Page 86 of Easy, Tiger

The FBI agents arrive not long after with practiced professionalism, the kind veteran investigators bring to crime scenes involving millions of dollars in illegal wildlife trade. They photograph everything, catalog each piece of evidence, and maintain a professional skepticism born from dealing with elaborate criminal enterprises.

Agent Ackley, a compact woman with steel-gray hair, examines the correspondence files with particular interest. "These implicate researchers at major institutions. We're talking about a conspiracy that reaches into federal agencies."

"The trafficking network spans multiple states," her partner, Agent Gayton, adds while reviewing Nico's financial records. "Bank transfers to offshore accounts, payments from private collectors, the whole operation."

I watch them work, boxing evidence that will finally vindicate Halsey while simultaneously burying the truth about what Nico was really hunting. The irony is apparent to me—justice served through specific omitted facts.

Nico stirs beside the camp chair, his eyes opening to slits as consciousness returns. The ketamine leaves him disoriented, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated.

"The tigers," he mumbles, his voice thick and slurred. "They change... saw them change..."

Agent Ackley lifts her face from her evidence inventory. "What's he saying?"

"Delusions," Owen interjects smoothly. "Tranquilizer can cause hallucinations, especially with head trauma from the fall."

Nico tries to sit up, his coordination compromised. "Listen to me. They are people who turn into tigers, and I have proof—I have⁠—"

"Sir, you need to remain calm," Agent Gayton approaches with practiced authority. "You're under arrest for wildlife trafficking, conspiracy, and multiple federal charges."

"You don't understand!" Nico's voice rises to a desperate pitch. "Shape-shifters! Maren transforms into a tiger—I saw it happen!"

The federal agents exchange the heavy look reserved for suspects who've clearly suffered psychological breaks. Agent Ackley makes a note in her pad while Agent Gayton begins reading Miranda rights to a man whose credibility evaporated the moment he mentioned supernatural creatures.

Agent Ackley approaches us before they finish loading Nico, notebook in hand. "Ms. Gallagher, we're going to need a full statement from you, probably several, given the scope of what he's implicated in. We'll be in touch about scheduling that once the immediate scene work wraps up."

"Whatever you need," Halsey says.

"He'll need medical attention before anything else, given the blood loss." Agent Gayton gives a curt dip of his head toward the ambulance idling near the access road. "We're taking him to the hospital under guard before processing continues. He's not going anywhere, Ms. Gallagher. Not for a long time."

"Wait," Halsey says, advancing forward. "There's one more thing. I kept the slug I dug out of a poached black bear I found in the woods back in September. It's safely locked away back at the cabin, but I can bring it with me when I come in to give my statement. It should match his rifle perfectly."

Agent Ackley's eyebrows rise in pleasant surprise. "Ballistics evidence. Ms. Gallagher, that would give us the smoking gun for his poaching charges."

As they load Nico into the back of the ambulance, his wild claims about transforming humans fade into the background noise of a properly processed crime scene. Halsey stands beside me, while years of persecution disappear behind reinforced glass and federal jurisdiction.

"It's really over," she says.

Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, I feel the tension finally leave her frame. "It's over."

31

HALSEY

The laptop screen glows against the early morning light filtering through my cabin windows, inbox notifications pinging with the persistence of a woodpecker. Twenty-three new messages since yesterday, each subject line more extravagant than the last. Exclusive Partnership Opportunity. Six-Figure Advance Awaiting Your Response. Wildlife Quarterly Seeks Award-Winning Artist.

Award-winning, the phrase feels foreign attached to my name.

Scrolling through the messages, each one represents the career I thought I'd lost forever. Smithsonian Press wants me for their endangered species series. National Geographic offers a staff position with benefits and travel allowances. Three different publishers are bidding for exclusive rights to my next field guide.

Buried among them is an update from Agent Ackley. The FBI finally traced the funds from the "anonymous client" who commissioned the Red Pine field guide. The money moved through three shell companies before linking directly back to Dr. Pascal. A wave of dread washes through my veins, but the final puzzle piece clicks into place.

Pascal purposefully hired me and sent me into Nico's hunting grounds to serve as isolated, expendable bait, using my ruined career merely to discredit me.

Right beneath Ackley's update sits an email from the Appalachian Conservation Institute itself, my old employer, with the subject line: Reinstatement and Formal Apology. I open it out of pure morbid curiosity. The new interim director writes three paragraphs of purposeful corporate contrition, offering my old position back with a substantial raise and a public statement clearing my name in their next quarterly newsletter. Not one word of it feels like enough, not after understanding how deep the rot actually went.

I send the correspondence to the FBI agent assigned to my case, bypassing a direct reply to the Institute entirely.

There's also a voicemail from my parents that I came across earlier. They somehow found my new number and left a rambling, two-minute message filled with convenient excuses about how they "always knew the truth would come out" and how they wanted to "reconnect as a family." I delete it without a second thought. My real family is here now.