Page 43 of Tiger Queen

“I thought you liked to get to know someone first,” I said as we hastily put our clothes back on.

He shrugged one shoulder and zipped up his pants. “When I said that, I barely knew you.”

“And now?”

“Now I know you a little bit more.”

I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “And I know you a lot more. Have you been working out at your brother’s gym?”

“I do bodyweight exercises at home. Nothing fancy.”

“Well, it shows.”

The way he blushed three shades of red was the cutest thing I had ever seen.

We returned Chloe to her enclosure and allowed her to re-acclimate as the sedatives wore off. Once that was done we began preparing the transportation crates that we would use to move the animals.

The ECAP truck arrived at four in the afternoon. It was essentially a large refrigerated box truck with the animal preserve’s logo on the side. Two men hopped out of the front, both of them wearing khaki clothes and work boots. One was bald and in his sixties, and the other barely looked old enough to shave.

“Welcome,” David said as we all shook hands.

“So this is the infamous Crazy Carl’s,” the bald man said. “Thought this place would run forever.”

“We’re trying to do right by the place,” David said. “Hence us finding homes for all the animals.”

“They’ll do well down in Florida. We just expanded and have twelve hundred acres for them to roam.”

I handed him a three-ring binder. “This is all the medical information on the eight cats you’re taking. There are some gaps in the documents, I’m afraid. But I performed examinations on all of them this week, and made sure they were up-to-date on their vaccinations.”

“We appreciate the hustle. Will save us time once we get them down to Florida.” He handed the binder to the younger kid. “You can spend the drive back inputting all this information into our database. I’ve got a hotspot set up for the laptop.”

“Yes sir.”

“I can send you digital copies,” I offered. “If that would make it easier for you.”

“That’s okay. Kurt’s our summer intern. This’ll be a good experience for him to learn our system.”

I laughed.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“It’s just that I applied for that internship a few months ago. I was rejected. You must have a strong resume, Kurt.”

The kid looked like a deer in the headlights. “Um. My dad is on the board at the animal preserve.” He carried the binder back to the truck.

“It’s not what you know,” Anthony said. “It’s who you know.”

We spent the next two hours moving the big cats into the truck. That process involved moving them into individual transportation cages, then using a forklift to carry them across the zoo to the truck. We radio’d Jake but he didn’t respond, nor did he come help. David said that was probably for the best.

The eight animal cages fit snugly into the back of the box truck, two wide and four deep. The bald man checked the air conditioner unit, then closed the door to the back and locked it with a big padlock.

“You guys are doing the right thing here,” he told us as we signed the transfer paperwork there in the parking lot. “Especially keeping the zoo closed in the interim.”

“Like I said, we’re trying to do the right thing,” David replied.

“You must be bleeding money.”

David signed one of the documents and handed it over. “Yep.”

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