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EIGHTY-FOUR

EMERALD FALLS

Cord stayed in the shadows as he watched Modelle walk from his truck toward the petting zoo. The man pulled his hoody over his head and kept looking all around him as if he sensed someone watching him.

Something about his beady dark eyes and the way he paused to watch the children playing with the goats as he reached the zoo spiked Cord’s inner alarm button. What was Modelle up to?

He knew the man was a hunter. Had he escalated from slaughtering animals to killing children? Was he thirsting for more blood on his hands?

Modelle leaned over the wooden rail of the animal pen and seemed intent on tracking the movements of a little blond with pigtails and freckles that danced on her nose when she giggled.

The goat licked her face and she nuzzled him with affection. Seconds later, a sandy-blond-haired woman he assumed to be her mother appeared and put her arm around her.

As Cord studied them, he realized the woman and little girl were in the pictures Ellie had shown him.

“Stay here for a minute,” the woman said. “I’ll get us pizza and we’ll eat at that picnic table right outside the petting zoo. Daddy’s there now on the phone.”

The little girl nodded and moved on to pet a baby calf. Modelle let himself inside the gate and followed the child as she went from one area to the next. She lost a hair ribbon by the exit as she neared it and Modelle stopped and picked it up, then curled his fingers around it.

The bastard kept his distance but still, Cord had an uneasy feeling as Modelle inched closer to the child.

“Hey, sweetie, you dropped this,” Modelle said to the little girl.

She turned, big brown eyes narrowing at him, then saw the yellow ribbon in his hand and stepped toward him to take it.

A fierce protectiveness shot through Cord, and he crossed the distance. “Excuse me, sir, aren’t you the man who transports the animals to the zoo?”

Modelle’s body went still, his jaw tightening as he pivoted toward Cord.

“Thanks, mister,” the little girl said as she snatched the ribbon.

“Ivy!” The child’s mother called her name from the fence and Ivy ran toward her.

A muscle ticked in Modelle’s cheek and he glared at Cord. “Yeah, that’s me. Who the hell are you?”

Someone you don’t want to piss off. “My son asks for a petting zoo at his birthday. Do you set up the zoo for private parties?”

Modelle hitched up his pants with a heaved breath. “No.”

A muscle jumped in the man’s cheek as he strode toward the van he used to transport the animals.