Beneath her hand, the roped muscles tensed, but he didn’t break stride. He kept walking with her and that gave her the courage to make the confession. “I never paid attention to the men he often met there, because I didn’t like them. There was something off about their smell.” Her fingers curled deeper in his fur. “I could smell things miles away. It drove me crazy. These men would come up to him when we would get a snow cone. Dad always took me to this one stand, and the same two men would meet him and hand him a package. He would give them an envelope. I was a child, Conner, and didn’t realize, or even question, that he was getting paid for something, or that the reason those men smelled ‘off’ was because they were doing something wrong.”

She hadn’t realized how easy it would be—or what a relief it was to be able to tell him. In his leopard form, she didn’t have to face his burning eyes and know he was judging her. As a child, she hadn’t had an inkling of what her father was into, but as a grown woman, she should have been able to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. She should have known: All the signs were there, she just hadn’t opened her eyes.

“He did it for me,” she said softly, hating the truth. “He wanted the money for me.” Her throat burned. Her father was a doctor, dedicated to saving lives. He’d taken an oath to save others, yet he’d sold information to a group of terrorists—information that led to the kidnapping and deaths of many people over the years.

The leopard pushed his head close to her, nuzzling her thigh as if to comfort her. She was grateful Conner didn’t shift to his human form. She needed to get this said, and it was so much easier talking to the leopard there in the darkness. She took another breath and lifted her face to the cleansing rain. The drops were slowing, so it was more thick mist than driving rain, but it felt good on her burning face.

“I know this will be difficult for you to believe, but my father was a good man. I don’t know what happened, why he thought we’d need that kind of blood money. He made good money as a doctor. After he died, I inherited everything. I went over his books carefully.”