AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With a grimace, Jem released whatever he’d been holding in his pocket. He removed his hand slowly, and he displayed both hands, open, to Rod.
Rucking up the Pantera tee, Rod grinned. He unholstered the gun there—a scratched-up semi-automatic about the same size as the Jetta. He waved and stepped back. “Come on then.”
Jem went first, and Tean followed. Waiting in the hall were three of the four men who had been hounding Jem since his first visit to the Cottonmouth Club. The Rangel brothers were there, looking worse than ever—Quinn with his slicked-back hair and dirty bandage on one hand, Colin with his torn ear, both of them scratched to hell and holding themselves like they had a few new aches after the fall they’d taken the previous night. Tean was surprised, a little, they were both alive. The third man was the one with the goatee, who had come after him and Shaw in the hotel room. Shaw had broken the man’s nose, which was still impressively swollen, black and blue under a splint. His eyes were so puffy Tean wasn’t sure how much he could see.
“We all told Dusty he ought to take the night off,” Rod said, “but he had a personal interest in seeing the two of you again. And Boyd, well, the poor guy’s using a cane. Needs knee surgery. He wanted to come too, but we told him no way.”
“You never let him have any fun,” Jem said.
Rod let out another short chuckle. “No, son, I guess I don’t. Here we go, and don’t try anything funny.”
He marched them toward the door they had used to enter the building. When they emerged, the night was heavy with the water in the air, the humidity ringing the security lights with halos, and the smell of honeysuckle and the fresh-cut grass came in on every breath. Rod pointed them toward the cat enclosures, and as they hiked across the lawn, the three thugs spread out in a triangle. To cover an attempted escape, Tean concluded.
“You said powerful people,” Jem said.
The sound of steps came back as the answer.
“That means these guys don’t work for you.”
“Stop talking, son.”
“But that’s what I don’t get. If the animal trafficking didn’t have anything to do with why Yesenia was murdered, why are these bozos here helping you tonight? Why would anyone give you a call and tell you we were on our way here?”
“Professional courtesy,” Rod said.
“That doesn’t make any sense either. Tean said he checked. The inspections and certifications all came back good. What, do you bribe them all? Is it all for show? And then you pay these guys to bring in cats when you need to change up the show?”
Another of those short chuckles. “You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”
It was the contempt in Rod’s voice that made Tean turn it on its head. The tone that suggested how stupid they were, how blind, and Tean’s natural stubbornness making him go back to the beginning and work the problem one more time.
“Oh my gosh,” he said, and the frustration in the words was directed purely at himself.
“What?” Jem asked. “Did you forget your inhaler? He forgot his inhaler.”
“Ok, that’s actually not too bad of an idea. I mean, it’s risky, but you like risky, don’t you? That’s part of the fun. How you prove you’re smarter than everybody else.”
Rod made an indeterminate noise.
“What?” Jem said. “What’s he doing?”
“He’s not buying the cats from them,” Tean said. “He’s selling.” The scam unfurled itself in his mind as he spoke. “One of the things about cat sanctuaries is that they don’t breed cats in captivity. Of course, that’s kind of a problem when your business model relies on people paying money to see cats. So, I’m guessing Rod still does take in rescues, but he’s also got a—what do you call it?”
“Side hustle,” Jem said.
“It wouldn’t be that hard. Make sure the pregnant females aren’t around when the inspections happen. Or even better, every time a rescue comes in, you breed them. That way you can explain they were pregnant when they were taken in by the shelter. You set aside a few of the cubs for trafficking, and the others go into the sanctuary. I imagine that’s one of the biggest draws, letting people see, maybe even handle, the cubs.” And then more of it became clear to him. “Did Kristin help you with the births? Not to sell the cubs; I don’t think she’d do that. I bet she thought she was doing a service, helping you with those pregnant cats you rescued. Only then she started to wonder. Is that what she was looking for in your office? Some kind of record?”
Rod spat on the ground in answer.
“For real?” Jem asked. “So, what? He kills Yesenia, covers it up, and then, when people start asking questions, he and his trafficking buddies decide they’ve got a common interest in making the problem go away.” He looked over at Rod. “Are we on the right track?”
“You need to shut your mouth,” Quinn said. He was holding a gun in his off-hand, and that thousand-yard stare went straight through Tean.
“Let ’em talk,” Rod said. “They’ve got nothing else to do.”
“Quinn said you have to stop talking,” Colin said. The pretty boy—not so pretty after falling down the embankment at the reservoir—looked like he was on some sort of drug. His pupils were contracted in spite of the darkness, and a nerve jumped in his face as words spilled out of him. “If Quinn says you have to stop, then you have to stop.”
Rod made a disgruntled noise, but he didn’t press the point.
