Zara (4 page)

The next morning Zara met Trig in the lobby of the ship
.  The GCFA ship had docked at the spaceport a couple of hours ago.  She agreed to meet him there after breakfast.

“
Good morning.  How are you doing?” Trig smiled at her with his white teeth a contrast to his beautiful mocha skin.

Great, he
is a morning person. Ugh. 
“Fine.”  He handed her a cup of coffee.  She took it and sipped it.  It was black, no sugar or cream.  Just the way she liked her male.  Not her male—her coffee!  “Thanks.”

“
I have a shuttle waiting to take us to the IDJ office.” Trig led her out of the loading ramp down to the awaiting platform.

A shuttle was there and an IDJ officer stood by at the door
.  The man’s mouth dropped open when he saw who one of his passengers was.  He rushed up to greet them.  No, not greet them—greet Zara.

“
Zara…you are my favorite fighter.  I have been following you for years.  I am thrilled to get to meet you.” He reached out to take her hand to help her into the shuttle but Trig blocked him.  He took Zara’s hand himself and helped her.  He didn’t even question his possessive behavior.

The IDJ officer looked at Trig with resentment
.  Trig stared back at him.  “Officer, you need to focus on your job, which is to get us to the IDJ headquarters.”

“
Yes, sir.” The officer glanced one last time inside the shuttle with longing. 

Trig wanted to punch the officer for drooling all over Zara
.  He didn’t want to feel this way about her, but he wasn't happy with another man touching her.  He needed to control his emotions better than this, but that had always been his problem.  It was also the reason why his supervisor hated for Rachel and him to work together.  They both had tendencies to lose their tempers. 

He climbed in after Zara and sat beside her
.  She was wearing another pair of tight, low riding jeans and a black, sleeveless muscle t-shirt.  Her muscles were pronounced and her golden tanned skin shown right below her belly button.  He understood why the officer stared over her—she was breathtaking. 

“
Everything okay?” she asked.

“
Yeah, we should be there in about ten minutes.”

They sat quietly beside each other
.  He would have continued to do that but he needed to ask her more questions.  “Do you remember what this Tiger looked like?”

“
Yes.  Why?”

“
I was thinking, he might know something, a name, other facility locations.  Would you be able to describe him in detail if I can get a sketch artist at the IDJ to draw him?”

“
Yes”

“
Okay then.  We’ll do that.  Then we’ll send out his picture in the database to try to locate him.”

Zara looked out the window at the other shuttles that passed by
.  She felt guilty.  Maybe if she had tried to locate Tiger years ago, they could have been looking for their daughter together.  Tiger had a right to know about their child.  He was the only male she had ever come close to loving.  Not even Rage had held a spot in her heart except as a friend and she had been with him off and on for almost two years.  Tiger had been different.  Maybe because he was the first male to make love to her instead of just having sex or raping her.  He would probably always be special to her in that way.

“
Does it bother you that I plan to contact this…Tiger?”

She looked at Trig
then and shook her head.  “No, it’s something I should have done a long time ago.”

Neither spoke the rest of the way
.  The IDJ headquarters was located in the center of the spaceport city.  The officer that drove them also escorted them inside the round silver building.  Zara put on sunglasses but that didn't stop people from recognizing her.  She walked quickly trying to avoid any fans from approaching.  It was a hassle but it came with the job.

Once inside the building
, Trig checked in with the chief officer.  Zara waited until he came back to get her.  Then he showed her to a conference room they would use instead of an interrogation room.  Trig explained the use of a different room.  “I asked for a conference room because I don’t want the children to feel threatened or scared.  Scared kids tend to clam up.”

“
Why not go to their homes to question them?” Zara sat down in a chair he pulled out for her.  She had to admit it that he had great manners.

“
We will be interviewing ten kids, that’s ten different homes.  It is easier to have all of them come here than to have to go to each and every one of their homes.  Plus, we have resources here, like a sketch artist, we wouldn't have immediately available when we travel to their homes.”

She nodded her head
.  It made sense.  As her first trainer, Stanley, had told her once, “Work smarter not harder.” He said it was an old Earth saying but couldn't remember where it first came from.  Stanley had been a human trainer, one she actually had liked.  But as the GCFA acquired more halfsie fighters, they needed trainers who could keep up physically with the fighters they trained.

“
When is the first family due to arrive?” Zara felt a little nervous.  She would have preferred to sit further back in the corner, but Trig had placed her chair right next to his. 

“
They are already here.  They arrived ten minutes before us and the officers took them to a lounge area to wait for our arrival.” Trig had no sooner relayed that just as the door was slowly opened.

An IDJ officer stood to the side to allow a tall thin human male and a short chubby human female walk in
.  The chubby female held the hand of a six-year-old little girl with dark brunette pigtails.  For a moment, Zara’s heart raced at seeing the little girl.  Her mind knew it wasn’t her daughter.  She was too young.  Her daughter would be about ten years old.  Also her scent was different.  Zara still remembered her child’s scent.  It was a mixture of hers and of Tigers.

Trig rose to greet the male and fe
male reaching out a hand to shake theirs.  “Mr. and Mrs. Anderson.  Thank you so much for coming.” He lowered himself down to his haunches so he could look the little girl in the eye. “Hi, Caro.  Do you remember me?”

The little girl looked up at him with
big brown eyes.  Her whole face lit up and she threw herself into Trig’s arms.  “Trig!”

He caught her easily
, chuckling.  “Hi there, Caro.  How are things going with your new living arrangements?”

“
Great!  The Andersons want to adopt me.”

Zara watched Tri
g interact with the little girl.  Something pulled at her heart seeing him hold the child.  She knew he would make an excellent father one day. 
Where the hell did that thought come from?

Trig set the little girl back down and looked at the Andersons
.  “I am thrilled it worked out for all of you.”

Mrs
.  Anderson hugged Trig.  “It’s all thanks to you, Special Agent Roberts.  We can never thank you enough for encouraging us to request to foster Caro.  She is an absolute angel.”

Trig looked at Zara when she
flinched at the endearment of ‘angel’.  He didn’t say anything to her though.  “It was my pleasure.” He turned to introduce Zara. “Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, Caro, I would like to introduce you to Zara.”

Zara stood to shake the hands of the human couple
.  The male turned a bright red having recognized her immediately but didn’t say anything.  She appreciated his restraint.  But restraint wasn’t part of a six-year-old’s vocabulary. 

“
Zara the Amazon!  Oh my gosh!  It’s Zara the Amazon, from the cage fighting show!” The little girl pointed at her, jumping up and down in place. 

Zara walked over to the little girl and bent down as Trig had done earlier
.  “It is nice to meet you, Caro.” She shook the little girl’s hand. 

“
Can I have your autograph?”

“
Caro, don’t bother Miss….Zara.” Mrs. Anderson tried to wrangle her foster daughter in.

Zara smiled
.  “It’s no problem.  I’ll sign something for you after the interview, okay?”

The little girl bobbed her head excitedly
.  “What’s an interview?” she turned to ask her foster mother.

Trig answered her helping Zara stand back up
.  “I’m going to ask you a few questions about the time before I rescued you.”

The little girl frowned as she sat down beside her foster parents
.  “I don’t want to.  I don’t like talking about it.  The psycho woman makes me talk.”

“
Psychiatrist dear.” Mrs. Anderson corrected her.  “If she doesn’t want to…” Mrs.  Anderson stood taking the little girl in her protective arms.  She looked ready to leave with the little girl.

“
I promise the questions will be very short and if there is anything Caro feels uncomfortable talking about, we will skip it.  But this is very important.” He glanced at Zara.  He didn’t want to expose her story just yet.  That would be a last resort if they needed to flush someone out of hiding. “There is another child missing that I am trying to find.”

“
Mabel, let’s hear the questions first okay.” Mr. Anderson helped his wife back to her seat.  She still kept the child in her arms.

Zara was glad to see
how protective they were over the little girl.  There were times she wished, even prayed, that her little girl had been adopted into a loving family.  But the chances of that having happened were slim.

Trig sat down beside Zara
.  “I have picture of a little girl.  Caro, I want you to look and see if this little girl looks familiar.”

Caro was calmer now and nodded her head
.  She looked at the picture that Trig showed her.  She shook her head no. 

“
Are you sure?  She wasn’t at the first orphanage you had been taken to?  The bad orphanage?”

“
No.  She wasn’t there.  There were only five halfsie girls at the bad orphanage I was at.  Two of them had blond hair, one with light brown hair, one with red hair, and then me.”

Trig frowned
.  “Caro, I only located three halfsie girls from the bad orphanage.  You and the two blond haired girls.  Where did the other two girls go?  Were they adopted.”

She shook her head and there was fear in her eyes
.  “Bad people adopted them.”

“
Bad people?” Zara asked.  She couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“
Yeah.  Some of the human kids said the couple that came only adopted the halfsie kids and they were mean.”

“
Do you remember what these mean people looked like?”

“
No.  I wasn’t there when they came.  I had fallen and had to be taken to the urgent care place.  Are we finished?  I want to go for ice cream.”

“
Yes, we are done.  Ice cream sounds great.”

“
Can I have my autograph now?” Caro asked shyly to Zara.

She smiled
.  “Sure.” She grabbed a blank paper that Trig had produced from somewhere.  She signed it and handed it over. 

“
Thanks so much.  I hope you find your little girl.”  Caro beamed at her with innocent eyes.

Both Trig and Zara looked at her in shock
.  Zara asked, “Why do you think she’s my little girl?”

“
She looks just like you.”

Zara had always thought Angel looked more like Tiger
.  When she was a baby, her hair was a little more brown than the black like Zara’s.  And her eyes looked brown sometimes instead of blue.

They went through four more interviews
.  Two of their interviews cancelled on them.  The ones they did interview didn’t tell them much more.  Most kids didn’t remember a lot or chose to forget.  But they sometimes added a name or description.  No one got a clear view of the mean couple that adopted the halfsies.

Their l
ast interview hadn’t arrived yet.  Zara was shocked to see Maya and Taurus with their newly adopted son, Luke, and daughter, Lucy, be shown into the room.

“
How are the interviews going?” Maya asked, sitting down in a chair.  Her little girl climbed up in her lap.  Taurus and his son stood behind them.  The boy mimicked Taurus’s stance with his hands folded behind his back and his legs spread apart slightly.

Trig answered
.  “We have a few things we can check out, but no one had a really good description.”

“
We came by because we thought even though our kids might have been in a different orphanage, the couple adopting the halfsie kids at their orphanage might be the same ones going to most of the orphanages,” Maya explained.

Zara nodded her head at Maya and T
aurus.  She felt a strange overwhelming appreciation for them.  They truly were her closest friends.  “Thanks.”