Cloaked by T.F. Walsh Read Free Book Online Page B

“You’re not shy, are you? No, I’m not dating anyone.”
    My heart beat so loud in my ears, I swore the wall of the shed was also thumping.
    “Are you?” One of his eyebrows arched.
    “No.”
    “Good to know.” He rounded the corner, and we emerged into a small grass clearing.
    In the distance stood a long wooden fence, but beyond it, tufts of trees sprawled, forming a canopy over the enclosure. Dozens of animal sounds echoed on the wind. The scent of monkeys, wild cats, birds, and other animals tightened around me until I had a difficult time focusing on any one smell.
    When I first moved to Braşov, I’d visited this zoo, but after seeing all the animals in their small, confined spaces, I’d promised myself to never return unless I fancied my heart torn to shreds with agony. Every animal deserved the right to freedom. If it were up to me, zoos, pet stores, and circuses would be banned forever. Not to mention hunters, trappers, and poachers.
    “This way.” Connell waved me over to the back door of a cement-fibro shed.
    Inside, a surgical odor mingled with the air, along with the earthiness of bears. I stepped deeper into the room where a metal table was overturned in the center. The counters beneath the window on the back wall were bare. A computer lay in the corner on a desk. Next to it, on the ground, I noticed an empty cage. A girl in jeans and a white T-shirt, with a police badge around her neck, was dusting for fingerprints on the metal table. I stepped around her, careful not to bump into her or intrude on her activity, and took deep inhalations. In the back, I caught a whiff of a leather stench. The same one. Oh, we were dealing with the same culprit, all right.
    Connell stepped closer, his arm lightly brushing against mine. Tingles spread through me, and with the way he glanced my direction, I swore he felt it too. But this was a crime scene, a chance to find the cubs. Not a time for flirting.
    “Find anything?” he asked.
    “It’s here.”
    He leaned toward the empty cage and inhaled. “I’m not picking up anything leathery, though I get a faint animal smell. You sure that’s not what you’re recognizing?”
    I shook my head. “Nope. This is the same acidic tanning smell. You know, if you work with certain chemicals long enough, people have been known to take on some of the odor.”
    Connell sniffed the area further. “I don’t know why I can’t detect it.”
    I shrugged, unable to stop staring at his stubbled jawline, the perfect line of his nose, not to mention the loose strands of blond hair I considered pushing behind his ear.
Great way to look desperate.
“Doesn’t the zoo have security cameras?”
    “Only outside. Two hooded figures were filmed cutting the locks on the back gates we just entered, before a white van entered and parked outside this building. Two people were in and out in less than a minute. The alarm went off, but the thieves were already gone with the bear cub by the time the guards arrived.”
    “And the plate on the van?” I asked.
    “Removed.”
    Of course it was. These weren’t amateurs.
    Connell sighed. “They knew what they were after, and it tells us a lot, since both thefts were of cubs found in the woods by institute staff.”
    My thoughts went to Vasile and the friend he told about the cubs. Maybe he’d shared the news with someone else, too?
    “Vasile told me you were interviewing his friend. He, or a friend of his, has to be connected here.”
    “You’d make a great inspector.” When he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “We’re following a few leads from the interviews already. And I doubt it’s Sam’s Tans. This morning Anton found one of the backyard tanning places we’ve been observing with several stolen dogs from the neighborhood. They could be hiding the cubs, too.”
    “But I smelled them at the store.”
    “Of course you did. The same chemicals would be there as Sam’s Tans.”
    How could I convince him the store was