Disclaimer: I have absolutely no right to use these characters, just an abiding admiration for the creative work of the cast and crew of The Pretender.  All rights to all characters within this story are owned by NBC and the fine folks who created and slaved over this sorely-missed gem of a series.  Although the story is original, it is a "derivative work" and I claim no copyright.  No profits are made in any way in the writing or distribution of the work.  It is written solely for creative enjoyment.

Jarod smelled the body before he saw it, a rank green reek in the heat of the scrub forest. He shot a look toward Tom Marsh, who was walking with him, and got a grimace of apology.

"Sorry about springing it on you like this, Jarod, but I wanted you to see what we're up against around here," Marsh said. He was a big man, not quite running to fat, whose khaki uniform looked neat and well-pressed in spite of the oppressive Texas heat. He'd been manager of the Mohan Tiger Preserve for only a year, but his credentials – Jarod had checked them – put him at the San Diego Zoo for five years before that, and showed a career stretching back through twenty years of preservation efforts. Marsh didn't look as old as his resume suggested. Jarod would have guessed late thirties, but the man's true age had to be mid-forties. "Watch your step. Hope you're not queasy."

"Not so far," Jarod said truthfully. One of the benefits of being a Pretender: he didn't have the emotional grounding most people did that led them to be sickened by what they saw. His reactions were more complex, and in some ways more powerful. He could shift who he was to keep the nausea at bay. He couldn't change the core of how he judged what he saw, or how he experienced the trauma of the victims. That made more of a lasting scar.

On the whole, he would have preferred to let himself be nauseated.

Marsh gave him a long look, clearly disbelieving, and led him into the thicket.

Together they picked their way carefully through the heavy underbrush, past poison oak and thickly grown scrub oaks that struggled for light. Some of the bushes had thorns, and Jarod had to move slowly to avoid the worst of it. The smell worsened, clawed at the back of his throat, and he couldn't stifle a dry cough.

"Keep that gun ready," Marsh said softly. They both had their tranquilizer guns – loaded with ecopromazine, the best for the job – and Marsh carried a loaded rifle slung across his back, for insurance.

"Are you expecting visitors?"

"You never know," Marsh said. "I've been surprised before."

Then they cleared the underbrush, and Jarod saw the body. It lay on its side in the tall sun-parched grass, butchered. Flies buzzed in a thick black cloud, busy at their work. For an instant Jarod thought it was human, but then he pulled on the knowledge he'd gathered in preparation for this job, and he knew he was looking at a tiger.

The poachers had taken everything of use. Her long, elegant teeth, her thick orange-and-black pelt, her vital organs, her claws. They'd left the meat to rot.

"Hilda," Marsh said. His voice sounded heavy in his chest. "God damn it. She was young, just reaching full adult. One of our breeding successes."

Jarod said nothing. The decomposing body of the Bengal tiger was surrounded by a dark corona of splashes – they'd butchered her here, probably alive because they must have darted her to bring her down. They wouldn't have risked rifle shots here on the preserve. The tranquilizer guns were silent, efficient, and they made this kind of murder easy.

Jarod sank down to his haunches, feeling the hot stare of the sun on the back of his neck, sweat sliding cold down his back. It hadn't rained in weeks – an unnatural dry season in Central Texas – and whatever prints there were around the dead tiger were worthless.

"I looked at the security tapes," Marsh continued. "We got nothing coming in or going out at any of the gates – not that it means anything, there's miles of fence around this place, it's impossible to cover all of it. She's the fourth tiger I've lost, Jarod. Now, Samiyya Ramaj vouches for you and says you're the best at what you do; I got no quarrel with that. If you can nail down these bastards, I'm all for it. Now, first things first: I need you to tell me if we're dealing with some kind of satanic amateurs here."

"Satanic or not, they're not amateurs," Jarod said. "They tracked her, they darted her, and they did what they came to do. They didn't leave any trail sign to speak of – and they did it in the dark. What does that suggest to you?"

Marsh's eyebrows rose. "Professionals?"

"Or somebody who knew exactly where to find her. Somebody whose tracks wouldn't stand out because they were supposed to be here. Somebody who was familiar to the tigers and could get close without spooking them." Jarod raised his eyes this time and looked at Marsh.

Marsh didn't like the implication. "My keepers are good people, Jarod. They care about these animals. I can't see any of 'em … doing this." Marsh looked down on the corpse, and Jarod saw the fury in his eyes, quickly smothered. "Whoever it is, I want 'em. You find them for me, Jarod. I'll take care of the rest."

Jarod nodded, but in acknowledgement, not agreement. He was capable of mercy – to a fault, sometimes – but mercy wouldn't enter into this. A human being who'd butcher a magnificent animal like Hilda – butcher her alive, for money – didn't register on his mercy scale. What did was all of the ways – many, so many – that he could pay the killer back for his crimes against a fragile species faced with extinction.

"God damn them," Marsh said, and shook his head. "I want to check on Xavier and Angel before we head back. Make sure these bastards didn't make a night of this kind of thing. Unless you're in a hurry."

"No hurry," Jarod said. "I'd like to see them again."

He'd only met the tigers twice since his arrival, but he knew it was one of those things that would linger in his memory, along with his first taste of ice cream, the feel of the evening breeze on his face after all the years in the Centre, his first kiss. They burned, shimmered with power and beauty. And looking in their eyes was like looking into eternity.

Marsh's smile was humorless. "Just so long as you don't see 'em too close. Tigers are beautiful. Trustworthy's another matter."

Xavier was a huge male Bengal, easily four hundred pounds, majestic and beautiful. Angel was a female, only about thee hundred pounds, elderly by tiger standards – and wilier than her younger cousins. The matriarch of the preserve, Angel had put two handlers in the hospital over the years, and frightened the daylights out of a dozen more.

Jarod had done his homework. In fact, in a pinch, he was convinced he could work with the tigers himself. Not a good idea, of course; half of working with a tiger was them knowing you. No amount of research could give him that.

"Do you want to bury her? I'll help." Jarod asked. Marsh shot him a grateful look.

"Later. It'll take time to do that, and she ain't going anywhere, poor thing. I owe it to the ones still alive to make sure they stay that way. Damn, this is terrible."

Jarod looked back at the corpse of Hilda, less than four years old, stripped of skin and violated in the worst possible way.

"Yes," he said. "But I promise you, it'll be worse for the poachers."

An animal preserve. Miss Parker liked animals just fine – preferably mounted and stuffed, or artfully arranged on a dinner plate. She braked the black rental Lincoln to a purring stop, stared at the sign that read TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN, and said, in a deadly quiet voice, "Broots, you'd better be sure about this."

She had picked him up two miles down the road, after a blissful several hours without him; he was now leaning forward in her personal space. She considered throwing an elbow back at him to reinforce that point, but decided to be generous. Broots had showered and put on some nice aftershave, for once – nothing picked out by his daughter. Or his daughter was beginning to develop taste, thanks to her Parker proximity.

"I just checked out the diner down the road. Positive ID on Jarod. He's definitely here, or at least he was yesterday," he said breathlessly. "The waitress thought he was a real blue plate special. Want to hear how I figured it out?"

"You pulled me out of a weekend at a spa, Broots. Massages by a Swedish weight lifter named Yurgen. Believe me, I don't want to know."

"Hotel rooms. I did a random search for hotel rooms paid for by people Jarod has known associations with – and after all this time, there's a hell of a lot of them -- "

"If you won't shut up, at least do Cliff Notes."

"Hotel room paid for by Vikesh Ramaj in Pineview, Texas, and a man named Jarod Perkins who's taken a job at the Mohan Tiger Preserve. Which is funded by Vikesh Ramaj, who is, incidentally, one of the richest men in India." Broots sucked down a quick breath. "I didn't want to let you know until I was pretty sure, uh, about the facts. In case."

Broots had learned her tolerance level for mistakes the hard way.

"Next time, no field work," she said. "Be more careful."

"You were worried?" He sounded hopeful, and maybe just a little smug. She met his eyes in the rear view mirror, and he quickly looked away.

"You might have spooked him," she said. "Next time you think for yourself, I'll make sure you get a job sorting punch cards down in the basement."

Broots found something to study on the carpet.

"Does this Vikesh Ramaj have some connection to Jarod?" Sydney asked. He had the passenger side – normally, what Miss Parker would have thought of as the shotgun seat, but the idea of Sydney with a shotgun was ridiculous – and even after several hours in the car he looked dapper and polite. It was a façade, of course. Sydney was as capable of violence as the next guy, if pushed.

She liked that about him.

"Vikesh's daughter Samiyya was kidnapped here in the U.S. by some bad guys out in L.A. about four months ago Her description of the man who rescued her matches Jarod's."

"So our tycoon gives Jarod a job here for a cover," Miss Parker finished. "I wonder how many other 'favors' he's collecting. No wonder it's hard for us to stay on his trail."

"It may not be all philanthropy," Broots said. "Locals say there's been trouble on the Preserve – poachers. Somebody's butchering tigers out there."

"And Jarod's an animal lover," Miss Parker said. She put the car in gear and accelerated past the NO TRESPASSING warning. "He should be worrying about saving his own ass."

No one else got the joke.

The Tiger Preserve office looked more like Little House on the Prairie than Daktari – a straight-up log cabin, wood scrubbed gray by time and elements. Parker pulled the Lincoln to a stop in the dust-paved parking area. She directed Sydney and Broots around to the back, pulled her Beretta nine millimeter pistol, and checked the clip. Full, nothing under the hammer. She returned it to the leather pancake holster under her arm, pushed up her sunglasses, and went up the three warping steps to the cabin.

"Help you?"

The interior was murky, and the sunglasses didn't help. She took them off and saw a big dark-skinned man sitting at a little desk, a pen in his hand and a file open in front of him. He had on a uniform of some kind – khaki. God, she hated khaki, it was so – Wal-Mart. She looked into his face, stepped forward, and offered him a toothy smile and open hand. He rose to his feet to accept.

"Ben Cox," he said. "Miss – "

"Parker," she supplied. "Ben, I'm looking for a friend of mine – Jarod? It's pretty urgent that I find him. Family emergency."

She put as much into the lie as she could, but she couldn’t tell if it took; he had an expressionless face, and the shadows were too deep to tell much about his eyes. His handshake was dry and firm, and he dropped her quickly.

"Emergency, huh?" he said. Her smile froze to her lips.

"Seconds count."

"Jarod lit out of here two days ago," Cox said. "Left us in a world of trouble, I can tell you – got twenty-three tigers to feed and care for here, and he was just getting to know the place."

"So he's gone."

"Like the wind, Miss Scarlett."

Her pantsuit was wine-red, but she didn't see the humor. "Any idea where he went? His father wants to see him before the end. Dying. You know."

Ben Cox was no fool. He sat down in his small chair, leaned back with a squeal wood and springs, and smiled. A nice, gentle, cynical smile.

"I had the impression Jarod didn't have any family to speak of. None he knew much about, anyway."

A radio crackled in the corner, loud in the silence, and Jarod's voice said, "Ben, you got me? Come back. We're heading out to Xavier, then to Angel."

Ben's eyes locked with hers – amazingly, he held on to the smile. Miss Parker smiled too, reached under her jacket and took out the Beretta. It was still on safety, no bullet in the pipe, but he didn't have to know that.

"So much for the subtle approach," she said, and aimed the gun at Ben. "Okay, nature boy, answer the radio. Tell him to head back. Say anything about me and you won't have a problem finding tiger food for a couple of days."

"I can't do that," Ben said. He slowly raised his hands, but his eyes never left Miss Parker's face. "Jarod's with Tom Marsh, and they're on a schedule. They're making meat drops to the other tigers. We can't miss feedings. Very bad for discipline. If I tell him to interrupt that, he'll know something's wrong."

That sounded right. Hell, it even sounded logical. Parker thought fast.

"Fine. Ask him where he's heading, and then you and I take a little drive."

He stared at her, perplexed. "Out into the preserve?"

"Wherever Jarod is."

"You're sure you want to go out there – "

"You know, Ben, if you add a 'little lady' to that I'll staple your belly button to your backbone."

As Ben called Jarod, his tone careful and measured, she stared at the poster on the wall next to his head. It had a snarling tiger, its golden eyes fixed and gleaming, and the caption read RESPECT ME. She imagined Jarod's face on the poster, that patented smirk on his face. About time you learned to respect me, Jarod. Today was the day, she could feel it. Today she was going to have him right where she wanted him.

When the call was over, she turned back. Ben was staring at her again.

"Who sent you out here?" His eyes were dark and unblinking. The Beretta was a big gun, with a lot of stopping power, but something about the way he looked at her made it seem small. "What agency?"

"FBI," she shot back, and gestured him to the door. "Move it."

There was another khaki uniform coming up the log cabin steps when she followed Ben outside. This one was female, mid-thirties, dark straight hair, and in spite of some natural good looks, she'd obviously never made friends with the makeup counter. Good hips, though. Even in industrial-grade work pants.

"Ben?" Her breath sucked in on his name. "What's going on?"

"Name," Miss Parker demanded. The woman looked frozen in terror. "Your name."

"Gina. Gina Patarski."

"She's FBI," Ben rumbled. Some people, Parker thought, would fall for anything; she hadn't even flashed a fake badge. Broots looked confused. Sydney, as Sydney always did, looked unmoved. His eyebrows might have ratcheted up a micrometer.

"Oh." Gina's breath was still coming too fast, her cheeks flushed with splotches. "What – what do you want me to do?"

"Broots," Parker said. He snapped to attention. "This is Special Agent Broots, he'll need to make some calls to our regional office. Broots, get the chopper down here, and a sweeper team, just to be on the safe side. Don't let them give you any crap."

"Okay," he nodded. "Uh – be careful."

She spared a nod back and gestured Ben into the dusty, scratched, sun-faded Jeep that squatted next to the Lincoln. He climbed into the driver's seat, and she strapped in on the passenger side. Slid her sunglasses on. Smiled.

"It's a beautiful day, Ben," she said, and chopped the smile short. "Drive."

Xavier paced restlessly back and forth twenty feet away, rumbling low in his throat. His golden eyes never left Jarod's, and Jarod didn't break the stare. Weakness was death with a tiger like this – a second's lapse in attention, and Xavier would move. He'd been darted enough to be cautious around men with guns, but no tiger was ever completely trustworthy.

"Toss out that haunch of meat," Marsh said. "I've got you covered."

Jarod slowly reached back and grabbed the food. He gently set the meat down on the dry grass, no sudden moves, and watched Xavier go still except for the twitch of his tail. His orange and black fur blazed under the sun. He was beautiful and terrifying and wonderful. And so fragile. There were less than four thousand Bengals left in the entire world, and the Bengals were by far the healthiest of the different tiger species. Panthera tigris tigris had cousins who had been hunted to extinction in Java and Bali, and there were less than ten Korean tigers left. Large as China was, only thirty-five remained there. It was sad, disheartening, and something he couldn't solve.

But I can save this tiger, he thought. I can at least do that. That's how we do it, one tiger at a time.

A fly buzzed by Jarod, heading happily for the meat. He brought up his tranquilizer gun, still moving slowly, as Marsh lowered his and eased the Jeep to a slow retreat. Xavier followed, moving casually, pacing after them until he was standing by the haunch of meat. Even then, it wasn't really decided; Xavier watched them for several more seconds, toying with the idea of making a run, then abandoned it and began biting off chunks of raw flesh.

Jarod let out his breath in a sigh and lowered the tranquilizer gun as Marsh accelerated over the bumpy grassland, heading for the edge of Xavier's territory and into Angel's.

"Do you think he knows about Hilda?" Jarod asked. Marsh shot him a look. He had a striking pair of light blue eyes.

"I'd like to say yes, but they're not that smart, Jarod."

"Xavier was her father," Jarod said. "Right?"

Marsh nodded. The Jeep bounced hard over a rut, and Jarod grabbed for a handhold.

"Then he knows." Jarod had seen it in his eyes, a blind and helpless fury, the feeling that the world was closing in around him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Jarod knew quite a lot about that feeling.

"Heads up," Marsh said. "We're in Angel's territory. Watch your back."

There was a vast difference between speeding down the road in a convertible Corvette and bouncing through the Texas countryside in an open-top Jeep. The sun was brutal. The wind was harsh and hot. And the bugs. Mosquitos, flies, God only knew what. By the time they'd covered two miles, Miss Parker dearly longed for a change of clothes and a hot shower, and a big can of OFF. She wanted to shoot something, but the bugs were too small. Ben was another candidate, but he was driving.

In a manner of speaking.

"Hang on," Ben said, and bounced the Jeep hard into a rut. She grabbed for the roll bar with her free hand and tried to keep from whiplash. Up ahead, something orange and black flashed through the grass. Parker stared at it, transfixed. Tiger. She'd known they were loose out here, but they were loose and she was in an open Jeep.

"Hey!" she yelled. Ben's shaved head turned minutely toward her. "How much farther?"

"About a half a mile," he said. "Angel's territory is all the way at the back of the preserve. That's where they were heading."

"What about the tigers?"

He glanced over at her, and his lips split in a white-toothed grin.

"If you get nervous, show 'em your gun," he suggested, and laughed.

Half a mile farther on, Ben hit the brakes and slid the Jeep to a stop in a haze of dust. The engine ticked and puttered fretfully.

"End of the line," Ben said. "Out of the Jeep."

"Out? I don't think so."

"You want Jarod, you'd better do this my way, lady. I can't get the Jeep any closer than this."

"There are tigers out here."

Ben handed her a tranquilizer gun – handy, if she needed to shoot Jarod on the run – and slung a for-real rifle on his shoulder.

"Two things," Ben said. "These tigers don't know you. Don't mess with them. Maybe they won't mess with you."

She took a deep breath. "What's number two?"

"If you have to shoot, aim for the shoulder or sides. And don't miss. I don't want to have to waste a valuable animal to save your pretty hide. You only have two tranks loaded."

Parker's eyebrow rose as she considered it. She let the muzzle of her rifle drift toward him.

"After you," she said. "Ben."

Angel was playing hard to get. She wasn't waiting at the feeding site – unusual for her – and she wasn't at any of her usual places. Jarod had begun to feel a true sense of disquiet when he heard her growling on the other side of the brush, and saw her outline passing through the grass. Even though her color was brilliant, she blended well with the grasses, seeming to drift and disappear when he didn't concentrate. From time to time he caught the golden glint of her eyes watching the Jeep.

"You're good with 'em," Marsh said. He looked entirely at ease, but he was watching the brush with alert, cool eyes. "You're not afraid of 'em. Tigers sense that. Angel likes you better than she likes anybody else I've ever seen. If she's planning to come out at all, she'll do it for you."

"I've barely even met her."

"Maybe you have that effect on women," Marsh grinned. "First time we drove out here, she came out and looked at you. That ain't Angel's way. She hangs back, watches five or six times before she ever shows herself. She's unpredictable, too. Nearly took Ben's face off two months ago, no reason at all."

"She's a good judge of character," Jarod said.

Marsh froze in the act of unwrapping the new cut of meat. He looked up at Jarod questioningly.

"I did some digging," Jarod continued. "Ben's real name is Ishmael Greene, and he's wanted by the FBI for smuggling. He's also got several counts of hunting out of season and hunting federally protected animals, too."

Marsh's face drained of color. "Ben? Not Ben. No."

"I just got the confirmation last night – too late for Hilda, but we can save the others," Jarod said. "I wish that was all I had to tell you, but it's worse, I'm afraid. Mr. Ramaj isn't going to be very happy."

He didn't have time to tell Marsh any more of it, because the brush crackled, and Angel stepped into the sunlight.

And snarled.

A tiger's snarl isn't like anything else. Miss Parker froze completely, not even moving her eyes, and beside her Ben Cox slowly sank down to one knee in the brush and brought his gun up to his shoulder. In the clearing was a Jeep, and there were two men in it. One was Jarod, who managed to make khaki look good. But in spite of her obsession, Parker couldn't keep her eyes on him.

There was a tiger standing in the clearing, not five feet from the Jeep. A big tiger. Her fur glowed like an open flame, her eyes glittered like wet gold. She was growling low in her throat, pacing back and forth, never taking those eyes off of Jarod.

Jesus, she's going to eat him, Parker thought. The heavy tranquilizer gun in her hand suddenly felt like a Super Soaker. Then she's going to eat me. She needed a big damn gun. An anti-tank weapon.

The tiger's head suddenly snapped toward where she and Ben were hidden, and those gold eyes glowed brighter than the sun. Parker's breath locked tight in her throat.

Ben let out a hiss of breath and fired. Parker, expecting the snap-hiss of a tranquilizer gun, flinched at the explosive crack of a rifle bullet.

Jarod tumbled out of the Jeep. She cried out, turning toward Ben.

The butt of his rifle caught her in the ribs, snapping bone, sending her gagging to her knees. The pain was so luminous that she hardly felt the second blow at all.

The world went gray, except for the large, gold, luminous eyes of the tiger.

Crack.

The glancing impact of the bullet drove Jarod sideways into a smeared world of color and brilliant cascading pain. He felt himself falling. Seconds later, when he opened his eyes, he saw the sky bending blue overhead, and felt blood on the side of his face, and knew he was in trouble.

Marsh tried to reach down for him. Jarod waved him weakly off. Rifle. The bullet had ploughed a bloody furrow along the side of his head, at the very least given him a serious concussion. But if there was a rifle, somebody was firing it, and the somebody probably wasn't finished.

Angel was nowhere to be seen. She was familiar with the sound of a gun, and had made herself scarce, but Jarod could still feel her presence, smell her heavy scent hanging in the air.

"Jarod!" Marsh grabbed hold of his shoulder and tried to haul him up by main strength. "Get in!"

"Get out of here! Go!" Jarod mumbled, but the second shot drowned out his words.

Marsh's khaki shirt exploded in a shower of red. He looked surprised, reached up to touch the hole.

"Jarod?" he asked. A trickle of blood ran out of the corner of his mouth. "Oh God."

His muscles let go and he slid bonelessly down across the passenger side of the Jeep. He breathed three more times, deep hitching breaths that bubbled blood at his lips, and he kept watching Jarod as if he was waiting for an explanation.

And then he was gone.

Despite the nausea, the pain, Jarod rolled himself away from the direction of the gunshots and put the heavy metal shield of the Jeep between himself and the shooter. With luck, he might be able to get to Marsh's rifle before blood loss and the disorientation of the concussion got to him.

Luck wasn’t with him.

Angel's head poked through the grass and regarded him with brilliant, cold eyes. Low rumble in her throat, a twitch at the edges of her lips as if she considered a snarl. Jarod tried to hold her stare.

Couldn't. The pain –

When he looked up again, she snarled, showing teeth, and her eyes looked cold and distant. He'd failed. Failed completely.

She jumped.

She missed him. He gasped as her back claws scratched the ground only inches from his arm, and then she sprang in the air again, front claws stretched, snarl ripping the air like rotten silk.

She landed on top of Ben Cox, who'd been about to put a final bullet through Jarod's head. Cox got off one last shot – not into Jarod.

Into the tiger.

Miss Parker staggered upright just as Angel landed on Ben, an orange blur of teeth and claws. Those claws dug deep in his chest and stomach, ripping red. The tiger grabbed his neck in her mouth and bit so hard Parker heard the crunch of bone from ten feet away. The air reeked with the smell of violated bowels. Angel snarled again and bit at him, savaged him with a fury.

Ben wasn't screaming. Ben was a limp rag doll of torn flesh.

Jesus Christ.

Jarod said, barely a whisper, "Parker, don't move. She's wounded."

Parker fumbled for her gun, found it and brought it up to her shoulder.

"Don't," Jarod said. He crawled away from Angel, from the bodies, moving slowly toward her. "A tranquilizer dart won't stop her. Not now."

Angel looked up from Ben's body. She had a mouthful of – well, it was Ben – and her eyes focused on Parker, holding the gun, then on Jarod, crawling away. A low rumbling started in Angel's throat, and this time it was a clear, menacing threat. In the striped hot light that rippled through the trees, Parker clearly saw the bullet wound in Angel's side, the burning red splash of blood on her fur.

Parker stepped out of the underbrush the last two or three feet and crouched next to Jarod, who pulled himself to a sitting position against a scrub oak's trunk.

"What do we do?" Parker whispered.

"Nothing," Jarod said. "Look inoffensive. Keep the gun ready. She's wounded, and she's got the smell of blood."

"How's the head?"

"Attached," Jarod said. "Barely. Watch out for – "

He didn't have time to finish.

Angel leaped for them.

Jarod shoved Parker out of the way and grabbed the tranquilizer gun from her, put it to his shoulder in one smooth, effortless motion, and fired. The tiger seemed to twist in mid-air to avoid it, and the dart sailed past, a clean miss.

Parker rolled, banged her head on a tree, shook off sparks, and heard the tiger roaring.

Oh my God. Jarod was under the tiger.

"Jarod!" She screamed it, but the tiger's screams outweighed her. He only had seconds to live, at most.

Parker threw herself down next to the carnage that had been Ben Cox, grabbed his fallen rifle, came up rolling, and fired. Not, after all, into the tiger, but directly over her head. Angel flinched, ears flattening, and dived sideways into the brush.

Jarod lay crumpled in the grass. As Parker kept the gun steady, watching the brush for another attack, she saw him try to get up.

"Oh," he said, looking down at himself. His shoulder and arm were a mass of tattered khaki and blood. "Damn."

His eyes rolled back in his head.

He collapsed.

"I'm sorry," Gina said, and leaned back from the desk. "You can check it yourself. The lines must be down."

Broots wanted to take her word for it. She was beautiful, in an anti-Miss-Parker kind of way; she had direct, warm eyes, long silky hair, and she looked good in a uniform. Also, she smelled good, like sunshine and peaches. But Miss Parker would mount his skin on the wall over her desk if he took anybody's word for anything where Jarod was concerned. He gave Gina an apologetic smile and picked up the receiver.

The phone was deader than Elvis.

"Broots," Sydney suggested. "Try your cell phone."

"Good luck," Gina shrugged. "Unless it's Iridium, it's not going to get a signal out here. Look, if you wait an hour, they'll have it up and running again – there's always trouble out on in the county. Things come and go. But they always come back. Meanwhile – want a drink? I have Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite – "

"Diet Dr. Pepper?" Broots asked hopefully. She smiled and walked to an ancient round-shouldered refrigerator. Broots dropped his voice and turned to Sydney. "She's gorgeous!"

Sydney didn't comment, except for a fleeting smile. "Miss Patarski, may I trouble you for water?"

"Sure. Sparkling or spring?"

"Spring will be fine." Sydney accepted a plastic bottle jeweled with condensation. Gina handed Broots a red-and-white can. "Perhaps we should, nevertheless, try the cell phones."

"Yeah," Broots agreed regretfully. "I'll – "

""I'll go outside and try to get a clear signal," Sydney said. "Thank you for the water."

He caught Broots' eye again, just for an instant, and Broots was stunned to realize that Sydney was giving him quality time to make a play. He swallowed and watched Sydney amble out the door, cell phone in hand, and turned back to look at Gina. She was also watching Sydney's departure, her Diet Coke unopened in her hand.

"Uh – " Broots tried for a decent beginning. "How – long have you been working here?"

"About a month," she said. "Your friend seems a little old for an FBI agent."

"He's – he's a profiler. You know, like on TV. Silence of the Lambs. That kind. They're usually older." Broots felt on firmer ground about that. "Field agents are younger."

"Like you."

"Well, I'm – " He took a deep swig of DDP to cover his nerves. " – not that young. I'm a technical guy, mainly."

"But you are an agent."

"We're investigating – " What the hell were they investigating? "The poaching. You know. Of the tigers."

"Really?" Gina's eyes went wide.

"Federal crime because, because the tigers are a federally protected species." Had he gone too far? No, she didn't look skeptical.

"I didn't think they'd send another agent," she said. "After Jarod, I mean."

"Jarod – " Of course, Jarod would have been posing as a government agent of some kind, that would have been his ultimate deep cover. Thinking fast, Broots said, "Yes, we're his extraction team. We're supposed to pull him out and take him to his new assignment."

He blinked, because when he lowered the can after taking a drink he could have sworn Gina was holding a gun.

Oh. She was holding a gun, a nice big handgun. And it was aimed at his head. Broots froze in the act of swallowing. Soda fizzed in his mouth.

"You're lying," Gina said. "Sit down."

He swallowed hard, choked, broke out into a coughing fit. She shoved him with the muzzle of the gun.

He sat. Gina reached in a drawer and found a roll of silver duct tape; she handed it to him.

"Tape your right arm to the arm of the chair."

"Gina." His voice was steady. That surprised him a lot. He actually sounded like he might be a Fed, or like somebody employed by the Centre for its black-bag operations. Like, in fact, what he was. "Gina, you really don't want to do this. Do you have any idea what the penalty for killing a federal agent is? If Texas gets you, it's the needle; even if they pass and you go up for the federal crime, you're looking at life in a federal pen."

Where the hell was he getting this, the dead-quiet tone, the needle and the pen? Miss Parker. He was channeling Miss Parker, only without the sarcasm, because it didn't seem such a great idea with a gun in his face.

"Tape," she said. He got the end of the tape started and wrapped it around his wrist. Then around the arm of the chair. "Good. Don't move."

She used the tape on his other wrist, locking him down. When she bent to do his ankles he thought about kicking her, but didn't. She still had the gun, and it looked to him like she knew exactly how to use it. Working for Miss Parker for a while had made him cautious about underestimating a woman.

"Gina," he tried again.

She ripped off a piece of duct tape and put it over his mouth. It occurred to him, a little mournfully, that this meant he'd never get to drink the rest of that Diet Dr. Pepper getting warm on top of the desk.

And Gina went after Sydney.

Jarod was losing blood, and he was out cold. Parker couldn't hold the rifle and do anything for him at the same time; she compromised and put the rifle across his stomach, where it would be easy to grab, and then took a deep breath and peeled the tatters of his khaki shirt away from his arm.

The blood was flowing, but it wasn't pumping. Not a severed artery, then – good news. But certainly more than enough coming out to finish him if it went on long. She moved the gun, unbuttoned his shirt and managed to get the thing off. His chest was lacerated, but the claw marks looked shallow enough, though bloody. It was the savage bite on his shoulder that worried her, and the deep parallel slashes down his arm.

"Parker." Jarod's voice was just a whisper, but it was lucid. She focused on his face and saw that his eyes were open, narrowed to dark slits by the pain. His normally tanned skin looked pallid from shock. "We have to move. She'll kill us if we stay here."

"The Jeep," she said. "Can you make it?"

"I'll make it."

He gave it a try, anyway, but he'd only made it a couple of steps when his knees buckled and Parker found herself trying to hold him up. He was heavy, sweaty, bloody, and while she might have a lot of advantages, upper body strength wasn't one of them. The best she could do was ease his fall. He was out again. She wrapped his torn shirt around his wounded arm, tied it as tight as she could, and left him to go to the Jeep.

The dead man was still sitting in the driver's seat, slumped over into the passenger side. Flies had already settled. She pressed her lips tight together and grabbed him under the arms and heaved for all she was worth.

Two hundred twenty pounds of dead weight, at least. She managed to drag him far enough to let gravity do the rest for her; he hit the ground with a sickening slap.

"Sorry," she muttered, and climbed into the driver's seat. The keys were in the ignition. She turned them.

The engine caught … sputtered … died. Steam hissed from the engine. Parker threw up the hood to stare inside at the big round hole in the radiator.

Ben, the asshole, had shot the radio, too. All right, no problem … Ben's Jeep was only five hundred feet or so beyond the scrub forest. Maybe a quarter-mile hike.

Through underbrush.

With a wounded man.

Stalked by a wounded tiger.

How the hell did I get into this?

Parker knelt next to Jarod and checked the bandage. Already soaked through. She applied pressure to the wound, as much as she dared, and heard his breathing change as the pain penetrated and dragged him back.

"Miss Parker," he said again. He sounded surprised. "What – "

"Shut up," she said. His eyes searched her face, and for a second she wondered what he was seeing. Not the Parker he was used to, certainly; this one was sweaty, bloodstained, dirty, and terrified. "The damn tiger's still around somewhere. What do I do?"

"Tiger?" He blinked hard and tried to focus. "Angel. She's been wounded -- "

"I'm not really interested in playing nursemaid to your kitty cat. She took a chunk out of you, Jarod, and she ate the face off of old Ben over there. And then I made her really mad."

Parker's nerves jangled as brush crackled somewhere behind them. She snapped around, bringing the gun up, but if there was anything there, it was laughing at her. She said, without looking down at Jarod, "We need to get out of here. You're going to bleed to death if we don't."

"I didn't know you cared," he said. It was a shadow of his usual tease, but she took it seriously. She also pushed harder on his arm, forcing a wince out of him.

"Of course I do, Jarod," she said. "You're a promotion for me back up to the Tower offices. You're my ticket to the top. I'm delivering you exactly the way Daddy wants you … alive."

"For a while," he murmured. "Until Raines is finished with me."

She knew that was what he was afraid of, more than anything else. And she understood it. She'd seen what Raines had done to others, what kind of hell Jarod would be walking into. She could imagine what it must be like to be at Dr. Raines' mercy, to be reduced to his lab rat in a maze of pain …

Enough of that shit. She wasn't about to sympathize with Jarod. Not even now.

"Sydney's going to take care of you," she said. "Trust me, Jarod."

"Oh, I do." For just a second his eyes caught and held hers, and it was as if he'd touched something so deep in her, so intimate, that she found herself holding her breath. His eyes widened. She wondered what he felt. If it was that same secret touch, it must frighten him, too.

"Get up," she said, and took his undamaged left arm to haul him to his feet again. "We're walking."

"To where?" He was a little steadier on his feet this time. His skin was the color of old oatmeal, but his eyes didn't roll back in his head.

"Jeep. That way. Outside of the scrub."

"We'll never make it," he said, "Angel's fast and aggressive, and she's enraged – "

"Join the club."

"Parker, we have to hole up and wait."

"You can't wait." She said it simply, but the tension was there. Jarod looked down at his arm, the sodden red mess of the shirt tied clumsily around it.

"I know a place to go," he said.

"This isn't the time to be pulling any fast ones."

"I'm not."

Parker met his eyes again. The weird flicker of connection hummed in her again, like a plucked string.

"Your funeral," she said. "Show me where to go."

Jarod's bolthole was a tiny wooden closet near the first feeding drop. Maybe a hundred yards total, an eternity of heat and sweat and bugs and fear. Angel paced them at a distance, announced by startled birds and the snap of twigs, and a low rumble that raised the hackles on Parker's neck.

"It's an emergency shelter," Jarod said between gasps for breath. "If a tiger catches the keepers, they try to make it to one of these. First aid kit, bottled water, flashlight, tranquilizer supplies, bullets."

"Radio?" Parker asked. Jarod would have smiled, she thought, but pain sucked it out of him. He was leaning hard on her, and blood dripped from his arm despite the tight makeshift bandage.

"Maybe," he said. It sounded truthful. He suddenly stiffened against her. "Freeze!"

She did, immediately, sweat running ice-cold down her back. Ahead she saw a blur streak through the underbrush. Angel? She thought Angel was behind them.

Jarod let out a held breath. "Move. Hurry."

"If I could ditch you I'd run."

"They'd bring you down like a gazelle." He gasped and missed a step; she took more of his weight and kept going, cursing under her breath, cursing Broots and Sydney and Jarod and the Centre, cursing the stupid idea of protecting animals in the first place. Next time she saw Angel, she was going to take the rifle and put two between those beady gold eyes. Preservation, hell. Who was preserving her?

"Parker," Jarod whispered. She glanced at him. His face had gone gray. "Parker I can't --"

His knees buckled. She eased him down to the ground and saw that the trickle of blood from his arm had become more like a thick red stream. She stripped off the blood-soaked shirt, tossed it aside, and ducked a sudden jet of blood. Arterial. Something had torn. Jesus, where the fucking chopper? She'd given Broots one simple assignment. Get a damn chopper. She should have known better …

Jarod's hand closed over hers. She looked at him, saw a ghost of a smile on his pale, pale lips.

"It's all right," he whispered. "At least I'm not alone. That's something."

Ice impaled her, right in the heart. She melted it with rage.

"You're not dying on me," she snapped. "Not unless I kill you."

She unbuttoned her shirt, her once-neat white shirt with its expensive French-cut collar, and began ripping it into bandages. She found a strong stick, tied two strips around his arm high up near the bicep, and used the stick to winch the tourniquet tight. The rest of her shirt went to bandage the deep lacerations farther down. Her camisole – pure silk – clung to her like a second skin, pasted with sweat.

"Jarod." She tapped his face with her fingers to make sure she had his attention. "Fifty feet. Let's move."

He didn't say anything. He heaved to his feet, settled against her, and staggered on.

A tiger came out of the underbrush between them and the small wooden shack that served as their only safety. Not Angel, after all. This one was bigger. Magnificent. Regal.

"Xavier," Jarod whispered. "He smells the blood. Whatever you do, don't look away from him."

Parker had the tranquilizer gun slung at rest over her shoulder, the rifle in her hand. She didn't want to kill this beautiful thing, but it was far too interested in Jarod's blood, which was also all over her.

She raised the rifle.

"Xavier." Jarod raised his voice, got the tiger's undivided attention. "Xavier, go! Go home! Now!"

He put an angry undertone to it. Parker kept very still as the tiger studied them, panting in the heat.

After a long, long moment, it turned and glided back into the underbrush. Jarod staggered, and Parker managed to steady him and hang on to the gun.

Fifty feet.

It was a long, long way, as torturous for Parker as it was for Jarod, but at last they staggered to the wooden door. Parker flung it open and started to muscle Jarod inside, but he resisted, his good hand hanging to the door frame.

"Wait," he said. "Check it first. Rattlesnakes get in sometimes. Black widow spiders."

"Jesus, I hate Texas," she muttered. She reached cautiously up on a tiny shelf for a flashlight, found it and switched it on. She shone it around the corners of the dirt floor. Something brown and shiny scuttled.

"Scorpion," Jarod said. It scurried on its way, ignoring Parker's yelp of disgust. "Clear."

She got him inside and slammed the door. It had a nice thick metal bolt, which she shot home, then checked the shelf. Bottled water. First aid kit.

Radio.

She grabbed it and switched it on, keyed the microphone. "Broots. Broots, do you read me? This is Parker. Pick up, damn it! We're at – the sign says Resupply Station 12, do you read me? You'd better have a chopper on the way. Broots, pick up!"

Jarod, sitting at her feet, looked like a ghost in the glow of the flashlight. He fumbled at the tourniquet around his arm and loosened it, hissing at the pain; blood flowed red, but slower this time. Which might only mean he didn't have much left to lose.

Nobody answered on the other end. She tried again.

"Nobody there," Jarod said. "Save your breath."

Parker put the radio mike down but left the power on. The first aid kit was in a neat white box next to the radio; she grabbed it and sat down next to Jarod, the flashlight on the floor between them. Thank God, bandages, disinfectant, painkillers.

She shoved the open box at Jarod.

"You're the doctor," she said. "Medicate."

He leaned his head back against the wooden wall and closed his eyes. She didn't like the shallow way he was breathing, or the way he was shivering. When she reached out to touch him, he was cold. His skin felt clammy.

Shock. Shock could kill, couldn't it? Constrict the blood vessels, starve the brain – She had to get him warm.

Yeah, right. He'd be warm enough. She was not going to live out any fantasies, not even her own.

"Jarod," she said sharply. "Stay awake. Look, I'll bandage, but you've got to supervise. That's the deal."

"Deal," he repeated, but she wasn't sure he understood. She reached across him and grabbed a thick roll of bandages and a bottle of alcohol; she stripped off the smeared remains of the shirt she'd put around his arm and opened the alcohol.

Jarod shut his eyes again.

She hesitated, hefting the bottle. "You know this is going to hurt."

"I know."

"Not ha-ha hurt. Hurt like the Inquisition."

His voice was surprisingly dry and strong. "Don't get sentimental, Parker. Just do it."

She upended the bottle directly it into the open wounds. He made a sound deep in his throat and went rigid, his muscles shaking with strain. Alcohol sluiced away blood. She worked quickly, wrapping new bandage around his shoulder, down his arm. She wrapped until she ran out of bandages, fastened the resulting mummy-arm with pieces of surgical tape, and opened another bottle. Not alcohol this time. Water. She offered it to Jarod, who drank thirstily. When he was done, she finished the bottle, tasting his sweat and blood on the plastic, overwhelmed by the closeness of him.

"Thanks for sacrificing your shirt." She was surprised to hear an echo of humor in his voice, but then, Jarod made a career out of surprising her. His self-control was inhuman – and she knew something about self-control.

"I'd say I'd take it out of your skin, but I'm not sure you have enough left to make a decent shirt." He was still shivering, his flesh goosebumped with chill. She found that deeply disturbing. In the flashlight beam, his skin looked gray, his lips translucently pale. Bleeding out. She forced herself to keep talking, to keep her voice dry and calm. "On the up side, once I have you back at the Centre, I can upgrade my wardrobe without having to plan for jaunts to Bumfuck, Texas."

"You don't have me there yet."

He was really shaking. She leaned close and rubbed his chilled flesh, tried to force heat back into him. God, it wasn't working. If the stifling heat of this tiger-box couldn't warm him up …

Body heat. It was the only thing she had.

"Not a word," she ordered, and sat down next to him. She couldn't stretch her legs out, but she managed a sort of cramped sprawl. "Move over."

"What?" He sounded as amazed as she felt.

"Just do it, damn it. Lean against me. You need to warm up, and body heat is not something I'm short on at the moment." It felt like a hundred degrees in the little airless room. It felt hotter with Jarod's weight against her. He settled back carefully, and all of a sudden she couldn't seem to get her breath. Jarod's body fit against hers so well, and it was all right just now to remember that he was, after all, drop-dead gorgeous …

Not the best turn of phrase, considering. He endured another bout of shivering. Without speaking, she put her arms around his chest and pulled him closer, trying to force her heat into him.

After what seemed like an eternity, the shivering passed. His skin felt a little warmer. A fly buzzed around Parker's head, and she swatted at it irritably and wished she were somewhere else, anywhere else, with Jarod lying here like this, his body pressed against her –

That's enough. It was her turn to shiver slightly. His unwounded hand touched hers, very lightly, and pulled goosebumps up and down her arms.

"Don't," she said, but it didn't have any real force behind it.

"You know what I regret most right now?" he asked.

"The return of bad '70s fashion?"

"You." That hit her hard, like a sucker punch to the gut. She opened her mouth, comebacks locked and loaded, but then he said, "I'm sorry I couldn't stop them. First they took your mother, then they hurt you in so many small ways – your father – Raines – all of them. I watched the life die in your eyes, Parker. And I didn't do anything. I'm sorry."

She didn't know what to say to that. All of those convenient, cruel ripostes sounded empty, now. He could die, she thought. Jarod could die right here in my arms. His skin was too pale, his shivering too intense. Blood loss and shock could kill him before Broots got off his ass and sent the cavalry.

"Let's not bond," she finally said.

"Parker."

"Don't Parker me. This isn't the time."

He turned to look at her. Seen this close, at kissing distance, his eyes were rich and brown and amazingly gentle in spite of the pain he must be feeling.

"Then what is it time for?"

She couldn't fence with this man, not for long; those eyes saw too deep, knew too much about her. He'd known how to get inside her head since they'd been children together, separated by walls and guards, touching only when others didn't see. A secret friendship, delicate as a soap bubble, that had somehow survived all those years of torment and terror. He was right, the Centre had killed her inside, except for what was hidden inside that bubble. There, she was still a child who'd felt the touch of his lips on hers.

"It's time for you to shut up." There, she'd delivered it in the right rude tone of voice, a rebuke that would have sent ninety-nine out of a hundred men fleeing. Not that there was anyplace to flee to, at the moment. "If you're having some delusional fantasy that just because we're half-naked and trapped and no one would ever know what we do in here – "

"I wasn't," he said, and sounded gently amused. "Were you?"

He was delicate enough not to drive the point into her like a stake into a vampire's heart. It was pretty obvious that she had been doing exactly that. And still was. Her skin felt too hot where it touched his, too cold and lonely where it didn't; his touch raised gooseflesh, and the smell of him, the feel of him, made her ache wildly in places he'd blush to know about. He did still blush, she assumed. He'd been so charming at it as a boy. She'd used to deliberately shock him, just to see the color rise up in his face …

"Parker?" he prompted. "Hypothetically speaking … if I hadn't just had my arm ripped open … "

"You'd have my hypothetical gun in your face."

"Don't you ever think – "

Oh, she did. Vividly. Often. She shut her eyes and sucked in a deep breath against a sudden rush of heat through her body. "Stop it. Just stop."

He did. She almost regretted that. He shivered again, and she held him tight, feeling the pain rip through him like tiger claws, and when she ran the flashlight over his bandages they were already soaking through with bright, ominous red. The flashlight flickered and dimmed. She shook it, to no effect.

"My parents," he whispered. "Do you know where they are?"

"No."

"You wouldn't lie?"

"Not right now. I don't know, Jarod."

He was shaking hard. His teeth were chattering. The sound stabbed her deep with fear, and she held him tighter, willing him to stay with her, to fight.

"Don't die," she ordered him. She wasn't sure if he heard her, was hardly sure she spoke aloud. She was holding him, she realized, like a lover. Like she'd held Thomas that terrible morning when she'd found him lying dead. Please don't leave me. Echoes of that agony went through her like cold lightning. Please don't leave me alone.

He didn't answer. In the dimming light, his eyes looked enormous, his face deathly pale. He reached up and touched her lips with his fingers.

Blood hammered hard in her veins, and for an instant she was afraid, totally afraid, of what she felt. She could not feel this for him, this intense, overwhelming –

"Don't make a sound," he whispered, when she opened her mouth.

And then something hit the side of the wall next to her with an inhuman shriek of rage, vibrating the boards. Claws rasped and sawed on the wood, and Parker's words died in her throat. Jarod's fingers stayed on her lips, reminding her to be quiet, as the tiger attacked another wall, then the door. It knew what the door was, responded to the rattle. Parker watched the metal bolt shake in the frame and thought, it'll never hold. Not against a four hundred pound tiger.

But it did. Barely.

Jarod said, in a whisper, "We don't have much time left."

And then the light went out.

Sydney sipped water and leaned casually against the sun-grayed wooden boards of the preserve office. The day really was incredibly hot. He wondered how people ever survived this climate in pioneer days, without food or shelter for hundreds of miles.

He also wondered, idly, whether or not Jarod had captured Miss Parker by now. He rather expected he had. It was one of Jarod's strongest drives, to control a situation, maneuver the participants to reach his own conclusion. His desire to control Miss Parker was greater still. One of the reasons Sydney had urged the Centre powers-that-be to keep her as the visible head of the team was that he could be certain, absolutely certain, that Jarod would always toss out lures for her to follow.

Sydney had his own very private theories about Miss Parker's feelings for Jarod. They would not have pleased her very much. Or Jarod, come to that.

The door opened, and the lovely Miss Patarski, who as Broots had noticed filled out her uniform very nicely, came out on the porch. She shaded her eyes against the sun and looked at him. Sydney smiled and took another drink of water.

She raised a gun. She seemed surprised, and not a little disturbed, when he finished his drink and looked at her calmly, eyebrows raised in inquiry.

"You're not FBI," she accused.

"I never said I was. And your name, unless I'm very wrong, is not Gina Patarski."

"Samiyya Ramaj," she said. "I'm not letting you take him back to that place. That – terrible place."

"Jarod told you about the Centre." Sydney was not surprised. On the contrary, he'd expected it. "He counseled you after your kidnapping ordeal. He told you about his own experience."

"The one that's never ended," she said. Jarod had done an excellent job of identification, Sydney saw; she clearly resonated to the theme of pursuit, imprisonment by ruthless enemies. But then there was no reason he wouldn't have done an excellent job – he was superb at everything he did.

And it helped, of course, that Jarod had used the absolute truth.

"You're the ones who want to take him back there. Put him back in a cage and make him perform for you." She spat it at him, and the gun trembled in her hand. Sydney amended his posture slightly, reminding her that she was the aggressor, he the victim. "You're not taking him back!"

"Samiyya, Jarod didn't want you to kill us. In fact, I suspect his instructions to you were simply to misdirect us and give him time to get away." Sydney hadn't been privy to that conversation, but he knew full well how it had gone. "He'd never want you to put yourself at risk like this."

The risk, of course, was minimal, with Miss Parker out of the picture, but Samiyya not only didn't know it, she wouldn't have believed it. Her captors, Sydney felt certain, had been men, probably mid- to late-thirties. Why the increased animosity toward him? Ah, because there was someone else. Someone older, with an authoritative manner, who perhaps frightened her even more.

It was a fascinating problem, but Sydney reminded himself of the topic at hand.

"Did Jarod ever mention my name to you?" he asked. "Sydney."

She seemed surprised by that. The gun wavered, then wandered away from him. Not quite directly threatening.

"Sydney," she repeated. "Yes, he did say – you took care of him. Then why are you trying to destroy him now?"

"Believe me, I'm not. I'm trying to prevent any more harm from being done to him than is absolutely necessary. Jarod's a – unique individual. He needs protection. Direction."

"He needs freedom, Sydney." Her gun focused on him again. "Get in the Jeep."

"Are we going somewhere?"

She cocked the gun. The metallic snap had a ring of earnestness.

"Shall I drive?" he asked.

It had been quiet outside for several minutes when Jarod whispered, "She's gone."

"You're sure," Parker whispered back. Her skin was still crawling, her heart beating too fast. Being shot at didn't scare her nearly as much as the idea of being raked apart. With the light gone, she could only see the faint outline of the door, the hot Texas sun leaking in around the edges. A thin pinstripe of it lay across her leg. "Jesus, we have to get out of here."

"Try the radio again."

She had to move him aside to get to it, and heard his breathing change and go shallow and fast. Too much pain. He needed blood, surgery – there might be a concussion from the bullet graze, too.

"Broots, this is Parker. Come in, dammit! Broots – "

No answer. She kept trying for another minute or so, and stopped when she heard desperation creeping into her voice.

"This is a first," Jarod said. "Depending on Broots for help."

It happened more than she was likely to admit, actually. But he did have a point, damn him.

"We're not," she said. "I'm going for the Jeep."

"Parker –"

"Look, don't talk me out of it. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is walk out there and become tiger bait, but I'm going." She tried to keep her voice steady. "You're dying, Jarod."

He didn't answer. That chilled her, a flash-freeze of her soul.

"Jarod?" She whispered it, half-afraid he wouldn't be able to answer, would never draw breath to speak again. But his hand closed over hers, squeezed hard enough she felt his muscles trembling. He pulled her down to her knees next to him. He was just a shape in the darkness, a shadow, a ghost. She reached out and touched sweat-damp hair.

His breathing went shallow again. Not with pain, not this time. He didn't speak. It wasn't time for speaking, not for either of them. She bent forward, and even in the dark she knew where his lips were, knew it because her body knew him so well. Soft, sweet lips that tasted of salt. God, she'd missed him, and she'd never dared think it because the Centre might have known that somehow, monitored her dreams the way they'd dissected everything else precious in her life.

The thing she had loved so much about the boy she'd befriended in the Centre was his courage, an unflinching ability to look horror in the eye. His dignity, which no cage could ever take away. His passion, that even Raines couldn't steal.

All still there, and more, in that burning kiss, the touch of his hand against her face, the pressure of his body against hers. When they talked it was always games and calculation, but their bodies had never lied.

"I have to go," she whispered, her lips still touching his. She wanted to cry, wanted to sink down next to him in this hot airless darkness, but it wasn't what Jarod would have done, in her place. And she couldn't be less. Ever.

"Take care," he said. It sounded like two acquaintances at the end of a boring dinner, nothing like the raging anguish she felt or what she sensed in the trembling of his lips.

But their words always lied. She didn't expect anything else. She stood up, shouldered the rifle, the tranquilizer gun, and pulled back the bolt of the door with a rasp of metal.

The light was white-hot, like looking into a spotlight. Parker blinked rapidly, resolving the blur into trees, shivering leaves, an empty clearing. The coast was clear.

She looked back at Jarod, lying propped against the wall. He looked pallid and distant, except for the hot spark in his eyes. Come back, they said.

Hers said, I will.

"Lock it," she said, and pulled the door shut. She heard him shoot the bolt.

Now she was alone with the tigers.

Broots had spent almost fifteen minutes coaxing a letter opener out of the desk drawer. He spent another five excrutiating ones maneuvering it slowly into position, and started methodically sawing through the duct tape. His fingers cramped into hot knots, and he had to stop and blow hard breaths to get the pain to subside, but he was making progress. Yeah, sure. Another hour, hour and a half, he might get a hand free. By which time, by the sound of what he'd heard on the radio, Miss Parker and Jarod would be halfway through a tiger's digestive tract.

The door banged open, shocking him into a yelp. He lost his grip on the letter opener, which bounced off his knee and sailed off to hide under the desk, a position Broots wished he could assume. Maybe Gina had come back after busting a cap in Sydney to finish the job …

No. He blinked at the man who stood in the doorway, blinking back, two mildly surprised balding men staring at each other.

"Hello," the man in the doorway said politely. "My name is Vikesh Ramaj. I am the owner of the Mohan Tiger Preserve. And you seem to have a problem."

He walked over to Broots, took hold of the duct tape on his mouth, and ripped. Broots yelled, not sure half his face wasn't gone, then sucked in a breath of precious air. He'd been wondering what would happen if he had an allergy attack. The pressure of it made him sneeze, violently, making the little man in his cool white linen suit take a few steps back.

"Excuse me," Broots said. "Uh, would you mind cutting me loose?"

"Bless you." Ramaj regarded him with shiny black eyes that looked as hard as marbles in a round, gentle face. "I'm afraid I cannot until you tell me something of why you are hogtied – such a colorful expression, hogtied – to a chair in my offices. Because I am very sure I didn't hire you."

It occurred to Broots – a little late – that Ramaj might think he was a captured poacher. He opened his mouth to deny it, but Ramaj cut him off by saying, "You would be Mr. Broots, I believe. Jarod indicated you and the other two might grace us with your presence."

Broots swallowed hard. "I hope you weren't supposed to throw me to the tigers or anything."

"Nothing so thrilling," Ramaj said pleasantly, and pulled up a desk chair with a squeal of scraped wood. "Your companions? The lovely Miss Parker?"

"Uh, she went with the big guy – "

"Ben Cox."

"Out to look for Jarod. Sydney, um, was around here but Gina went looking for him."

"Gina?" Ramaj's eyebrows lifted. "Ah, of course. The name of my daughter's college roommate. So then Samiyya and your Sydney are together. Looking for Jarod as well, no doubt, though for different reasons. Samiyya is far more likely to save him than turn him over to you, you know. She has quite a regard for young Jarod. As do I."

"Because he saved your daughter. From the kidnapping."

"Just so," Ramaj said. "Now, Mr. Broots, I suspect you are not a bad man, nor a dangerous one. I shall take the risk of loosing your bonds, and you shall do me the courtesy of not stapling me to death, perhaps, with that dangerous weapon on the corner of the desk."

He took a pair of scissors out of the drawer and neatly cut Broots' arms free, then handed the scissors to Broots to free his ankles.

"Parker was calling from somewhere out there, Resupply Station 12. It sounded like she needed help," Broots said. "If you could – "

"I cannot assist Miss Parker in apprehending Jarod," Ramaj interrupted. He leaned forward, steepling his fingers together, elbows braced on his knees. His eyes looked mercilessly bright. "I can have my people arrest her, and you, and Sydney, and escort you off of private property. Yes, I believe that will be the best course of action. Quite the thing."

He reached for the phone. Broots watched him frown and jiggle the posts.

"The phones are out," Broots said, not helpfully. Mr. Ramaj leaned over and looked at the telephone, then picked it up off of the desk.

"See anything unusual?" he asked. Broots didn't, at least not immediately, and then it hit him like a hard smack in the forehead.

"Oh," he said, and closed his eyes. "She unplugged it."

Ramaj retrieved the cord and plugged the jack in, smiled, and dialed.

There was no question about it. Parker was going to kill him. Twice.

Sydney found driving the Jeep exhiliarating. Open air, hot sun, nature all around him. He loved the sensation of wind in his hair, the danger of bouncing across open countryside where tigers might lurk. He had taken two trips to Africa in his youth, and remembered what it had been like on safari with the weight of a gun in his hand, stalked by lions in the night. Beautiful terror. Diamond-bright moments to remember.

"You like this," Samiyya Ramaj said. She was turned half toward him in the passenger seat, bracing herself with one hand on the roll bar as she aimed her gun at him with the other. "The thrill of the chase. You treat Jarod like … prey."

"Jarod treats himself like prey. I'll tell you a secret," he said. "I think we all spend far too much time inside behind glass and steel. This is the world, Miss Ramaj. Out here."

He won a smile from her. "The world is inside us, or so you taught Jarod. And perhaps you were right about that, too."

He hit a bump hard, and she clutched at the roll bar harder. She didn't drop the gun. Her smile stopped.

"Careful," she said. "Hair trigger."

"If you don't want me to find Jarod, why are we going after him?"

"Because I want to leave you and Miss Parker to find your way back while I drive Jarod out of here," she said. "Don't worry, there are shelters you can hide in with food and water, even a radio. The worst you'll suffer is discomfort and boredom."

"I'm not worried," he said. "You're not a murderer, Samiyya. Not yet. You requested Jarod's presence here, didn't you?"

Her shift in posture told him he'd made the hit well before she found the words to answer. "I asked him to come. The tigers were dying."

"And your father? Did he agree?"

"I didn't tell him," she said. "Not until Jarod had agreed to come."

Interesting. So Broots had gotten it wrong … not Ramaj, but his daughter had instigated Jarod's arrival here. Sydney considered briefly whether Samiyya had been hoping for a romantic liaison with Jarod – no doubt a goal of many women – and decided that while it might have been a wish, it was most probably not her main goal. She had been genuinely concerned for the animals. The expression that had crossed her face had told him that.

"Veer left," she said. He turned the wheel of the Jeep, bounced through another blind rut. Grass hissed against the fender, but otherwise the day was crystalline and quiet, a perfect hot day in Texas.

Somewhere, in the distance, a tiger roared. Sydney felt a shiver stroke down his back, and smiled.

"Miss Parker might not go quietly," he said. "I suggest you let Jarod deal with her. If you point a gun at Miss Parker you simply must be prepared to shoot, or it will end badly for you."

"I'm prepared," she said. It was a lie. Samiyya Ramaj was not prepared to shoot anybody. It was self-evident from her body language and the deep-seated fear in her eyes. "Slow down."

"Are you going to give me a gun?" She gave him a wide-eyed sarcastic look that reminded him amusingly of Miss Parker in her younger, more humorous years. "For the tigers' benefit, not yours."

"For your benefit, you mean. No. When we get Miss Parker, I'll escort the two of you into a shelter. You'll be perfectly safe." She glanced away from him. They were approaching a cluster of trees, and Sydney spotted the dull brown camouflage of another Jeep sitting empty in the tall grass. Samiyya's expression changed.

"Miss Parker left with another man – " Sydney said as he applied brakes. They rolled to a stop, the engine ticking softly, the rumble of it barely perceptible through the soles of his feet, the back of his thighs.

"Ben Cox," Samiyya said. She looked pale. "He knew what to do. He was going to drive her out here and hold her until I arrived. They weren't supposed to leave the Jeep."

Miss Parker could change the best-laid plans, unless they'd been authored by Jarod. Sydney looked at the empty Jeep, the placid wind-swept grassland, the dark twisted knot of scrub trees ahead, and felt sweat break out on his back. Miss Parker was capable of recklessness – folly, even – but he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't have taken this kind of risk. Not on foot, with Jarod and tigers arrayed against her.

Something was very wrong.

Grass rustled out of phase somewhere to his left. He did not turn his head, but he cut his eyes that direction and saw a smooth gliding shape barely visible through the dun-colored stalks, an illusion of light and shadow that moved too fluidly to be animal. It was like a wind spirit, something primal and terrifying.

"Tiger," Samiyya whispered. "Don't move. He's scouting. He knows the Jeep. It's Xavier."

She reached slowly behind the seat with her free hand and Sydney heard a gentle chink of metal as she pulled a tranquilizer gun from its clasp. Out in the grass, the tiger heard it too. He knew the sound. He froze.

"Don't move," Samiyya repeated, almost soundlessly.

Sydney didn't. The tiger did, darting right with such blinding speed that Sydney flinched; it flashed past the front bumper of the Jeep, a burning vision of beauty that misted into the grass, and he saw something large rise up from the grass near the edge of the scrub trees.

Something human. Waving at them.

Miss Parker.

The coroner was going to name it death by stupidity. Parker had seen the Jeep, Sydney's face, and relief had flooded through her like sweet cool water. She'd forgotten about the hundred yards of grass between them. She'd just wanted out, after that agonizing, sweat-drenched, fear-twisted crab-crawl through the scrub brush feeling a wounded tiger breathing down her neck.

So she'd stood up and waved, and just as Sydney's face changed to blank horror she'd seen the disturbance in the grass arrowing straight for her.

She heard Daddy suddenly, his voice dry and judgmental, saying do you have the nerve, Princess? He'd taken her hunting when she was fifteen – wild boar. If you miss you could be hurt, maybe killed. Don't shoot unless you're sure you take him down.

She'd made the shot with a three-hundred pound javelina hog rushing at her. She'd dropped it six feet from her, and it had crawled another three, grunting its rage. She'd felt sick for days, cried to herself where her father couldn't see. He'd been so proud. And it was a lesson that was valuable, after all.

Because she could put the tranquilizer gun to her shoulder, aim, and fire as the tiger ran for her. Fire even though her heart was fibrillating with terror, her hands shaking, her whole body jerking with the need to run.

She put a dart in his shoulder, heard him roar, saw him twist and bite at the dart, then turn to stare at her with hot golden eyes.

Across the grass, Sydney was shouting something. She recognized the voice but not the words, because she was watching the tiger gather his strength, his eyes still on her.

How long does it take the damn dart to work?

Too long.

He leaped. She screamed and threw herself to the side, knew it was hopeless, waited for the claws to dig in, the teeth to tear, but the only thing that touched her was his cool shadow as he passed over her.

He collided with the other tiger, the one that had been stalking her from behind, the crazed wounded tiger bleeding from the side. They rolled together in a snarling ball of fur, and Parker frantically worked the slide on her tranquilizer gun, fumbled another dart from her pocket, and shot it home. The tiger she'd darted was losing the fight as the drugs took hold; she tracked their struggles, and when she had a clear shot, she took it.

The dart slid home into Angel's side, about a foot away from the bullet wound. The tiger shrieked its rage and twisted, fighting the dart now as the other tiger let go of her and dropped to his side, panting; Parker saw claw marks on his hide, but they looked shallow.

He'd saved her life. God. Why?

Angel struggled to her feet. She was weak, both from the bullet wound and the fight, and now the drug. Parker backed away two steps, three, as Angel padded closer. The tiger's mouth opened, not to snarl, but to pant. Her eyes filmed with confusion.

Her back legs collapsed, then her front. She lay down in the grass, panting heavily, staring at Parker with confusion and resentment and pain.

Parker walked over to the other tiger, who lay drowsing now in the sun, his eyes half-closed, his breath coming more slowly. She reached down and touched his fur, soft as velvet, warm, real. She felt the tremble of his paralyzed muscles under the skin.

"Thank you," she whispered. For a second, tears blinded her. She blinked them back and stood up to wave to Sydney and the other woman, the one in khaki from the Preserve Station.

It was time to get Jarod and get the hell out.

Whatever Samiyya Ramaj had planned to do, the fact that Jarod was wounded had changed it; she helped get him out of the brush and into the Jeep, sat in the back with him and performed first aid more capably than Parker had been able to. Of course, she didn't have tigers breathing down her neck. Only Sydney, who was intense with concern. He sat in the passenger seat but he watched Jarod, not the dirt path, as Parker drove.

"He's all right," Samiyya said, catching his eye. Parker watched in the rear view mirror. "He's lost a lot of blood, and he'll need surgery on these muscles, but he'll be all right. We've seen a lot worse out here."

"Samiyya," Jarod said. He opened his eyes, and Parker watched the other woman's face. Ah ha. She knew that look, that please-say-my-name-again look. Whether Sydney knew it or not, Parker had no doubt that Samiyya Ramaj was in love with Jarod.

She also had no doubt that he wasn't in love with her. His look was gentle and a little sad. The let's-be-friends look Jarod was so damned good at. I'm doing you both a favor, Parker thought. Except she felt queasy as she followed that thought to its logical conclusion, to Jarod sitting alone in a white room while Raines decided what kind of tortures to put him through. No favors there.

"Don't talk," Samiyya said tenderly. Parker blew out an annoyed breath.

"For God's sake, you just said he'd be all right," she snapped. "Talk, Jarod. Be my guest."

He would have – he had something to say – but they were all diverted by the approaching rattle-thump of a helicopter coming over the horizon. It roared overhead, jet black, circled and came back. It settled down in the grass ahead of them, rotors slicing the air in a blur, then a lazy whirl as the engine powered down.

"Not the Centre," Sydney said. Parker knew that. She felt something tighten deep in her belly and wondered what the hell had happened to Broots.

But he was the first one out of the copter. The second one was a short, round little man wearing a rumpled white linen suit.

"Father," Samiyya breathed. She was expressionless. Cradled across her lap, Jarod sat up. His eyes held a focused, dark expression Parker was all too familiar with.

"Ah," said Vikesh Ramaj, strolling to the Jeep. He smiled in a friendly way that made Parker itch to be holding a gun. Behind him, Broots looked scared. Broots, she thought, had every reason to be scared. She'd given him an order, damn it. "Jarod. You seem to have met my tigers."

"I met your employee," Jarod said tightly. "Ben Cox. He killed Tom Marsh and he tried to kill me."

Vikesh's smile disappeared. Without it, his dark eyes looked cold and absolutely expressionless.

"Tell her," Jarod grated. "Tell Samiyya about what happened."

"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about," Vikesh shrugged. Jarod was holding to Samiyya's hand, Parker saw. His knuckles were white with strain.

"The ransom," he said. "Tell her about the ransom."

"I paid it," Vikesh said. "Two million dollars. The girl should be grateful for that."

Samiyya had gone pallid, her dark eyes huge and empty. Parker, seeing that in the rear view mirror, touched the butt of her handgun, concealed beside her on the seat.

"You delayed," Jarod said. "For three weeks. You could have gotten her free and you didn't. You let them keep her while you negotiated the price."

"Five million to start with," Vikesh said coolly. "And in any case, they weren't planning to let her go. I knew that. So did you. I gave you time to find her."

"You didn't know I was trying to rescue her. Not for the first two weeks. You just wanted to save yourself some money."

Vikesh shrugged. "She's my only daughter," he said, "but I have three sons. I am grateful to you, Jarod. I have said so. Why bring this up again? I thought you were looking into the death of my tigers."

"Ben Cox killed the tigers," Jarod said, "On your orders."

Vikesh went very still.

"Two million dollars," Jarod said softly. "This preserve was Samiyya's, her passion, her love. You were going to systematically exterminate these tigers for what their parts would bring on the black market. To make back your losses."

"You're the one who lost the money," Vikesh snapped. "I entrusted you with two million dollars, and what did you do? Let them steal it from me!"

"I got your daughter back!" Jarod shouted. He was shaking now, too pale, his eyes too dark. "Do you know what they did to her?"

"My tigers," Samiyya whispered. Her eyes were hot and full of tears. "You killed my tigers. For the money. You let them keep me there, naked in a cage, you let them – you let them – and then you killed my tigers – "

"Do you think such money grows on trees, Samiyya?" he asked impatiently. "These tigers of yours, they are a precious resource. Don't be foolish. I have farms of cattle, and they go to slaughter. Tigers are no different."

"They're worth more than you," she said, and raised the gun she was still holding on her lap. Parker turned, startled, just as Samiyya aimed and fired. Her tranquilizer dart struck her father in the thigh, a perfect shot. He staggered backward, his dark eyes suddenly round, and grabbed the dart to pull it out. He dropped it into the grass, turned toward the chopper, took a step and collapsed to his knees. His pilot opened the door and looked out, puzzled, and got the muzzle of Samiyya's gun. He held up his hands slowly.

"Don't make trouble, John." she said.

"I just work here, ma'am."

"And you'll continue to, as long as you don't make trouble. There's a bonus in it for you."

Her father collapsed face-down in the grass. Broots, standing beside him, flinched and looked to Parker for instructions.

"Roll him over," Parker said. "I'd hate to see him choke."

Her tone indicated she wouldn't particularly, but Broots took her at her word. Vikesh Ramaj was conscious but paralyzed, breathing fast. His eyes were darting with terror, but as Parker watched, his lids drifted closed and his breathing evened out.

"Ecopromazine," Samiyya said with a strange lack of emotion. "He'll be all right in an hour or so."

"Fine," Parker said. "We'll take Jarod and leave you to – "

Samiyya's gun swung around to face her, and as Parker's fingers closed around the butt of her pistol, she felt the cold metal of another gun pressed against her head from behind.

"Don't," Jarod warned raggedly. "I'm tired. I hurt. Don't test me."

She pulled her hand away and held it up. She wasn't surprised, really; Samiyya had had a handgun, and Parker knew she should have made her give it up. Maybe, this time, she'd wanted it to happen this way.

Just a little.

Jarod slid out of the Jeep and almost fell; Samiyya supported him. Jarod was so weak that the gun didn't mean anything – he wouldn't use it on Broots or Sydney, not even to save himself – and even Sydney could have taken him hand-to-hand right now. Child's play to take him down. To drag him back to the Centre, give him to Raines. Get her commission and promotion and get out of this neverending hell of pursuit and disappointment.

She remembered the tiger, defending her even though he didn't know her. The beauty of him, the warm touch of him. Remembered a closed, hot, dark space, and the touch of Jarod's skin, and his lips.

"Next time," she promised Jarod, and kept her hands raised, just as if she actually thought he'd shoot. Broots raised his hands, too. So did Sydney.

All buying into the lie.

Jarod knew it, too. She saw it in his eyes, the way she'd seen it at last in the tiger's eyes, something wild and beautiful and worthy of respect.

He smiled his beautiful smile, and then Samiyya helped him into the helicopter. It powered up again, rotors slicing the air to ribbons, and it chopped its way up into the sky, a black monster, then an insect, then a speck on the horizon.

"Wow," Broots said. "Uh, can I – "

"Get in," she said. "Did you even call for a chopper?"

"It's coming but they had some mechanical problems – "

"Spare me," she said. "Get in. We're leaving. I need a shower."

He got in the back. They hesitated, looking at the unconscious body of Vikesh Ramaj.

"Uh, what about – " Broots began. Parker put the Jeep in gear.

"No room," she said coldly. "Let him walk. It's only a mile or two."

"Miss Parker," Sydney said. "There are tigers."

"Not as many as there were before he started cashing them in like poker chips," she said. She popped the clutch. The Jeep began to move. "He looks like a betting man to me."

As she drove them away, back to civilization and air conditioning and showers, she heard a tiger roar in the distance.

She smiled.