by Vella Munn
Wishing she didn’t have to, Smoke turned her back on the wilds and trotted away. A howl followed her.
* * * *
“Channel Ten reporter Lisa Arnold’s exclusive interview with Sheriff Kacey was to have taken place at the site of the puppy mill that was shut down four days ago. However, the sheriff has decided to delay allowing images of the kennels to be shown until the district attorney’s office rules. Just because the men who owned the mill are dead doesn’t mean there won’t be charges. One of the men was married, and Channel Ten has learned that the other has several children. Lisa, what do you have to tell us?”
Rachelle took a sip of her wine. She should call Joe in case he wasn’t watching the news, but he’d been through so much. It wouldn’t hurt to give him the night off, so to speak. Besides, she’d let him know if she learned anything new.
“The murder investigation continues to be priority one for the sheriff’s department,” Lisa said. The forty-something woman faced the camera with the confidence of someone who’d been doing this for a long time. Because she was new to the area, Rachelle didn’t know much about the reporter other than some snippets she’d heard at work. During a recent contract negation, Lisa had presented a balanced picture of where both the teachers’ union and the school board stood. She was fair. She was also as tough as they came.
“Sheriff Kacey isn’t in a position to say whether his department has identified a prime suspect—I should say suspects—in the killing of the two men. Samples from a number of dogs have been taken and sent on to U.C. Davis, which does animal DNA testing. The sheriff asked the university to put a rush on the samples, but he isn’t sure if that’s going to happen. It’s possible the sheriff’s department will be adding to their list of canine suspects. I asked the sheriff if detectives are leaning toward one possibility more than others, but he isn’t at liberty to divulge that. One thing—” Lisa paused dramatically. “To return to an earlier comment I made, the coroner has definitely concluded that the attacks were done by more than one animal.”
“Definitely concluded,” Rachelle muttered. “Like a true fact?”
“That’s fascinating, Lisa,” the male anchor said. “Did the sheriff bring up concerns for the public?”
“No more than he and the humane society already have. Both agencies are warning people not to approach strange dogs, particularly large strays. If they see any they are to call the humane society, which is responding twenty-four hours a day.”
Twenty-four hours. How many was Nate working? Surprised by her concern for him, she reminded herself that Nate’s working conditions were his business. It was his job—one that could spell death for Joe’s grays.
If they were guilty.
“I spoke with the humane society manager,” Lisa went on, sounding just a little too self-satisfied for Rachelle. “He told me that since the attacks, approximately twenty dogs that were running loose have been captured and are currently at the shelter. Some are too small to be responsible for what was done to the brothers, but the others’ DNA is being tested.”
The county was ganging up on its dog population, at least it felt that way to Rachelle. However, given the brutality of the attack and the national interest, she couldn’t blame local officials. Wishing she weren’t alone so she could vent, she took another sip. The alcohol hit her cheeks and throat but didn’t relax her.
“Are the county’s dog owners cooperating?” the anchor asked. “I’d think, given the viciousness of the attack, anyone who owns large animals would put the public’s safety before any desire to protect their pit bulls.”
“That’s a good question. I wish I had the answer. However, like the sheriff’s department, animal control isn’t revealing many details. Sheriff Kacey assured me that everything possible is being done to protect the public.”
The public. She’d been so intent on how this was impacting Joe, it hadn’t occurred to her that the grays might pose a danger to anyone they came across. The idea of them attacking a child made her sick.
“Sheriff Kacey told me something fascinating.” Lisa looked squarely at the camera. “Several of the cages the puppy mill dogs were in had been demolished.”
“Demolished?” the anchor echoed.
“Yes. Sheriff Kacey showed me a picture of one cage. I’m no expert, but it looks as if whatever attacked the brothers also wanted to free the prisoners, and yes, that’s what they were, prisoners. The wire had been torn apart in numerous places.”
Rachelle finished her drink in two quick swallows. Lisa and the anchor debated what the cages’ condition meant, but Rachelle didn’t try to follow the conversation. She’d stopped asking Joe about the grays’ whereabouts because she’d rather not know than wonder if he was lying. He’d said they still slept with him but took off each morning. Why not, he’d insisted. They hadn’t been charged with anything. How would he react if she posed the possibility that the grays—if they were responsible—had simply intended a rescue mission at the puppy mill? The killings had been collateral damage.
Yeah and maybe you’re crazy.
She waited through the rest of the broadcast, and when she didn’t hear from Joe, she went back into the kitchen intending to refill her wine glass, only to put the glass in the sink. She’d done too much drinking after her engagement fell apart and didn’t want to lean on that crutch again. Still, it was hard not to.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the short list in her address book until she found Nate’s cell number.
She shouldn’t call him! She had nothing to tell him. More to the point, he wouldn’t tell her anything. Why then was she punching send?
“Hello,” he said after the third ring.
“I’m sorry,” she blundered. “It’s evening. I shouldn’t have—you’re probably home and—”
“Rachelle?”
He recognized her voice? “Yes. I, ah, I just listened to the news and—anyway, I was thinking you must be burning the midnight oil.”
“What did you think about Lisa’s report?”
So he’d seen it too, which meant he probably was home. Did he live in an impersonal apartment like she did? Maybe he owned his own place, which he shared with a woman. His roots were in the area. He had friends, unlike her.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
“I’m not sure what I think,” she said, stalling. “The whole thing about DNA collection—I guess that’ll give everyone the answers they’re looking for. I mean, once the police know which dog—”
“Dogs.”
Even though she knew that, anger slammed into her. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she threw at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“You suspect Joe’s pets.” She emphasized the word ‘pets’. “It would tie everything up in a neat bow if you could say for sure that the grays, which you targeted from day one, killed those men.”
She thought she heard him breathing. Was he too pacing through his house? More likely he was rolling his eyes for the benefit of the woman who shared his life and bed.
“Rachelle, I don’t want Joe’s dogs to be guilty, because if they are…”
There wouldn’t be a trial, would there? DNA testing would leave no doubt of the responsible dogs’ identity. They’d be rounded up and put down. People would go on with their lives and in a few months no one would concern themselves with what had happened. No one except for the man who’d been the only father she’d ever known.
“Rachelle? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Look, I’m sorry I called. You—”
“How is he?”
Her throat closed down, forcing her to swallow repeatedly. “I don’t know.”
“He needs you.”
I need him. “Let me worry about that.”
“I hope you do. He’s a good man. His life shouldn’t come down to something like this.”
“No, it shouldn’t.”
“How are you doing?”
She didn’t want
him asking and yet she did. “Busy. Crazy busy at work.”
“Have you seen a gray again?”
“No, have you?”
“No.”
“Good,” she whispered and hung up.
Chapter Ten
Its eyes full of trust, the tick-infested pit bull licked his hand. Nate tried to back out of the pen, but someone had chained his foot to the floor. A long, disembodied hand thrust a syringe at him. Nate knocked the lethal weapon away, but a moment later he again had hold of it.
“Do your job,” a man said. “If you don’t you’ll be fired.”
He couldn’t let that happen. He had a mortgage to pay and repairs to make, a car in need of new tires.
Tires for the life of a dog no one wanted.
Tears welled, and he started shaking. The chain tightened so he couldn’t move his leg. He leaned down and picked up the pit bull. The syringe slipped out of his hand and rolled across the cement floor.
“You’re asking to be fired, Nate. Put that cur down. You’ve done it before, nothing to it.”
He extended his free leg, thinking to kick the syringe, only to sink to his knees because the dog in his arms had become much heavier. It struggled, trying to get free. When Nate tightened his hold, the dog bit him on the neck.
Yelping like some abused puppy, he shoved the dog away. Darkness sheltered the dog. Then a sun-bright light highlighted it.
The neglected pit bull was gone, and a massive gray mutt with black eyes stared at him.
It growled. Fangs that would have done a vampire proud loosened Nate’s bowels.
He woke drenched in sweat and fought, trying to free himself from the bedding. Still shaken, he stumbled into the bathroom. He cupped his hands under the faucet and drank. When he no longer felt dehydrated, he gathered another double handful of water and buried his face in it. He pressed chilled fingers against his neck and was surprised when he didn’t find puncture marks.
When would the nightmares end? What bothered him the most was that they all had the same theme. Euthanasia was an unwanted but necessary part of his job. He’d done everything he could to shut down his emotions during that time. Why after years of disposing of animals no one wanted had the dreams that haunted his first months on the job returned?
Talk to someone about it.
“Thanks for nothing,” he muttered. “Like who would that be?”
Going back to sleep wasn’t going to happen, so he headed into the living room, thinking to watch some TV. Remnants of his nightmare clung to him, prompting him to wonder if he shouldn’t keep things locked up inside him after all. If he told a coworker that euthanizing animals tore him apart, he or she would wonder if he was too emotionally unstable to do his job.
If? Not only hadn’t he told his supervisor the gory details of what he’d seen at the puppy mill, like the dead dog near the men’s bodies, he’d kept what Rachelle had told him about seeing a gray to himself.
His bare feet took him to the front window. He’d been so focused on house repairs he’d let the yard go. He needed to tear up what was left of the lawn, bring in new topsoil, and…
Who else might be awake tonight?
Rachelle Reames?
Movement beyond his driveway instantly had him on edge. According to Douglas, he lived in an all but crime-free area, but that didn’t mean he left his doors unlocked. The houses were on half-acre lots. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt isolated, but until recently he’d seen that as a plus.
He debated going outside but changed his mind because he only had on boxers. If a neighbor was dealing with insomnia by taking a middle of the night walk, he didn’t want to traumatize whoever it was.
No, not a who.
Nate tightened his fingers around the curtain he’d pulled back and brought his face closer to the window. He’d kept his father’s rifles, but saw them as a connection to a loving parent and proud military man, not something he’d ever need to use to defend himself.
Now, staring at the dog studying him from across the street, he wished he were armed.
Wished he were still asleep.
There were a total of two streetlights on his street, neither close. As a result he mostly relied on the moon. This was no neighborhood pet out for a jaunt. He was looking at one of Joe’s grays.
Joe lived about six miles away.
“What are you doing here?” It didn’t matter that the big self-confident dog couldn’t hear, he had to ask. “How’d you find me?”
The gray lifted its head. Its long, slender tail whipped back and forth.
“What?” He kept his question low. “You think I should know the answer?”
The gray lowered itself to the ground. Nate opened his mouth, but closed it before his next question could escape. No way would he ask the animal whether it knew about his nightmares.
Maybe he should call Rachelle. Tell her that he’d seen a gray again.
And was more in awe than scared.
* * * *
“You didn’t have to do this,” Joe told Rachelle as she put the salad she’d made in the refrigerator.
“I know I don’t.” She dug into her shopping bag and pulled out a carton of eggs. “You’re a darn good cook.”
“Used to be when I had you to cook for. Now it doesn’t matter so much.”
Refusing to let the conversation take a downturn, she admitted she felt the same way a lot of the time, but that was no excuse for not eating healthy. Most weeks she made two or three salads that lasted for days and formed the core of her diet.
“I’m celebrating Saturday by making us both more breakfast than we have any business eating,” she told him. “A day off feels wonderful.”
“Do you like being a teacher?”
She’d thought they’d talk about the advice they’d gotten from the attorney—which was to call him the moment law enforcement contacted them—not this. “I love the idea of expanding young minds,” she said and sat at the table where once Joe had served her homemade soups and spaghetti sauce he’d let simmer all day.
“The idea?” Joe sat across from her. “What about the reality?”
“It can be frustrating, like when I thought I’d be teaching at one school for years.”
“You found another job. Does that mean it’s all good now?”
She wondered if he could read everything about her. “I went into teaching with no idea of the politics behind it. Or everything that gets in the way of actually educating children.” She ran a hand in her hair. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m not made out for this career I’ve spent a fortune paying for.”
“Give yourself some time. You have a lot on your plate right now.”
She looked past Joe to the two dogs sprawled on the couch. They seemed so peaceful, but if the police showed up… “Which one is missing?”
“Smoke.”
She should have known. “I wonder where she is.”
Joe lowered his gaze as he shook his head. Relieved as she was to know his companions were still with him, she couldn’t dismiss the possibility that that might not last. The attorney had assured them that as long as the dogs weren’t formally charged, Joe was within his rights to keep them on his property.
“That’s important,” the lawyer had said. “You need to demonstrate they’re under your control. You can’t let them run anymore.”
“How’d she get loose?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Joe’s mouth tightened, but when he spoke he gave no hint of his mood. “They roam, you know that. I can’t suddenly stop them.”
She didn’t remember standing. Now that she was she couldn’t fully tap into what she was thinking. “It’s your decision. You’re the one who’ll have to live with it.”
“You think I’m doing wrong.”
“Whether you are or aren’t is for you to decide.”
“You don’t live with them, Rach. You don’t see the look in their eyes when I make them go into the kenn
el and shut the gate behind them, or lock the door and close the window. The way they stare at me, it’s as if— Sometimes I think they’re taking over my mind.”
“You don’t really mean that, do you?”
“I wouldn’t be saying it if I didn’t.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that I care about you and want you to be all right.”
“I can’t answer that,” Joe continued. “Last night, I closed the bedroom window. Stone and Gun finally settled down but Smoke—she was angry.”
“What did she do?”
He stood and walked over to the couch but didn’t touch the still-sleeping males. “She backed me into a corner of the room.”
“Were you afraid of her?”
“No. I don’t know. I kept trying to figure her out by studying her, looking into her eyes. I do that sometimes. Most of the time I know what they’re thinking, at least I tell myself I do. Then—then she let me slide past her. I went back to the window and opened it. She pushed her brothers toward it, even nipped them a few times. When Gun growled she jumped out the window.”
“You’d decided—”
“I’m not sure I decided anything. It just happened.”
Feeling less steady than she had a few moments ago, she glanced at the wall clock. “It’s going on nine. Isn’t she usually back by now?”
“Most times.”
Maybe it would make an impact if she voiced her concern for Smoke’s safety, but she couldn’t force the words. What Joe had just said about his lack of control when it came to letting Smoke leave last night kept replaying in her mind.
“I love them,” Joe muttered. “I don’t always understand them but that doesn’t change what I feel. If anything happened to them I don’t know what I’d do.”
I’m here. You aren’t alone anymore. Only that wasn’t true, because they were still trying to carve out a relationship.
Wishing she had someone she could talk to, she knelt next to the couch, thinking to rouse the brothers, but what was that about letting sleeping dogs lie? Maybe she shouldn’t startle them. Was that what had happened at the puppy mill? Smoke, Stone and Gun had been drawn to it by horrible smells, sounds and sights. The brothers had tried to chase the grays away. Feeling threatened, the grays had attacked.
