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mind wander over all the possibilities.
    Too bad most of the possibilities had involved going another round with the taciturn and delicious Jordan Leone instead of figuring out what exactly was attacking the menagerie.
    There was a science to what she did, though you couldn’t get most people to believe it. Tracking prints in the dirt or analyzing blood samples or simply calculating what sort of musculature would be needed for something to be able to jump over a wall. What sort of claws could dig through brick, what kind of hide was thick enough to fend off the bite of barbed wire. The Crew kept files. Made reports. She and her peers compared notes. But still, so much of what they did had to be based on speculation. When you couldn’t prove something, that was all you could go on.
    Vadim had sent her down here thinking she might be looking for a chupacabra. Never mind it wasn’t killing goats and it was out of the normal territory associated with that beast—there weren’t many things that could do whatever this thing was doing. Yet after looking over the pictures of the slaughter and having Jordan take her around the estate, Monica wasn’t convinced. She’d been on a couple cases hunting chupacabras before, and while they could certainly cause a lot of damage, there’d never been one she’d seen or heard of that could drag away a full-grown tiger or even a half-sized mountain lion, for that matter.
    Which meant this was probably something different. Something they didn’t know about, hadn’t ever seen. The tingle of anticipation had been with her all day long, and being so close to Jordan all afternoon hadn’t helped much.
    So, she cooked.
    She’d never had jambalaya and wouldn’t have dared to try it here in the land where it was considered comfort food, so she’d settled on something she knew without a doubt she could pull off. Nothing fancy, just pasta with a fresh tomato sauce and lots of onions, peppers and garlic. Fresh-grated parmesan. The cook had given her a loaf of sourdough bread, which she’d cut into splits and baked with some more parmesan and olive oil. Adding a salad of mixed greens and lots of extra veggies, she had a complete meal. Enough for two, as a matter of fact, which had been her plan all along.
    â€œYou didn’t have to do this,” Jordan said from her doorway.
    â€œI wanted to.” She waved him into the small dining area. A table set for two. The plates were white ceramic, heavy and serviceable and far from romantic...but romance wasn’t what she really wanted. Was it?
    For a half a minute, she was sure he was going to refuse her, but then he shook his head and moved toward the table. He took a seat. Then he looked at her.
    â€œI should... I was running.”
    â€œI saw you.” She’d watched him head off and return hours later. Sweating. Panting.
    â€œI should shower first.”
    â€œSure,” she said. “If you want to.”
    He didn’t move. Monica smiled and set the bowl of pasta in front of him. Jordan fell on it like a starving beast, scooping a huge portion and digging in without so much as a second look. She served herself, eyeing him casually, though in reality she was taking in his every move.
    â€œGood,” he grunted around a mouthful of bread.
    â€œYou were hungry, huh?”
    Jordan paused. Chewed. Swallowed. He reached for the glass of red wine she’d set out and drained half the glass before answering her. “Yes.”
    â€œGood,” Monica echoed him and set to eating her own portion. She hadn’t been exercising as he had, but she managed to put away a decent amount of pasta before she sat back in her chair to rub her belly.
    Jordan had cleared his plate, plus the salad and most of the bread, and was looking hopefully toward the kitchen. “Is there more?”
    â€œYes. Plenty. Help yourself.” Monica watched him get up. The view from the back