I was so shaken by the turn of events that I couldn’t decide who was more dangerous right now: the tigers or Emma.
My mouth had gone dry and I had to swallow hard before attempting to answer her.
“I knew you were a lover of exotic animals too!” I exclaimed finally, thinking fast.
Emma blinked at me. She obviously hadn’t expected me to say this.
“Too?” she asked skeptically.
“Oui,” I said, forcing myself to walk across the room, bypassing small cages along the way.
There was a long rip in my sweater dress from where the baby had latched on, but I think I’d managed to get away without it clawing a hole through my skin. Which was good, because I didn’t want to find out what they would do if they smelled blood.
“As soon as Mr. Miles told me that you’d supplied him with his beloved tiger, I knew that I’d found a kindred spirit.”
My head was screaming for me to run away, but I needed to keep my cover, so I forced myself to bend down and pet the baby tiger.
“Christian told you that he got his tiger from us?” Emma asked, sounding a little peeved. “That…blabbermouth. He’s usually better at keeping secrets than that. I guess Karma gets you in the end, after all.”
And what will Karma have in store for you?
“That whole situation with the police was an absolute tragedy,” I said, shaking my head. “I can only hope your other clients don’t suffer the same fate.”
Emma went to the door and placed Lady Godiva on the floor, the dog running on her tippy toes back down the hallway to safety.
I wanted to do the same.
“We’ll be making sure our other clients are more careful in the future,” Emma added.
“A smart decision,” I said, nodding. “One bad apple could bring down the whole tree. A tree that I’m keenly interested in hearing about. Possibly being a part of…”
I let my words trail off. It had dawned on me over the past couple of days that the only way I’d be able to take down their whole operation was if I were a part of it.
Or at least I needed them to think I was a part of it.
Emma raised her eyebrow at me, as she took in what I was implying.
I decided she needed a tiny nudge in the right direction.
“I mean, if you would like to continue your venture on your own, best wishes,” I said, turning my back like I didn’t care either way. “But if you want to take things to the next level, I believe I could help you…go international.”
“Sam and I have been talking about how to step things up,” Emma said, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “Grandfather is always saying that we think too small. And it’s true that Huntington Diamonds only hit a billion when they expanded.”
I just nodded as I moved around the room. I could tell that I didn’t need to do anything else to convince her. She was going to convince herself.
“So, this is where you keep the babies, then?” I asked her as I ran my hand across one of the cages.
“Huh?” Emma asked, lost in her thoughts.
“You obviously keep the others out on your property with that zookeeper of yours,” I said, making a face.
“Um, yeah,” Emma said. When she saw my face, she sighed. “I know, he’s sort of…rough around the edges, but Cap’n Bob is good with the animals and is loyal.”
“Is that how you knew we’d discovered your hidden zoo?”
Emma nodded.
“But I don’t think he meant to rat you out or anything,” she said. “Bob just mentioned that a couple who spoke a different language had shown up. You were the only ones I could think of.”
“And you brought me here to see if I was a friend or foe?” I suggested.
“Something like that,” Emma said, a smile growing across her face.
“And how did I do?” I asked, as if I already knew the answer.
“I’ll let you know once I figure it out,” she said carefully.
“Fair enough,” I answered. “Tell me about all of this.”
I motioned to the room around us.
I thought she might protest, but her face seemed to light up as I asked.
“This is the Jungle Room,” she said proudly. “All the plants are native to the animals’ original homes, and the temperature is set to create the perfect environment for them.”
“Animals?” I asked, having only seen the tigers. “What else do you have hidden around this palatial estate?”
“Oh, you’re going to love this!” Emma said and practically skipped over to the opposite side of the room. With all the fanfare she could muster, she pulled back some oversized greenery, revealing a ginormous glass encasement.
“Well, what do we have here?” I continued in my French-American accent.
I took a few steps closer and stuck my face up against the glass. And then I searched. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.
No.
I saw something slither.
And then suddenly it was flying toward my head from the other side of the glass and I was jolting backward.
What was with these animals attacking me!
I looked at the terrarium from a distance now and saw the giant snake’s head moving back and forth slowly as its beady eyes followed me.
“What a…magnificent creature,” I said, trying not to show how utterly creeped out I was. “It is a…”
“It’s a yellow anaconda,” Emma supplied. “Isn’t she just the cutest!”
Emma stepped toward the glass and tickled it with her fingers as if the snake could feel it. I’m not sure if it was because the snake recognized her or it had smelled my fear, but the giant reptile didn’t seem to have the same visceral reaction to her than she had me.
“I can see why you call it the Jungle Room,” I said, laughing nervously.
“This was an idea I had a few years back,” Emma said, going over to an oversized ottoman and laying down. There were scratches all over it. Rips in the velvet, where stuffing was peeking out. The idea that the same could be done to my skin didn’t make me any more comfortable to be in there. “I used to only bring the baby tigers out for parties, but then I figured why not let them live in here? I mean, until they get too big and I have to sell them, of course.”
“How old are these guys?” I asked, watching a few of them roll around on the floor together. Then, my heart started to hammer as one of them jumped up onto the ottoman next to Emma and started to paw at her hair.
“Penelope!” Emma said, sitting up and pulling the cat to her. Even as a baby, it barely fit in her lap, and the way it was wriggling around, I was worried she was going to lose a finger.
Or an eye.
“Not the hair!” she said giggling. Then she turned to me again. “Penelope here is the oldest. She’s about five months old.”
I flinched in surprise.
I’m pretty sure Michaela had said that tigers started to get dangerous to handle around three months? And this one was nearly twice that.
As I wrapped my head around this, Penelope let out a little growl, until Emma turned her over and tickled her belly. The cat began to mouth Emma’s hands until she pulled her hand away abruptly.
“Gentle!” Emma scolded. She stood up from the ottoman and brought her wound up to her mouth. “Ow.”
“Maybe it’s time these kitties graduated to a bigger cage?” I suggested, slowly backing away from the two tigers who’d been wrestling earlier but now seemed interested in me.
“Eh, they’re fine,” Emma said, waving her hand in the air. “They’d never hurt their mommy.”
“Okay,” I said, silently disagreeing. “So, answer me this: Why did you get into the whole exotic trade industry?”
“Off the record?” Emma asked, raising her eyebrow doubtfully.
“Of course,” I said. “All of this is off the record. I don’t want to get caught either, you know.”
“Right,” Emma answered. “Well, it started when Sam and I were heading over to Africa for a quick vacation, and one of my heiress friends asked us to bring her back a monkey. At first I thought she was crazy, but then I made a few calls and discovered it was supes easy to buy an exotic animal. There are no laws about it, and they charge next to nothing over there.”
Correction, there are laws. They just don’t always apply to rich people.
“When we delivered the hairy thing to my friend, she paid us a finder’s fee of ten grand. And that got us thinking,” Emma said, slinking back over to the snake tank. “Our grandfather was getting ready to update his will—something he does every four years, or whenever one of us messes up—and he’d been riding us about finding our own ways to contribute to the family fortune. So, we figured, sure, we’ll sell animals to our friends. And it’s proven to be very lucrative.”
“But a little in the gray area as far as your government goes, no?” I asked. “I imagine you keep these business dealings—along with the profits you’ve made—how you say…to yourselves?”
I wanted to lead her into talking about the fortune they’d no doubt accrued since they’d begun trafficking animals for a living. Over the years of robbing the rich, I’d learned that wealthy people kept their clean money in banks. But their real money, the stuff made by shadier means, was kept somewhere the IRS couldn’t get to it.
I wanted that money.
The dirty money. Because if given to the right people, I might just be made clean again.
Emma tapped the side of her nose, the universal symbol for being right about something.
“Yet another thing our family is good at—hiding money,” Emma said, oddly proud.
“Well, color me intrigued,” I said, feeding her ego. I could tell she wanted to brag about how clever she and her brother were. “Maybe I could learn something from you. I’ve just been using off-shore accounts to hide my more…indelicate dealings. Do you have a better idea?”
Emma looked like she was considering telling me everything.
But then a voice asked from the entrance to the room, “You think she can keep a secret?”
Both of us turned quickly to see Sam standing there, leaning up against the door frame.
I had no idea how long he’d been there.
Was this going to be a problem now?
“Still not sure. I mean, she wants to do business with us. Help us expand into the international market,” Emma said, seeming to scrutinize me. Suddenly she threw her hands in the air and yelled out, “What the heck. I have a good feeling about you, Brigeet. And my gut’s never wrong.”
Until now.
“What about…insurance?” Sam reminded his sister.
“Right!” Emma smacked her head. “Duh. Okay, come on over here, partner.”
Emma grabbed my hand—yes, the injured one—and pulled me across the room, calling for the cats to come. They obliged and soon there were five not-so-little tigers surrounding us. She picked up the smallest one and handed it to me.
The animal was so heavy, I nearly dropped it. Luckily, the cat dug its claws into my arms and stayed upright.
“What is happening?” I asked, managing to keep my accent going.
“We like to get a little…collateral just in case people think about getting chatty,” she said, putting her arm around me. “Say cheese.”
“Cheese,” I said robotically, still not quite knowing why we were taking a picture.
“Got it,” Sam said, nodding at the photo he’d taken of us on his phone.
“And we took the picture because…,” I started.
“Because we want you to know that if we go down, so do you,” Sam explained. “And this picture’s all the proof we need.”
Too bad all they had was a picture of a fictional French magazine editor.
“Right,” I said, not bothering to argue. “So, tell me all your secrets.”
“Well, you have to do a lot more to earn all of them,” Emma said. “But here’s a little something for you.”
Emma motioned for me to join her back over by the anaconda cage. I did not want to go. But I did anyway.
When I got there, she put her arm around my shoulder like we were going into a huddle.
“Grandfather taught us that the best place to hide your money is in a place nobody wants to go. I won’t give away his hiding spot, but I’ll let you in on ours,” she said, pointing inside the cage and then turning on a little spotlight so we could see better.
“Holy diamonds!” I exclaimed before I could stop myself.
They were everywhere. Gems and jewels of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Just thrown around the cage amongst the snake poop. Emma was right. Nobody was going in there to steal their stuff anytime soon.
“I know!” Emma exclaimed. “Isn’t it wild? It’s like really expensive glitter!”
“Most of them are conflict diamonds, gifted to us by our grandfather so we obviously can’t sell them. Well, in stores anyway,” Sam explained. “And the larger ones, well, our girl likes those the best. She uses them as pillows.”
My jaw had fallen open at some point, and I forced it closed before the twins realized how gobsmacked I was.
“There has to be millions of dollars in there,” I breathed.
“And there’s more,” Emma said excitedly.
“Are you going to tell me the leaves are made out of hundred dollar bills next?”
“Ha!” Sam let out a loud guffaw and pointed at me. “You’re funny.”
I nodded kindly.
“So, the real treasure’s…” I let my words drift off, hoping one of them would answer.
And after a brief pause, Emma did.
“Right there,” she said, pointing to something in the back of the cage.
I squinted through the glass, trying not to be distracted by the giant snake and hundreds of diamonds littering the ground. It wasn’t easy, but finally I saw it.
There, inside the snake enclosure and behind the two-hundred-pound anaconda, was a safe.
“All our real valuables are in there,” she whispered in my ear, before leaving me gaping behind her as she walked away.