Page 49 of Tiger Queen

I woke up late the next morning. David was already long gone, and even Jake’s bedroom was empty. I found Anthony downstairs in the library, asleep in the same chair with his computer in his lap. I took the laptop away and put a blanket over him, then kissed him on the forehead.

I took the long way into the zoo, past Carl’s big monster truck in the driveway and down the road leading toward the parking lot. I was still angry from last night. Not just because Jake was being unhelpful, but because it still felt like David and Anthony were avoiding me. I had slept with both of them, and now they were acting distant. I was terrified that I had made a mistake.

“Damnit,” I muttered. I had left my walkie-talkie charging on the bedside table. I didn’t feel like going back to get it, though. I had wasted enough time this morning by sleeping in.

I walked past the visitor’s center and stopped dead in my tracks.

Up ahead was Big Caesar’s cage. The gate was wide open.

And Big Caesar was gone.

22

Rachel

I froze for several heartbeats and gazed around slowly. Like prey that had realized it was being hunted. The logical part of my brain started reciting facts.

A Bengal tiger was loose.

I did not know how long he had been free.

He could be fifty miles away… or hiding in the trees around me.

I forced myself to move, because standing still wasn’t going to help me. We had run animal escape drills during my residency, and some of the key points remained burned in my head. Get to safety. Notify other staff. Clear the zoo of visitors.

But I couldn’t notify the others if I hid in the visitor’s center.

I jogged up to his cage and took a quick look at the exterior. The cage appeared undamaged, aside from normal wear and tear. There were no tire tracks in the mud in front of the cage, which means he had not been moved.

“Focus,” I muttered to myself. Without a walkie-talkie, I needed to quickly find David or Jake and let them know Caesar was gone. Then we could seal off the zoo and search for him. David would be in the food preparation building, which was on the other side of the zoo.

I started walking. An escaped animal should have caused the other animals to yell and screech with excitement, but it was a quiet, peaceful morning. My heart pounded in my ears and made it difficult to hear anything. Caesar may have been docile and friendly in captivity, but big cats had a way of returning to their primal instincts when the power dynamic changed. If I came across him in the open…

I turned the next corner and stopped in my tracks.

The big enclosure for the female tigers was directly in front of me. Except it was different. Previously it was shaped like a long rectangle, but a new fence now divided it into two square enclosures. On the right, our two remaining females—Chloe and Lily—were asleep on the ground.

And on the left…

Big Caesar was laying on his side on a patch of grass. And resting against him, using the big cat like a pillow, was a shirtless Jake Haines. Both of them were fast asleep.

I had to admit: the sight of Jake sleeping with the big animal, totally comfortable with the situation? It was incredibly sexy. And Jake was plenty sexy to begin with.

As soon as my shock wore off, I marched up to the fence and said, “Jake!”

Caesar stood up, causing Jake’s head to fall to the ground with a thump. “The fuck?” Caesar loped over to me and stood on his hind legs, extending his arms through the fence toward me. I couldn’t explain why, but I sensed that he was much happier than before. I was so relieved to find him safely inside an enclosure that I reached forward and rubbed him through the cage.

“You are an asshole,” I told Jake when he walked over to us. “I almost had a panic attack when I found his cage empty this morning.”

He rubbed the back of his head and winced. “Chill out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing!”

He removed his sunglasses and looked at me with confusion. “You said it yourself. He needed a bigger enclosure. Problem solved. I thought you’d be happy!”

I gritted my teeth. I wanted to be angry with him, but I was really happy to see Caesar in a proper enclosure. And it was satisfying to see that Jake really was helping out around here rather than doing something random.

I took a deep breath and said, “Try to keep me in the loop about any animal moves in the future. Alright?”

---