After giving a hefty sigh, he hauled himself up out of the beach chair. A glance down the beach at the watchful dragon lifeguard convinced him to fold up both his chair and Amber's abandoned one, and haul them back to the beach shed.
Back at the cottage, he booted up his laptop and picked up the cellphone, flipping open the folder that Scarlet had given him.
The signal was spotty, and if it was cloudy, he'd be out of luck; today he had solid bars. The wifi, on the other hand, was down. That was another conflict he'd had with Scarlet at his arrival. “We encourage our guests to disconnect,” she had told him scathingly. “And we're on a private island off a foreign country reliant on our own solar power; Internet reliability is not a priority. This is made clear in your rental agreement.”
Tony wondered if there was more to it than that. It certainly was down at perfectly inconvenient times.
He dialed the cellphone and waited, hoping the signal held. While he waited for the connection to be made, he flipped through the paperwork for a second time, hoping to find something new in the information.
“Rick,” the voice at the other end finally said with disinterest.
“Richie!” Tony said.
There was a slight satellite delay, and Richard asked, “How's Costa Rica, Tony? Is it grrrrrrreeeeeeeat?”
“Har, har,” Tony said, but he expected the familiar jibe. “Hey, listen up. I don't know how long my cellphone signal will last.”
“Wow, Tony, you mean you've actually gotten some work done and have information? You're not just lying on the sand in the sun flirting with pretty girls at the clothing-optional resort on the agency dime?”
“I got the paperwork from Scarlet, finally,” Tony said, without taking the bait. “And believe me, I had to work for it.”
“Did you flex your muscles for her?” Rick teased. “Make promises? Rise to the occasion?”
Tony bit back his desire to tell Rick about Amber. He wasn't even sure what to tell Rick–was Amber going to continue to bolt away from him like he'd offended her in some way? Was it just taking her a little time to get used to the idea of a mate? Tony shook his head and brought himself back to the conversation. The satellite delay covered his confusion.
“There's nothing very helpful here,” Tony said dryly. “Notes about food allergies and preferences, what activities they attended, what shifter type they were. Nothing seems to tie them together at all–they are all different kinds of animals, from different places. Some of them attended morning yoga, some of them didn't. One was allergic to peanuts.”
“We can put it in a database and feed it to Rochelle,” Rick suggested. “She can pick patterns out of nothing.”
Tony was squinting at the pages. “Yeah,” he said, distracted by a sudden thought. “I'll scan these and set them to email as soon as I've got wifi or data again.”
“Send me photos, too,” Rick laughed. “Selfies that happen to have good beach babes in the background would be preferred.”
Tony licked his lips. “Look, I have a favor to ask.”
“One worth a great selfie from the beach? Maybe one that doesn't happen to have you in it?”
“I'll send you a dozen,” Tony promised, smiling to think of getting the dragon in the shot, or the English boar couple who liked to bask in animal form.
“What's the favor?”
“I'm looking for a person, maybe a couple, on the run. One of them might have been an Andean mountain cat. They would have passed through Lakefield, about twenty six years ago.”
Tony heard Rick typing. The sound was strangely tinny over the poor connection.
“Lakefield Ontario, or Lakefield Minnesota?” Rick asked.
“Minnesota, I'd guess.” She had a Midwestern accent, Tony thought. It was outrageous that he could know someone as intensely as he knew Amber and not even know if she was American or Canadian. “Look for a church called Saint Mary's. A baby was dropped there.”
“Who happened to be an Andean mountain cat shifter,” Rick guessed. “I've never even heard of an Andean mountain cat. Pretty, aren't they!” He must have looked it up on the Internet while they were talking.
Tony thought about Amber's petite, lush form, and her incredible golden-brown eyes. “You have no idea,” he said. His thoughts were starting to form into a pattern.
“Pretty and ... rare.” He picked up the paperwork in front of him again, sifting through the pages with a fresh outlook. “One of these missing shifters was a white tiger,” Tony said thoughtfully. “And one was a sand cat.”
“You don't see many of those,” Rick agreed.
“Another was a Borneo bay cat, and here's a Northern quoll.” Tony said, unease rising in his throat as he skimmed faster, flipping through the pages, now with a specific field in mind.