by Jane Graves
He stopped. Turned to face her car. She brought it to a halt, and he opened the passenger door and got in. He pressed himself against the door without saying a word, turning his attention out the window.
She drove on, tapping her fingertips on the steering wheel. After a few minutes, she flipped the radio on to a country-and-western station.
“Oooh, I like this song. Don’t you?”
He just stared out the window, feeling hot and smelly, knowing that he had to be leaving a butt-shaped sweat stain on the velour upholstery of her car.
“You’re going to have a pretty nasty sunburn there,” she went on. “Be sure to put something on it when you get home.”
Great. She was looking at his legs. His naked, hairy, skinny legs that were currently the color of a ripe tomato. He couldn’t imagine anything a woman would find less attractive.
“We’ve got a couple of new magazines at the store,” she went on. “I don’t think you saw them when you were in there this morning. You might want to take a look—”
“Glenda,” he snapped. “I’m half-naked here. The last thing I want to talk about is songs, sunburns, and magazines.”
“I wish you’d just tell me—”
“Hush.”
“But—”
“Just drive me home. And don’t say another word.” And then I’ll pray I never run into you again.
They drove in silence the rest of the way to town. She pulled up in the alley behind his house and he got out, slamming the door behind him. He heard her say good-bye, but he never turned around, knowing that the last look she was going to have of him featured his backside in a pair of blue-and-white boxers. He was never going to be able to face her again, pants or no pants.
Never.
* * *
Val sat in the van with Alex as the engine idled, both of them staring at the narrow paved road that led from the highway onto the property. She assumed it must lead to the house, but the road disappeared into the trees with no house in sight.
“Okay,” Val said. “What now?”
“First of all,” Alex said, “we have to assume that Stanley will call Henderson. With luck, he believed the bit about us going to Mexico, and what you said there at the end to him should cinch it. I think the most Henderson will do is alert law enforcement in this area that we’ve been spotted and tell them to be on the lookout. As long as we can get the van hidden, nobody should know we’re anywhere near here.”
“Can you find out what Stanley ends up telling him?”
“I’ll phone Dave later, once Stanley has had a chance to get back to town and spill his guts.”
“Is it smart to call Dave? Couldn’t he trace a cell call?”
“Some carriers can actually triangulate and pinpoint the position of a caller. Sometimes they can just check signal strength and see how far away the caller is. But it doesn’t really matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because I trust my brother. He won’t even try it.”
“Okay. How do you suggest we approach the house?”
Alex eyed it for a moment. “I don’t want to go blindly into those trees, not knowing what’s on the other side of them, particularly when we’re within sight of the highway. We need another vantage point so we can check out the place. Maybe we can find another road through it or around it.”
Half a mile down the highway they found a tiny dirt road full of potholes that appeared to run along the western perimeter of the ranch. Driving north, they found that the road led up a hillside. Val rolled down the window, then pulled out a pair of binoculars. She looked to the east, watching for the house to come into view.
“Alex. Stop.”
He brought the van to a halt. Val hopped out and looked through the binoculars again. Down in a shallow valley across the treetops, she saw the clay tile roof and stucco walls of a sprawling ranch house, but the summer foliage prevented her from getting a clear look at it.
“There it is,” Val said as Alex came up behind her. “It must be half a mile off the highway.”
“And we’re at least that far away from it where we’re standing right now. Guess he’s a man who likes his privacy.”
“Yeah. Just him and about eighteen other guys who pay big bucks to shoot things.” She peered around the area. “Nothing seems to be going on down there. There are a couple of barns behind the house. I can see the roofs of several cabins, too.”
“No people around the barns or cabins?”
“Not that I can see. But the view is pretty obscured.”
“The hunt has probably been under way since early this morning. It should go on most of the day. This will be a good time to get close to the house and take a look.”
Then they got back into the van and drove a little farther until Alex found a place to pull it off the side of the road, deep into some heavy foliage, where it was almost completely hidden from view. He cut the engine.
“Okay. Let me see what you have in the way of bugs.”
Val climbed into the rear of the van, dug through a storage bin, and extracted something that looked like a pen. “Fully functional writing instrument, fully functional listening device. No one would ever be able to spot it for what it is.”
“Perfect. How many do you have?”
“Three.”
“What about a phone tap?”
“No problem.” She held up what looked like a telephone adapter. “Plug the phone into this, then plug it into the wall, and we can listen in loud and clear.”
“What about receivers?”
She handed him something that looked like a small walkie-talkie. “Tune these to different frequencies, and they’ll pick up everything.”
“They have recorders, don’t they?”
“You bet. Voice activated. We have to be within three hundred meters to pick up a signal, but there’s plenty of foliage around the house. We should be able to find cover within that radius.”
“How about a camera? We need photos of Reichert and his girlfriend.”
“I have three. You can take your pick.”
“Okay,” Alex said. “Let’s proceed as if we’re going to be able to get into the house on our first trip down there. Maybe we’ll be able to, maybe we won’t, but let’s be prepared.”
“What do you think? Bugs in the master bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room?”
“Sounds good. That should catch most of the conversation going on in the house. And as soon as everything is in place, we’ll make a phone call to the ranch. We’ll tell Reichert that we know he committed the murder. That should get him and his girlfriend talking.”
Val took a deep breath of satisfaction. “It’s a good plan. We’ll get what we’re after, Alex. I know we will.”
Alex shoved the gun he’d appropriated from Stanley into the waistband of his jeans. “Okay. Let’s get going.”
Val stuffed the equipment into her backpack, then slung it over her shoulder. They crossed the road, climbed over the board fence onto the Reichert property, then started down a long, sloping hillside through a fairly dense wooded area. The trees helped block some of the intense afternoon sun, but still the heat was oppressive. The landscape was part rocky, part grassy, and Val’s tennis shoes crunched on crumbled granite beneath her feet. Scraggly mesquite trees formed most of the vegetation, with occasional live oaks and junipers sprinkled in. Soon they approached a small clearing, where several antelopelike creatures raised their heads from grazing.
“Good heavens,” Val said. “Look at them.”
They stopped and stared at the animals, who appeared to be of several different species, with some of the oddest stripes and horns that Val had ever seen. The sight was almost zoo-like in its incongruity, one type clashing wildly with another. But looking beyond the antelope, Val saw something even weirder—a shallow pond with half a dozen creatures that looked like water buffalo milling around it.
“You sure we’re still in Texas?” Val asked.
Then she heard
something in the brush. She turned to her left to see a horselike creature not twenty feet in front of her. Her gasp of surprise made Alex whip around. His sudden movement sent the creature spinning around and galloping away, his black-and-white–striped haunches disappearing into the foliage.
“Was that a zebra?” Val said, her heart still hammering in her chest.
“Looked like one to me.”
“God, what is this? The plains of the Serengeti?”
“Reichert’s brochure said he could get anything anybody wanted to shoot. I guess he wasn’t joking.”
Val couldn’t believe this. All these beautiful animals, and the only reason Reichert had brought them here was so somebody could shoot them. Then she thought about what he’d done to Shannon and decided it wasn’t so impossible to believe after all.
They walked around the edge of the clearing, staying out of sight as much as they could, then found a path that led through another wooded area in the direction of the ranch house. They went a hundred yards or so before coming to a ten-foot chain-link fence with barbed wire on top.
“What do you make of this?” Val asked.
“We’re approaching the house. It’s probably a fence to keep the animals from getting too close.”
Alex went to the gate. It wasn’t locked, but a heavy bar attached to the gate was sunk into a metal tube in the ground, which would have kept just about anything locked inside. He lifted the bar, then swung the gate open. They went through it, and he clanged the bar back down into the ground.
They kept walking. The mesquite trees grew spottier as they descended the small incline of a rocky slope. As they neared the bottom, Val saw a dilapidated, low-roofed shed sitting in a cluster of trees that looked as if a good strong wind might blow it over. Ahead, she could just make out the roofline of the ranch house about a quarter of a mile away. Then she noticed something strange sitting between them and the house—yet another big chain-link fence topped by barbed wire.
“Another fence?” she asked. “What’s the deal?”
Alex looked perplexed. “I don’t know.”
Nervousness crept through Val, which multiplied greatly when she saw Alex’s eyes shift back and forth anxiously, scanning the area.
“Something’s weird about this,” she whispered.
“Val. We didn’t just leave an animal enclosure. We entered one.”
She felt a jolt of foreboding. “There’s barbed wire on top of the fence,” she whispered. “What do you suppose is in here?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think we should hang around to find out.”
Then Val heard the faint crunch of granite. She turned, and ten yards away on the rocky slope behind them was something she’d never expected to see in southwest Texas in this lifetime.
A Bengal tiger.
chapter eighteen
Val gasped, and Alex took hold of her arm to steady her. “Don’t panic,” he whispered. “And don’t move.”
Alex slid the gun he’d appropriated from Stanley out of the waistband of his jeans. “I can shoot,” he whispered, “but it may take more than one shot to take him out. I don’t want to draw that kind of attention in case there are people closer than we realize. There’s a shed ten yards behind us. Back toward it very slowly.”
He stepped aside, allowing her to ease in that direction, then began to step backward with her. Still the animal didn’t move. It stayed in a low crouch, every muscle tense, clearly just waiting for a reason to start the chase.
“Just keep moving,” Alex said softly.
He thought they were going to make it without incident, but when they got within twenty feet of the shed, the tiger began to creep forward. The cat took one stealthy step, then two, its gaze fixed on them intently.
Alex glanced back at Val. Her shoe landed on a rock and her ankle twisted slightly, knocking her off balance. Rock crunched beneath her foot. Alex spun back around to find the tiger at full alert.
Then the big cat began to run.
“Go!” Alex shouted.
In three strides, Val reached the shed and yanked the door open. Alex shoved her through the doorway, then followed her into the shed. He slammed the door hard and the latch caught, but the tiger slid its paw beneath the door, turned it over, and dug its claws into the aged wood, yanking the door back and forth, rattling it on its hinges.
“Alex?” Val said breathlessly. “Is that door going to hold?”
He stomped on the tiger’s paw, once, twice, until finally the big cat pulled away. Alex stood there for a moment, waiting until he was sure the animal had retreated, then went to the wall of the shed. He peered out a slit between two of the boards to find the cat pacing up and down.
“What’s he doing?” Val said.
“Still scoping us out. He looks a little hungry.”
“And me without my kitty treats.”
“Are you kidding? We are the kitty treats.”
Alex wiped his brow with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “The barbed wire should have been a tip-off. I should have realized something dangerous was in here.”
“Hey, it didn’t ring the right bells with me, either.” She blew out a breath. “Okay. What now?”
“If he’ll get away from this shed and move on down the hill far enough, we can make a run for it.”
“Until then?”
“We wait.”
“If we don’t get down to the house before the hunting party returns, we may have a harder time getting inside.”
“We still have time. Let’s play it this way for now.”
Val turned around and sat down on the wooden slat floor. Alex joined her, both of them leaning against the wall.
“God, it’s hot in here,” Val said.
“I don’t suppose you brought any water with you.”
“Yeah. One bottle. Want some?”
“Let me get a little more desperate first. You go ahead.”
“I’ll wait, too.”
Alex leaned his head back against the wall. The wood that composed the shed had grayed with age. Several of the boards had dried and shrunk from years in the Texas heat, with fissures throughout their lengths.
Val sighed. “Well. This sucks, doesn’t it?”
“Just add it to the list.”
“That list is getting pretty long.”
“And now it’s got a tiger on it. Unbelievable.”
“I thought you told me Reichert could have any animal he wanted to out here except big cats.”
“So he broke the law. He also murdered his wife.”
“Good point.”
Alex nodded toward Val’s head. “You lost your bandage.”
She put her hand to her temple. “Probably fell off on the way into the shed. I didn’t notice. Guess I was a little distracted.”
“When are you supposed to have the stitches taken out?”
“Tomorrow. Probably won’t make that appointment, will I?” She sighed, touching her fingertips to the stitches again. “It’ll probably leave an ugly scar.”
“Nah. I’ve had some pretty nasty wounds stitched, and even those scars almost went away.”
“When did you have stitches?”
“I fell out of a tree when I was six years old. Scraped my back on a limb coming down. It took twenty-seven stitches to close up three wounds, but now you can barely see the scars.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”
“That’s what my father said as he was dragging me to the emergency room.”
Val sighed, closing her eyes again. Her face was flushed red.
“Drink some water,” he said.
“I’ll wait.”
“Drink.”
Val sighed, then reached into her backpack. “Dave was right. You are bossy.”
She pulled the cap up on the bottle, took a drink, then held it out to him. He put his palm up.
“Drink,” she said. “Now.”
He took the bottle and tipped it up, taking a single swallow. H
e smacked the top down again, then handed it back to her. “Now who’s being bossy?”
She smiled. “A characteristic we actually have in common. And such a nice one at that. Did hell freeze over when I wasn’t paying attention?”
“I’d be happy for anything to freeze over right about now.”
She returned the bottle to her backpack, then leaned against the wall again.
Silence. And dirt and sweat. And a whole lot of heat.
Alex rose to his knees again and peered out another crack in the wall to see the cat still pacing up and down in front of the shed.
“Sure wish I could talk him into lying in the shade of that big tree about fifty yards down the hill.”
“Nah. He’s used to Africa. He doesn’t mind the heat.” Val sighed. “I, on the other hand, can do without it.”
Alex settled back against the wall again. Half an hour passed. Then an hour. And through it all, the tiger seemed content to lounge right in front of the door to the shed. The later it progressed into the afternoon, the more the heat seemed to melt every minute into a sluggish, expanded unit of time that dragged way beyond sixty seconds. With the deathly still air inside the shed, even breathing became a chore.
“So,” Val said, “if you could take your pick right now, would you be floating in a swimming pool, snow skiing in Switzerland, or sitting in front of a window air-conditioning unit turned on full blast?”
Alex grimaced. “Is there anything else you’d like to torture me with?”
“No. It’s not torture. Really. It’ll make you feel better to visualize something cold.”
“Yeah. Right. It’ll help to visualize an iceberg while I’m sitting in a furnace.”
“Trust me. Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Will you just do it?”
He gave her a look that said “This is really dumb” then closed his eyes.
He heard her settle back against the wall. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Okay,” she said. “Picture a place in the mountains where it’s warm during the day. Not hot. Just warm. A place where there’s not a speck of humidity in the air—just a nice, comfortable warmth that melts right into your bones.”