Guarded (31 page)

Nearly straightening, she froze. A snake, thick and heavy, slid across the toe of her shoe. It lifted its head, but she couldn’t make eye contact in the dark. She didn’t need to.

One of the zoo’s three tortoises appeared and rammed its head against her leg. Urging her backward. Closer to the path, but still under cover of the trees. She stumbled into a solid wall of muscle. Two arms grabbed her from behind.

Shelley opened her mouth to scream, but a hand clapped across her lips. Silencing her. She wanted to fight, but she was at a distinct disadvantage with Beau in her arms. There was no way she was letting go of the child until he was safe. But she still had her feet.

If this bastard was going to kill her, she was going to leave him limping. Tightening her grip on Beau, she lifted her right leg and kicked back, hoping to God her aim landed somewhere near his groin.

T
HE HUMAN WAL
L
grunted, twisted his hips, and squeezed his arms tighter around Shelley and Beau. The child whimpered in pain, his face still buried against her shoulder.

“Shhhh . . .” a deep-timbred voice whispered against her ear. His hold slackened. She didn’t need him to identify himself; she’d recognized the giant the moment her head didn’t meet his shoulder. Only one person was that tall. “It’s me, Ryan. Are you two hurt?”

“No.” Her sweaty hands slid against Beau’s back and he started to fall.

He clutched tighter at her neck, yanking her hair. Her back bowed, and she clutched at the child’s wet shirt.
Why was his shirt wet?

Ryan moved around them so quickly, she hadn’t registered the action until his brown-eyed gaze collided with hers in the slivers of moonlight. Most of his face was hidden in shadows, but she sensed his urgency as he took Beau from her arms.

The boy started to cry and wriggle, grasping wildly for Shelley. Some instinct she couldn’t deny or explain had her struggling to keep hold of him.

“Let me take him. He’s bleeding.” Ryan’s words, although whispered, carried a core of steel. And confidence. “I need to get him outside for help, but I’m turned around. How do we get out of here? Oh, shit! Are you bleeding too or is this all from him?”

He nodded to her shirt. She glanced down, surprised to find her blue sweatshirt stained brown with blood in the moonlight. Fear and fury whipped through her as she glanced at Beau’s face. His big eyes were drooping and his mouth went slack as he shivered in Ryan’s arms. The child had stopped struggling, cradled like an infant against the giant’s body.

Shelley pointed left, in the direction of the exit. “Go, I’m right behind you.”

Please God, don’t let Beau die.

*   *   *

T
HE BITCH WAS
coming around. He was going to make her suffer. Make that bastard watch. She’d actually held Beau in front of her like a fucking shield, when Adam had fired the first shot. His gut clutched. Boiled. Fuck, he was going to be sick again. He turned to the bushes and puked. Although he should have spewed on her. She’d have deserved it.

Inside the monkey cage, the old man finally stirred. The tranq had worn off. Eddy, that fat sadistic fuck, was going to finally get what was coming to him. Adam’s only regret was that Beau was going to die too.

He’d gone back to find the kid after he’d shot that interfering cop, but he couldn’t find him in the dark. Even if Beau had survived the gunshot, there was no way for Adam to take him to a hospital. He could never explain how the kid came to have a bullet in his chest.

Fuck!

Adam stomped over and kicked Reyna in the head. Something snapped and her head lolled awkwardly on her shoulders. A slow trickle of blood glinted like red silver in the moonlight.

Pinned across the chest by Dev’s lifeless body, she didn’t struggle or cry. Although someone whimpered.

Adam glanced into the monkey cage. The younger man still lay curled in the fetal position, out cold. But the old fuck, he was awake. Aware. There on the cold slab of concrete, fingers curled around the green and rusted chain-link fence, Eddy sat on his knees. His face, slick with sweat, red splotches darkening his cheeks, his bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Reyna’s unmoving body pinned beneath the cop.

Glassy, watery eyes lifted until they met Adam’s gaze. Eddy opened his mouth, closed it. Licked his lips, then croaked out a single word, “Why?”

*   *   *

S
HELLEY
RACED
WITH
Ryan toward the exit. The moment he could see it, he shouldered his way in front of her and slowed their pace. It was infuriating. Why was he slowing
now
? Flashing blue and red lights swept between the wrought-iron bars of the front gate, illuminating the trees and ground, casting an eerie tinge to the foliage. Like an old faded photograph.

“There’s too much open space between the woods and the gate,” Ryan whispered, hugging a now-unconscious Beau closer to his chest. He shifted the boy to a quasi-fireman’s hold. Beau’s head on his shoulder, his limp body flush against the left side of his chest.

Ryan raised his right hand, bringing up a gun.

Jesus! Where’d he been hiding that?

“I need to get him outside. Stay close to me and when I give the signal, run as fast as you can for the gate.”

“Where’s Dev? Is he outside?”

Ryan didn’t answer but moved stealthily, damned near silently, toward the edge of the trees.

Shelley took a step to follow, but something plunked her on the head. Hard. Clapping a hand to the sore spot, she glanced up and saw JoJo rearing back to throw another pinecone at her. The moment their gazes collided, a stream of terrifying images smashed into her mind hard enough to steal her breath and freeze her in place.

Eddy, dumped unceremoniously next to another lifeless body in the monkey cage. Reyna, using Beau as a human shield. Blood splattering in all directions as a bullet ripped through the boy’s body. A man in a dark hooded sweatshirt with a gun chasing Reyna down the Tiger Monkey Trail. Reyna tripping, her face smashing against the cinderblocks and chain-link fence of the cage.

Reyna, lifeless, facedown on the path. Dev, mouthing Shelley’s name, then rolling Reyna over. The momentary glimpse of relief on his handsome face an instant before he schooled his features. Reyna coming to and trying to scream. Something . . . gouging a furrow into the side of Dev’s head. Blood spraying like a fountain from above his ear. Dev seeming to struggle for a moment, then collapsing.

The hooded man, moving closer, pointing the gun first at Dev, then at Eddy’s stirring form before shifting back into the shadows. The images shifted to another part of the zoo. Another man—Ian—perceived as a threat by JoJo, pelted with acorns by BoBo while her mate snatched the gun from the man’s hands.

The images stopped. Ian’s gun dropped from the trees with a crunch onto the leaves at her feet.

Fear clogged her throat. Shelley couldn’t breathe. Dev couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t. Not now. She turned, breaking eye contact with JoJo, to call out to Ryan, but he was already slipping through the gate.

What could she do? She should run outside and tell them what she knew, but would they act fast enough? She had to help Dev. She was a vet, yes, but she knew more about the human anatomy than the average police officer. She could give Dev first aid until the cops could get inside.

Please, don’t let Dev be dead. Please.

God couldn’t hate her that much, could he? He’d already taken everyone else she’d ever loved—her mother, her adoptive parents, even her dog. He couldn’t possibly be so cruel as to take Dev, the one man she’d ever truly loved.

Love. The realization brought hot tears stinging to her eyes. Her chest constricted with the fear that she might never be able to tell him. How could she not have said something sooner? And how could she not go to him now? When he needed her most.

Knees bent, she squatted and picked up the heavy, cold metal gun and clutched the grip tightly, careful to keep her finger off the trigger.

Slipping back up the trail, she moved as quickly and quietly as she could toward the monkey cage. She pulled her phone out of her pocket. She opened the list of recent calls. Her hands shook, but she managed to dial Ryan’s number. He answered on the first ring. “Where are you?”

“He’s hurt bad,” Shelley said, ignoring his question. “I think that bastard shot Dev. He’s not moving.”

Ryan cursed, said something to someone else, then spoke into the cell again. “Shelley, do you see the killer? You’ve got to get out of there. The deputies are mobilizing to come in. Ian can help Dev. He’s still in there. You’ve got to come out. Now.”

She might have agreed. She should have. She would have, had a Komodo dragon not stepped out of the shadows and nudged her thigh.

A thrill of fear shot through her. These creatures were feral and capable of killing a man as big as Ryan. The moonlight shafting between the leaves gave the enormous lizard a nearly colorless façade. It lifted its head and rammed her knee, knocking her body backward and the phone from her hands.

The cell skittered on the crunchy leaves out of sight.

Then she saw them. All the animals—lizards, newts, monkeys, birds, and even the normal forest creatures, raccoons, squirrels, and a skunk were moving swiftly and with purpose up the Tiger Monkey Trail.

Shelley set off in the direction of the cages.

She followed the zoo creatures on their quest for a showdown with a madman.

*   *   *

S
OMETHING
SOFT
TICKLED
Dev’s nose. Automatically, he reached with his right hand, only to hiss as pain burned from his shoulder, his fingers, and his throbbing head. His aching right arm hung, useless. The blinding heat made his vision swim seconds before a biting cold slid like melting ice down his right cheek.

He’d fallen asleep on top of Shells. Christ! He’d crush her like this. He started to move, but his whole body screamed with the stress of it and he stopped. His vision swam in and out of focus. What in the hell was going on?

Dev’s memory came rushing back. He’d been in the zoo, searching for Shelley when he’d found her. No, not her. Reyna. Then someone slapped him in the head.

Not slapped. Shot. Someone fucking
shot
him. In the head!

The person mostly missed, except damn, Dev must have reinjured his shoulder when he fell. Given the fact that the damn thing felt like a rooted redwood, and pain was shooting down his arm and into his fingertips, it had to be dislocated. Again.

Beneath him, Reyna moaned and tried to move.

“Shut up, you double-crossing bitch,” the killer hissed.

Dev didn’t have time to brace for the impact. The killer, who must have been aiming for Reyna’s head, missed, and his booted foot connected with rib-cracking perfection to Dev’s chest.

Dev didn’t fight the force, just let himself be rolled onto his back with the blow. With his eyes opened to mere slits, he saw his attacker for the first time.

The moonlight shafted through the trees like a spotlight on Jacob as he tossed his head to the right, brushing the hair out of his eyes. In the dark hoodie and jeans, he could have been anyone out for a nighttime stroll through the zoo—the locked zoo currently being overrun by wild animals—but for the .22 clutched in his left hand.

Jacob swung the gun wildly between Dev and Reyna. His attention seemed riveted on something inside the monkey cage behind Dev’s head.

“Wake up. Please, wake up,” someone sobbed inside the cage.

Who’s in there?
Dev tried to clear his mind, but damn, it felt as if his skull were going to blow apart.

“Oops, must have killed him too soon. You were supposed to watch him die, you evil fuck,” Jacob shouted. “But she’s still here. Tiger-stealing, double-crossing bitch. Let me show you.”

Reyna’s body jerked as if he’d struck her, but she made no sound. Jacob ignored them and continued his tirade at the cage.

The man in the cage sobbed and begged, “Please. Why are you doing this, Jacob?”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Jacob swung his .22 back toward Reyna, aiming for her head. “Adam! My name is Adam, not Jacob, not Eddy Junior. I’m Adam. Oh, you remember now, old man? Remember what you did twenty-two years ago? Or do I need to put a bullet in this bitch’s head to jog your memory.”

“No! Please!” The man in the cage squeaked in alarm, sobbed harder.

“I’m going to kill her slowly. Then I’m going to gut you and feed you to the animals you so judiciously protect. After all, they mean more to you than your own family. They’ve always meant more.”

“No, please. Let my daughter go. I’ll do anything, just don’t hurt her.”

Christ, it was Eddy in there
.

Dev needed to get his head clear. Get his ass up and beat this bastard into the ground. But he couldn’t make his arm move, and the sky still spun above him like a ride at the park after sundown.

His body wouldn’t work, but he could still talk. Would it be more or less dangerous to talk? He could be shot—again—if he startled the asshole. Chances were, Jacob—Adam—whoever would probably kill him anyway. Clearing his throat, he attempted to reason with the insane would-be veterinarian.

“J-Jacob.” Dev made his voice softer, weaker.

Jacob jumped and the gun swung into Dev’s line of vision. “Adam.”

Pretending he didn’t see the weapon, Dev said, “Adam, you don’t want to do this.”

A crack of laughter split the quiet. “There you’re wrong. I very much want to kill this motherfucker.” The maniac swung the gun back toward Eddy. “Time for you to pay for your crimes,
Dad.
”

“Dad?” Dev asked, as much in shock as to distract the intern Shelley had trusted.

“Yeah, I’m his firstborn, isn’t that right, fat man?” When Eddy didn’t do more than wheeze a sob, Jacob went on. “Seems the old drunkard had his sights set on marrying the town hero’s daughter. Didn’t matter that he was engaged to my mother. Didn’t matter that he’d already knocked her up. He shamed her and sent her packing. She returned to the Ridge to introduce us when I was four. Eddy here didn’t want her interfering with his life. Didn’t want no bastard risking all the money he’d get from his wealthy bitch wife. So he killed my mother.”