“How disappointing,” Isabeau said. She’d managed to get them within thirty feet of the building.

Conner was much closer, but seemingly disinterested, although he was talking into his radio. His gaze continually swept the rooftops and the fenceline. She took a cautious sniff of the air, testing for the scent of leopards. If Alberto and Harry knew, had others been hired as well? “I used to grow vegetables when I lived at home with my father, but now that I travel so much,” she shrugged, but took another few steps toward the greenhouse.

“Another time, perhaps,” Alberto said as Harry pushed the chair toward the house.

The door to the greenhouse swung open and for one moment there was the sound of a child crying, hastily cut off as the servant slammed the door closed. The woman whirled around to see them all staring at her, Alberto furious. He swore at her in the local Indian dialect even as he reached beneath his lap blanket, as understanding dawned. Alberto was a shrewd, cunning man who had put together the Cortez empire. In that split second he realized he’d fallen into a trap and that they’d come to find the children, not negotiate deals or friendships. Isabeau saw the knowledge on his face.

Conner suddenly moved, his speed blinding, as he rushed them. Simultaneously, the scent of leopard filled her lungs. She screamed and threw herself toward Conner, terrified as she recognized the overpowering smell of her worst nightmare, barely registering that the old man was aiming a gun at her head.

Harry whirled to face the large cat dropping out of the tree above their heads, his shotgun bucking in his hands. The shotgun boomed, a deafening sound that exploded through the air just as the sound of gunfire erupted from the direction of the house. Alberto’s deceptively sweet mask had been replaced by a twisted, cunning killer, lips drawn back in a snarl as he whipped up the gun and fired several shots at her just as Conner took her to the ground, covering her body with his.

Alberto was far too late. Ottila was on him, driving the chair over backward, spilling the body onto the ground. A powerful swipe of the paw sent the gun skidding across the ground out of the old man’s reach. Harry swung his shotgun on Conner and Isabeau in an attempt to complete the job Alberto had started. Bullets spat into the trees and ground around them as men began firing at anything and everything in the yard, unable to tell what was happening either in the house or out in the yard. Without someone in command, chaos broke out and the guards began to panic.