Page 85 of Tiger Queen

“God damnit,” David cursed. He turned his walkie-talkie back on. “And to think we blamed Mary Beth.”

Brandon shook the bars. “THE ANIMAL FREEDOM FRONT WILL FREE ALL OF THESE CREATURES, GIVING THEM THEIR FREEDOM TO ROAM FREE.”

David barked a laugh. “That’s a lot of free buddy. You need to practice your messaging more.”

“We’ve got the wolves, chimps, and both tigers safe,” Rachel said on the walkie-talkie. “Aside from the peacock we just saved from a gruesome death, what else is loose?”

David held the walkie-talkie to his mouth and replied, “Not sure. But we caught the saboteur. We’re over by the lion pen.”

“On our way. Fair warning: you might have to stop me from punching Mary Beth in the nose.”

“Yeah, about that… It wasn’t Mary Beth.”

“What?”

“We’ll explain when you get here,” David replied.

Brandon laughed maniacally. “Do it! Open the inner gate and let the lions attack me! I will go down a martyr to the cause!”

“Jesus Christ, dude,” I said. I was still recording with my phone. “We’re not going to feed you to the lions.”

“Although we might let Rachel punch you in the face,” David added.

Jake and Rachel appeared in the Mule a few seconds later. They were just as shocked as David and I were.

“Nice job catching this fucker,” Jake said.

“All I did was get kicked in the dick,” I said with a pained laugh. “David was the one who got him.”

It was early in the morning, so it took the police half an hour to arrive. They took our statements and questioned Brandon. By then he was smart enough to stop talking, but the evidence on my phone was already awfully damning. Video of him trying to open the lion cage, and then confessing to doing the entire thing for the AFF. By the time the police shoved him in the back of the cruiser and drove off, the sky was turning grey to the east.

“That fucker is lucky you saved Caesar,” Jake said darkly. “If he had died… Let’s just say the cops would’ve taken Brandon away in a body bag.”

I hugged my brother. “I don’t doubt it.”

Rachel suddenly smacked her forehead. “I forgot all about Caesar! He’s still in the medical office!”

The four of us crowded onto the Mule—David and I holding onto the back—and drove to the medical office. Before we could rush inside, Mary Beth came walking up the path. She wore pink Hello Kitty pajamas, and held a large macaw under each arm.

“Morning!” she said cheerfully. “I heard the police sirens, and that’s when I noticed all the lights were on in the zoo. Not used to seeing so much glowing light over the trees. So I came right over, and that’s when I found these two guys hanging out on the path! I chased them for a while before remembering what you told me about approaching from their blind spot. Then it was easy.” She looked at each of us. “So, um, why are the birds loose?”

Rachel threw her arms around Mary Beth and hugged her so tightly that she dropped the birds under each arm. David rushed forward to grab them before they flew off.

I pulled my phone out and started recording again.

“I’m so, so sorry for everything,” Rachel said in a rush. “I was so certain you were the guilty person that I didn’t even think to look at anyone else. I’m so sorry, Mary Beth.”

“It was Brandon,” David explained while holding the two macaws. “He was the one secretly recording everything. He let all the animals out this morning.”

“Oh! Oh my gosh!” Mary Beth hugged Rachel back. “I never would have guessed. He seemed like a stoner who didn’t care about the animals at all. I can’t believe he let them all out.”

David took the macaws back to their cage while the rest of us went inside the medical office. If anything had happened to Caesar then I wanted video evidence, in case it needed to be used against Brandon later, so I kept recording with my phone. Fortunately, Caesar was still resting on the operating table, his torso rising and falling as he breathed.

“Oh thank goodness,” Rachel said as she checked on him. “Everything is fine.”

“What happened with him?” I asked. “Did you figure it out?”

She grabbed two round spheres from the table and held them up. “Brandon fed him these two neodymium magnets. They were pinching his intestines together. He’s fine now, but…”

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