Chapter 4 - EMMA
Emma ran harder than she had in years.
Through animal-health corridor.
Past nutrition storage.
Across public plaza.
Security was already moving visitors away from the tiger building.
Then she heard him.
“Hee-hee!”
She nearly collapsed.
Leo sat on the floor beside a zoo employee.
Alive.
Laughing.
Emma grabbed him.
Held him so tightly the employee gently said:
“Ma’am—”
Emma loosened her arms.
Leo touched her face.
“Mommy.”
She cried.
Then:
“Kitty!”
Emma laughed through tears.
“Yes. Kitty.”
Atlas remained beside the glass.
Emma looked at him.
She understood immediately why he approached.
Months earlier, during Atlas’s recovery from dental surgery, Emma had spent hours in the veterinary observation room.
Leo sometimes stayed with a staff babysitter behind a secondary safety wall.
Atlas heard his laugh.
Again and again.
Emma also carried the same citrus-based veterinary hand lotion every day.
Leo had rubbed it onto his shirt that morning after grabbing her hands at breakfast.
Tigers rely heavily on scent and sound.
Atlas likely recognized both.
Not friendship in a human sense.
Association.
Familiar stimulus.
Still extraordinary.
Then Emma saw security footage.
Two men following Leo.
Her relief turned into rage.
“Who are they?”
Police had already been called.
Detective Ryan Walker arrived twenty minutes later.
He asked Emma one question first:
“Does anyone have a reason to target your family?”
She answered:
“No.”
Then Daniel arrived.
He grabbed Leo.
Cried openly.
Ryan repeated the question.
Daniel hesitated.
Emma noticed.
“What?”
Daniel looked at her.
Then away.
Ryan said:
“Mr. Carter?”
Daniel whispered:
“Maybe.”
Emma stared.
“Maybe what?”
Daniel took a breath.
“The kidnapping may not have been about us.”
Then told them about Spencer Vale.
Four houses down.
Investor.
Former client.
Very wealthy.
And about the threatening messages Vale had received recently.
Emma looked at Daniel.
“How do you know?”
Daniel’s face tightened.
May you like
Because Daniel had been the cybersecurity consultant Spencer hired to investigate them.
And he had never told Emma.
