Call of the Cougar (Heart of the Cougar Book 2) (3 page)

They appeared to be on the run.

She wanted to take them down. God knew she wanted to stop them before they got away. But she couldn't. She had to go back to Bill.

She dashed to the schoolhouse and slipped in through the boards over the window. She grabbed her field pack and the lantern, and ran across the wooden floor to see to Bill. He looked ghastly pale in the light of the lantern. His pulse was thready, and she feared he wouldn't make it.

"Bill, damn it, you die on me, and I'll—"

He gave her a sickly smile. "Early retirement," he gritted out.

Damnable tears streaked down her cheeks.

"Are you puddling up over me, Agent?" he managed to get out.

"Dust in the room," she growled back.

"What of the men?"

"One's dead. The other two are wounded and ran off."

"Go…after them."

Ignoring him, she began to pull up his shirt.

He coughed up blood. "I'm not going to make it."

"Don't say it. You will, damn it. You're not going to leave me behind to fend for myself." As if that was her concern. She wanted him to think she needed his backup and just maybe he would hold on until she could get the paramedics.

He smiled a little. "You do good. Go. Get out of here. Get help."

She had to. She couldn't reach the police out here. She had to leave to get help. She patched him up with her medical supplies the best she could. But she knew just racing off to reach her Hummer three miles away, she could be ambushed anywhere along the route.

She had to take out the men. The best way she could in this terrain. As a cougar.

Chapter 1

Six months ago, Tracey had gone to investigate the ghost town of Anderson and had been in the worst gun battle she'd ever fought in and lost her partner. Now she was meeting with Tobias Mooney in Greeley, Colorado, close to her home in Loveland, at an old café decorated in western theme from the worn cowboy boots and Stetsons, to lassoes and pictures of cowboys hanging all over the wall. One of the signs on the wall caught her attention: I'm having a nice day. DON'T SCREW IT UP!

Tracey smiled as she was seated in a red-leather booth across from a covered wagon filled with the buffet for the day. She still believed Mooney had everything to do with her partner's death. Surprisingly, he had agreed to meet with her, as if he was the cat and she was the mouse. If he only knew.

She texted Mooney to let him know where she was seated. Then she saw him—tall, tanned, wearing high-priced clothes and looking out of place here. He nodded, gave her a half-smile and headed toward her booth.

"I'm only meeting with you because I have nothing to hide," Mooney said to Tracey as he joined her. His dark brown, curly hair was cut short, his dark blue eyes watching her, studying her reactions, like a hunter watched its prey—just like when he was on the hunt.

She wondered if he looked grungy when he was on a hunt, leaving chin whiskers to sprout and wearing old hunting clothes. She couldn't even envision him like that.

He'd refused to speak to her with her new partner present, which had irritated her partner and worried her boss. Did Mooney think she was just a woman and not as much of a risk as dealing with Anton? Her partner didn't have the wicked claws and teeth that she had. Or the enhanced sense of smell like she had either.

"So…exactly what do you believe I'm guilty of? I run an honest hunting guide business. I'm just as conscientious about wildlife conservation as you. The deer would eat down too much of the vegetation that's used by other wildlife to survive."

Tracey sipped her hot tea, allowing him to have his say. Maybe he'd incriminate himself. She was certain his lawyers wouldn't approve of him being here like this, but she thought it was worth a shot to arrange the meeting.

He drank his coffee." So, what do you think I've done, that is criminal in nature with regard to your area of expertise?"

She set her floral teacup on its saucer and looked him squarely in the eye. "We've had reports that you, or men working for you, have been maiming cougars and other prey, caging them right before the hunters arrive, then releasing them."

Mooney frowned at her, as if he couldn't believe anyone would do something that was so awful and unfair to the game. "I wouldn't risk losing my license over something so heinous. That's half of the sport. To hunt the wild animals down. If someone has been doing such a thing, it wasn't me or any of my men. Unless one of them has been doing some guiding operations on his own that I'm unware of."

"Can you give me a name of any of the men who would be a likely suspect? We have had word that your guiding operations are involved. So if one of your men has gone solo, but is still using your good name in conducting this unlawful business, we'd love to hear of it and clear you and your operation of any wrongdoing."

I can't imagine any of my current staff would be guiding on their own. But I did have one who left me last year and he might be. His name is Bear Tucker. I don't suspect he's doing anything illegal, but he's no longer working for me, so I can't really vouch for him. He knows my operation, so he could possibly be using my name to build his own customer base." Mooney shrugged. "I haven't heard of anyone else doing that. Of course, it could be one of my competition. We usually stay out of each other's way. But occasionally a new guide goes into the business and who knows what tactics he might use to discredit one of the other successful guide operations."

"Anyone you might suspect like that?"

"No. They always have new guys cropping up in the business. But I could see where they're not getting enough clients. Word spreads if they're unable to catch sight of their prey on a hunt and exasperate the hunters who hired them."

"What do you know about illegal trafficking of animal body parts?"

Mooney sat back against his seat, appearing to distance himself from the new discussion. Had she hit a nerve?

"Nothing. I mean, except for hearing about it in the news periodically."

"What about the trafficking of ivory?"

"That's a hell of a jump from hunting deer and elk to hunting elephants."

"When there's no hunting for the season, what do you do?"

"You mean, how do I afford my house and such?" Mooney smiled. "Wise investments, of course. But I'm sure you already knew that. Anything more, Agent Whittington? I have some other business to attend to."

Definitely, this was a topic he didn't want to get drawn into.

"Thank you for your cooperation in this ongoing investigation. If the rumors turn out to be falsified, I will push to have charges brought against the guilty parties." Tracey stood and so did Mooney.

He gave her a pleasant smile as if they had coffee and tea on a regular basis, but she smelled his nervousness, though he never showed any outward appearance of being nervous. That's what she loved about her enhanced cougar abilities. She could smell distress or other kinds of emotions, sexual interest, and more. It helped when she couldn't read an individual's facial expressions or body language.

Though in his case, he put on the air of being respectful, as if he was totally on her side and was eager to help her learn the truth concerning these false accusations. But the real truth was –as far as she was concerned—eyewitnesses were correct in what they had reported—three men, one fitting Mooney's description—and two hunters had taken off after two wounded cougars. Cages have been found nearby, according to these witnesses. But by the time she'd been called in to investigate, all the evidence was gone. Well, almost all evidence. She had smelled that the cats had been staying in one spot for some time, smelled the blood from their wounds, speculated they'd been sitting in a cage and had left their panicked smell. But only her boss would believe her. No one else could use that as evidence.

Before she could leave, a man caught her eye, wearing a cowboy hat, boots, jeans, and a western shirt as he grabbed a coffee to go and headed outside. He'd caught her attention because she loved westerns and hot cowboys. All he needed was a pair of sexy leather chaps.

Mooney paid for their drinks, but Tracey declined and left payment also. When Mooney headed out ahead of her, she took in deep breaths as she tried to smell the scent the cowboy had left behind. He exuded confidence, but she wondered if he was a real working cowboy or just liked to look as though he was. But then she got a surprise. He was a cougar shifter! Who smelled of leather and horse and was sexy as all get out.

She peered around the parking lot and saw him climbing into a pickup pulling a horse trailer. Her natural cougar instincts were aroused. She sighed, reminding herself that the last cowboy she'd hooked up with had ended in a messy divorce.

She headed home when she got a call from her new informant, Ricky.

"Yeah, Ricky?"

"Got a new tip. Ivory is being held at Anderson. You know the place? The ghost town?"

***

Even now as Tracey trekked up the rocky incline for three miles with her new partner, Special Agent Anton Genova, who had worked on several missions with her, she grew teary eyed.

She hadn't returned to her teenage haunt since the disaster on New Year's Day, and though she knew nothing would happen this time, she couldn't help feeling uneasy, like the whole situation could happen all over again—the shootout, her partner down, only this time
she
wouldn't be so lucky.

If her partner hadn't been so inebriated that day, things might have been different. Or if she'd just given in and said she'd do as he had suggested, and waited until the end of the week, maybe none of it would have happened. But he'd been in so many blue funks before that, she hadn't wanted to risk him saying no by the end of the week too.

Now, she wished she had let it go. The damnedest part of the whole situation was that they had found nothing. Sure, Honey had been right, like he usually had been. Someone had stored ivory there, right under the schoolhouse floor. The imprints in the dried mud proved that beyond a doubt. Casts had been made of it, and when they were analyzed, they not only had found the elephant tusk imprints, but fingerprints too. Except they had matched the perp she had shot in the forehead, so no help there. Her only satisfaction was that she'd managed to kill the one trafficker with her gun, and another with her cougar's teeth. But the third, despite being wounded, had gotten away.

She and Anton had worked so many cases together—from undercover operations designed to infiltrate wildlife trafficking rings, illegal guiding operations, and even discovering a case of the intentional poisoning of bald eagles—that she knew her partner's every action.

Until today.
Rattled by a recent divorce and custody battle over their two-year old daughter, Anton wasn't wholly in the game—when every bit of their attention had to be focused on the danger right here and now. Not that anything dangerous was about to happen, but then again, the last time nothing was supposed to either. It gave her a new perspective when dealing with traffickers.

With two partners who had marriages on the rocks that had affected their ability to do their jobs, she really was glad she wasn't in any kind of a relationship right now. She'd been there, done that, anyway.

Tracey couldn't help worrying about Anton, considering this was eerily like her former partner's lack of focus—in his case, due to liquor—when she had to remain just as alert about the possible peril all around them.

She'd thought Honey might have set her and Bill up, but when the police found Honey's body riddled with bullets in a downtown Denver apartment two days later, she assumed someone had learned he was a FWS informant. She felt badly that he had been murdered, even though some of her fellow agents had discovered he had been involved in wildlife trafficking, just as she had suspected. And he was attempting to eliminate his competition, which hadn't gone over well with them.

Now, a scrawny eighteen-year-old, by the name of Ricky, was her new informant and had told them a trafficker was using this place as a hideout for his ivory. She was certain it was old news. The same old news that Honey had shared with her six months ago. But what if it wasn't? She had to check it out. What if the trafficker had returned to the scene of the crime? Figuring no one would come here again, looking for his stolen goods?

Twice, Anton tried to get ahead of her on the path. Yeah, he was taller and had a longer stride than her. But he knew the rules. She went first. Her cougar hearing, sight, and smell dictated it. Neither he nor any of the other agents she'd worked with knew why her senses were so enhanced, only that her instincts were much better than theirs. After a few close calls and one death that could have been avoided, they'd quit being all macho or totally alpha and taking the lead when she was partnered with them.

Until today.

***

Sheriff Dan Steinacker called Hal Haverton, who worked as his part-time deputy for Yuma Town, Colorado, their official duties covering nearly 3,000 square miles of unincorporated territory. He asked him to check out widowed Mrs. Blasdell's claim that wild kids were off partying at one of the boarded up miner's houses on the hillside next to the old wagon trail that led to the ghost town of Anderson. As a kid, he and Dan and the rest of his Special Forces buddies who lived in Yuma Town, had loved to go up there and scare the spit out of each other. They'd climbed the mountains as cougars, sneaked into the boarded-up buildings, and even had a séance once in one of the saloons. Stryker, Yuma's full-time deputy, had even let on that he had communed with several ghosts—a couple of hanged stagecoach robbers, miners fighting over silver, a gunslinger, and others who had died violently in the town centuries earlier.

If kids wanted to play around in the boarded-up houses, Hal didn't mind. As long as they didn't vandalize the old buildings or hurt themselves. Or go down into the silver mines. The mines could be real death traps and many had lost their lives over the years when they had broken through the boarded-up mine shafts to go exploring.

The houses were close by and easy to check out. Only once did he catch someone in one of the houses. He and the other deputies and Dan never knew if Mrs. Blasdell was just lonely and wanted some attention, or if the partygoers had left before he arrived. Though when he'd investigated the other times, he'd never smelled anyone who had been in them recently, so he assumed it was just her imagination, or she needed a little company. Which he never minded.