Nischal [leopard spots 9] Read Online Free PDF

case. We need to be able to concentrate on finding the missing men, not dodging paint and shit.”
    Preston didn’t think PETA dealt in shit-tossing, but he also knew that wasn’t what the agent meant. He wasn’t going to do anything to cause a delay in finding Paul, either, whether Paul was alive or enslaved. Preston sighed. “Right, you’re right, of course. I’m just…a fucking mess,” he muttered. “But I still think the leopard should go back to wherever it came from.”
    “Then might I suggest you speak with the representative from the Arizona feline facility when she gets here?” De la Garza waited until he nodded, then she had the other agent get the lady’s name for him. “She should be in tomorrow, I believe. They are in a rush as the local vet really isn’t prepared to deal with such a large predator, but they still have to make arrangements and set up a place for the leopard.”
    “Understandable.” He swallowed and almost choked when he began coughing.
    Someone put a straw to his lips and Preston drank greedily even though the cool water burned his throat at first. Then it began to soothe those damaged tissues and he almost wept with the relief from the pain. Temporary or not.
    “Mr Hardy, maybe you should get a hotel room and try to sleep. It’s been a rough day for you.”
    De la Garza’s voice held a glimmer of kindness and it almost undid Preston, but he wouldn’t let himself bawl like a baby in front of anyone. “Thanks,” he rasped. He licked his lips and held out a trembling hand for the glass.
    De la Garza handed it to him. “We have the reports you filed with the police, but we’d like to ask you some questions about what happened today, and why you were following Suraj and Yangani.”
    Preston closed his eyes and tried to organise his thoughts. He wasn’t going to admit that he’d intended to kill Suraj. Yangani, too, if he’d had to. If he’d discovered she’d played a part in his brother’s death. But now he didn’t even know if Paul was dead—he hoped he wasn’t. God, if I had murdered two people… What was I thinking? What was I doing?
    The pain and rage, the helplessness of not knowing where Paul’s body was, of the police not seeming to take Paul’s disappearance seriously even after they’d found traces of his blood—it’d driven Preston to a brink he’d never thought to be teetering on the edge of.
    He would have to do some serious soul-searching. He’d been ready to commit murder in the name of revenge. A part of him didn’t think he’d have done it, would have been too weak, or perhaps too moralistic to go through with it.
    But the scary thing was that a larger part of him thought he could have, and lived with himself afterwards. He’d have paid the price—Texas was a death penalty state.
    “Mr Hardy?” De la Garza prodded.
    Preston gave up trying to think of excuses, and instead opened his eyes. He got as comfortable on the bed as he could, then he began to talk in his raspy, rough voice.
     
     

Chapter Five
     
     
     
    It had taken him too long to make it back to the town, but Nischal couldn’t show up naked or in leopard form. He’d have been shot if he had shifted and been seen. Everyone in Texas had guns, he knew that.
    Almost a full day had passed since he’d escaped. Clothed in pants that were so big on him they kept sliding down his bare ass, and a shirt that thankfully covered that particular bit of flashing, Nischal followed the scent of his brother’s trail. It wasn’t easy, because Sabin had been put into a truck bed and hauled away. It took Nischal longer than it should have to find the veterinary hospital on the outskirts of the small town.
    There were several vehicles in the parking lot, and people standing around outside, talking. Bits of their conversations drifted to him and he glared at the ground. Most were there because they wanted to see the ‘big cat’ that had been captured.
    It turned Nischal’s stomach to think