Double blind

Chapter Twenty-eight

It took Henry Lightstone a good forty-five minutes to work himself back to his truck, and another hour slowly and methodically to make a 360-degree search of the surrounding area until he felt as certain as he could that they — whoever they were — hadn't posted another spotter on the vehicle.

No reason at all why there couldn't be more than seven of them, he reminded himself.

What's the smallest mobile operating unit in the military. A squad? And how many men in a squad? Staff sergeant in charge, two buck sergeant team leaders, and what, four or five riflemen in each of the two fire teams? Eleven minimum? Nine more like those two? Shit.

And that's being optimistic, he reminded himself. They could be part of a maneuver platoon — four squads, forty-six minimum with a lieutenant and a platoon sergeant. Or worse, a whole damned company — a minimum of three platoons along with a captain, executive officer, and a first sergeant. Shit.

But anything that big implies an official assignment, especially if there's a lieutenant or captain involved. But who says they have to be military? Just because they look like soldiers and act like soldiers?

Nobody.

Especially when they're using a two-way drop box to communicate with somebody. Box fourteen and box fifteen at a remote, rural post office. What else could that be? And since when did the United States Army, or United States Marines, or whatever, start communicating with their military teams by drop box?

And besides, United States government soldiers aren't supposed to be running around the county surveilling federal agents, Henry Lightstone reminded himself as he tried to decide just how paranoid he could afford to become at four o'clock on a bright and chilly Thursday afternoon when he needed to do several things very quickly.

In other words, how much time could he spend checking his truck for some kind of device?

He answered that question ten minutes later when he worked himself under the bed of the leased pickup and found the first transmitter. Or at least what he assumed was a transmitter.

Aluminum box, one-by-two-by-five inches, magnetic base, long spring steel antenna, dark green camouflage paint. What the hell else could it be?

Oh yeah, right.

Military thinking.

Why bother to track something or someone when it's a hell of a lot easier just to blow it or them into small pieces? Saves a lot of wear and tear on boot leather.

Christ, Mike, Henry Lightstone thought wishfully, why aren't you ever around when I really need you?

He found another device very much like the first under the engine block — except that this one had a recessed, two-pole switch on the side and spring steel antennas of different lengths sprouting from either end. He managed to get close enough to verify that the switch was set to the ON position. Then he decided to hell with it.

The first device probably was a transmitter, he guessed as he quickly maneuvered himself out from under the truck. But he couldn't think of any reason why a perfectly simple device like a tracking transmitter would need a protected on-off safety switch and a pair of antennas rigged for two different frequencies, assuming he read the electronics situation correctly.

He could, however, think of a lot of reasons why a receiver might come equipped in such a manner. Especially one filled with C-4 and an electronic detonator.

One to activate, and one to touch it off.

Wonderful.

Okay, guys, he thought as he cautiously reached under the driver's seat, removed a small cell phone and a Velcro-secured nylon pouch, checked the contents of the pouch, slid the cell phone and the pouch under his jacket and belt, and then cautiously closed the driver's side door, what did we step into this time?

By a quarter to six in the evening, Henry Lightstone had finally hiked back to the center of Loggerhead City — a little bit of an exaggeration as names went, he decided, since Loggerhead City was, at best, a small town. However, the long walk gave him plenty of time to consider a number of relevant issues… the most important being that he had no intention of going anywhere near the warehouse where Bravo Team was busy doing God knows what. Not now. Not until he found out what was going on.

In the meantime, however, he had to warn everyone.

But not through a land line, because Takahara hadn't installed the phones in the warehouse yet.

And not through the cell phones, because people capable of playing with dual-frequency remote detonators were perfectly capable of monitoring cell-phone conversations.

Have to wait until they get back to the motel rooms, Henry decided, uneasy because he knew Paxton would keep everybody at the warehouse until they accounted for every loose snake. And that could take a while.

But could he wait that long?

He thought about that specific question all the way back to the center of town, and he finally came to the conclusion that he could. If time were critical, then one of those surveillance characters would have hung around the truck with a pair of binoculars and a transmitter set to the activating and detonating frequencies, waiting to ID the driver and blow him to bits if necessary. The fact that the team walked away from the truck implied a long-term situation: They obviously felt they had plenty of time to set off the charges under his truck if he got in their way somewhere down the line.

So, Lightstone decided, that meant he could afford to take the extra precaution of staying away from the warehouse for a few more hours, until he had a better sense of the situation, rather than risk drawing whatever attention he'd attracted to the rest of Bravo Team.

But in the meantime, he had no intention of going back to Bobby and Susan LaGrange's ranch house either, even though he felt fairly confident that no one had followed him from the ridge or his abandoned truck. However, nothing said those hard-ass characters — whoever they were, and whatever they were doing surveilling a team of covert federal agents — hadn't been tagging him, too, the last couple days.

Which means they could easily have other members of their team in place, waiting for me to show, so that they can pick up the tag… or split it off if I try to hand something to a messenger. And that would be real easy to do if I don't find another means of transportation pretty damned quick. Shit.

Lightstone checked his watch and kept walking, hurrying now because the shop he remembered probably closed at six if he was lucky, or five-thirty if he wasn't.

As he walked, his thoughts returned to the transmitter and receiver. Someone could have put them on his truck earlier in the week, but he doubted it because Bravo Team had only arrived — what? — four days ago, and the only local people they'd had any significant contact with, outside of the warehouse owner and a couple of deliverymen, had been Bobby and Susan, the old coot, Sage… and the woman. So that didn't make much sense.

And besides, he'd found a couple of boot prints around the truck only partially wiped away by what looked like pine branches, judging by the few bright green pine needles he'd found scattered around the truck. Which meant the camouflaged figures probably worked their way back to their vehicles, spotted his truck off the road, remembered seeing it, or — unless they were good at remembering license plates — a truck just like it back at the Dogsfire Inn.

And then went ahead and rigged it with a transmitter and detonating device, just for the hell of it? Some random truck parked on the side of the road?

Yeah, right, that makes a lot of sense.

Lightstone mentally put the past day's events in chronological order.

Bobby finds an old coot wandering around his ranch supposedly looking for Bigfoot who offers to sell him a genuine Apache Indian hunting charm. We show up at Bobby's place for dinner. Susan tells us about the old coot. Bobby and I meet him at the pancake house the next morning. Then the old guy takes me to meet a very attractive woman who seems unsure of her name and who has an overgrown house cat for a pet. The goons show up the next morning, one of them wearing a bear-claw necklace, looking for their letter, and get seriously pissed at the woman when it's not there. And I end up out in the woods with a truck rigged to squeal… or blow, depending.

So what kind of trail is that?

And more importantly, what do I do now?

That's reasonable.

And explainable.

And useful.

The big cardboard sign in the shop window said CLOSED, and the small block lettering on the inside of the window confirmed that 5:30 was the customary closing hour.

I need to do something that makes sense, maintains my cover, and allows me to put Bravo and Charlie Teams on notice.

And something that allows me to move about, communicate, and track back on these characters.

But at the same time, something that nobody really expects me to do.

Henry Lightstone blinked.

A helpful, smiling face appeared before his eyes.

And at that moment, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

The owner had closed the shop at five-thirty as advertised, but business was slow this time of year, he explained when he noticed Henry and opened the door. Besides, his wife never had dinner ready until seven at the earliest, so he certainly didn't mind opening up again for a serious customer.

Lightstone assured him he was quite serious.

The new models tempted him, but the image was all wrong, so he reluctantly shifted his attention to the used ones the owner displayed in the back of the store.

"What's the story on this one?" Lightstone pointed to a red-and-white Honda with visible dents in the gas tank and numerous gouges and scrapes on the fenders, exhaust, and chrome.

"That's a real sweet little machine. Honda XR 250L. Five years old, thirty-two thousand and change on the odometer. Owned by a real nice local fellow who used to play around with it on weekends. Rode it hard, but took real good care of it. But then one night he took it to a bar, had a couple beers too many, wound up in a ditch, and decided he'd probably live a whole lot longer if he stuck with four-wheeled vehicles."

"Smart man."

"Yeah, I guess that's pretty much what his wife said, too, among other things. Anyway, my son — who's a pretty decent bike mechanic — took it all apart. He says the bike's solid, no internal damage, just looks a little rough around the edges. I've listed it at twenty-five hundred for quite a while now, but as you can see, it's still here." The owner looked thoughtful for a moment. "Guess I could let her go for twenty-one," he offered hopefully.

"What would you say to twenty-five hundred even for the bike, plus one of those used leather jackets, a pair of halfway decent leather gloves, like maybe that pair in the display case, and one of those new two hundred-dollar Bell helmets?"

"I'd say 'cash, check, or charge?'" The shop's proprietor grinned broadly.

"Cash, if you don't mind." Lightstone withdrew the nylon pouch from behind his back and counted out twenty-five one-hundred-dollar bills. "I'm not much for credit cards or checking accounts," he explained as he pushed the pile across the counter. "Lot easier to keep track of your money when you can actually see and feel it."

"A man after my own heart." The owner quickly recounted the notes, his sharp eyes automatically noting the worn condition of the bills and the widely varying serial numbers. "Tell you what," he looked even more cheerful once he dropped the folded bills into the safe slot under the cash register, "why don't you pick out your jacket, gloves, and helmet while I work out a receipt, and we'll get you and that Honda on your way."

At nearly eight o'clock that evening, the woman was clearing the last of the tables when she heard a motorcycle rumble into the parking lot.

She glanced up through the screen door and vaguely noticed the dark, leather-jacketed figure stepping onto the porch with his helmet in hand.

"Don't turn everything off yet, Danny. Looks like we've got one more customer," she called out to the cook. She continued wiping the last table with her back to the door while the motorcycle rider entered the dining area and pulled out a chair.

"Welcome to the Dogsfire Inn," she greeted him without looking up. "Be with you in just a second."

"No hurry," the rider replied.

The sound of his voice caused her to freeze. Then Karla turned slowly and stared at him for a good ten seconds.

"Never mind, Danny," she called out toward the kitchen. "Go ahead and shut down." Then she walked slowly toward Henry Lightstone.

"Does that mean dinner's out of the question?" Lightstone asked.

"I thought…" She stopped and shook her head. "I thought we decided we all needed to cool off for a while. You, me, Sasha, your macho playmates."

"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm so cooled off right now, what I really need is to thaw out." Lightstone gestured toward the helmet, leather jacket, and gloves resting on the nearby chair. "And those yahoos weren't my playmates. I never saw either one of them before today."

"Do you do that a lot?"

"What?"

"Make such violent first impressions on people?" Her gold-flecked green eyes locked onto his.

The covert agent met her gaze squarely. "I was raised in a fairly strait-laced household. My mom insisted I say 'yes, ma'am' and 'no, ma'am,' and be polite to my elders, you know, help ladies cross the street whether they really need help or not."

He deliberately emphasized the word "ladies" just to see how she'd react. When he saw her hand ball into a fist, then almost immediately relax, he figured he had his answer.

"You ever call me 'ma'am' again, or try to help me cross a street, you're going to be picking up your teeth," Karla warned. "But as long as we're on the topic of your mother's influence, did she also teach you to break people's wrists when you get into conflicts?" She looked at him suspiciously.

"That was my dad's influence," he admitted, trying not to notice the way her hips flared out from her trim waist.

Uh-oh, watch yourself. You don't know who she is, or how she's related to the guy with the funny eyes… or why this is the drop point, he reminded himself.

"Dad believed in being polite, too, up to a point." Lightstone spoke cheerfully, hoping to diffuse her suspicions as well as his own, increasingly physical, thoughts.

"And then what?" She continued looking more defiant than amused.

"You stand your ground," Henry replied, making it quite clear he didn't intend to budge an inch in that particular situation either, in spite of how much his plan depended on her cooperation.

"I see."

Karla stared down at her interlaced fingers for a few moments. "You know, back in junior high my girlfriends and I used to get a kick out of watching the younger boys — probably kids just like you — in the playground standing up to the older boys — probably kids just like those two this morning."

"Let me guess. The younger ones usually got their butts stomped?"

Karla nodded her head solemnly, "just about every time."

"Did you or your girlfriends ever notice that after one of the younger boys finally managed to win one — or at least keep standing until one of the teachers finally got there and broke it up — the older kids didn't pick on him very much anymore?"

"As I recall, we classified you XY-types into four basic groups even back then: the perpetual bullies, a pretty disgusting lot at best; the perpetual victims, who weren't much better; the ones smart enough to avoid the fights — we figured they'd be the ones who ended up rich and famous; and then" — she gave him a barely perceptible smile — "those few 'white knights' who — once they finally learned how to stay upright for the entire thirty-second fight without most of their blood running out their noses — started sticking up for their friends or the perpetual victims. But sometimes they just went for the bullies, period."

That's right, lady, you always confront the bastards right away, get right in their faces, because that's the only way you'll ever keep them off your back, Lightstone thought to himself. So who the hell are you?

She stopped and stared at Lightstone with those lovely gold-flecked green eyes until he felt compelled to say something.

"And the white knights kept on getting their butts stomped on a fairly frequent basis, since they usually fought out of their weight class?" Lightstone guessed.

"That's right." She continued staring at him, but he refused to look away.

"Ah," he said instead.

"You know what we used to call them?" she pressed, clearly determined to make her point.

"Not white knights, I bet." He tried another half-smile, but Karla was obviously in no mood to be placated.

She shook her head firmly. "That just would have encouraged them.. and probably gotten several of them half-killed," she added thoughtfully. "We called them the idiots."

Henry Lightstone nodded his head sympathetically.

"Why do I get the feeling you and your girlfriends cared just a little more about those poor 'idiots' than you want to admit, in spite of your better judgment?" he teased her.

"Probably because I had a couple of older brothers who had the white-knight act down cold, and a younger brother who thought they were heroes — and damned near did get himself killed because he tried to be just like them," she retorted hotly.

"I take it your brothers came to his rescue?" Lightstone asked, more than aware that something was going on between him and the woman, but not at all sure if it would give him the opening he so desperately needed.

Careful, he reminded himself. Like the old fart said, nothing is really as it seems.

"No, my brothers didn't come to his rescue," she informed him crisply. "I did."

"Ah."

Lightstone tried to shake the feeling that he was trapped in a very small room with a very edgy cat.

"If you don't mind my asking," he finally asked, hoping to soothe her and keep her talking because he definitely needed to use her telephone within the next few hours, "just what did they call a young girl with a white-knight complex in those days?"

"Nothing polite."

"I can imagine."

"No, I don't think you can." She outlined the edge of the place mat with a slender finger. "You're assuming I fought like a boy. Fists, knees, brute force, that sort of thing."

"Didn't you?" Henry Lightstone's eyebrows came up inquisitively.

"Of course not." The gold-flecked green eyes grew distant for a moment. "Fighting like that is a good way to get yourself hurt. I found it much more efficient — and effective — simply to scare the little bastards half to death."

Henry Lightstone smiled, and felt somewhat gratified to notice at least some of the tension leave her very tight and totally feminine body.

Whoever you are, you're one hell of an interesting lady, he thought, more aware of her increasingly physical effect on him than ever.

"I'm thinking you were probably a little young for the direct approach — you know, razor blade against the throat, that sort of thing." He tapped his fingers lightly on the table as he considered the new data, and the way her thick hair nestled in the curve of her neck. "I bet you used fear of the unknown."

"Something wrong with that?" She challenged him levelly.

"Not at all," he hastened to assure her. "A very effective way to deal with unpleasant characters, especially if you happen to be a witch — and equipped with your very own black cat," he added thoughtfully.

"Exactly." Her eyes momentarily looked far away again. "Even then."

She paused. "You know something about that, don't you?" Her question sounded more like an accusation.

"What, witchcraft?" He flashed her another friendly smile, well aware that what little tension had left her body had returned.

Who are you? Come on, lady, open up, give me a hint.

"You do that a lot, don't you?" Her gold-flecked greenish eyes impaled him with a merciless glare, and he had to fight the sensation that he dangled helplessly.

"Do what?"

"Evade serious questions."

Henry Lightstone watched his fingers lightly tapping against the rough table as though they belonged to someone else.

"In my experience, the only effective way to deal with fear of the unknown is to seek it out and confront it," he volunteered in an effort to dissipate his own increasing tension as well as hers. "If you don't, it can work its way in around the edges of your mind and become over-whelming if you're not careful."

"You worry about that sort of thing a lot in your line of work?" She continued to pinion him in place with her enticing eyes.

Oh, and by the way, would you happen to be a cop? Lightstone's covert agent instincts heard instead.

His pulse quickened.

"If you call trying to get by on a day-to-day basis a line of work, sure." He searched the sensuous young woman's face for whatever clues her expression might offer. "Like I said, I'm between jobs. But I don't think I'd like to have to worry about that sort of thing on a professional basis," he added casually. "Sounds like a good way to have a real short life."

"I’m sure it is."

Henry Lightstone couldn't even begin to interpret the edge to the woman's voice.

Why do you want to know if I'm a cop? And more to the point, why the hell would you possibly care?

They both remained silent for a good thirty seconds.

"So it turns out we have something in common after all." The corners of her lips turned up in an ironic smile.

Lightstone cocked his head curiously, wondering where this highly unpredictable woman's thoughts were taking her now.

"Fear of the unknown," she elaborated. "I'm forced to create it, and you feel equally compelled to confront it. You see the problem?"

"Sounds like one of those classic 'short-life' situations, if you ask me. Sort of like the one the male black widow faces when his mate starts taking an unhealthy interest in his whereabouts?" Lightstone suggested.

Karla gave him a penetrating look.

"Although, come to think of it, that's probably not a real good analogy," he hurriedly corrected himself, thinking, What the hell did I say that for? Christ sake, be careful. You don't know who she is or how she's connected to those damned devices under your truck… that were put there for the specific purpose of blowing you into small pieces. Pay attention!

"No, not a good analogy at all."

Her smile shifted slightly, but to Lightstone's amazement and discomfort, it was still there… and he could feel his heart starting to beat faster.

Don't look into those goddamned eyes! Stay focused on the job, he warned himself, but then her eyes locked on his, and he felt himself being drawn into their depths.

Another period of contemplative silence that Lightstone felt powerless to break enveloped them.

"So" — she stood up and glided toward him — "setting aside the self- serving viewpoints of those black widow spiders, male or female, where does that leave us?"

"Well, actually, I was going to suggest dinner." Lightstone hesitated. "But all things considered, I'm not sure…"

The lovely gold-flecked green eyes so completely engulfed him, he forgot what he wanted to say.

"I agree," she replied, undoing the clasp on the strap of her overalls. "That's not a good idea at all."

Larry Paxton stared pensively at his watch.

"Okay," he addressed his crew, "that ought to do it."

After glowering fiercely at the Bravo Team leader, Dwight Stoner opened the chest freezer, reached in, lifted a one-by-two-by-four-foot crate out of the bottom, pivoted around, and thrust the crate deep into a plastic wading pool full of ice.

Then, as the Bravo Team leader stood over the pool with the pump 12-gauge and Thomas Woeshack stood ready with the fire extinguisher, Stoner and Takahara quickly backed all of the screws out of the top of the crate using the two battery-powered multispeed drills.

"Okay, you two ready?" Paxton asked.

"I am." Mike Takahara rested his hands on the crate top and looked at his huge partner.

Stoner nodded grimly.

"All right, one… two… three… now!"

At Larry Paxton's command, Takahara pulled the lid off the crate and lunged out of the away so Stoner could flip the heavy crate upside down on the ice.

All four agents stared wordlessly at the overturned crate, which initially moved a little, but eventually grew still.

Larry Paxton glanced down at his watch again. "Okay, thirty more seconds, just to make sure." The team leader counted down the time, then nodded to Stoner and stood ready with the shotgun.

The huge agent looked up to confirm that Mike Takahara had the snake hook ready. Then, in one quick motion, he leaned forward, grabbed the crate, lifted it up, and leaped back. "Shit!"

KA-BLAM!

The edge of the crate caught Paxton's shoulder, causing him to stagger backward and accidentally trigger a round of bird shot off into the warehouse ceiling. The spreading pattern of small pellets narrowly missed one of the high-intensity ceiling lamps as they punched through the thin aluminum panels.

"Jesus Christ, Paxton!" Dwight Stoner screamed as he dropped the crate and grabbed his ears. The other three agents appeared equally disoriented and deafened by the incredibly loud and reverberating blast.

It took the stunned agents several seconds to regain their senses and return their attention to the wading pool.

To their amazement, two extremely thick-bodied snakes, each approximately sixteen inches long, with broad scales arranged in alternating reddish brown and tan rings, lay immobile on the six-foot-diameter bed of ice.

"Are they dead?" Concern clouded Thomas Woeshack's boyish features.

"Who the hell cares? Get those damned things into that terrarium, now!" Larry Paxton ordered, still squinting from the effects of the unexpected, close-proximity shotgun blast as he first gingerly rubbed his throbbing shoulder, then racked another round into the smoking shotgun's chamber.

Using the snake hook, Mike Takahara quickly transferred each of the snakes from the bed of ice into an open terrarium nestled into an identical bed of ice in the adjoining plastic wading pool. As soon as he completed the transfer, Stoner quickly snapped one of the specially designed feeding lids in place, held the terrarium — staring nervously at the two still-immobile snakes now mere inches from his face — while Takahara hurriedly wrapped duct tape around both ends of it to make sure the top stayed on. Then he carefully placed the terrarium at one end of the bottom shelf of a long three-tiered plywood-and-stud-beam rack of shelves that the agents had constructed along the back wall of the warehouse.

All four agents then breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

"Which ones are these?" Thomas Woeshack asked as he brought his nose close to the glass.

"Common Death Adders," Mike Takahara replied.

"Far as I'm concerned, there ain't a goddamned thing common about a snake with death for a middle name," Larry Paxton commented as he snapped the shotgun's safety back on and set the weapon aside.

"Hey!" the team's Eskimo agent/pilot exclaimed excitedly. "I think they're starting to move!"

"Well, thank God for that," Larry Paxton muttered sarcastically as he looked down at his watch, then back up at his fellow agents. "It's now nine o'clock. A mere thirteen hours since we started this job, and we've already unloaded a whole two crates. The way I calculate it" — the team leader added, glaring over at the two duct-tape-wrapped terrariums at the far end of the long shelf, "at this rate, it shouldn't take more than oh, say, two months, tops, to unload the rest of the damned things."

"You really think this system will work for those tarantulas, too?" Thomas Woeshack asked skeptically.

"I think we need bigger wading pools, and a lot more ice," Dwight Stoner commented darkly.

Larry Paxton favored his subordinates with a withering glare.

"It may be necessary to modify our system to deal with the situation at hand," the Bravo Team leader acknowledged. "If we need to, we will. That's why they call us Special Agents."

"Speaking of Special Agents, I wonder what Henry's doing right now?" Mike Takahara asked his exhausted colleagues.

"I don't know." Larry Paxton snorted as he rubbed at his aching shoulder again. "But whatever it is, I hope the hell he's in some serious pain."

"And scared out of his mind?" Dwight Stoner offered.

"Oh yeah." Paxton nodded his head agreeably. "That too. Definitely."

Henry Lightstone gasped in both fear and pain when the sharp claws dug into his leg.

"Quit… complaining," the sensuous young woman responded in a breathless voice. Her entire body gleamed with perspiration and her gold-flecked green eyes smoldered with a seemingly endless supply of passion and desire. "My nails aren't… that long."

Every muscle in Henry Lightstone's own glistening body tensed as he fought to fend off a combination of physical and emotional sensations that seemed — from his highly stimulated point of view during those few uninhibited hours — determined to overwhelm him absolutely.

"Not you — her!"

"What?"

Karla raised her upper body to peer over her shoulder, and then arched her back and moaned as his hands roamed over her slick swollen breasts gleaming in the glow of the night light.

"When did… she get here? Supposed to be… locked up!" She briefly tried to control herself, but then abandoned that in favor of fully enjoying her fully aroused if slightly distracted partner.

"No idea… never saw her come down." Lightstone gasped, torn between passion and self-preservation, when every shred of his awareness converged on the woman's increasingly focused, heated, and frantic movements. "I wasn't paying… any attention."

"Good!" She began to kiss him passionately while rubbing her sweat- slickened breasts against his heaving chest.

Realizing that all sense of control had rapidly deserted him, Lightstone growled deep in his throat, and then flipped them both over so she lay on her back with her long silky legs tightly wrapped tightly around his waist and her arms around his neck.

You're insane, Lightstone, he told himself. Absolutely fucking insane.

He sensed, in the midst of absolute bliss, the force of the panther's head butting hard against his own and, without thinking, he shoved the huge cat aside, then proceeded to ignore both the subsequent roar and the sharp pain across his arm as he gave in to an ancient and ultimately irresistible urge…

Only later, as he lay on his back, trying very hard to control both his breathing and his emotions — Karla snuggled tightly against his right shoulder and sighing sleepily, and the panther snuggled in tight against his neck and other shoulder rumbling contentedly — did Henry Lightstone finally realize that a goodly amount of the glossy sheen on his chest, arms and shoulders was definitely not sweat.

"Hey," he whispered to the sensuous creature laying against his right shoulder, while trying to ignore the other one rumbling against his neck.

"Hummf?"

"I think I'm bleeding to death."

"Just some scratches. Don't be a wimp," Karla mumbled. "Betadine® in bathroom. Fix you up in the morn…" Her voice trailed off into an exhausted sigh that almost immediately gave way to the sound of soft, regular breathing.

"What do you mean…?" he started to demand, but quickly shut up when the cat jerked awake, her bright yellow eyes suddenly appearing in the darkness and focusing on his for a brief moment before they closed again.

Moments later, the deep feline rumbling against his neck and left shoulder resumed.

Lightstone remained unmoving in the semidarkness for another ten minutes until the breathing of the enchanting but dangerous creatures on either side of him evened out into a deep-sleep rhythm.

Then, ever so carefully, he slid out from between them. When he did, the panther gracefully rolled over into his abandoned spot next to her sleeping mistress, and with equal grace the woman wrapped her body around the big cat's.

He remained motionless, silently watching the two of them until the deep rumbling slowly evened out again. Then he picked up his clothes and slowly worked his way to the bathroom door.

After carefully pulling the door closed behind him, Lightstone turned on the bathroom light, squinted, and then stared in disbelief at his right forearm, where blood oozed from four deep parallel slashes.

"Christ, no wonder it hurts," he muttered as he quickly confirmed that most of the blood covering his torso had apparently come from the wounds on his arm.

After muttering a few other things under his breath, Lightstone turned on the shower, walked over to the mirror, then winced as he examined the various wounds that corresponded to numerous tender areas on his shoulders, back, hips, and buttocks. Even though they paled in comparison to the deep gouges that crisscrossed his calves and his right hand, to say nothing of the four outright slashes into his right forearm, a few of the human-induced scratches were deep enough to have bled slightly.

You may have short nails, lady, but you sure as hell know how to use them.

The warm shower felt wonderful, but the rivulets of diluted blood swirling around Henry Lightstone's feet reminded him of the real reason for his visit.

He tried not to curse as he rubbed soap into the wounds, reminding himself that it would get a lot worse in a few minutes. He rinsed off, dried himself as best he could with the single large bath towel on the rack, used some folds of toilet tissue as a temporary compress, opened the medicine chest… and sighed.

The antiseptic spray caused him to blink a few times when he awkwardly applied the stinging mist to the scratches that crisscrossed his shoulders, back, hips, butt, calves, and hand. But he knew that cat bites and scratches could be highly infectious, and he could think of no reason why panther claws would be any different.

Which meant he needed something stronger.

Must be out of my goddamned mind, he told himself as he reached for the small brown bottle on the top shelf of the medicine chest.

Without thinking about it anymore than absolutely necessary, he quickly removed the makeshift compress, firmly placed his right hand palm down against the bottom of the porcelain sink, poured the Merthiolate down the full length of the first deep slash in his forearm…

And then sprayed the rest of it all over the bathroom wall when he slammed his left hand against the sink while trying — with only minimal success — to contain an anguished scream.

He was still trying to regain his senses when the door behind him burst open.

"What in the world are you… oh my God!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," he mumbled thickly, blinking back the tears as he tried to will away the agonizing pain in his forearm that knifed all the way up into the center of his skull.

"I thought — Jesus, never mind what I thought," the woman muttered as she grabbed his arm, quickly examined the deep slashes, and then observed the empty Merthiolate bottle in the sink and the bright red spray pattern all over her bathroom wall.

"I swear I don't understand you males," she continued muttering as she squatted down and removed a brown plastic bottle and a large tube of ointment from the cabinet beneath the sink, along with a handful of large gauze pads and a roll of medical tape. "Every damned one of you seems to go into arrested development the moment you turn twelve.

"And by the way," she added absentmindedly as she removed the top from the larger bottle, "didn't I tell you to use the Betadine® solution?"

"What's that?" Henry Lightstone's glazed eyes slowly began to focus, a process that rapidly accelerated when he realized that she was stark naked, and that he was actually seeing her that way — in the light — for the first time.

"Tamed iodine," she explained. "Works just as well as Merthiolate, but doesn't make your eyeballs pop out of your head." Working quickly and professionally, she stoppered the sink, pushed his hand back down onto the bottom of the porcelain sink, then lathered and rinsed the bloody slashes in his forearm repeatedly.

"There, isn't that better?"

"Much." Lightstone nodded gratefully.

"I don't know what got into her," the sensuous young woman apologized as she gently blotted the wounds dry with a clean cloth, smoothed a thick layer of antibiotic ointment over them, and neatly bandaged his arm.

"If it's anything like what got into you, I don't want to know about it."

Karla blinked, started to say something… then thought better of it.

"You may be closer to the truth there than you think," she admitted, giving him the full benefit of her gold-flecked green eyes. But before Lightstone could say anything, she began examining his other wounds.

"Hey, what's that all about?" she demanded, pointing to his shoulder.

"As I recall, that's where you bit me." Lightstone tried very hard to ignore the sensual impact of the woman's close and naked presence, and failed miserably. "I guess some women reach for a cigarette afterward, and others just try to rip a guy's shoulder off."

"No, not those little things, I mean these, right here," she persisted, running her fingers lightly over the patch of ragged white scar tissue on his shoulder. "I sure as hell didn't do that… and these either," she added as she moved behind him to examine his back. "What caused all this?"

"Well, uh…"

"You know, several of these scars do look an awful lot like claw marks." She moved closer to examine the scar tissue and, in doing so, unconsciously pressed her breasts against his arm and back. "But I don't think a cat made them."

"Bear," Lightstone mumbled, thinking, Jesus, I've got to get out of here!

"What?" She pulled him around by his shoulders and stared into his pain-dulled eyes.

Careful.

"Bare. Naked. We're both standing here bare-ass naked — "

His comment momentarily confused her until she looked down at herself. "Oh."

"That's right, 'oh.' And it would be a lot easier," Henry Lightstone went on halfheartedly, "if you'd go get dressed before — "

"Before what?" she deliberately lowered her voice to a sultry whisper and pressed her body firmly against his.

"This isn't what it looks like."

"It certainly looks like it to me."

"That's not what I meant."

I don't know what I meant, but that wasn't it, Lightstone tried to tell himself. And if it was, I don't want to know about it.

"I know." She ran her fingers lightly over the irregular pattern of scar tissue on his shoulder again, and let them trail slowly and gently down his chest. "Just shut up and let me take care of it."

Oh Christ.

She was still moving her warm hands over his lower torso, thirty seconds later, when the sudden sound of sharp claws digging into the outside surface of the bathroom door, immediately followed by a loud and demanding yowl, jarred them both.

"Ignore her," the woman ordered in that same sultry whisper.

"Yeah, but what if — "

"Don't worry, she can't get in here." She nibbled his earlobe.

The sound of shredding wood grew louder and the yowling more insistent as the door rattled on its hinges.

"Are you sure?" The look and feel of her warm and smooth body wrapping around his made it difficult for him to think clearly.

"Trust me. It'll take her a while," she murmured, pressing her soft warm lips against his.