Page 54 of Stray Cat

“Lindsay.”Xav didn’t know if she still had her earpiece, though she couldn’t answer him through it even if she did.

Xav headed straight for where he’d seen her last, his men falling in behind him. He felt a pull to her, even when he couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her, as though she’d tossed an invisible rope to him.

Come on, Xav. Keep up.

She hadn’t really said that or projected it into his head—Xav didn’t think. But he knew that’s what she’d been conveying when she’d glanced back at him from the ridge.

He scrambled up the slope where she’d waited to find that it ended at the edge of a steep drop. Below him lay a smooth stretch of desert floor, another dry lake bed whose sands spread out in a pale smudge.

In the middle of this smudge lay a pile of debris. Lindsay and Tiger stood on either side of it, contemplating it in silence.

Xav pushed up his goggles and searched for a way down, finding the cut of a dry wash that snaked to the bottom of the steep hill. Paw prints were impressed into the wash’s dust, so he knew Lindsay had taken this route.

Xav smothered curses as he slipped and slid along in her wake, wishing he had the nimbleness of a Shifter. Grunts and smothered growls behind him told him his men weren’t thrilled with the path either.

They made it to the bottom without mishap, and Xav led his men cautiously toward where Tiger and Lindsay waited.

The remains of a helicopter, an R44, Xav could see, lay on its side, parts from its twisted blades scattered on the ground around it. The pilot had tried to set down in the lake bed but hadn’t been entirely successful.

The copter hadn’t caught fire, though these models had that history, and obviously the men had all managed to escape. Jeff must have been in the seat that hit the ground inside, with the frame bending around it.

Thankfully Jeff’s fellow passengers hadn’t been callous enough to simply leave him there. Though if they’d realized then how injured he was, Xav thought darkly, they might have.

Dean had been with them, Jeff had said. Though R44s only sat three and a pilot, and Jeff had been hurt, Dean must not have been able to get away from the other two. He’d been forced to walk out with them to whoever had come to pick them up.

That the three men had been retrieved, Xav had no doubt. If not, Xav’s team would have found their bodies littering the way to the crash site.

“Why did they come here in the first place?” Xav wondered. “If they were moving to a new compound, why fly out to the middle of nowhere? Were they setting up someplace near here?”

“That Jeff guy might know,” Mitchell said, sounding more like his usual self. “Though if he’s low in the hierarchy, as he claims, they wouldn’t necessarily tell him.”

“AC tased him before he could say very much. I have to wonder why.” Xav moved to Lindsay as he contemplated the sad remains of the copter. “Smell anything interesting?” he asked her.

Tiger was moving aside the remains of the door that had stuck into the air. He leaned over the body of the helicopter and peered inside.

“Careful,” Mitchell told him. “There might still be fuel leaking. Sparks can trigger a fire.”

Tiger ignored him. He’d know how to prevent the remains catching fire—the man knew how to do everything else, so why not this too?

Lindsay quietly left Xav’s side and joined Tiger. She leapt softly onto the top of the wreck, it moving not at all with her weight, and delicately sniffed the interior.

When Tiger lifted himself away from the door, Lindsay slipped past him and dropped inside.

Xav watched in horror as the entire helicopter groaned with the impact of her landing and slowly rolled over on its rounded frame, trapping Lindsay inside.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Lindsay!Shit.”

Xav sprinted to the helicopter, panic giving him a burst of speed, his men pounding behind him.

Tiger put one hand on the fuselage and easily pushed it upright. Lindsay slithered from the small opening he made, shook herself out, then looked around with mild surprise at the gathered men.

What?

Xav didn’t imagine the word this time. He read it in her eyes.

“Damn it, Linds, what the hell were you thinking?”

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