day. That was why he had a small rotating staff of three workers who took care of the daily care under his charge, while he spent his days visiting each habitat to be sure the animals were safe, healthy and as happy as they could be in captivity.
The woman was supposed to be with him again today on his rounds. He didn’t need her advice on how to keep his animals safe, he thought sourly, just some thoughts on what the hell was continuing to break through and attack them. So far, all she’d done was toss a lot of stupid theories at him. Nothing he could actually work with. Besides that, she hadn’t shown up this morning, not a call, not a note, nothing.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the taste of her.
He was hard now, thinking of it, and that pissed him off, too. For Jordan, sex over the past few years had been relegated to an occasional one-night stand when he traveled into New Orleans. He favored tourists, women in sundresses and wedge sandals, drunk on hurricanes. The ones who were shy or claimed to be, at least until he cut them from the pack of their squealy girlfriends and took them back to the small, barely furnished flat he kept just off Bourbon Street. Anonymous, brief, nothing but two bodies—or three, and once four—writhing and grinding until there was nothing but pure mindless pleasure. It was something he did with strangers, some who never even thought to ask his name. It was not something he did with women he ever expected to see again.
But he’d had sex with Monica last night, and he wanted to see her again.
By the time lunch had come and gone, Jordan had made his rounds. He checked in on the staff congregating in the small common room outside his office but didn’t linger, even though today was Peter’s birthday and Karen had brought a cake. Instead, Jordan headed for the perimeter wall, intending to walk the entire length of it to look for any breaks or to repair any damage. Also to check for any signs that the thing attacking the animals had returned. He’d made it all the way beyond the empty tiger habitat when the light scent of feminine soap lilted to him along the breeze. His nostrils flared, but he didn’t turn. He could hear her and smell her. That didn’t mean he needed to acknowledge her.
“Hey,” Monica said from behind him. “Sorry I missed you this morning. I totally overslept. I never do that.”
Jordan had been looking carefully over one of the spots that had been damaged to make sure the repairs were holding. He glanced over his shoulder. “No problem.”
She stepped up closer, moving beside him. She pointed. “It came through here originally?”
“We found two holes in the outside wall after the first attack. Both broke all the way through, but this was the biggest, and neither one was big enough to get anything through. Even if it could squeeze, you can’t squeeze a tiger. The barbed wire—” he gestured along the top of the wall “—had been completely torn away. Whatever it was tried to make it through, and when it couldn’t, it went over the top.”
“Any signs of blood here? Like something had cut itself?”
He gave her a flat look. “There was blood everywhere. Whatever it was came in and dragged away a full-grown tiger.”
“There are a few things that could do that.” Without looking at him, Monica moved closer to the wall to run her fingers along the patched section, then took a step back to look upward. “The other hole was smaller than this one?”
“Yeah. I can show you.”
Wasn’t she going to mention anything about the night before? Was she not going to say a word? She’d come on to him like a freight train, and now she was going to pretend it had never happened?
Fine.
He took her there and watched as she studied the repaired spot. She pulled out her phone, took a few photos. Tapped some notes.
“So,” he said, unable to stop himself. “What do you think it is?”
Monica looked up. “I’m still not sure. I came here convinced I was looking for a new breed of chupacabra or something similar, but now I’m thinking this is something else entirely.”
Jordan snorted. Monica’s brows rose. He shrugged.
“Is it really so hard for you to believe in the unknown?” She put a hand on her hip and gave him a hard look he thought was meant to shame him.
It didn’t, though it did stir another, baser emotion in his lower gut. Jordan shrugged again. Monica sighed.
“Do you know there are thousands of new species of animals and insects discovered every year? The rain forest—”
“This isn’t the rain forest,” Jordan pointed out. “This is Louisiana.”
“And every inch of it’s been explored, huh?” she challenged, moving a step closer. “There are thousands of acres of land, all charted. Nothing could possibly be hiding away from the rest of the world, could it?”
“Nothing like what you’re talking about. Something big and predatory would’ve been discovered before now, that’s all I’m saying.”
Monica frowned. “My grandparents live in New Jersey. Not Jersey Shore, but up north, close to New York. They have a postage-stamp lot backed up to another postage-stamp lot, with neighbors all around them. You could spit and hit two different highways. And guess what they have in their backyard every night.”
“A lot of noise?”
“Smart-ass,” she said but didn’t seem angry. If anything, he’d made her smile. She shook her head. “Deer. They eat my grandma’s garden and make her crazy. It’s not a place where you’d think you’d see deer, but there they are, and why? Because they’ve been driven there. They don’t have another place to go.”
“You’re saying whatever’s attacking the menagerie has been driven here?”
“Could be. Land development, taking away territory. Chemicals in the water, changing the food supply. Something we don’t even know about, like down in Florida, where those people are dropping off their ball pythons and anacondas that got too big to be pets, and now they’re breeding and fighting with the alligators for dominance on the food chain.”
“That’s not happening here,” Jordan said.
Monica gave him a solemn look. “Could be something else, then. Too many gators being taken, maybe this thing normally eats them, and now it’s hungry. Whatever it is, it’s discovered the menagerie, and it’s not going to stop coming back unless we stop it.” She paused. “Why is it so hard for you to believe?”
“I don’t believe in monsters,” he said flatly.
Monica laughed. “You’re lucky, then. Because trust me, they exist. Or they did and have gone extinct. Or, like in this case, haven’t been discovered.”
“Maybe it’s zombies,” he said, deadpan. Scoffing.
She narrowed her eyes. “You mean like voodoo?”
“I mean like ‘They’re coming to get you, Barbara,’” Jordan said. “Voodoo is a religion.”
She frowned again. “I wasn’t trying to be offensive. Zombies like in Night of the Living Dead definitely are not real, I can tell you that much.”
