Val helped the woman to sit up in the living room of the perp’s drug house, worrying about Howard but praying the woman would know where Val’s parents were and that they were still alive. Though the one man saying the other had shot agents didn’t sound good.
“Okay, look, I know you’re working with Eric or you wouldn’t be here. He’s sold that purple heroin shit to people who have died from it. He’s a murderer, pure and simple. Our kind can’t go to human jails long term. You probably know that means we have to terminate him. What does that mean for you? I’m taking Eric down. And anybody who works with him selling this shit. My parents are both Enforcers, and they were here to do that. They called me, and now they’ve disappeared off the radar. If you know something about it and can tell me where they are, I can just let you disappear, with strong advice to get out of this business before you’re on the target list. You don’t want to be there, believe me.”
“I don’t know where they are. I swear it.” The woman’s heart was racing, and she smelled of rampant fear.
“Okay, let’s try this again. I’m going to ask you where they are, and you’re going to tell me, because if you don’t, I’m going to eliminate you right here and now and go help out my partner. There’s no sense in me wasting my time here otherwise. My parents were watching this house. They were close by. So. Where. Are. They?”
“All right. All right. Eric said he saw them and thought they were bad news. He…he didn’t say who he thought they were. I believed they wanted some of his business. Or…or maybe he was encroaching on their sales territory. I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. I figured they were all in the same business. All drug people. Not once did he say they were with the…the Enforcer branch. I…I would never have guessed it. I don’t have anything to do with any of this.”
Val felt nauseated. She often was when she found a murdered victim. This was so much more personal. She couldn’t have lost her parents. “What did Eric do about it?”
The woman looked away. Val feared the worst. Eric and whoever else was working with him had murdered her parents. “Tell me. Who was the man that said the other had shot the agents?” Val’s voice was hard with anger. She considered that she should have been soft and encouraging. But she was an Enforcer. Being sympathetic wasn’t part of her mission. The woman could be just as deeply involved in this business as Eric. She could have watched him kill Val’s parents. She could have helped.
“Ren said that to Eric. You promise you’ll let me go? I’ll…I’ll leave. For good. I’ll never see Eric again.”
“As long as you had nothing to do with harming my parents.” Val wasn’t going to lie. If the woman had helped to kill them, she was a dead woman.
“I…I didn’t. I didn’t know what Eric did, but he said he was going to take care of them. And then I heard Ren say Eric had shot them right before you knocked on the door. But Eric and four other men had all been in on it.”
“When did this happen?” Val ground her teeth to try to keep her emotions in check. She desperately wanted to kill the men.
“An hour ago.”
That gave Val hope her parents were still alive, but she figured Eric and his cohorts wouldn’t have made that mistake. “Where are my parents?”
“Unless they moved the bodies, and I don’t think they were going to until it got dark, they’re at the house across the street.”
A cold sweat covered Val’s skin. “You lied about not knowing anything.”
“Eric threatened to kill me. And he has a lot of men who would do the job for him. I didn’t know he was into all this. Your parents rented the house across the street. An older man and woman? We didn’t think anything of it until Eric grew suspicious for some reason. Not sure why. But he can be really paranoid sometimes. I didn’t think they were anything but some Americans tourists. There’s a beach near here and a rain-forest park nearby.”
“You’re coming with me.”
The woman looked alarmed, the scent of her fear escalating, her eyes huge. “Wait, no. You said you were going to release me.”
Her reaction concerned Val, making her believe the woman did have something to do with her parents’ deaths. Maybe she was afraid Val would smell her involvement in the rental house. “After I find my parents.”
“I told you. They’re in the house over there. At least, I think so, if they killed them over there and didn’t take them somewhere else.”
“Come on then. Let’s go see.” Val’s heart was beating out of control, and her palms were sweaty. She knew she’d find her parents dead, and she wanted to kill every last person who was involved in their murder and the sale of the heroin. She cut off the ties around the woman’s wrists. “I can kill you easily with my bare hands. No need to use a gun or a knife, and I’m armed with both, so don’t scream or call any attention to yourself in any way or you’ll be dead. Understand?”
“Yeah…yeah.”
“What’s your name?”
“Emmie Bancroft.”
“Your real name.” Val escorted her out through the front door, watching for any sign of anyone observing them or coming to the house. She saw no one, just a black-and-white cat perched on a fence eyeing them.
“That is my real name. I haven’t ever done nothing wrong. You won’t find me in your databases or on your termination list. I just…I just started dating Eric because he was rich and fun. And when he said he had a house in Belize… Well, being a jaguar, it was all I could have ever hoped for. I…I didn’t know the kind of trouble he was in.”
Val gave her a look that said she didn’t believe her as they walked down the long driveway.
“Well, I didn’t. Not until we got here, and then I overheard some of his friends talking. I’m not involved in any of it. He never tells me nothing. I didn’t have any money or a car to get out of here. I’ve been stuck, trying to pretend I’m clueless.”
Val still didn’t believe her. She wouldn’t until she gave Emmie’s information to headquarters and they ran it to see if Emmie Bancroft was who she said she was.
Val eyed the rental house but didn’t see any movement. “Who are the other men working with Eric?”
“Ren, but I don’t know his last name. Eric just calls him Ren. And Bixby. Eric keeps calling him Bro. I think he really is his brother, but he never came out and said so. Harington is the other man. I’m sure Eric is in contact with others, but I’ve never seen them, and I don’t know their names. Eric sent Bixby on a job, but he hasn’t returned. Eric was worried he might have met with foul play. Oh, and then there’s Benny. He got into trouble in the States and ran down here, but Eric isn’t happy with him. I don’t know any of their last names though. Everyone is on a first-name basis only.”
“Benny?”
They crossed the street and began to walk up the rental house’s driveway.
“Yeah. I only met him last night. He looked nervous, his hands shoved in his pockets. Eric’s really pissed at him. So he sent Bixby with him to take care of some problem.”
“This Benny?” Val asked, showing Emmie her phone and the picture of Benny that the construction manager had on him.
“Uh, yeah, that’s him.”
Then she showed her the photo of the dead man. “Is this Bixby?”
Emmie’s lips parted, her eyes wide. She looked up at Val. “He’s…he’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Bixby. Eric is going to have a meltdown.”
“Too bad. Bixby attempted to murder me.”
“I’m…I’m so sorry.”
They went to the front door of the gray house. It had a one-car garage, and Val wondered if she’d find her parents’ rental car inside. She motioned to the front door. “Open it. In case someone’s inside other than my parents, I want you to call out that you’re Emmie, Eric’s girlfriend, and you thought Eric was over here.”
“He doesn’t call me that.”
“Whatever. Just don’t tip anyone off that I’m with you.” Though anyone could have been watching out the windows and seen what was going on. Val thought if someone had, he would have either come for her when Howard took off after the other men or called for more backup.
Emmie tried the door and found it was unlocked. She opened it and hollered out, “It’s just me, Emmie. Eric sent me over.”
No one answered.
Val was smelling the scents in the living room and realized Benny had been here too. So had some of the men who had been in the other house. Her parents’ scents were also in here. She smelled their blood too, and she fought back the bile that threatened to make her vomit.
The back window in the living room had been shattered, making it appear the men had come in that way. Glass was scattered all over the floor.
“Move slowly.” Val followed Emmie inside. She wanted to rush to where she smelled blood, but she had to make sure the house was clear and no one could attack her while she was here. Despite how desperately she wanted to see her parents, she bit back the inclination to rush headlong into the house to reach them.
“I think they’re in there,” Emmie whispered, her eyes filled with tears as she pointed to the hall to the right. “I haven’t been here before, but there’s a trail of blood going all the way down the hall.”
They checked the living room and the kitchen. No one. They moved down the hall to the bedrooms and bathroom. No one in there or in the first bedroom. Val kept Emmie in front of her as they moved to the second bedroom. Emmie was shaking, and Val didn’t blame her. She would be too if she was in her predicament—Eric would want to kill her, and Val wanted to do the same, if she’d had anything to do with this.
Emmie came to the doorway, peered in, and gasped, genuinely shocked. Her skin turned ice white.
Immediately, Val grabbed her arm and rushed her into the bedroom—and saw her parents leaning against a wall, both of them bleeding from what looked like gunshot wounds to the chest. They were tied up, their mouths taped shut, but her mom’s eyes suddenly fluttered open as if she knew Val had arrived.
Val forced Emmie to sit on the bed. “Stay.” She hurried to reach her mom. “Ohmigod, Mom. You’re…you’re alive.” But for how long? She couldn’t think like that. All she could think about was getting them help and keeping them alive until then.
Then she heard her dad’s faint heartbeat. “Help me,” Val said to Emmie. “Get a pillowcase off the pillow. Help me stop the bleeding.”
“Yes.” Emmie quickly jerked the bedcover aside and hurried to get the pillowcase off one of the pillows, but she was so nervous, she couldn’t get it free.
“Throw me the other pillow.”
Emmie tossed it to Val and continued to work on the one she had.
Val jerked the pillowcase off, wadded it up, and held it against her mother’s wound. Then she used the pillow against the pillowcase and wound. “Hold this tight, Mom.”
Her mom tried, but she was so weak.
“Do the same for my dad, but hold the pillow against the wound for him,” Val ordered Emmie. She cut her parents’ ties and removed the tape from their mouths. Then she got on her phone and called Howard. She knew he could be in a fight, and she didn’t want to distract him, but they had to get help for her parents immediately. She wanted him to know that her parents were in dire straits and that he didn’t need to catch up to the other men right now, not without having her as backup.
When he didn’t pick up the call, Val left a message. “My parents are badly wounded, gunshot wounds, loss of blood, weak. Stopping bleeding. Rental house across street.”
Then Val called her boss. “Sir, need help. Agents down—my parents—GSW, loss of blood. Need help ASAP.”
“Calling in reinforcements. Where are you?”
“Rental house where they were watching the perp.” She knew he’d be telling someone in a message to get help to her pronto. She realized her boss probably had known where her parents were all along, damn it. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
She held her hand against the pillow over her mother’s wound. “There are four others involved that we know of: Eric, Ren, Bixby, and Harington. But Benny was working with them too.”
“Anyone else?”
Val looked at Emmie. She was working hard to stop Val’s dad’s bleeding, talking softly to him, telling him he’d be all right. That his daughter was here to take care of them.
“No one else. We didn’t catch Benny, but we had to kill someone who tried to take me out this morning at our resort.”
Emmie looked up at Val.
“The pictures Howard sent you of the dead man… Did anyone recognize him?” Val asked her boss.
“He was Bixby Erickson,” Sylvan said.
Val said under her breath, “So he was Eric’s brother. Well, he’s out of the picture now.”
Emmie swallowed hard.
Val had been serious when she said they took the bad guys down. Permanently.
“Our people have gotten ahold of a couple of Guardian agents who are down there. They’re strictly on vacation, but they’ll be at your location in approximately twenty minutes. Matt and his sister Katrina Sorenson. They’re bringing medical packs. There’s a municipal airport nearby. They’ll transport your parents out of there and get them to a hospital right away. I know you’ll want to go with them, but you have a mission to complete. And now it appears you have your parents’ mission too, since Benny’s connected to Eric and there’s no one else available right now to take him down. Where’s your backup?”
“Chasing down two of the men.” Val didn’t tell Sylvan that Jillian had stayed near Benny’s cabin, nor that a human homicide detective was helping them.
“Did you tell Howard and Jillian what happened?” Sylvan asked.
“I tried but I didn’t get a response back.”
Her boss swore. “They’re supposed to be watching your back.”
Yeah, exactly what she was thinking. She couldn’t think of the danger Howard might be in. Not when she needed to ensure her parents received help while their lives were hanging by a thread. All that had kept them from dying was their healing genetics. Even so, they’d lost a lot of blood, and though they would regenerate it faster than humans, they could still die before they regained enough to save themselves.
“I need to go,” she told her boss.
“Stay on the line,” Sylvan ordered. “I need to know if you end up in a battle for your life. If I had any other Enforcers or JAG agents down there, I’d send them. But no one else is as close to your location as the two Guardian agents.”
“I’m glad that at least they are nearby.” She put the phone on speaker so she could hold her mother’s hand with her free hand. “Mom, you’re going to be all right. Guardian agents are on their way. You have to keep fighting to prove these bastards didn’t have what it took to take you out.”
Her mother gave her a weak smile.
“Who did this to you? Do you know?” Even though Emmie had told Val who, she wanted to hear it from her mother, since Emmie hadn’t witnessed it—or at least Val didn’t think so.
“Eric shot both of us. He knew he didn’t kill us outright. He wanted us to bleed out slowly.”
“Bastard. Were the other men here too? I smell their scents. Any that you could identify?”
“Eric’s brother, Bixby. Then he sent him to take care of you. By then, we weren’t capable of calling you to warn you. We called when they first entered the house before they overwhelmed us. Harington was the other man. Brooding, sour-faced. You can’t know how glad I am to see you.”
“Howard killed Bixby.”
“Good. I knew Howard would be good for you. We were worried about you, but then we were in pretty bad shape ourselves. Benny was here. We wondered what had happened that Benny was here and you didn’t know about it.”
“His girlfriend was still at his cabin. His car was gone, but then he returned. We thought he was running as a jaguar, so we went after him. Then Jillian got your call and we came straight here.” Val let out her breath, hoping her parents really would retire after this. “Okay, Mom, you just need to rest.” Val had to contact Howard again while she waited for help to arrive. She just had to reach him. “Boss, you’ve heard who all was involved here, right?”
“Yeah, every word. I’m having each of the men researched.”
“Good. I’ve got to call Howard again to let him know about this situation.”
“All right, then once you’re done, call me back.”
“Okay.” Val ended the call with her boss and tried Howard’s number, but it went to voicemail again. She left another message to let him know her parents were going to be cared for, in case he was able to check his phone later. “Guardian agents are coming for my parents. As soon as they leave, I’m coming after you.” Then she called Jillian and gave her an update on their situation.
“Ohmigod, Val. Do you want us to go there?” Jillian asked.
“No. It’ll take you too long to get here. Stay there in case Benny or some of his men go there. I can’t get ahold of Howard. I’m worried about him, but I have to stay here to protect my parents in case Eric or any of his cohorts return. We’ll be back as soon as we can. Just watch out for anyone. I’ve learned Bixby was the man Howard had to take out this morning, and he’s Eric’s brother. Eric might very well go to your location to learn what happened to him and want to finish the job his brother was supposed to take care of if he thinks either of the two of you are with us.”
“We’re both keeping an eye out.”
“They’re all jaguars. None of them are human.”
“Good, then we can eliminate them, no questions asked.”
Val smiled. “Yeah, eliminate them to your heart’s content. I’ve got to call my boss back. Let me know if you run into any trouble.”
When they ended the conversation, she tried Howard once more. Again, the message went to voicemail. She prayed he was all right. If he was in a fight with them, or if he’d shifted, then she could understand why he couldn’t answer his phone.
Then she called her boss back. She’d never known him to monitor anyone so closely on a mission, botched or otherwise. She hoped that didn’t mean he felt she couldn’t do the job. Or maybe he felt that in her current state of mind, she wouldn’t be able to. She had to admit she was ready to kill every last one of the men, the adrenaline rushing through her blood. She hoped Emmie hadn’t had anything to do with this.
Then Val smelled the air again. Emmie’s scent hadn’t been in the rental house. Not until now. But she still could have known just who Val’s parents were working for, and she could have been just as involved in the drug business.
“Did you get in contact with your backup?” Sylvan asked.
“No. I’ll track them down as soon as my parents are on their way. Wait. Someone’s just pulled into the driveway.” Val had to release the pressure on her mother’s wound and pulled out her gun.
“It’s Katrina and Matt. They just messaged me that they’ve pulled into the driveway.”
Someone knocked at the open door. “Val?” a woman called out. “It’s me, Katrina Sorenson, and my brother, Matt.”
“We’re in the back bedroom.” Val had heard of them. They were a sister-and-brother team who had been working together for years like this. On an earlier mission to Belize, they’d flown down to take possession of shifter cubs left in the rain forest when the cubs’ parents had been taken hostage as jaguars. A couple of JAG agents had taken care of the cubs until the Sorensons had arrived. She couldn’t imagine how difficult that would have been for the JAG agents.
The Sorensons were both trained as physician assistants. They worked missions where there were wounded agents or other shifters in need of medical care or other guardian-type duties as assigned. Which was the case with the cubs.
“So glad you’re here,” Val called out. “Sylvan, they’re here. I need to help them. I’ll call back later.”
The man and woman rushed back into the bedroom, carrying medical bags. They were dark-haired and dark-eyed, wearing brightly colored board shorts—his blue, hers neon pink—T-shirts, and water sandals. They smelled like jaguars, salty seawater, fresh air, and coconut lotion, so inconsistent with the overwhelming smell of blood and fear in the room. They looked like tourists on vacation, not jaguar shifters ready for this kind of medical emergency.
“My dad’s been unconscious the whole time,” Val warned them.
They began working on her dad first because he was worse off, and she admired how efficient they were, each working in perfect synchronization with the other as if they’d been doing this for years. Which they had. Val wondered if they had mates but thought it was noble of them to be so close and work and vacation as a team. Twins, probably.
“We need to do an emergency blood transfusion for your dad,” Matt warned.
“I can give blood to Jasper,” Val’s mother said weakly.
“Absolutely not,” Val said, frowning at her mother. She loved her mother for caring so much about her dad that she would risk her own life. Val was about to offer her own, but Emmie spoke first.
“I’m O negative. I can give blood to anyone. I can do it.”
Val was surprised to hear her offer, but grateful too. Maybe Emmie really wasn’t involved with any of this.
“Okay, let’s do this,” Matt said.
They hooked Emmie up to donate blood to Val’s dad.
“I can do the same for my mother. I’m B positive. Mom’s AB,” Val said.
“Your boss said you have a job to do—track down these bastards. I’m B positive too. I’ll give blood,” Katrina said. “In the meantime, you need to protect us if these drug runners return.”
Not that the Guardians couldn’t fight too. They were just as armed and deadly, but Val understood they had other priorities for now. And they were right. She needed to help Howard, and if she gave blood, she would have a harder time. Not to mention that if someone came here looking to kill them, she wouldn’t be at top form.
Matt hooked Katrina up to donate blood to Val’s mother.
“Thank you, Emmie, Katrina, Matt. You’re a godsend.”
Both Katrina and her brother glanced at Emmie as if they wondered who she was. They probably assumed she wasn’t an agent. Which meant she was most likely with the bad guys, if not one of them. Neither asked Val to enlighten them.
Once they had given blood to her mom and dad, Matt and Katrina brought in two stretchers.
“You have an ambulance down here while on vacation?” Val couldn’t believe it.
“It’s in a nearby storage facility for use by any of our people who are down here, have the medical training, and need it for emergencies. A lot of our kind like to come here for vacations, and sometimes for the kind of job you’re doing. We just happened to be at a beach resort near here when your boss’s people called. We’re glad we were close by.” Katrina and her brother finished loading Val’s parents into the ambulance and secured them.
“Me too.” Val kissed both her parents, squeezing their hands. “I’ll see you both as soon as I can.”
“Take care of yourself,” her mom said, frowning.
Her dad was breathing steadily, his heartbeat normal now, but he was still unconscious.
Val said, “I will, Mom. I’ll take them down. Every last one of them.”
“With your backup.”
“Yes, with my backup.” Or at least one of her backups, if he’d managed to stay alive.
“We have to leave now,” Katrina said. “Gladys and Jasper will pull through. We’ve got your number. We’ll let you know as soon as they’re in the hospital and keep you informed of their status.”
“Thank you.” Val waited as the ambulance pulled out of the drive. Then she returned to the house, planning to tell Emmie to leave now and never come back, if she hadn’t taken off already. Val was surprised to see her watching out the living room window, then turned to speak with her.
“What do you want me to do?” Emmie asked, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m…so…so sorry.”
“You’ve just given blood. You need to leave, get away from here and these people now. Don’t pack, just go.”
Emmie was wringing her hands. “You didn’t tell them or your boss about me.”
“You have a chance to start over. Do something good with your life before it’s too late.”
Emmie found some paper in a drawer in the kitchen and a pen. She wrote down something. “This is the address of two other houses they use for their business. I heard him telling Benny where they were. I don’t know any more than that.” Emmie gave her a quick hug. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”
“Go, before anyone comes back and learns you’ve helped me.”
“All right.” Emmie ran out the door and crossed the street to the other house.
Val assumed she was going to get keys to one of the vehicles parked out front of the house. Or call a taxi. She closed the door to the rental house and hurried after Emmie. “Are you taking one of the cars?”
“The blue pickup.”
“Okay, I’m slashing the tires on the other vehicles so they can’t use them.” Val pulled out her knife and cut the tires so that if any of the men returned, they wouldn’t be able to come after her and Howard right away.
She still needed to remove her parents’ things and the rental car from the house. If the rental car was in the garage. She knew her parents would have packed light, but she suspected Eric had taken their weapons before he attempted to murder them.
Emmie ran back outside, looking panicked. “Eric took the keys to the truck.”
“No problem.” Val hot-wired it for her. “Now go.”
“Thank you!” Emmie got inside the truck, closed the door, backed out of the driveway, and tore off down the street.
Val ran off in the direction Howard and the men had gone, calling him on her phone to try to locate him, though she was following the other men’s scents. Thankfully, they weren’t wearing hunter’s spray, or she could have lost Howard. On the other hand, what if he was no longer following them, and she was after them all on her own? The only way that would happen was if he’d been severely injured. Or was dead. She didn’t want to consider that he might be.
At least she was glad her parents would probably pull through.
No matter what, Eric and his buddies were dead men. She kept running across vacant lots, behind buildings, and down alleyways. Off in the distance, she saw trees looming. At first, she thought the men were trying to reach another one of their drug houses, maybe where they might have reinforcements. She didn’t have time to stop and check the locations Emmie had given her.
By the direction they were running, they appeared to be headed for the rain forest. If they weren’t armed, maybe they thought they could take Howard on in the forest as jaguars. She hoped Howard wouldn’t try to fight them on his own. She and Howard would try to catch up with the men again once they were a unified force. She suspected he was like a jaguar with catnip. He wasn’t letting go of his prey until they were taken care of. Not to mention that he probably felt that if he lost them, he and Val could lose the information about where her parents were.
She didn’t want to even think about why he couldn’t call her back.