Page 71 of Tiger Queen

Jake came storming back into the living room. He put his face directly in front of Mary Beth’s and growled, “Do you work for them?”

Her eyes widened. “I… Work for who?”

“The Animal Freedom Front. The ones who posted the video.”

She gasped. “What! Of course not!”

“Don’t fucking lie to us,” Jake snarled. “You used your phone to record our meeting yesterday.”

“I’m not! I didn’t! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Anthony stepped up to play good-cop. “Hey, let’s all settle down. Mary Beth, how about you show us your cell phone and laptop? If this is all a big misunderstanding then that would clear your name real fast. Make it easier on everyone. How about it?”

She looked at him, then at David, then at me. Her eyes lingered on me the longest, and for a split second I saw the guilt within. The look of someone who had gotten caught.

“I don’t think you have the right to search my cell phone,” she said in a confident voice. “Or my laptop. Unless you have any evidence against me?”

It was too much. I pushed Jake aside and jabbed a finger at her face. “Do you know how hard we’ve worked trying to do the right thing for these animals? Giving them good lives here while trying to move them to permanent homes? David and Anthony have spent a ton of their own money to make that happen. And then someone like you walks in here and records us without our knowledge and posts it online, out of context, to make us look bad! Even though we are the good guys! Well, I can’t deal with any more bullshit, Mary Beth. We know it was you. So how about you just admit to everything so we can all move on?”

Her eyes widened and shimmered with tears. “I didn’t do anything,” she said in a tiny voice.

“Admit it!” I shouted in her face. “Admit it you fucking bitch!”

Mary Beth jumped up from the chair and backed up until she was in the corner of the living room. She wrapped her arms around herself and started shaking and sobbing.

“I… didn’t… do… anything… I just… want to… work here… with the animals…”

David closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door. “God damnit.”

Anthony stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. That look dumped cold water on my anger until I felt only embarrassment. Even though I still thought Mary Beth was guilty, it was tough to feel good about myself while she sobbed in the corner like a scared animal.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” I muttered. Then, to David, I said, “Let’s go.”

Tears and snot ran down Mary Beth’s face. “Am… I… fired?” she managed to get out.

“No, you’re not fired,” David said.

Mary Beth’s wails drifted after us as we left the trailer.

31

Rachel

Brandon was still sitting in his beach chair in front of his trailer. His eyes were as round as saucers as he watched us walk by.

“Do you, uh, do you want to question me too?” he asked in a shaky voice. He held up his phone. “I mean, I guess I’ll let you look at my phone too, just please don’t yell at me, Miss Rachel.”

Miss Rachel? Holy shit, I must have really been shouting at Mary Beth to put that kind of fear into Brandon.

“You’re fine,” David told him as we walked by. “Everything’s fine.”

As soon as we were out of earshot, I rounded on David. “You’re not firing her?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not!”

“We don’t have enough evidence,” he explained calmly. “We’ve signed her to a two-month contract. We can’t break that unless we have cause. We would be forced to pay her for the full two months. I dealt with that at one of my gyms last month and it was a huge pain in the ass.”

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