Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set Read online

  Jordan opened the cage and the fox crept closer with a small yip. She’d clearly been socialized thoroughly, something DiNero wouldn’t bother to do once he had her ensconced in the zoo. The fox had been bred as a house pet, but to DiNero she was an ornament.

  “C’mere, little girl.” Jordan stroked the soft fur, feeling for any obvious lumps or bumps. He gave her some cuddling time before scooping her up to take her outside. The bodyguard looked surprised, but Jordan ignored him to take the fox across the long expanse of soft green grass to the small bungalow he used as an office.

  The fox yipped and buried her face against him when they went inside, but Jordan continued to soothe her with murmured words and gentle touches as he examined her. Her paws scrabbled on the steel tabletop, but she quieted when he gave a warning noise under his breath. She still trembled, but she wasn’t trying to get away.

  She looked good, at least as much as an animal could when it had been kept caged in the dark and improperly fed and watered for the past few days. But she was healthy, without any signs of abuse or genetic flaws as the result of inbreeding. Jordan finished the exam and slipped a treat from his pocket that the fox took eagerly. She butted her head against him, and he took her narrow face in his hands.

  “Pretty girl,” he said quietly. The fox licked his face.

  Once she’d been put away in her own habitat, separated for now from the three surviving foxes for a quarantine period before he introduced them, Jordan made the rounds of the other habitats in this section. He’d spent long hours building most of them, re-creating different terrains or climates to provide the best possible housing for their inhabitants. The animals were under his care, and that meant their living conditions, too.

  Veterinarian, handyman, lion tamer. That was his job here at DiNero’s, and it was the best one he’d ever had. The man gave him a good salary and free room and board on the property in a tiny but cozy bungalow with full catering privileges from the main-house kitchen. Most important, DiNero usually left Jordan alone.

  Until today, apparently. Jordan rounded the corner of a low stone wall meant to keep the prairie dogs from getting out—DiNero loved prairie dogs and would often spend hours feeding them peanuts and watching them pop in and out of their holes. Today, though, he stood with his back to Jordan. Efforteson wasn’t with him. DiNero’s companion was a woman, her long dark hair the color of black cherries. It fell in soft waves to the middle of her back, and when she turned, eyes like a summer sky opened wide beneath dark arched brows.

  “Jordan, come say hello to Ms. Blackship.”

  Reluctantly, Jordan came closer. DiNero had been married four times, no children unless you counted the third wife, who’d thrown tantrums like a three-year-old. Now the man claimed he would never get married again, which only meant that he brought around his one-night stands to impress them with his menagerie, and Jordan had to make nice and pretend to give a damn.

  “Monica,” the woman said as she gave him a firm, brief handshake.

  “She’s the... Whattaya call it, honey?”

  If the endearment raised her hackles, Monica Blackship didn’t show it. She gave DiNero a flicking glance but then put her focus back on Jordan. “I’m a cryptozoologist.”

  For one awful moment, Jordan thought maybe DiNero was trying to replace him. But then he understood, having heard the term somewhere. “A crypto...”

  “I research unusual or what some might consider legendary creatures,” Monica replied calmly. “Bigfoot. That sort of thing.”

  “You think Bigfoot jumped our wall and killed our animals?” Jordan didn’t even care what DiNero might think of him taking any small part of ownership. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is. By all accounts, the Sasquatch is a vegetarian,” Monica said without so much as a quirk of her smile.

  DiNero chuckled. “Just like you, Jordan.”

  Jordan scowled, crossing his arms. “Sasquatch also doesn’t exist.”

  “That remains to be disproven, actually.” Again, that calm, almost blank look without a hint of any expression. It made him want to do something to see if he could shake her up.

  “Hasn’t been proven,” Jordan added.

  DiNero gave him a look. “Something came over our walls, Jordan. And you said yourself it wasn’t human.”

  “I didn’t say it was Bigfoot, either!”

  “That’s what Ms. Blackship is here to help us figure out. She works with an organization that studies this sort of thing.” DiNero, who could be a pain-in-the-ass wisecracker most of the time, looked serious. “You know animals, dude. You know this is some kind of animal that keeps doing this.”

  Jordan involuntarily thought of the first slaughter he’d found three months ago. The scent of blood, the patches of fur. It was more than the loss of the animals, or even the money they’d cost. It was how they must’ve suffered that made his stomach tense and churn. He wasn’t convinced whatever had killed the zoo animals didn’t wear boots and kill with knives.

  “Something didn’t just kill them,” DiNero continued, now facing the woman. “It ate them, we’re pretty sure.”

  Jordan shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

  Monica nodded. “I’ve seen similar cases. I’m thinking it might be something like a chupacabra...”

  “The hell...?” Jordan snorted derisive laughter. “What the hell is that?”

  “They’re usually found in Puerto Rico and Mexico,” Monica went on as though he hadn’t spoken, and damn, if there was one thing Jordan couldn’t stand, it was being dismissed as if he were nothing. “But there have been cases of them moving north, more and more often now. They typically prey on smaller animals, but several of the cases my colleagues have worked on dealt with what looks to be a different breed of chupacabra, maybe...”

  “Hold on. There’s more than one breed?” Jordan shook his head. “Please.”

  “Like dogs,” Monica said. “Or wolves.”

  DiNero had watched the interchange with rapidly rising brows, but now he held up a hand. “Jordan, listen. Monica was sent here by a friend I trust. He’s dealt with things like this before, and I want to know what’s going on. What’s breaking in here, what’s eating my pets.”

  “So you can kill it,” Monica said softly.

  “Hell no,” DiNero said. “So I can put it in my collection.”

  CHAPTER 3

  It was better than a sleeping bag on the ground or a bedbug-ridden hotel room, that was for sure. DiNero had put her up in one of the guest bungalows scattered throughout the private zoo. Kind of a safari experience for his guests, she supposed and curled her lip. Monica had never liked zoos, seeing the animals in cages. Lions pacing and miserable. DiNero’s menagerie was housed in better habitats than any she’d ever seen, but they were still kept captive. Not free.

  In her lifetime before, when she’d been attending veterinary school, Monica had dreamed of getting a job at a big zoo. Maybe a circus. She wanted to work with exotic animals, not just dogs and cats. She hadn’t finished school, because the attack had screwed that up for her, big-time. Yet she’d ended up working with exotic animals just the same, hadn’t she? The deadliest ones, too, nothing soft or fluffy, because people never called for help when they came across a mewling, fuzzy bundle of fur with big eyes. Nope, the Crew got the calls only for the things that chewed your head off and spit down your neck.

  Damn, she was tired.

  She’d been up for most of the night because of the dream. Then she’d been on a plane from her place in Pennsylvania with a layover in North Carolina and this final stop in Louisiana. Then another four hours or so driving through the bayous to get here. Where here was, she didn’t exactly know. Vadim had told her that DiNero demanded secrecy so he could avoid getting caught with his illegal collection. Personally, Monica had no interest in