by Terry Spear
The jaguar collapsed, and Vaughn ran to watch over him, growling and letting the cat know he’d attack if the jaguar moved from where he was lying on the grass now. Kira ran to see the one Jillian had killed. She nudged at the male, licking his muzzle, trying to get him to move. But he was no longer breathing, his heartbeat stopped.
Jillian felt bad for her, but she wouldn’t have done anything differently. Not when her own mate’s life was at stake. “Kira?” She smelled her scent. And Brutus’s too. “How did the two of you leave the jail?” Somehow they had managed to escape.
That was probably why all the howling had occurred. She prayed neither Brutus nor Kira had killed one of the guards at the jailhouse. And she prayed her own mate wasn’t injured too badly.
“Lie down, Kira,” Jillian said. “I don’t want to have to shoot you too.” But she would—if Kira attacked either her or Vaughn.
Jillian heard wolves racing to join them, barking that they were on their way. A couple of all-terrain vehicles were coming too, and she was glad they could take the jaguars off their hands and take care of Vaughn’s injuries. As soon as one of the vehicles stopped where she was watching over Kira, another parked where Vaughn was keeping the wounded jaguar in line. Three jaguars were riding on the vehicle and they leaped off. They must have been Demetria and Everett with Howard. She recognized Howard this time.
The jaguar Jillian had wounded made a move to get up, and one of the men with the other vehicle fired a shot at him. Her heart nearly quit beating. She stifled the urge to shout out No! They needed the cat for questioning.
The men loaded him onto the vehicle. One of the men motioned for Vaughn to come with them, but he shook his head and ran back to join her.
She loved her stubborn wolf, as much as she wanted to tell him to go with the men and get treatment for his wounds. Another vehicle arrived and pulled up to the one near her.
Leidolf and the doctor were on that one, and they hurried to get out. Leidolf looked over Brutus, and the doc shook his head. “Dead.”
“Well, he would have been anyway. One way or another,” Leidolf said.
“Did he kill the guard?” Jillian asked, handing the rifle to Leidolf and crouching down to gently hug her wolf as they loaded Brutus’s body onto one of the vehicles.
“No, but he’s going to have one hell of a headache and he needed some stitches. The bastard pretended to be sick. Kira was calling out that she thought Brutus was dying. The guard didn’t wait for backup. When he went into the cell to check on him, Brutus was lying on his stomach, making a choking sound,” Doc said, taking a look at Vaughn. “Looks like you’re going to need some patching up. Again.”
Before they could do anything with Kira, she leaped up on the vehicle to join Brutus. One of the men said to Kira, “Pull anything, and I’ll shoot you and ask questions later.” Leidolf’s man got on the vehicle to serve as her guard. But she didn’t seem intent on doing anything but mourning the loss of her lover.
Another man threw the bags onto the other ATV.
“The rifle was Brutus’s,” Jillian said to Leidolf. “Maybe one of your men can tell if it was used to shoot one of the other jaguars. Maybe my brother.”
“We found Simon’s vehicle on one of the ranch roads. Couple of rifles in it too,” Leidolf said. “After we run some ballistics tests on them, we should be able to determine who fired what at whom.”
“I’ve got to get back to the clinic.” Doc climbed onto the vehicle. “Need to take care of the jaguar you shot before we can question him.”
“But one of your pack members shot and killed him.”
Doc shook his head. “Tranquilized him for easier management. He was still too aggressive to take in hand like he was. Then you can question him.”
“Thanks.” Jillian was relieved the jaguar was alive so they could learn what was going on. “What about the other? We heard gunshots.”
“Tranquilized too.”
She sighed with relief, then turned her attention to her mate. “Vaughn, why don’t you go with him? I’ll walk back with the others.”
He wouldn’t budge, so Doc and Leidolf headed back to the ranch with the wounded jaguar.
“Fine.” She stripped and shifted, then nuzzled his side where he didn’t have a mark on him. Together they walked to the clinic, their jaguar agent friends joining them. They were truly a team.
Chapter 21
Vaughn was still angry that Brutus had managed to get in any claw and bite marks, though he had to thank his lucky stars they weren’t any worse than they were, as wicked as a jaguar’s claws were and as powerful as their slashing paws and bite were. He’d managed to get in some good bites of his own and had dodged some of the jaguar’s more lethal moves. Still, Vaughn wanted to be questioning Kira and the other jaguars that were now incarcerated along with her in the jail cells…well, separate cells. They had three guards standing watch. All of them would return with the jaguars to Dallas when they needed to transport them to JAG headquarters. Vaughn really thought the doctor’s care was unnecessary, but his mate had insisted, and so had Demetria, so he’d finally gone along with the game plan.
Demetria, her mate, and Howard were sitting in the waiting area to show moral support, which Vaughn appreciated. Though he wasn’t a fallen comrade in arms this time.
“Great shooting,” he said to Jillian as Doc stitched up another cut, this one a little deeper than the rest. With their faster wolf healing, the scar would disappear in a week or so.
“Only I am allowed to take a bite out of you.” She smiled at him as he smiled back. “I wished I could have taken him out before he tore into you so much.”
“You had to see how good a fighter I was first.”
She gave a ladylike snort. “You kept getting your big head in the way.”
He laughed.
Doc took a look at Vaughn’s shoulder and touched the skin where the bullet had entered. “That should be working itself out in another couple of weeks. If a human had been shot like that, cell tissue would just grow around it, and it wouldn’t hurt either. But for us, the tissues won’t have time to surround it before the bullet pushes its way out. Just like birthing a baby. Then the skin and cell tissues will heal up completely. No scarring.”
“Sounds good, Doc. Thanks.”
It was close to two in the morning, when all good little wolves—and jaguars—should be in bed, he thought. Two of the jaguars were tranquilized, so the team couldn’t really talk with them yet. Kira was so torn up about losing Brutus that she wasn’t making any sense. Because of that, when Doc was through with him, Vaughn and Jillian joined the others in the waiting room, glad they had brought some clothes to the clinic so they could shift and dress.
“Where has Miles been?” Jillian suddenly asked.
“He’s been sidelined. But Leidolf let him in to see Kira and try to talk with her, if he can,” Demetria said. “As for the rest of us, we need to call it a night, and tomorrow, we’ll get some answers.”
Before they all had settled down in their own beds at the guest house for what was left of the night, Miles called Jillian. She and Vaughn had just come back from taking hot showers, warming each other up, and were only dressed in towels as they entered the bedroom when she got the call.
She put it on speaker.
“Brutus wasn’t her lover,” Miles said.
“What about the picture we saw of them kissing in the Kitty Cat Club?” Jillian looked like she didn’t believe Kira any more than Vaughn did.
“Yeah, and Douglas said he saw them kissing in a sexual fashion at the dive bar in Belize.” Vaughn unwrapped Jillian from her towel and set it aside, then jerked his own off and threw it next to hers. Then he took her hand and coaxed her into bed.
“She said they were drunk. She barely remembered it. Just that they had kissed, and she had moved away from him.”
“But she was so broken up about him dying,” Jillian said.
“She thought of him like a brother. How would y
ou have felt if that had been me?”
“Okay. I agree.”
“She said she didn’t have anything to do with him breaking out of the jailhouse. She thought he was really sick. She was upset when he injured the guard. Brutus released her from her cell, but she was afraid everyone would think she was involved in the guard’s injuries and the escape so she went with him.”
“Okay.” But Jillian still didn’t sound like she believed Kira.
“She wanted me to call her mother. She’s coming up first thing in the morning.”
“Lydia is?” Now Jillian sounded shocked.
Maybe her mother didn’t disapprove of Kira as much as she let on. Or maybe she was so furious that she was going to lecture her about it instead. Vaughn joined Jillian in bed and pulled her against his chest.
“She didn’t kill her husbands,” Miles insisted.
“All right. We’ll talk tomorrow. Get some sleep.”
“’Night,” Miles said, sounding tired and annoyed, probably because he felt his sister didn’t believe Kira.
“’Night, Miles,” Vaughn said, then they ended the call and he put Jillian’s phone on the bedside stand. “When you were drying me earlier by the stream…” he said to Jillian.
“Ohmigod, Vaughn, you are insatiable. How could I ever get so lucky?” But then she paused. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“You have to ask?” He pulled her onto his lap, and she smiled. Wickedly.
* * *
It was nearly afternoon the next day when they got up and joined Demetria and Everett in the kitchen to make lunch.
“You should have gotten us up,” Jillian said, tying her hair back.
“We just got up ourselves.” Demetria made them all grilled ham and cheese sandwiches while Jillian told them what her brother had said.
“Do you believe her?” Everett served glasses of water.
“Now that Brutus is dead, she could be lying through her teeth about what happened at the jailhouse. And what happened at the club. Even her mother said Brutus could have been Kira’s lover.”
Everett got a call and said, “Thanks.” And ended the call. “Okay, ballistics showed that the rifles that the Wells brothers owned both had been used to fire on Jillian. It also shows that neither was used to shoot Miles.”
“Brutus’s was,” Jillian said.
“Correct. It was also used when the one jaguar was shot and no one could locate him, only the shell casings. The findings were given to Kira to see her reaction. She was stunned, Leidolf said. He said he didn’t think anyone could appear more genuinely stunned than she did. She collapsed on the bench in her cell and just stared at the floor. Anyway, I’d say it was possible she truly didn’t know Brutus had shot Miles. That all along, Brutus had led her to believe Wayne did it.”
“Because she would have turned on Brutus if she had known he tried to kill Miles,” Jillian said.
“But was she involved in her husbands’ deaths, or was Brutus the only one who had a hand in them?” Vaughn asked as they quickly ate lunch, cleaned up, and headed over to the jailhouse in his Land Rover.
“I think we need to split into teams to question everyone,” Jillian said. “And then we’ll swap off and compare notes.”
“I agree,” Demetria said.
Miles and Howard, Demetria and Everett, and Jillian and Vaughn. Jillian wondered how many stories they were going to get from all the people.
Everett got a call from Leidolf and informed everyone Lydia had just arrived.
First, Jillian and Vaughn spoke with Simon Wells, who sat manacled to a table in one of the interrogation rooms. He was black-haired like his brother, with a beard and black-brown eyes. He seemed at ease, not worried that he was in trouble for anything.
“We know that Brutus murdered your brother Gaston,” Jillian said, though they didn’t know for sure if he had. She had a recorder documenting the conversation. “How did you feel about that?”
“How do you think I felt about it?”
So he did believe Brutus killed his brother. “Not very upset. Now, see, I would have killed him for it. But what did you do?”
“Tried to shoot him. He killed Gaston, and then he shot Wayne. I was in my rights to attempt to put him down before he killed anyone else. Hell, he murdered Kira’s two other husbands, too. Not that she’s any less to blame.”
“You know that for certain?” Vaughn asked. “That your brother didn’t just accidentally die?”
“You know anything about diving?” Simon asked, his chin lifted in an arrogant way.
As a SEAL, he’d better.
“A little. Enough to know that even the most experienced divers can make a mistake,” Vaughn said.
“Well, he didn’t. And guess who was on the tour boat that day? Not only Gaston and his lovely new wife, but Brutus.”
“We checked out the stories about each of her husbands and how they’d died, read eyewitness accounts. Do you know anything that could prove he was at the scene of your brother’s death?” Jillian was eager to learn if Simon had real proof.
“Gaston’s waterproof camera? Wayne and I actually went diving where Gaston had his fatal accident. He’d dropped his camera before he died. It fell in some coral. Brutus must have been too busy trying to get away from the scene so he didn’t look like he was involved. Gaston had taken pictures of his lovely bride underwater and of sea life. A couple of selfies that revealed Brutus coming up behind him.”
“Underwater, wearing a face mask, how could you be sure?” Vaughn asked.
“Clear water, great camera. It was Brutus. Camera’s in my bag. We took it everywhere with us, just in case we had a chance to confront him.” Simon smiled at Jillian. “Thanks for taking care of the bastard.”
Jillian frowned at him. “You’re not off the hook. Even though the JAG would probably have condemned him to death, you couldn’t just kill him yourself, unless it was in self-defense.”
“Yeah, sure. When Brutus shot Wayne and killed Gaston, he got away with it. So the only way to take care of this was to wait until he tried again and we had a chance to fight back?” Simon shook his head.
Jillian had to agree with him there. “Gaston never told Kira he had a couple of twin brothers.”
“That’s because he came along way after us, and he was our parents’ favorite.” Simon shrugged. “Ever think the world revolves around you, then someone comes along who’s younger, gets better grades, just does everything better, and your parents constantly gripe at you because you should be more like your younger brother? He was seven years younger than us! Hell. So not only had they given up on us—the twins they had adored before that—but they worshipped him. Gaston could do no wrong. We hated him. But we never wished him dead. No one had the right to kill him and claim it was an accident. And they weren’t going to get away with it.”
“So instead of sharing the evidence that they had murdered your brother, you got involved in the scheme to get rich on a treasure hunt. Until Brutus nearly killed your brother Wayne.”
“I’m going to ask about the camera.” Vaughn left the room.
Jillian leaned back in her chair. “Okay, so why did Wayne tear into Douglas?”
Simon watched her, but didn’t say anything.
“He nearly killed him. If I hadn’t arrived when I did, he would have. In another vein, why did Brutus try to kill Wayne? I suspect with Gaston, it was a way to obtain some of the insurance money. Brutus was Kira’s lover. But why was Wayne pretending friendship with Kira and Brutus? If you knew Brutus killed Gaston, why not just turn him in or kill him?”
Simon didn’t respond.
Jillian smiled at Vaughn as he returned with the camera and began going through the pictures.
“Last couple on the disk,” Simon said.
“Looks like him.” Vaughn handed the camera to Jillian.
“Yeah, that’s him. Looks like Gaston got a shot of himself and Brutus coming up behind him in the water. And then another where the
camera only took a partial picture of Brutus grabbing at him. That’s it. Okay, so answer my questions.”
Simon rested his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Okay, we were afraid we didn’t have enough proof that Brutus had killed Kira’s husbands, or that she was even responsible for their murders, except that she had the best motive in the world. Life insurance policies. We assumed she was after this Miles guy.”
“My brother.”
“Right.”
“But Miles wasn’t married to her, and she wouldn’t gain anything from killing him. Why would Brutus try to kill him?”
“Did Brutus say Wayne shot him?”
Jillian frowned. “Yes.”
“We weren’t sure, but with three dead husbands, two that ended giving her a lot of money due to life insurance proceeds, wouldn’t any more dead husbands raise eyebrows? Wayne was to befriend them and learn what they were up to next. We still thought she was after another husband, but this time Kira and Brutus overheard Douglas talking about treasure hunts, and since they were divers too, they got real interested.
“But then they got greedy. They didn’t want Wayne in on it, and Brutus tried to kill him. Brutus didn’t want Miles taking a cut of the pie either and tried to eliminate him. They had it in mind that only he and Kira would dive for Douglas, since he seemed to have a pretty good success rate at finding treasure.”
“All right.” Jillian thought all of what Simon said was plausible. Except for the part about Wayne nearly killing Douglas.
“And Douglas?” Vaughn sounded all growly.
“Wayne went to confront Kira. He’d heard she had gone to see Douglas. But when he got there, Douglas told him he knew he and Kira and Brutus were only after the treasure, and he didn’t want to see them again. He said he knew Kira and Brutus were lovers, and not brother and sister. He shoved Wayne out of the cabin. You don’t push my brother around. If I had to guess, I’d say he returned to scare him a bit, but he went a little too far.”
“He didn’t try to scare him,” Jillian said, her voice shaking with anger. “He got scared because he heard me coming, and he jumped out a bedroom window to escape. That’s the only reason Douglas is alive.”