Page 54 of Wolf Bound

“I am, but I’ll have to defer to Dan on the topic,” Kira said.

Carl smiled. “What about you?” He raised his fork to point it at Fisher.

“I’m just here to help the USF special agents in any way that I can,” Fisher said.

“Yeah, but from what I learned, one of the kidnappers shot you. Was it the one who is in jail?” Carl asked.

“Is that why Ricky and Kolby bit you?” Fisher drank some of his water. “Because you asked too many questions?”

Carl smiled and lifted his garlic toast off his plate. “It was just all a big misunderstanding. How was I to know that they were cougar shifters and not real cougars?” Carl took a bite out of his toast and then ate some more of his ravioli.

“So how does this work for you now that you’re a cougar too? Do you report on fun happenings? But stay away from anything that might lead human law enforcement here?” Kira finished her meal.

The girls finished their cake and were dismissed to watch animated features in the den. The dog ran off to join the girls.

“Yeah, sure. Social events, births, deaths, weddings, awards, and commendations—the usual stuff. But I also report on any human trouble we have here. Like a couple of cars filled with humans racing down our highway, who eventually wrecked with each other, or human hunters targeting animals on our land. I say ours because the land is for all the cougars in Yuma Town. When it comes to shifter news—I mean in the real sense of the word—I have to be careful. Now, if a human tried to kidnap a cougar, that’s frontline news because they are turned over to the human police, based on that and any other crimes he or she has committed.

“One of the worst cases we had was a human woman who tried to steal one of three triplets from the clinic after a cougar shifter passing through here had birthed them. It was a brazen act on the kidnapper’s part, but she didn’t stand a chance to even grab one. Not when she smelled like a human and Dan, Chase, and Stryker were called in to arrest her. She swore up and down that one of the babies was hers and that the mother had stolen the one from her,” Carl said. “Of course, Dr. Kate had delivered them so she knew differently. Not to mention the woman was human and the babies were all cougars, in their human form at the time.”

“Oh, wow,” Kira said. “How did the woman even know about the triplets being born?”

“She was at Mrs. Fitz’s shop when the lady went into labor there and then the would-be baby-napper followed the ambulance to the clinic. The woman hung around the waiting room since there was such a hustle and bustle of nurses and both doctors working together with the cougar mother in delivery. No one even noticed the baby-napper until she came down the hall, looking for the babies. That’s when a nurse asked what she was doing in the clinic—because she was human and didn’t belong—though she didn’t tell her that. If someone has an emergency, they’ll take care of a human, then send them to another city, usually Colorado City, to take care of the patient.”

Kira couldn’t imagine anything more horrible than one of the mother’s babies going missing just after she’d had them. And what a shock it would be to the kidnapper when she discovered the baby was a cougar, not totally human.

“Anyway, FBI agents were following her case, looking for her after she had tried the same thing at three other clinics in Colorado. She’d told her husband she was having his child, and that was the only reason he was staying with her. She’d never been pregnant. Dan and Chase arrested her and then turned her over to the FBI. She went to prison, and her husband divorced her,” Carl said.

“That’s good,” Kira said.

“Right. So those kinds of stories I’m able to report on. The cougar mother and her triplets went back to Denver where her husband was working and she was reunited with him,” Carl said.

“So what’s your story?” Fisher asked Carl.

“I’m an investigative reporter. I’ve dug up dirt on cases where no one wants to go. Of course, once I became a cougar, my focus had to change because the cougars work together to take care of each other. We don’t have crime and corruption among the cougar residents of Yuma Town. Which was a real shock to me in the beginning. I was used to every town, big and small, having dirty little secrets. Like one small town where they had high stakes gambling, and the Mafia was involved. You would never believe it because they operated out of a shoddy, no-name, square, concrete-block building. They brought diamonds in, drugs, money. It was a real snake pit.”

“Did you uncover it?”

“Are you kidding? Government corruption is more my style. And murder cases. When you get into dealings with the Mafia, you go missing, end of story. I’m all for getting to the nitty gritty of a situation, but not with the Mafia. In another case that I was investigating, this guy stole all kinds of money from investors?—”

“Boy, that happens a lot,” Kira said.

“Yep. But he also had murdered his wife and told investigators that she flew away to somewhere else to get away from it all. They could never prove it, but when the Securities and Exchange Commission went after him, he committed suicide. So he might have gotten off with murdering his wife, but miffed investors—who had lost lots of money while investing in his scam—finally got him. They were offered so much money as a return on their investments. They should have realized it was a shady deal. Lawyers, judges, doctors, anyone who had money were in on it.”

“And you reported on it,” Fisher said.

“I sure did. His son and daughter knew he’d murdered his wife. He had a mistress, even though he was still married. He just didn’t want to have to give up half his money and estates to his wife if he had divorced her,” Carl said.

“The woman he was with didn’t know the risk she was taking by staying with a murderer.” Shannon began clearing away dishes and Kira helped her.

“So true. I reported on a case where a husband had killed three of his wives before the police got wise to what he was doing.” Carl glanced at Chase. “No offense. If you were in charge of the investigation, you would have checked into his background and realized three accidental deaths were a bit much, especially when they had huge insurance payouts. And two of the deaths were identical—falls in bathtubs and subsequent accidental drownings. He figured he got away with it that many times, he might as well keep going with the same scheme. Easy money and lots of it. Most of the criminals like him believe they are smarter than everyone else.”

“Exactly,” Chase said.

Kira came back with slices of cake for Chase and Fisher. Carl was still eating his lunch. Then she went back to the kitchen to get some cake for herself and for Shannon. Shannon was making a pot of coffee and brewing tea for whoever wanted it.

Then Carl finished his toast and ravioli and took his plates into the kitchen. “Is this slice of cake for me?”

“Yep,” Kira said, having cut him a piece in case he wanted some. She figured he would.

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