by Naomi. “The babies and mothers cry for one another for days.”
Brantley frowned.
“It’s very traumatic. They’re supposed to stay with their mothers for two years. They’re supposed to nurse. Being ripped away from their mothers causes stress—they suck on their paws, they self-mutilate sometimes in an attempt to self-soothe.”
She flipped to a photo of him playing with Brinkley. “Even though he might be happier than most because he has a surrogate mom, he’ll have long-term nutritional deficits like bone and teeth problems. And these people”—She pointed at Donovan and Naomi in the photo—“are wild animal experts. They work with abandoned and hurt and abused animals all the time. That's what they've made their life’s work. Every single day. They rehabilitate them and some are able to return to the wild, but they can’t fix everything. They can’t fix all of his nutritional or emotional problems. They’re not lions. They’re not his mother. That is where he should be. And there are others in worse shape. Because of these people buying and selling and not caring at all.”
She flipped to another photo. “There are farms in South Africa, Brantley, where they breed the female lions over and over to produce cubs for pets and petting exhibitions at low-rate zoos. They rip them away as babies and use them as exhibits and toys. And when the lions grow up, they turn them out for staged lion hunts.”
Brantley actually looked bothered by that. “That’s not happening here in the U.S., is it?”
“You tell me.” She leaned in a little closer and met Brantley's eyes. “You have connections that could help us find that out. But even if not, these animals should not be bought and sold as pets."
Then she continued to flip through photos of Mwanzo with Brinkley. Then photos of the other animals that lived at Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild. She had photos of Donovan working with the animals, Griffin and Tori treating them, Jill taking care of penguins, Jordan with the alpacas, and more.
“These people are some of the best. He has a dog as a foster mom. He’s a thousand times better off than most. But even this is really sad, Brantley,” she said, the urgency and emotion in her voice completely genuine. “He was taken away from his mother so that some rich guy could have him as a pet to show off to his friends. You know these people as well as I do. None of them actually care that much about their own dogs. They certainly don't care about the plight of endangered wildlife.” She flipped to a photo of the tiger the Autre group had rescued from a rich prick in Alabama. “Did you know that there are more tigers in captivity in the United States alone than are left in the wild? The people who own them consider them prizes and trophies. They’re just toys to them. But these are living creatures.”
Brantley didn't say anything for a long moment. “I'm not the one buying and selling them, Caroline.”
“But you’re contributing to the problem. And more”—She squeezed his arm—“you know who they are. Or you at least have ways of helping the authorities find out who they are.”
He started to pull back, but she squeezed his arm again. “You can help shut this down.” She knew when he looked into her eyes he would see how much this mattered to her. “Yes, maybe it would be just this one group. And yes, I know there are lots more. And if these guys can't get these animals this way, they'll probably find another. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to shut this down. If we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem, right?”
He was quiet for a few more seconds. Then he cleared his throat. “I started doing it just for some extra money. I took a loan out because I didn't want to go to my dad for money again. He always makes me feel like shit when I do that. But I wasn't able to pay the loan back as quickly as I should. So instead of making me pay it back, the guy had me do this job. It just kind of spiraled from there.”
Caroline actually felt a flutter of hope in her chest. “I knew it had to be something like that. You're not a bad guy. Just help us figure out who's doing this so we can shut it down. We can figure out a way for you to get the money for your loan some other way.”
“I'm in too deep. I don’t want to get involved with the cops. I don’t want to go to jail.”
He cast another glance in the direction of the table of four men, but none of them were paying any attention. They were drinking and laughing loudly and talking about their own interests.
“Are they part of it?” Caroline asked softly.
He didn’t answer.
“Brantley,” Caroline said, pulling his attention back to her. “If you help us, you'll be an informant. You’ll be working with us.”
He frowned. “Us? What, you're a cop now?”
That little flutter in her chest turned into a thump, thump, thump. And it wasn't hope so much as it was excitement. “Not exactly. But I'm working with them. Helping them. And…” She shrugged. “Maybe eventually.”
“You want to be a cop?”
“I don't think I'm really street cop material, but maybe I could be a consultant or…work for the FBI.”
She braced herself for him to scoff. He might. Most people in her usual circle would.
The Landrys wouldn't.
That thought came right on the heels of the thought about the people she spent most of her time with.
No, the Landrys wouldn't. They would tell her to go for it. They would tell her to do whatever she wanted. To at least give it a try. And then she knew that if it didn't work out, she could show up at Ellie's and they'd feed her gumbo and sweet tea or maybe even a Pimm’s Cup, if the occasion called for that. And they'd tell her hilarious stories and tease her, and within an hour, she would be feeling good again, refocused on what was most important in life—doing your best with the right intentions and surrounding yourself with people who loved you just the way you were, even when the way you were wasn’t perfect.