Read Online Sector C by Phoenix Sullivan - Free Book Online Page B

he’d returned, that Jim had never really left the rural life.
     
    When Donna drove up their driveway, a big red Rhodesian Ridgeback whuffed at them from the front porch, announcing their arrival. Jim came out the front door, waving toward them. “Don’t get out,” he called. “You’ll have to follow me out to the back 50.”
     
    Donna almost regretted making the stop when she realized they were going to have to go through three gates on the way toward wherever the cat was, with Jim having to get out of his truck each time to open and then close each gate before they could move on, and then they were going to have to do it all over again on the way out.
     
    “So much for a quick stop,” she muttered at the first gate, and Chad, seemingly back to his old self, grinned.
     
    Once they were through the third gate, they crawled along through the high scrub and weeds that grew along the base of the hills, Jim apparently looking for where he’d found the remains. At last he pulled to a stop and flashed his emergency lights, the signal he’d spotted the body.
     
    Stands of knee-high grass mixed with succulent broad-leaved weeds waved menacingly in all directions. Visions of chiggers swarming those thin, dry blades had Donna itching already. “Did we bring any DEET?” she asked hopefully.
     
    “Nah, I don’t think so.” Chad made a show of opening the back window and rummaging in the trunk beneath it.
     
    Jim was out of his vehicle and motioning them over to a nondescript spot where the grass had obviously been trampled earlier. From her vantage, though, Donna couldn’t see anything that resembled an animal in the area. “Fine,” she muttered, as she tucked her jeans inside her socks. Not that it would help much. Tomorrow she’d likely be waking up to severe itching everywhere from behind her knees to around her waist to up and down her bikini line. “You can stay in the truck, if you want,” she told Chad in a tone that was at once magnanimous and petulant.
     
    “Nah, I don’t get to see too many cougars.” He opened his door and strode through the grass like a hero.
     
     Donna looked at Alfie, still curled up on the seat and making no move to leave the cab. Her tail thumped softly against the back of the seat. “Smart dog.”
     
    With a sigh of resignation, Donna swung herself out of the truck and picked her way over to where Jim stood, a long PVC pipe in his hands, pushing back grass from the cat he’d found.
     
    “Holy—” Chad had gotten there first. “What the hell is that?”
     
    That reaction was totally unexpected from her laconic tech. Donna hurried the last few steps and peered down. Two things were immediately obvious: It was one damn big cat — and it wasn’t a cougar. Coyotes and buzzards had been at the body and only some assorted bones, fur and the head, minus eyes, were left.
     
    “Looks kind of like a tiger that’s been in the sun too long, don’t it?” Jim said. “What do you think it is?”
     
    “It’s a tiger, damn straight.” Chad took the PVC pipe from Jim and prodded at the remains. “An albino?”
     
    “ It’s nose is too dark. So are its stripes.” Donna slipped a pair of hemostats from her smock pocket and carefully lifted a flap of fur. “I think it’s a white tiger. Not as rare as an albino but rare enough.”
     
    “Especially out here.” Chad started to roll the head aside with the pipe.
     
    “Wait!” Donna straightened back up and began snapping pictures with her phone, getting the remains from several angles.
     
    “You’ll report it as a natural death, right?” Jim asked.
     
    “I don’t see much reason to report it as anything else. Not that we have to worry about hunting limits on tigers around here. I would like to try to find out who it belonged to. It could be someone’s illegal pet that got away, I suppose. If so, we’ll never find its owner. But if it escaped from a refuge or a zoo, they may want to know what happened to