Call of the Cougar (Heart of the Cougar Book 2) (15 page)

"Don’t you agree?"

"No!"

"Okay, so maybe not
those
pictures, but I figured it would be safe to talk about them. I didn't want to blow your Jessie cover. If you and she were the same person. Maybe some other pictures she took are the reason they're after you."

"Or none of them at all."

She heard movement then, and was afraid the shooters were trying to reach the cave.

She heard a ping that distinctively sounded like a pin being pulled from a grenade. And then a grenade landed inside only a foot away from her and Ricky's location.
Crap
!

She seized Ricky's arm and hauled ass toward the mine shaft. They didn't have any other choice.

When the grenade started spewing gas, she realized it was tear gas and not a grenade that would explode. Thank God. She'd worried the whole opening would cave in if it had been a grenade.

They could either run out of the cave, coughing and hacking, their eyes teared up and unable to see as they were gunned down, or go down the shaft.

"Down," she said.

"I don't like heights," Ricky said, choking on the gas.

"Yeah, well if you don't move now, you're going to be too blind to do anything else.
Go. Now
."

She was fighting tears, coughing, choking, craving fresh air.

She wanted Ricky to hurry it up, but not so much that he fell. Then she started down after him, thirty feet into the shaft. Once they reached the bottom, she hurried into the mine where they coughed and hacked, and crouched down together in the dark. "Don't move," she whispered.

"Why? Is something down here? I've seen those alien creature movies and in the dark cave something bad always lives."

Shaking her head, she couldn't believe what he would come up with next. "There could be a shaft nearby. We'd step into it and fall to our deaths. Much more likely than aliens."

"Oh." He bumped up next to her, coughing, trying to fill his lungs with fresh air. "You think I could be an agent like you someday?"

"Do you like animals?"

"Yeah. Never got to have one of my own, but yeah. Cats and dogs always like me."

"In this business, you see the ugliness when it comes to wildlife traffickers and others who kill the animals for greed or other reasons. Our findings can be really gruesome and horrible."

"So why do
you
do it?"

"To hopefully give some of the wildlife a prayer of a chance."

He nodded. "Me too."

She liked Ricky, wishing he wasn't in this business.

Gunfire erupted outside of the cave.

Shouts up above had her heartbeat quickening. It had to be their backup.

"Tracey! Are you in there?"

Hal! Come to the rescue. Again. He probably would be pissed to the max at her this time.

She tried to call out but her voice was strained from all the coughing, and yelling wasn't working. "I've got to climb back up there."

Ricky grabbed her arm. "No, you can't go. You can't breathe up there."

"They can't hear me down here. They don't know if we're all right. Wait." She pulled out her phone and tried calling. No reception. They were too deep in the mine.

She stood and Ricky grabbed her leg. "You can't go."

"I'm just going to get closer to the ladder." She used her cell phone light to reach the ladder and looked up. "Hal! Ricky and I are down here! In the shaft!"

The problem was, she figured, he couldn't reach her any more than she and Ricky could reach him. Not without gasmasks.

"Getting gasmasks! Everyone down there all right?"

She heard the relief in his voice and was glad he'd heard her and knew they were unharmed so no rush—which would cause them to be at more of a risk to themselves—to get them out.

"Yeah, Ricky and I are fine."

She turned around to rejoin Ricky and saw a chip of something white next to the side of the rock. She moved toward the item and crouched down, examining the chip.
Ivory
. That
shouldn't
have been down here.

"What is it?" Ricky practically bumped heads with her as he pointed his own cell light at the object.

"It looks like a piece of ivory—to a tusk."

"Something ancient?"

She shook her head. "Something recent. Like they might have been storing the tusks down here."

Ricky swore under his breath. "See? I knew we'd find a clue in the cave."

Right.

"What exactly had my sister shown of the cave?" Tracey knew she was a bit reckless on her photographing adventures, but Jessie had never told her she'd been climbing into old mine shafts. Here Jessie thought Tracey was a daredevil.

"Pictures of the cave." He shrugged. "I was going to show them to you on my cell so we could compare the pictures with the walls where she'd taken the photos. Then the shooting started. Didn't you 'like' your sister's Facebook page?"

"What?"

"Oh, yeah. You're not on it. You should be. They catch a lot of criminals that way. Other places online too. When you set up your page, you need to 'like' hers."

"Did one of her pictures show this?" She pointed to the ivory fragment.

"I don't know. It looked like a bunch of pictures of rocks to me."

"Tracey!" Hal shouted.

She moved back to the ladder. Even though her throat was irritated and her voice rough, she was feeling a little better. Tears still filled her eyes though. She was glad she saw that tusk fragment, but she was totally pissed off that they hadn't caught the culprits when they had hidden the tusks here.

"Yeah?"

"What the hell are you doing here? At this hour. And why didn't you ask for backup?"

"I'm spelunking. And I think I might have found some evidence of a crime."

Hal didn't say anything to her, but she heard him talking to someone else at the mouth of the cave.

Then he shouted, "What kind of evidence?"

"A fragment of an elephant tusk."

***

Police were all over the place as Hal and Stryker helped get Tracey and Ricky out of the mine. Some of her fellow FWS Special Agents went down into the shaft to secure any other evidence that could be related to the tusk, smiling, and giving her a thumbs up.

She smiled back.

Hal had called Mick to let him know as soon as he learned she was safe down in the shaft, and assured Mick that she was coming home with him until someone caught the bastards who were responsible. Or else she was stuck staying with her boss.

Ricky was being put into protective custody. Mick was seeing to that.

Stryker was shaking his head as soon as he heard Hal say, "Okay, we're packing you up and you're coming home with me."

Arms folded, Tracey raised her brows. "What if I wanted to go home with Stryker?"

Stryker smiled.

Hell, and Stryker had already kissed her!

"Stryker?" Hal asked.

Looking thrilled that he had a chance, Stryker grinned. "Fine with me."

"He doesn't have a puppy. I'll stay with you, Hal. And you can serve as my bodyguard. All right?" Tracey didn't look real happy about it. Not because of the business about staying with him, he didn't think. But because she had to be guarded.

"All right. Can someone bring her suitcases to my place?" Hal asked.

Tracey shook her head. "We can drive back there. I'd really rather pack my own things, if you don't mind."

"I've got to head back there anyway," Chase said. "I'll give you a deputy sheriff escort."

"Okay, I'll drive his car to the ranch," Dan said. "Stryker, do you want to follow me and then when Hal and Tracey get back to the ranch, you and I can return to the mine to pick up my vehicle?"

"Yeah, sure." Stryker turned to Tracey before Hal and she left. "You didn't say what kind of a puppy you like."

Hal and Tracey laughed.

"German shepherd," Ricky said, as if Stryker was asking him.

Everyone looked at him.

Ricky shrugged. "That's what I'd like, if anyone was asking. Do you have a puppy?" he asked Hal.

"He's got a new foal," Stryker said.

"A baby horse?" Ricky's eyes grew big. "I never seen a baby horse for real. You could be my bodyguard. I could help feed the baby horse. This line of work I'm doing is getting kinda dangerous. I think I'm gonna quit it."

"The mare nurses the foal."

"Oh. Well, I could feed the mare. I'm real handy. Just ask her." Ricky waved his thumb in Tracey's direction.

"Ah, come on, Hal. Give the kid a break. Let him work for you." Stryker was grinning.

Hal looked at Tracey and she was smiling.

Ah, hell.

"Can I have my gun back? I didn't use it to commit any crimes. And it's not stolen. But just in case you're not around—"

"No," everyone said.

"Okay. Just saying." Ricky shoved his hands in his pockets.

"What about your clothes, Ricky?" Tracey asked.

"Stuff's in a bag in my car."

Hal called Mick back. "Okay, I'm safeguarding both Tracey and Ricky."

Mick was silent.

"Ted will help safeguard Ricky. And keep him off the streets. He can stay in the bunkhouse with Ted."

"Cool," Ricky said.

"Tracey's staying with me in the main house. But she can watch out for him too."

"Who's going to be watching out for you?" Mick asked and he was serious.

Hal smiled.

Chapter 9

After explaining a million times to Hal why she'd joined Ricky in the cave, while she had packed her clothes and personal affects at the cabin, they returned to Hal's ranch. Tracey stalked off down the hallway to the bedrooms of his ranch house, trying to keep her annoyance under wraps. She wasn't eager to give up her freedom and certainly didn't like that she might have to be safeguarded. Mostly, she didn't feel the need to explain how she investigated a case. With her boss, yes? With anyone else? No.

"Which bedroom is mine?"

"Any of them. Master bedroom included."

She looked over her shoulder at Hal.

His mouth was curved up in a sexy way, his eyes smiling.

She smiled back. "And… you'll move out?"

"Of the master bedroom? Hell no. What kind of a male cougar do you think I am?"

She chuckled. "Cute." Then she checked out each of the other bedrooms and found the one she wanted. All dressed in blue, view of the rocky cliffs in the distance, furthest away from the master bedroom for more privacy. Perfect. Each of the bedrooms even had access to the deck. Sweet.

"Did you want me to wake you up to go running in the morning?"

She gave him a get-real look.

He grinned. "Okay, we'll play it by ear."

"Do you think Ricky will be all right out here?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. He was about ready to fall asleep on his feet when we were standing in the stable, until he saw the foal. Did you see his expression?"

"Yeah. He loved her."

"I think it's a good deal for him. Get some sleep and when I see you, I'll see you. But don't even think of going anywhere without me."

"The shower?"

He smiled.

She felt her cheeks heat. "Right." Then she entered the bedroom, shut the door, and headed for the bathroom. She wasn't getting up until it was midday, the way she was feeling.

She let out her breath. She hadn't really even thanked Hal for taking Ricky in. She'd already thanked everyone at the scene with helping to rescue them. But taking Ricky into his household? That was going above and beyond the call of duty.

She'd thank Hal in the morning. She took a nice long shower, then pulled on a silky green nightie, and climbed into bed, hoping that the Special Agents doing the investigation on the ivory tusk would find some other evidence to link the traffickers with the crime scene.

She closed her eyes, thankful that she and Ricky had gotten out of the main tunnel quickly enough to avoid breathing the tear gas for very long. She was feeling fine now.

She began to think about what Ricky had said about Jessie posting pictures on Facebook. She reached over, grabbed her phone off the bedside table, and searched for her sister's page. Over fifteen hundred photos?

***

Hal headed for his bedroom when he noticed a light on in Tracey's room. "Need something to help you sleep?"

"No, thanks… Would it be too late or too early to have a glass of wine?"

He laughed. Then he thought of Stryker having wine and a movie with her and he got a kiss! "Seriously?"

"Nah. Night."

"Night."

He stalked off to his bedroom, glad that she was fine, but not liking that this business with Tracey being shot at seemed so…personal. He turned around and headed back to her door. "Tracey, don't you think this is kind of personal?"

"Me staying with you?"

He chuckled. "No, this business with the traffickers."

"Yeah, I do. But I can't figure out why it would be. Hold on." The sheets rustled, the mattress creaked, then quiet, until he heard her light footfalls crossing the carpeted floor to reach the door.

She opened the door. "Want to watch the sun rise and talk about it?"

He glanced down at her fuzzy blue robe and slipper boots. "Will you be warm enough?"

"Sure. You can light a fire."

He grinned.

"In the fireplace out there."

"Yeah, sure. Let me grab a blanket in case you get cold, and I'll make us a couple of cups of cocoa, if you'd like. Whip cream on top."

"Okay. That's as good as wine."

Before long, they were sitting in front of the outdoor fireplace on one of the cushioned benches, Hal's arm around Tracey, the extra-soft brown blanket covering their laps, and she was snuggled against him while they drank cups of cocoa. He loved this and he was glad, despite that she'd had chips and wine and watched a movie with Stryker last night, she'd wanted to stay with him and not Stryker this morning.

"This is so nice," she said.

"Really nice. I'm glad you suggested it. I've never come out here to witness the sun rise." He rubbed her arm, covered in the soft, fuzzy robe.