CAUTION: This story contains implied sexual activity between minors, violence, and profanity. Reader discretion is advised.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Assam Chai
by IndigoNeko

Chapter 6

Monday, June 13th, 2016

Raenne said her goodbyes to her husband and hung up the phone, shaking her head in disbelief that the second attorney in the firm handling her parents’ estate and daughter’s trust had gone missing. That the missing lawyer had left behind a wife and three kids had hit home way too hard. 

The tigress took a deep breath to center herself. There was no proof, no overt clues that it was him, but she had a gut feeling that it was her brother behind the murdered and missing lawyers. Only she had no clue how to find someone who was missing in an urban setting. Tracking someone across miles of wilderness was easy, but she didn’t have a damn clue how to track someone down in a city. 

But she knew someone who could, who specialized in it. Making a snap decision, she held up her cell phone and pulled up Dafydd Owen’s phone number. She waited a few moments as the phone rang, then connected. She heard chewing in the background... he was probably eating breakfast since it was 7AM in Colorado. 

“Sorry to interrupt your breakfast, Dafydd, but... I need your help,” Raenne said.

She heard the panther swallow on the other end of the phone, followed by “What is it?”

“You know my parents kidnapped Alex back in January,” she began. “What you may not know is that they had a trust created for hir the same day they were murdered. Their wills specified that their assets be liquidated and the residuary estate placed in that trust. The firm handling all of that was Pullman & Pratt, in Philadelphia. I found out a month ago that Allan Pratt was murdered during a break-in at their office. I didn’t think much of it then, but... My husband just told me that Heinrich Pullman is missing.” Raenne finally ran out of breath. 

“One lawyer dead and his partner missing?” Dafydd asked, then paused for a moment before continuing. “That stinks like fish that’s been rotting for a week... and it smells like dirty money. You’re right, you need help. But... Raenne, I’m retired.”

“I know, but I don’t know who else to ask. I’m sure as shit not going to spend three hours in a busy police station with a box of crayons drawing diagrams for clueless dicks and I don’t have time to find a good gumshoe here in Philly; I’m supposed to be on a plane back to Denver in five hours, and I’ve still got another hour worth of seminars. Even if I did have time... I don’t need a detective; I need Sherlock fucking Holmes. Pullman’s been missing for two weeks.”

Dafydd remained silent, so Raenne tried to appeal to whatever shreds of compassion the jaded investigator might still have left. “Look, I know he’s probably dead, but he left behind a wife and three kids. Without a body there’s no death certificate, no life insurance, no retirement, and no bank account access.”

“Okay...” Dafydd said with a long-suffering sigh. “Let me start making some calls.”

When people started sitting down around her, Raenne realized that the second seminar was about to start. “Look, the seminar’s starting, I don’t have a car, and I’m forty-five minutes from downtown... but if you need boots on the ground, call my husband. I’ll text you his phone number in a second. Oh, one last thing: my gut feeling is that my brother Ivan is behind this. The Russian mafia may no longer be a major player in Philadelphia, but he’ll have plenty of men with guns.”

__________________________________________________

Sitting in the parked rental SUV, David listened to the twins babble nonsense to each other in the back seat while tapping away on his MacBook. He finally had some spare time to take a stab at converting his employer’s aging codebase from Objective-C to the newly-released Swift programming language. He had a nasty feeling that this was going to be way more work than his younger coworkers claimed... as usual. 

The sudden ring of his phone was startlingly loud, and he quickly picked up his phone and accepted the call, changing the audio output to speakerphone. “Hello?”

“It’s Dafydd,” the unexpected but familiar voice said. “Your wife asked me to dig into a missing lawyer.”

David raised an eyebrow and set his laptop aside on the passenger seat. “Heinrich Pullman?”

“Exactly,” the panther replied. “I called his house to talk to his wife, but she’s not answering. I need you to check on her... and ask her a few questions. She lives in Chestnut Hill.”

When his phone dinged with a text message containing the address, David’s other eyebrow went up. He tapped the phone and watched the maps app load. It was only a few miles east of Consohocken and directly north. “Wouldn’t it be safer to have the police check on her?”

“Probably,” Dafydd replied. “But I think it’s unlikely that she’s a target, and I need to ask her questions without the police getting involved... at least until I’m ready for them to get involved.”

The white tiger sighed and turned the ignition key, buckled his seatbelt, then pulled away from the temporary parking spot, following the map directions on his phone.

“Call me when you get there... and don’t park directly in front of their house,” the panther said, cutting the call.

David sighed, and started driving. It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to reach the narrow brick-fronted home, a classic example of Federal architecture... as were the other five houses along that street. He parked in front of one of them and called Dafydd back.

“I’m parked in front of the house next to hers,” David said. “There’s a navy-blue Chrysler minivan parked out front.”

“So she’s probably home... and with her husband missing she’ll be easily spooked. I assume you’ve got the twins with you?”

“Yeeaah,” David confirmed, not exactly sure where this was going.
  
“She’ll probably be a lot less spooked by someone carrying a pair of babies.”

David paused, thinking of all the possible ways this could go sideways, then asked “What if she’s not answering the phone because there’s something wrong? Someone could be using them as leverage to get her husband to talk.”

The line went silent for several seconds before the panther on the other line responded. “Check to see if they’ve got security cameras. If not, you can approach the house... but stay out of sight of the windows. Listen for barking to check if they’ve got a dog. Use your phone’s camera to snap a photo through one of the front windows. Just make sure you’re not seen and that the camera flash is off. Then call me back.”

David let out a nervous sigh. “Okay,” he said, ending the call. The white tiger stepped out of the rental car and checked the house. He didn’t see any cameras up in the eves, not even on the other nearby houses. The doorbell was the standard white push-button instead of the Ring cameras that had become so popular recently. 

Feeling like he was committing a crime, David approached the front of the house at an angle, walking towards it across the sidewalk. He didn’t hear any dog barking... but he did hear what sounded like cartoons. He pulled out his phone and opened the camera app, checked the flash option to make sure it was off and tested it by snapping a photo of the sidewalk. He held the phone up to the window and quickly took a photo before turning and walking back to the rental car and getting back inside. 

Keeping an eye on the house, he checked the image. It was a living room with two young black-scaled lizards in pastel shirts who were sitting on a sofa, their faces in profile. There was a door in the far wall that led to a kitchen. Frowning, he called Dafydd back.

“The front right window looks into a living room. Two kids sitting on a sofa. Sounds like they’re watching cartoons,” the tiger said.

“If they were hostages, they probably wouldn’t be sitting near an open window. If Mrs. Pullman was missing too, they wouldn’t be calmly watching television. Pretty sure you’re good to try to approach the house while carrying the twins. Introduce yourself, say you were asked to perform a well-being check by a P.I. who’s investigating Mr. Pullman’s disappearance. Then call me back and put me on speakerphone.”

__________________________________________________

The knock on the front door was unexpected enough that Isabel jerked, nearly dropping the knife she was using to slice pieces of ham for the kids’ lunches. Before she even realized it she was out of the kitchen and had her hand on the doorknob... still holding the knife with her other hand. She paused, looking at the knife, then looked at the doorknob, and finally steeled herself and looked out the door’s peephole. 

Standing on the front stoop was a muscular white tiger wearing a polo shirt and slacks... and a baby sling with one kitten on his chest and another kitten in his paws. That was possibly the last thing she’d expected to see. She wondered if they were some new neighbors who’d decided to come introduce themselves, and opened the door, keeping the knife hidden. “Hello. Can I help you?” she asked.

“Uh.. Hi. My name’s David Andreyev,” the white tiger said. “And this is going to sound really weird, but... I’ve been asked to perform a well-being check by a private investigator who’s looking into your husband’s disappearance. He needs to talk to you, but you weren’t answering the phone.”

The white tiger hoisted the kitten he was holding and pulled a phone out of his pocket, then tapped the screen a few times while Isabel watched him, slightly befuddled.

“Hi. This is Dafydd Owen, Private Investigator,” the man on the other end of the phone call said. “Am I speaking with Isabel Pullman?”

“Uhh... Yes, I’m Isabel,” she confirmed before looking up at the tiger. “I’m busy making lunch for my children. Why don’t you come inside, rather than standing on the stoop there?” she suggested, stepping back and motioning for them to come inside. “I... this is going to sound equally weird, but I was just considering calling a private investigator to look for Henry, since the police haven’t had any luck. They haven’t even found his car,” she added, closing the door behind the tall white tiger and heading back into the kitchen. 

“Can you tell me about his car?” the man on the phone asked.

“It’s a silver twenty-sixteen Maserati Ghibli. Basically brand-new,” she said as she walked over to the kitchen counter to continue slicing bite-sized cubes of ham, glancing sideways at the tall tiger. The thought flickered through her head that she’d never have remotely considered opening the door, much less inviting him inside, if not for the fact that he had a pair of infants. They were adorable, silently looking around with their brilliant blue and gold eyes. 

“Hmm. When you reported your husband missing, did you also report the car as lost or stolen? Do you have a police report for it?” the private investigator on the phone asked.

“Yes. It’s right over there on the computer desk. Left side,” Isabel said, pointing into the office room with her knife. 

“You’re in luck, then,” the man on the phone said. “Maserati has GPS tracking built into their newest cars. If you call their assistance line and give them the police report information, once they confirm it they’ll give you the GPS coordinates.”

This time Isabel did drop the knife, and it stuck point-down on the hardwood kitchen floor. She ran to the office and picked up the phone. “Do you know the phone number?” she asked, frantically.

“Give me a moment to pull up their website. Ah, there it is.” The person on the phone rattled off the number as the tiger followed her into the office.

By the time Isabel had finished her call with Maserati half an hour later, both her girls had come into the office to see who was there, and were now playing with the baby tiger cubs, one of which was crawling around on the office floor. The kittens’ father had warned them not to let the babies chew on their fingers, as they were teething and had been known to draw blood. Even her son had come downstairs to find out what was going on, though he’d retreated back upstairs afterwards, having no interest in playing with the kittens.

“So, I don’t know what these numbers mean, but they gave them to me,” Isabel said, looking down at the two numbers she’d written on the notepad. “They recommended I give them to the police-”

“Can you read them to me?” the man on the phone interrupted.

“Sure,” Isabel said, repeating each of them to the 8th digit.

“Huh. That’s in the Devil’s Pocket district, close to a small river. Google street view shows a red brick building covered in graffiti. Warehouse, maybe.”

“You mean along the Schuylkill river?” Isabel asked. Southwest Philadelphia wasn’t exactly a bad neighborhood, but it was very densely packed... a real warren.
 
“Yes,” the guy on the phone confirmed. “Now listen carefully. Isabel, you need to call the detective handling the case. Tell them that Allen Pratt’s murder and Heinrich’s disappearance may be directly related to the mass shooting on January fifth. Tell them that Raenne Kaminski has reason to believe that Heinrich was abducted by Ivan Kaminski, who is almost certainly armed and extremely dangerous and may have a force of armed men at his command. Tell them that you’re also informing the FBI. Then give them the coordinates for Heinrich’s Maserati.”

“Okay,” Isabel said, frantically writing instructions down on her notepad.

“David, you need to call the FBI and tell them the same things, then tell them you’ve informed the police and give them the detective’s contact number,” the investigator said, over the phone. “I have calls of my own to make.”

Both David and Isabel looked down at the phone in his hand as the call disconnected.

“Who’s Ivan Kaminski?” Isabel asked, looking up at the tiger.

David frowned, and swallowed the lump in his throat, recalling the horrifying stories his wife had told about her family, especially her older brother. “Bad news.”

__________________________________________________

Ginnie stared at the ceiling of her room, listening to Billie Eilish, as she had been for the past hour. She was slightly sore from the Jazzercise workout with her mom over the weekend, but not nearly as sore as she had been after the first karate workout. But for some reason she felt tired and bloated... No, she felt exhausted and fat, and she really didn’t want to get out of bed.

Unfortunately her stomach was growling and her desire for a smoothie had just reached the point where it had overcome her desire to lounge in bed all day. She sighed and rolled out of the bed, shambling across the hallway to the bathroom. Her feathers were a mess, but right now she didn’t particularly care. Fixing them could wait a bit... at least until she had to go to karate class in the evening.

After using the restroom she went to the kitchen to make a smoothie. The plastic storage bins seemed as heavy as bricks. For a moment she wondered if she’d overdone it with her mom’s Jazzercise, but the weakness didn’t feel the same as when she’d overdone it at karate. Her legs had felt like jello after that first class. Right now things just felt... heavy. As she set the storage bins out on the kitchen counter, her father stepped in from the garage. 

“Morning, Chiclet,” Hank said, turning a chunk of metal over in his oil-stained hands.

“Morning, Dad,” Ginnie replied, using a measuring cup (for once) to scoop the oats and banana chips out of the plastic bins instead of simply pouring directly into the blender. She yawned and put the cap on the top before hitting the ‘liquify’ button. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before the oats and banana chips had been turned to powder, and she turned it off while she grabbed the milk from the fridge... which was also surprisingly heavy. The milk jug felt more like one of those big blue five-gallon water containers.

“The car’s out of commission. I need a part from AutoZone, so I’m going to drive into Prairie Flats. Do you want to go with me? Or is there something you’d like me to get while I’m out?” Hank asked.

Ginnie set the milk on the counter and turned to look back at her dad. If she’d had lips, she would have frowned. “How are you going to drive into Prairie Flats if the car isn’t working?”

Hank stared at her with his beak open for a solid two seconds. “Huh. That’s a good question...”

__________________________________________________

Raenne stepped out of the Lyft driver’s car, thanking the man and hefting her duffel bag. She turned and looked up at the restaurant where she was meeting David for lunch... a place called Renata’s Kitchen in the University City district next to The Woodlands. She was looking forward to changing out of her karate gi and getting something to eat before they flew back to Denver.

With a sigh, the tigress walked up to the entryway and stepped inside, where a waitress greeted her, asking how many would be in her party. “It’ll be me and my husband, plus two infants, when they get here. Hopefully you have baby seats. Also, where’s your restroom? I need to change outfits.”

Two minutes later, Raenne was dressed once more in her preferred cargo pants and a flannel shirt over a tank top and sitting at a table while waiting for her husband. It wasn’t but a few seconds after she’d sat down when her phone rang. She stared at the phone number for a moment before answering. “Hello?”

“Hello, this is Special Agent Joshua Mason with the FBI. Am I speaking with Raenne Andreyev?” the man on the phone asked, mispronouncing the name as ‘Ray-anne’.

“This is Raenne,” she confirmed. She’d been expecting a call from the FBI after being briefed by both Dafydd and David.

“We received a tip from your husband, David Andreyev, saying that you had reason to believe that Ivan Kaminski is responsible for the murder of Allan Pratt and the disappearance of Heinrich Pullman. Is that correct?”

“Correct. I assume you want me to explain why?”

“If you would, please,” the agent said. “Do you mind if I record this conversation?”

“Feel free,” Raenne replied, then started explaining. “To keep it brief, Viktor and Dina Kaminski were killed in a shoot-out in north Philadelphia on January fifth. That made national news; so it’s likely that Ivan heard about it. Their estate was handled by the offices of Pullman & Pratt, as a matter of public record. Their Wills specified that he and I were to be given nothing,” she explained, waving to her husband as he walked up to the table and started setting the twins in the high-chairs that the waitress had brought out.

“Ivan would have viewed the estate as his rightful inheritance, regardless of what the Will said,”  the tigress continued. “He probably decided to break into the offices of Pullman & Pratt to find where the residuary estate was. Ivan’s violent and not very bright, so if he’d been interrupted by Allan Pratt, he’d have killed the man and then realized after the fact that he could have forced the lawyer to tell him where it was. At that point he would have decided to abduct and interrogate the other lawyer, Heinrich Pullman.”

Raenne sighed. “The funds in some fiduciary trusts can’t be withdrawn without a written order from a judge, and if Heinrich Pullman told Ivan that... As I said, Ivan’s violent. He probably would have beaten the man to death. He would have kept the man’s car too since, as I said, he’s not very bright and probably doesn’t know the onboard GPS can be used to track it.”

The FBI agent on the other end of the line was silent for a moment as he processed the information she’d given him. “You spin a very convincing tale, Mrs. Andreyev. Do you happen to have anything other than conjecture that Ivan Kaminski is involved?”

“The GPS coordinates of Pullman’s car match an abandoned warehouse that was owned by a shell company associated with the Russian mafia. I anonymously reported the warehouse to the Philadelphia Police in May of two-thousand-and-three, where they discovered several homicide victims and a large supply of methamphetamine. If Pullman’s car is there, then that warehouse is no longer abandoned. The rest is informed speculation,” Raenne said, declining to divulge how she knew about the warehouse. She could imagine the sound of gears turning in the agent’s head, followed by a ding as he realized this was sufficient cause to initiate an operation... and a chance to apprehend one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals.

“Thank you, Mrs. Andreyev. You’ve been extremely helpful. Do you have anything else that you’d like to add?” The FBI agent asked.

Raenne thought for a moment, then told him what she’d told Dafydd Owen. “The Russian mafia may no longer be a major player along the east coast, but I’m sure Ivan still has plenty of armed men at his disposal. I’d recommend coordinating with the Philadelphia police and using SWAT teams if you plan to raid that warehouse. Also it’s possible, but unlikely, that Mr. Pullman is still alive... and could be used as a hostage. So make sure you have an ambulance or two and a few units of plasma on hand.”

The FBI agent was silent for a moment. Raenne suspected he was just now realizing how big the scope of this operation was going to be and that he was going to be in for a very long day.

 “Thank you, Mrs. Andreyev. Have a good day.”

“Good hunting, Agent Mason,” Raenne said, hanging up the call. Then she looked up to see the waitress standing at their table, staring at them with wide eyes.

__________________________________________________

“Ivan! Five-Oh! FIVE-OH!” 

The screams roused Heinrich from his torpor. He looked around. The windows near the roof were growing dark, so it was probably dusk... or maybe morning. He’d lost track of time at some point in the past few days, lost in the haze of drugs and constant pain. He glanced through the gap between boxes on the shelves nearby. The women who did the manual labor, like packing up drugs and counting money, were panicking. 

One of the dozen armed thugs ran by on the other side of the shelving unit, shoes slapping on the cement floor of the warehouse. Several other people were yelling, then someone bellowed, and they went quiet. Ivan’s deep voice was unmistakable as he described a half-baked plan to get his men out of the warehouse and keep them out of jail. 

Over the past two weeks, Henry had learned why the tiger was the leader among this group of criminals: he was confident, charismatic, courageous, and cruel. A very dangerous combination. He was also smarter than Heinrich had given him credit for; his plan might actually work. He was going to have his people in the warehouse pretend to be hostages while Liam threw Henry’s body off the roof as ‘proof’ they weren’t kidding around. Liam and Dillon would take the fall, and Ivan was going to try to make an escape.

As Ivan described the plan, a chill ran up Heinrich’s spine that had nothing to do with how cold he was... though he was definitely cold. Lying on a cheap mattress above the cement floor of an air-conditioned warehouse for the past two weeks had leeched the warmth from his body. 

No, that shiver from the realization that his time was up. He’d suspected for a week now that he wasn’t going to get out of this alive; he was a loose end that needed to be tied up. At least he wasn’t in pain thanks to the morphine they’d doped him with. At least if he was dead, the tiger wouldn’t have any reason to threaten his wife and children. At least they would be safe.

__________________________________________________

It was dusk when two armored SWAT vans and several SUVs surrounded the parking lot and graffiti-covered warehouse in southwest Philadelphia. A barbary macaque in black tactical gear watched them through the scope of his rifle, perched on a rusted metal catwalk at the top of a smokestack, high above the ancient Schuylkill Station power plant.

The smokestack that he and his partner were on was one of the few places with a decent line of sight in this area of Philadelphia. The other was a medical building being built further north, closer to the river, where Team Two was located. 

The monkey heard the ancient metal catwalk creak as his spotter shifted position slightly. “Eagle One to Eagle Two. Looks like the party’s finally started. Are you in position?” the cat asked over the radio frequency that he and the other two members of their team were using. “Over.”

“Roger, Eagle Two,” the other spotter replied over the radio. “We’re in position. Over.” 

Sweeping his scope over the area, the monkey watched as SWAT officers started pouring out of the armored vans. People in blue and yellow jackets carrying assault rifles began climbing out of the black SUVs. He’d been told that it was possible that the FBI might be part of the raid, but hadn’t really credited it; in his experience they tended to stay out of harm’s way. 

When he saw the SWAT officers establish a perimeter and one of the FBI agents pulled out a loudspeaker, the macaque realized why the FBI was there. It was a hostage situation, and they had brought along a negotiator. He pressed the button on his radio and spoke. “All Stations, this is Hawk One. Be advised this is a possible hostage situation. Over.”

A drawn-out sigh came from the tabby-cat sitting next to him. He felt exactly the same way. Unless something interesting happened, they could be sitting here all night... which made what happened next all the more satisfying. 

The door that led out onto the warehouse roof, presumably from a stairwell inside the warehouse, swung open. A rhino in a track suit and tiger in a leather jacket, both carrying AK-47s, stepped out onto the roof, dragging a lizard in a suit. They were followed a moment later by a lynx in a dark suit with a suppressed H&K MP5. Where they expected to go from the roof was a mystery, as the building and parking lot were completely surrounded. The monkey breathed in and let it back out slowly; it was time to earn his paycheck.

__________________________________________________

Raenne finished checking that the kittens were both safely strapped into their car seats before climbing into the driver’s side seat of her Murano while David climbed into the passenger side. It had been a very long day, and it was far from over. At least the trip to Philadelphia had gone mostly as planned. 

“I feel so bad for the Pullman family,” David said, out of the blue, as they pulled up to the long-term parking payment kiosks. “Isabel’s son is the same age as Alex. I keep thinking about how Alex would feel if you or I went missing...”

She didn’t answer, trying to think of a response. The SUV came to a stop next to the kiosk and Raenne slid the parking ticket into the reader, followed by her credit card. A moment later it spit out her credit card and a receipt. She took them and put them in the center console before continuing down the road that led out of the Denver airport.

Once traffic had thinned out Raenne reached over and tapped her phone, which was sitting on a dash-mounted holder. She quickly pulled up the contacts list and called Dafydd for the second time that day, setting the call audio to speakerphone.

The phone rang twice before the call connected. “Dafydd?”

“Raenne?” the panther on the other line asked. “You sound stressed. What’s up?”

“It’s been a long day,” she replied, truthfully. “I’m on my way home from Denver. David here just made a comment here about feeling bad for the Pullman family. Any news yet?”

Dafydd hummed, then answered. “A little bird told me there was a SWAT raid on that warehouse an hour ago. Word is there were at least three hostiles, including one tiger. All presumed dead.”

Raenne swallowed, and nodded. She’d known for a long time that her brother Ivan would one day wind up getting shot, either by police, other gangs, or the thugs he worked with. At least that was one chapter of her life that she could finally close the book on. She let out a sigh, whether it was from relief or regret, she couldn’t say. “Did they find Pullman?”

A few seconds passed in tense silence before Dafydd answered. “No word yet.”

From the way he said it, he knew... and Dafydd would have said something if it was good news. Raenne felt like crying. If only she’d said something after finding out about Allan Pratt’s murder, told Heinrich that Ivan might be going after the Kaminski’s estate, that his life was in danger... It was her fault for not acting sooner. She grit her teeth and sniffed; she couldn’t afford to cry while driving.

“It wasn’t your fault, Raenne,” Dafydd said, somehow knowing exactly what she was thinking.

“It was,” she countered. “I should have known it was Ivan the moment I heard about Pratt’s murder. I should have said-”

“You had no way of knowing something suspicious was going on. It’s Philadelphia; they average one homicide a day,” Dafydd interrupted.

David looked across the front cabin at his wife, having stayed silent so far. “Raenne, do you want me to drive?”

“No. I’m fine,” Raenne said, focusing on the traffic around them. The car was silent for a moment except for the twins in the back seat mumbling to each other with words only they could understand. The tigress took a deep breath. “Isabel and her children aren’t, but I'm fine.” The tigress took a deep breath. “Thank you, Dafydd. I owe you one.”

“You're welcome, Raenne. Drive safe,” the panther said, disconnecting the call.

__________________________________________________

Isabel jerked as the phone sitting next to her computer rang. It was late, and she’d just sat down at it after cleaning the kitchen after dinner. The last three hours had been almost as bad as the first three days after Henry had gone missing, anxiously waiting for news of any kind. Hope was a funny thing... and it was something she hadn’t felt in a long time. The white tiger with his two kittens had given it back to her. David, he’d said his name was... David Andreyev. She’d written it down, just in case.

The phone rang again and she glanced at the phone number on the handset’s display. It was the same number the detective had called from last time. She clicked the green button and held the phone up to her ear-hole. “Isabel speaking.”

“This is Detective Carlisle. I have good news and some bad news. The good news is that we’ve found your husband and he’s currently alive.”

The sense of relief was so palpable it felt like she’d been given wings. She took a deep breath, waiting for the detective to continue.

“The bad news is that he’s in surgery at Penn Presby Trauma Center. We still don’t know if he’s going to survive. He’s in really bad shape; we think he was stabbed when we raided the warehouse. They wanted no witnesses.”

The ache in her chest was so painful it felt like she’d been punched, had the wind completely knocked out of her. All she could do was whimper. At least she... and her children... wouldn’t spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to him. After a second she managed to swallow the lump in her throat, saying “I’m on my way over.”

“Mom?”

Isabel turned to see her son Kayson standing in the doorway, wearing his usual pajama shorts and t-shirt. 

“They found dad, didn’t they,” he said, his expression blank but for a slight frown. It was a statement, rather than a question. 

She was too choked up to speak, but she nodded, and Kayson walked across the computer office and awkwardly hugged her. 

“I thought so. He’s dead, isn’t he?” the young boy asked solemnly. “Do you want me to tell Maddy and Emmy?”

Isabel shook her head. “No-” she started before choking up again. She cleared her throat several times before she could finally speak. “He’s not dead. He’s in surgery right now, but they don’t know if he’s going to live.” She took a few deep breaths, trying to get her emotions back under control. “Why don’t you go tell your sisters to get dressed; we’re going to the hospital. I’ll be up in a minute,” Isabel said, hugging her son before he turned to head upstairs.

After her son had disappeared from sight, Isabel turned to the small picture frame sitting on one side of the computer desk. In it was a photograph of her and Henry holding their baby daughters while standing in front of their newly-bought house, with their son Kayson standing between them, barely six years old at the time. She said a quick prayer that she would get to see Henry’s gentle smile again, then stood and headed upstairs to help her daughters get dressed.

__________________________________________________

Just like it had on Friday, going to Karate class had definitely helped with the ever-present tiredness. Apparently physical activity was the only thing that was helping to stave off the constant exhaustion. After getting back home, the young thrush shambled back to her bedroom and closed the door. She quickly shucked the karate uniform, leaving it on the floor.

For a moment she debated putting on a nightgown, then decided against it, and simply grabbed her phone off the dresser before climbing into bed and pulling the sheets over. A thought that had been percolating through her mind for the past week finally bubbled to the top... namely whether she could find anything out about the two tigers in her karate class.

The problem was that they were mammals, and the vast majority of animals formed cliques around species lines. Avians didn’t hang with mammals or reptiles, and vice versa. That meant that gossip among mammals rarely spread among avians. Ginnie’s best bet to find out anything about the two tiger cubs was going to be talking to someone with fur instead of feathers.

Her circle of friends at the new school was small, consisting mostly of choir class students... the vast majority of which were birds. She didn’t have anything against mammals, unlike some of her avian friends, but she also didn’t have any mammalian friends... except Laura Mwangi, an Indri Lemur. Unfortunately, she didn’t have Laura’s phone number.

It took a few minutes, and several phone calls to other choir class friends, but eventually she managed to get the lemur’s number. After adding it to her phone, she gave it a call. The phone rang for several seconds before someone answered. The amount of noise was incredible; it sounded like a busy restaurant.

“Hello?” someone asked.

“Hi, this is Ginnie Miller. I’m trying to reach Laura Mwangi,” she answered.

There was a bellow, fellowed by silence, and someone called for Laura. The silence quickly turned to cacophony once again. It was several seconds before she heard the vaguely familiar voice come across the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi Laura. It’s Ginnie, from choir class.”

“Uhh... Who?”

“Black feathers, red crest, white cheeks?” Ginnie said, hoping that description would jog the lemur’s memory. 

“Oh! Ginnie! Sorry, it’s hard to hear with all the noise here, we’re finishing supper. Can you call me on my cell phone?” Laura asked. 

“If you’ll give me your phone number, sure,” she replied, picking up a pad of paper and a pencil from her nightstand.

“Okay,” the other girl said, quickly rattling off her phone number. “Got that?”

“Yup.”

“Good. Call me back in thirty seconds,” Laura said. A moment later the call disconnected.

Ginnie spent the time swapping the number in her phone’s contacts list, then waited a bit longer before calling the new one. This time the call connected almost immediately, and was much, much quieter. “Hey Laura.”

“Hey Ginnie,” the other girl said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I definitely wasn’t expecting you, of all people, to call me. What’s up?”

“I, uh... Well, it’s a long story. I was bored and decided to sign up for a Karate class over the summer. There’s a pair of tigers in the class that are my age, and I found out last week that they go to SCMS with us. I haven’t heard anything about ‘em. You and I move in different circles, so I was hoping-”

“Tiger?” Laura interrupted. “If you’re talking about the sixth-grader, then yes, I know plenty.”

“One of ‘em is. Hir name’s Alex. Hir mom said shi’s a hermaphrodite.”

“Oh, shit! A herm? Really? That explains why the cheerleaders all have their panties in a twist. The tiger apparently made the team just before summer break. There’s a huge uproar over it, but I didn’t know why. I can’t believe they let a herm join the cheerleading team.”

“What does that matter?” Ginnie asked, confused.

“Are you kidding?” Laura asked, sounding incredulous. “They don’t want to have someone with a dick in the girl’s locker room.”

Ginnie rolled her eyes at that. “What, are they afraid shi’ll get them pregnant or something? Shi’s ten. I doubt shi’s even started puberty.”

“What!? Ten?” Laura asked, sounding flabbergasted. “In middle school?”

“Yep,” the bird confirmed. “Shi skipped fifth grade.”

“Huh,” the lemur muttered. “Anyway... Yeah. Kitten’s been making headlines. Absolutely bat-shit crazy stuff. Apparently they were kidnapped back in January and were in some kind of shootout in Philadelphia where like a dozen people died. Oh, and supposedly they nearly murdered some boy at an arcade...” Laura paused for a moment before adding, “I think I remember a rumor that they were almost killed by a wild mountain lion, too. You know... a four-legger.”

Ginnie was silent for a moment, wondering if Laura was pulling her leg. “Are you for real?”

“Swear to God,” Laura replied. “Google that shit. It was all in the news. Had an Amber alert out and everything. The Philadelphia shooting was literally the very next day. The cougar attack happened, uh, early last school year.”

The thrush picked up the pencil and pad again, quickly scribbling down some notes, then set it back down, making a mental note to look everything up later. “What about the other tiger? Know anything about him?”

“Uhh... No? At least, I don’t think so,” the lemur replied. “Haven’t heard any rumors about ‘em. There’s no other tigers in our grade that I know of. You could check with some of the upperclassmen, maybe?”

“I’ll do that. Thanks Laura. You have a wonderful summer,” Ginnie said.

“You too!” Laura replied.

A moment later the call disconnected, and Ginnie stared down at the scribbled notes. Bat-shit crazy was right, especially if it was true. She frowned, then opened the web browser on her phone and started tapping in search terms. Sleep could wait for just a little longer.

__________________________________________________

Tuesday, June 14th, 2016

Both Madison and Emily had already fallen asleep in the hospital waiting room and Kayson was about to nod off as well when a nurse in green scrubs walked up to them, sometime just after midnight. 

“Mrs. Pullman?” the nurse whispered. “Your husband’s out of surgery now. He’s still in serious condition: stable, but still unconscious. We’ve managed to sew up the knife wound in his left lung. He’s still having trouble breathing, so we’ve got him on a ventilator and oxygen. We’re moving him to the ICU, and we’ll be bringing his body temperature back up now that he’s out of surgery. Honestly it’s a miracle he’s still alive. Did you know he’s got situs inversus? He would have been stabbed in the heart, but it’s on the wrong side. And if he hadn’t been in torpor he’d have bled out in under two minutes anyway.”

“Can... Can we see him?” Isabel asked, swallowing nervously.

“Ehhh...” The nurse looked over at the kids, seeing Kayson blink and rub his eyes, then looked back at the older lizard. “I can take you back, but you might want to wait until after you’ve seen him yourself before you make a decision on letting your children see him.”

Isabel nodded. “Kayson?” she whispered. “Can you watch over your sisters? I’m going to go see how your father’s doing.”

Kayson nodded, and Isabel stood up, following the nurse down the hallway towards the ICU.

__________________________________________________

The incessant beeping woke Henry. That was unexpected, since he didn’t expect to wake up ever again. Not after being stabbed through the chest with a bowie knife, anyway. The sensation of polished steel sliding between his ribs was something he never wanted to feel again.

He was also in some of the worst pain he’d ever felt in his life; his entire torso ached, though some spots hurt more than others. His broken jaw, collarbone, arm, and leg throbbed as well. It felt like he was floating, but whatever drugs they had him on were doing nothing for the pain.

The beeping was what made him eventually realize that he must be in a hospital. He tried to open his eyes. Even that much proved to be a struggle, but he eventually succeeded. Another, different kind of beep sounded, and a moment later he heard movement from nearby. 

“Henry?” a cautious voice asked. “Are you awake?”

The voice was one he recognized: Isabel. His wife.

When he managed to finally crack an eyelid open and look around, everything was terribly blurry. A smudge of black and yellow against a white background.  Isabel slowly came into focus. She was speaking.

“You’re in the hospital right now, in the ICU. You were stabbed. They’ve got you on a ventilator.”

The empty words floated around in his head for a bit before they finally gained meaning. So he was in a hospital, like he’d suspected. They knew he’d been stabbed. Did that mean they’d fixed his broken bones yet? It didn’t feel like they had. He tried to ask, but all he could manage was a groan.

Isabel turned and spoke, but not to him. Before he could figure out their meaning, fire shot through his broken jaw. He screamed, then went silent, gasping for breath at how painful that had been. More words, urgent sounding. It took him several moments before he could bear to open his eyes again. He blinked a dozen times before he could finally make out what he was seeing. A pair of nurses stood over him, both mammals. Isabel hovered behind them.

Henry swallowed, tried to moisten his mouth. It felt as dry as the Sahara desert. Eventually he managed to wet his throat enough to speak. “Help,” he whispered.

“Help with what? What’s wrong?” one of the mammals asked. 

This time he was able to parse the words faster. Were they seriously asking him what was wrong? Shouldn’t they already know? He blinked again, then started listing things off, as best he could. “Bro’hen jaw... bro’hen arm... bro’hen leg... collar bone... mor’hine overdose... ”

That set off a flurry of activity around him. One of the nurses yelled “Get the Narcan,” whatever that meant. A moment later he felt movement as they tried to move him from the bed onto a gurney. His leg, his chest, his face... everything felt like it was on fire. It was mercifully brief, then lights flashed past overhead as the gurney sped down the hospital hallway.