Tiger Magic

“He?” Tiger asked, his brows drawn. “How do you know a male owns this?”

“Because only a guy would let his car get this dirty. The windows are tinted, that’s good. If I could only roll . . . mine . . . all the way . . . up.” The window stuck three quarters of the way, and Carly stopped trying. But the stuck window proved to be convenient, because the air-conditioning didn’t work.

Carly drove carefully out of the lot, and as she had when she left the gallery, she avoided driving past the fronts of the hotels. She went back into the warehouse area, then onto Ben White again, heading west.

The car held the stench of old cigarettes, old coffee, mud, and other things Carly didn’t want to identify. When she could move down the road at a decent speed, air blew through the half-open windows, even if the air was oven hot. When she had to stop for a light or for backed-up traffic, however, the stuffiness made her gag. Perspiration trickled down her face and between her shoulder blades.

Tiger wouldn’t talk. He pulled his hat down over his eyes and slouched against the door as though he wasn’t worried as Carly made her way through the streets.

At one point, Carly’s cell phone rang. She wasn’t moving at the time, stuck in a merge of cars coming off Mopac. She grabbed the phone from her purse, but the number had no name attached to it, and she didn’t recognize the number.

“Connor,” Tiger said looking at it.

“This phone has a GPS tracker,” Carly said. “If they can use that to locate us, we’re screwed.” On the other hand, she had no intention of throwing an expensive smartphone out the window. Whoever picked it up would have access to all her contacts and maybe her bank account, she didn’t know. Or maybe they’d so helpfully call all her friends and family until she was found.

Tiger yanked the phone from her and ended her inner debate by closing his massive hand around it. The ringtone squeaked and went silent, and bits of black plastic rained down to join the junk on the floorboards. Tiger sifted through the wreckage until he found the chips, and he broke those too.

“Well, I guess that’s one solution,” Carly said. The traffic started, and she drove on, her mouth dry.

“You have any more cell phones?” Tiger asked. “Or gadgets? Connor says other things have locators in them.”

“Not with me. They’re at the house.”

“Good.” Tiger went back into his relaxed state against the door, and Carly hoped the door was solid enough to take his bulk.

She drove on, winding through streets, heading for the Bee Cave area. No one seemed to be following her, though the few people they passed in more affluent neighborhoods turned heads as the old car sputtered by.

Carly turned off a little north of Bee Cave into a neighborhood that was fairly new, with large houses and winding streets. She made it to the house she needed as shadows were lengthening, afternoon finally turning to evening.

“Hang on,” she said, opening the car door in the driveway. “I’ll run in and open up the garage. We can’t leave this pile of junk on the street. It will definitely be noticed.”

Tiger was alert now, his eyes changing to the golden sparkle they took on when he was thinking about changing into the tiger. “Who lives here?”

“My sisters. Don’t worry, they’re in Mexico. I have the keys. I’ll hurry.”

Before Tiger could argue, she shut the door and tripped up the small flight of steps through the landscaping to the front door. A key on her ring fit the locks, and Carly pushed her way inside.

A beeping sound startled her, and for one panicked moment, Carly forgot the alarm code. Her fingers knew it, though, and soon the alarm was off.

Carly went out through a back passage to the garage and punched the control to open the garage door. Then she drove the car into the garage, Tiger still in it, turned off the ignition, and closed the garage door.

She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face. “This thing really stinks.”

Tiger didn’t answer. He followed Carly as she got out of the car, entered the house again, and led him through the back passage to the main part of the house.

“Your sisters live here?” Tiger stopped to look around the giant kitchen and the high-ceilinged living room beyond. “How many?”

“My two oldest sisters. They and my mom and my other sister all went to Mexico to shop. I didn’t go because Armand needed me for the exhibit opening.” Carly huffed. “See how well that worked out.”

“So much room for two people,” Tiger said, turning to take in the echoing space.

“True, but they earned it. My sisters run a decorating business together. Althea and Zoë, that is. The one just above me in age, Janine, is married and a teacher. I’m the youngest.”

Tiger pulled off his baseball hat and dropped it onto a chair, combing his fingers through his hair, ruffling it and making it look sexy. The black and orange strands no longer seemed odd to her.

“Why don’t you live here with them?” he asked. “It would be safer for you.”

Carly opened the refrigerator. Sneaking out of the gallery, stealing a car, and fleeing across Austin—very slowly—had given her an appetite.

“Like I said, I’m the youngest. I wanted to go out on my own, see if I could do it without everyone looking over my shoulder and telling me what to do. We’re close, my sisters and me, but they do tend to be a bit overprotective, and at times, downright bossy. Ooh, pasta salad.” She drew out a plastic container, popped the lid off, sniffed it. “Seems okay. Someone needs to eat this before it goes bad.” Carly plopped it onto the counter, then dove back into the refrigerator. “There’s plenty of lunch meat in here. Want me to make you a sandwich? And while I’m at it, you can explain to me why you told me to steal Yvette’s car and duck out of the gallery without alerting Spike or Connor.”