Animalistic (Tiger in Her Bed)

Trent jumped from the sofa. “Arielle? Answer me! Arielle? Arielle!”

The line went dead.

He almost hurled the phone into the wall from frustration. Damn! What happened to her? Was she being mugged again? That woman was a magnet for trouble. He stared at his phone, waiting for her to call again. He fidgeted. His instinct told him she wouldn’t call back. She was in trouble.

“Fuck!”

Wasting no time, Trent put on his sneakers and headed for the roof. He jumped from one rooftop to another, racing to the place where he saw her last. He lurched from the gutter and jumped down the sidewalk without too much noise. When he decided to stop stalking her, she was under this balcony, crying. He paced around trying to get a fix on her scent. It was there, but only faintly. In a city this big, a person’s scent could easily be corrupted by others, not to mention the smell of the city itself. The warm weather didn’t help either. A dozen yards away, he caught the stench of someone who had just urinated in a bush. Ugh. Trent wanted to kill that person. Stalking someone via scent was easy to do when the person was around. Stalking that person’s after-scent in the city was damn-near impossible.

He was torn.

This whole business would be easier had she gotten lost in the woods or a remote place that wasn’t populated with many humans. Which way did she go? Forward or backward? He read somewhere that a person was psychologically inclined to go in the direction of one’s dominant hand. Arielle was a righty. Forward, then.

He rushed ahead while he tried harder to keep hold of her scent. If he could just transform into his alter animal, his sense of smell would sharpen tremend

ously. Damn. Bad timing. At this hour, cars and the occasional pedestrian were already lining the street. He couldn’t just shift willy-nilly.

In the meantime, her scent had begun to fade until he couldn’t smell it at all. Did she take this street? She called him from a pay phone. He scanned his surroundings for one, but he didn’t see any. She didn’t call from this area. Far further. He was already home for half an hour when he received her call.

He should return to his starting point and check other streets, but time was of the essence. He couldn’t waste any more of it.

Grinding his teeth, he grabbed his phone and dialed Quinn’s number. His brother was going to be pissed at him for calling this early, but it was an emergency. After the third ring, Quinn finally answered.

“Quinn,” Trent growled urgently. “I need your help.”

~~~

Arielle sat in a daze in the back seat of a car, wondering if what had happened in the past ten minutes was real.

She was being kidnapped.

Two scary-looking guys had grabbed her and wrestled her into a dark sedan. She had been stunned, so she didn’t put up too much of a fight. That was just great. Reality was different than TV. She should be kicking and screaming, but instead, she was as meek as a lamb being led to the slaughter. Her hands were cold. Her knees were weak. If she were forced to stand, she’d collapse from fright.

Why? Why have these men kidnapped me? What did I do that was so bad, someone wanted revenge?

The answer came from nowhere, hitting her straight between the eyes.

Why, of course. Who did I piss off recently?

Frank Darbo.

I’ll get that bitch one way or another, he had said.

Damn. She guessed he wasn’t just braying an empty threat, that slimy bastard. She didn’t think he was the kind of guy who’d follow through, though.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked the driver. Both men sat in the front. A little quiver tinged her voice. She tried to be brave, but she couldn’t shake her fear. Dozens of dreadful scenarios played in her mind, each more devastating than the last, increasing her already paralyzing terror. Darbo had connections to the mob. She could end up neck-deep in cement. Or she could become a special ingredient in a meat grinder at a slaughter house somewhere.

Ugh. She felt like she was going to throw up.

From the rearview mirror, the guy who grabbed her flashed a hair-rising smile. He didn’t gag her—thank God for small favors. He only bound her wrists with duct tape.

“Just going to take a little ride, Ms. Winter,” he said.

Well, at least he was polite. Wasn’t he nice?

“Is Frank Darbo the one who ordered you to do this?” she asked.

The guy didn’t answer, but he winked in the rearview mirror.