Shallow Grave. Karen Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ Nick said and reached toward the driver’s window to shake hands. “Nothing to do now, I think, unless you can get rid of this crowd—or want to be interviewed by the media.”

      “Even for free publicity, hell no. Don’t need our future guests getting gun-shy over an animal killing a man. Big ex-marine shoulda had a gun on him. As for the crowd, coupla blasts with a hunting rifle in the air might clear them out.”

      Claire figured that was his idea of humor, but she wasn’t so sure when she saw he had a gun rack mounted in the back cab window, one obviously not for show since it bristled with rifles, some with big scopes attached.

      “They gonna keep the killer cat alive?” Helter asked Nick.

      “It wasn’t really theirs. A refugee, kind of a ward of the state they took from some old woman who couldn’t keep it and shouldn’t have had it. Its BAA keeper insists the killing was instinct, not intent.”

      “Brittany Hoffman, you mean, the beast-loving blonde. But they’re sly and crafty—big cats. Hope I can help the Hoffmans later somehow. Listen, Markwood, come visit us someday, almost always something doing. Bring our mutual friend Manfort with you. See you, Counselor. Ma’am,” he said, giving Claire a good once-over before he drove off.

      “Someone who works at the Trophy Ranch?” Claire asked as they headed toward their car again.

      “Its mastermind and owner. That place is big business. I met him once at a Save the Glades charity event. A friend of mine from way back, Grant Manfort, introduced us. I think Grant’s a shareholder in the Trophy Ranch.”

      “But they shoot big game there, don’t they? Those ‘save big cats’ protestors should go picket his spread. And he asked what they were going to do with the tiger as if he’d like to get his hands on it.”

      “I think they hunt everything there from gators and wild boars to who knows what else.”

      “I noticed—maybe he did too—that you didn’t introduce me.”

      “Not the type of guy you’d like to know. Grant says he’s savvy, but a rough character and a real womanizer.” He opened the car door for her, and she got in. “Sweetheart, let’s just go get Lexi before either of us starts cooking up suspicions or strategies about Ben’s death. Besides, you look like you need your meds before a bad dream hits.”

      “This is already a bad dream. Yes, let’s go try to tell the kids a version of what happened before we go home.”

      * * *

      Inside the tight quarters of the BAA administration trailer, Jace held Brit close. He’d had to talk his way in through the cop at the gate. Brit had said her mother was heavily sedated and lying down in the back room, just staring at the ceiling. Brit hugged him back hard, but he was amazed she didn’t cry. Tough cookie. Or else she was in shock, like her mother. He knew damn well from combat experiences that horror sometimes took a while to be real, let alone to heal.

      “The tiger had already mauled him and bitten through his carotid artery,” she said against his shoulder. “There was blood, blood, blood all over. Jace, just when the tiger was bringing more people in, and our family was getting on better. Wait until Lane hears. He’ll go ballistic. He hated the idea of the BAA.”

      “Yeah, you got a brother who’s a far cry from the rest of you. But back to what happened here,” he said with a sniff as he pictured an apparently healthy, happy Ben having a beer with him just last week. Had he known the guy at all? Had he liked him too much too fast? Damn, but he regretted their recent argument. Trying to keep his voice steady, he asked, “Did Ben go in to feed Tiberia?”

      “He was going to feed him since I was with the kids, including Lexi, but he knew better than to go into the cage for that—for anything, especially at feeding time. He knew just to shove the food through the hatch and then push it in closer only with the long gaff pole. The food box was not in the cage—but he was.” Her voice broke again.

      “Maybe he just stepped inside because he thought the animal was secure in that holding area—what you called the bedroom, separate behind the cage. Maybe Tiberia was hiding in that little cave you made so he could get out of the sun, and then—”

      “Jace, I’ve been over it all with an officer, then a detective with Nick Markwood there!”

      “Sure. Sure,” he said, kissing the top of her head through her wild hair, then pressed his lips there. “Just a mystery, then, one we may never have the answer to.”

      “He hadn’t been himself lately. Kind of depressed and inwardly angry—more than usual, that is. That scares me.”

      “You mean that he might have been secretly sui—”

      “I don’t know. I don’t know! Now I have to decide whether to admit Mother to the hospital where they can keep an eye on her or whether I can take her home.”

      She suddenly exploded in sobs. He held her as tightly as he could, sat down in the swivel desk chair and pulled her onto his lap. If only Claire had been like this when they were married, telling him everything, trusting him, clinging even.

      * * *

      Claire, Nick and Darcy sat the four children down in Darcy’s living room. Lexi perched on a leather hassock between Nick’s legs. Duncan was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Darcy’s son, Drew, and Jilly leaned against her mother’s shoulder on the couch. Still fighting exhaustion, Claire sat in a chair, facing everyone.

      In her steadiest voice, feeling a bit better since Darcy had brewed tea for her, even if it didn’t have her herbals, she began, “I know you are all wondering about the accident at the BAA today.”

      “It was a loud scream and scary,” Jilly said.

      “It was real bad,” Duncan added. “Like someone getting beat up and real hurt.”

      “Okay, that’s all true,” Claire put in, feeling it wouldn’t take much for this to “go over Niagara” as her father used to say. “Remember that Brittany, the tiger talker, told us that tigers are wild animals. When they live in the wild, they have to kill to get meat to eat.”

      Nick nodded in encouragement, and Darcy bit her lower lip. Claire still didn’t know how she would have survived her own childhood without her younger sister, when their father took off for parts unknown and their mother became such a recluse, escaping reality through books. Sad that the two men Claire had cared for had father issues too. And what was the truth about Ben Hoffman’s relationship to his daughter and son—even to Jace?

      “Well, Mr. Hoffman, Brittany’s father,” Claire went on, struggling for words, “the man we met in the parking lot, made a mistake when he went to feed the tiger its meat. Somehow he didn’t know Tiberia was in its cage and he walked inside, and the animal thought it was still in the wild, and he hurt Mr. Hoffman. Sadly, he died.”

      Drew asked, “You mean the tiger or Mr. Hoffman?”

      “It was a terrible accident, but Mr. Hoffman died.”

      Lexi said, “Then isn’t the tiger a murderer, not just a hungry big cat?”

      Claire tried to keep her voice steady. “But you know that’s how animals are. They aren’t like people, who decide whether СКАЧАТЬ