Burning Ridge

by Margaret Mizushima

  “I’ll get that information to the officers that are canvassing the neighborhood for anything suspicious. It helps to know an exact timeframe.”

  “Robo is already looking for Mattie here at the clinic. I’m going to bring him over, see what he can find.”

  “Are you sure he’s healthy enough for that?”

  “The antidote reversed the drug that was used on him, and he’s back to normal. And Sheriff, if the same drug was used on Mattie, it won’t be easy for her. We need to find her.”

  When Cole disconnected the call, he looked at Tess. “Do we have a box I can put that dart in? I need to make sure no one gets a needle stick and an accidental exposure.”

  “I’ll find one.” Tess headed for the back storage room.

  “Where is your dad, Riley?”

  “He’s working in Hightower tonight. He won’t get home until after two.”

  “That makes for a late night.” He wondered if Riley would be safe at her house. All of sudden danger seemed to loom everywhere, and he didn’t want to leave her alone. “Do you want to sleep on the couch in our den? You could text your dad and let him know where you are.”

  “Can I go with you?” He shook his head, and she didn’t argue. “Then I want to stay at your house. Could you call me if you find Mattie?”

  He took a moment to enter her number into his contacts list. Tess came back with a box that would work, and he enclosed the dart inside. He thanked Tess for coming in to help and grabbed a short leash and a long, retractable one from off a hook by the exam room door. He clipped the short one onto Robo’s collar.

  As he locked the clinic door behind him, he wondered how someone could obtain the powerful drug that had been used on Robo. It was a schedule two opioid that couldn’t be purchased without a doctor’s or a veterinarian’s prescription.

  The niggling thought that the same drug might have been used on Mattie continued to poke at him, and now that he was no longer absorbed with Robo’s care, it broke free to torment him full-blown. Ed Lovejoy’s words sent a chill down his spine—without reversal, recovery would be ugly.

  * * *

  Red and blue lights strobed the walls of Mattie’s house. Robo leaped from the back to the front passenger seat and stared out the windshield, ears forward, mouth open in a nervous pant. Cole pulled over to park across the street and gave Robo’s head a few quick pats, wishing he were bringing him home to Mattie.

  He grasped the end of Robo’s leash and exited the truck, leading Robo out the driver’s side with him. The dog darted toward the yard, hitting the end of the short leash and pausing to look up at Cole with an impatient expression. He was ready to go.

  Sheriff McCoy met him at the edge of the crime scene tape that surrounded the premises. “That’s a sight for sore eyes,” he said, gesturing toward Robo.

  “He’s already searching for Mattie. I brought a long leash, and I think we should let him go to work.”

  The dim light revealed McCoy’s frown. “We don’t have a handler.”

  “You’re not going to need one. He wants to do this on his own, so let’s see where he takes us.”

  Stella came from the front door to join them, carrying a gallon-sized ziplock bag with a black T-shirt inside it. She handed it to Cole. “From Mattie’s laundry basket.”

  They had all learned the basics from Mattie, including the need for a scent article worn recently by the missing person, not freshly laundered. Cole had practiced search and rescue techniques with his own dogs many times with the kids and even with Mattie, but he’d never worked the end of Robo’s leash. Robo was Mattie’s dog, a professional, and their bond was nothing to fool around with.

  “I’m not sure he even needs this,” Cole said, taking the scent article from Stella. “But we’ll see.”

  Mattie would have changed out Robo’s gear, but Cole didn’t want to take the time, and truth be told, he didn’t see the need. Robo looked charged up and ready. He led him to the back of the truck and unlatched the door on his mobile vet unit, took out a water bowl that he used for Bruno and Belle when they traveled with him, and splashed some water into it.

  Robo didn’t want the water, but Cole murmured encouragement to take a few laps. He switched to the retractable leash as he eyed Mattie’s house. Robo had been found in the backyard, and that seemed like a good place to start.

  Robo surged against the leash, but Cole kept him close, trying for a semblance of control, gently insisting that Robo pay attention to him. Once they reached the small concrete slab that made up the back porch, he opened the bag, lowered the scent article, and offered it to Robo. As suspected, the dog gave it only a brief sniff, dropped his nose to the porch, and started to search without needing to be cued. Cole gave the command to search more for the sake of routine rather than direction.

  Cole let the leash play out to give Robo the freedom to go where he wanted. He leapt from the porch, skirted around the corner of the house, and ran directly to the spot where he’d been felled by the dart. He paused there briefly, sniffing the area, before heading out the side gate. Cole followed while Robo edged forward more slowly, nose quartering the ground, as if vacuuming up scent from the blades of grass.

  At the south edge of the front lawn, Robo took a sharp turn into an empty lot beside Mattie’s house. Stella and McCoy followed behind, throwing ahead beams from their powerful flashlights to light the way for Cole. Robo, depending on his sense of smell, didn’t need it.

  A short, springtime growth of weeds covered the lot. Robo sneezed as he burrowed his nose under the plants, seeking scent from where skin cells might have lodged in the fresh, moist vegetation. He moved his head back and forth in the green stuff, as though searching the cone of scent to narrow in on the trail rather than following a direct track.

  Mattie didn’t tread this ground on her own two feet. The pit, which had opened in his belly earlier, widened.

  Robo advanced to a spot where the weeds were mashed down, indentations obviously made by a vehicle. Cole stayed away, letting the leash out to its full length, and allowed Robo to search the area on his own.

  “Hold back,” he said to the sheriff and Stella. “There was a vehicle parked here, and there might be prints.”

  Nose to the ground, Robo swept the area. While the sheriff kept his light trained on the smashed foliage, Stella shifted hers around the lot, illuminating a couple of abandoned car skeletons and a tumbledown wooden shed with its door hanging from a hinge, the darkened entryway gaping.

  Robo went on the move again, headed out to the street. Not wanting to disturb evidence, Cole stayed off to the side about twenty feet from Robo, while he worked to keep the leash from catching in the weeds. Mattie would have allowed Robo to go on his own, knowing he would always come back to her, but Cole didn’t have that kind of bond.

  When Robo reached the street, Cole fell in behind him. The unpaved street that ran past Mattie’s house consisted of hard-packed road base made from chipped rock and gravel. Robo trotted out fast, and Cole broke into a jog to keep up.

  “We’ll light your way from behind,” McCoy called as he and Stella struck off to get his Jeep.

  Cole jogged away from Mattie’s house, heading south, with Robo leading the way. An engine rumbled to life behind him and headlights lit the road from his back. They turned east toward the highway, and now Robo trotted fast, panting and with his head up. Cole began to suspect that the German shepherd wasn’t tracking a scent trail; he was merely looking for Mattie and following the route where she took him to exercise.

  “Robo, wait.”

  Robo continued forward, stopping only when he hit the end of the leash. Cole held him as McCoy drove up and rolled down his window.

  “I don’t think he’s following her scent at this point. I think he’s just looking for her.”

  McCoy gazed down at Robo for a moment. “What do you suggest?”

  “I’m going back to the house to see if we’ve missed something.”

  While the she
riff turned the jeep around, Cole told Robo to heel and began jogging back to Mattie’s house. The ease with which Robo gave up his own route to come along told Cole that he’d been right—Robo hadn’t been on a scent trail when he took to the road.

  But maybe, just maybe, he’d been onto something when he’d gone to the abandoned lot next to Mattie’s house. And maybe that would contain evidence that would lead to finding her soon.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  After Midnight, Early Thursday Morning

  Mattie heaved up the contents of her stomach. She moaned and tried to move away from the stench. Gradually she became aware that she was lying on her side on a cold slab of rock. Her muscles twitched in uncontrolled spasms, and her limbs wouldn’t move when she told them to.

  She fought to control her gag reflex and willed herself to lie still, allowing her muscle tremors to quiet into a suppressed quiver. She remembered the lurching gait of a horse and welcomed the cold, hard stone beneath her cheek.

  Robo! An image popped into her sluggish mind—Robo stretched out, struggling to come back to her. Is he all right? Where is he?

  Where am I?

  From out of nowhere, a hand grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. A flashlight shone into her eyes, blinding her. Pain from her scalp jolted her whole body into spasm again.

  “Can you talk yet?” The voice sounded eerie, mechanically distorted.

  She tried to say yes, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. She could produce only a kitten-like mewl.

  The person pulled her away from the pool of vomit and dropped her. Her cheek slammed against rock, tiny, sharp pebbles gritting underneath. Brilliant pain flared inside her skull. His footsteps crunched on gravel as he walked away.

  She tried to lie still so that her muscles would stop their violent shudder, but this time her anxiety had risen too high to reach a calm state. Her breath came in shallow pants as nausea climbed from her stomach into her throat. She fought against the pain in her head and struggled to slow her breathing, but it felt like her body and her brain were disconnected.

  I was darted, too. Strange that her memories were coming back to her in bits and pieces. She remembered Robo clearly, but the memory of her own darting seemed dim and blurry. Right before I went under.

  She focused hard on her memory of Robo. Was he breathing? Was he still alive? She didn’t know the answers. She didn’t think she’d had time to determine his condition, so trying to remember was useless.

  Pain from thinking about her dog threatened to overwhelm her, so she shifted focus back to the breathing lessons that her friend Rainbow had taught her. Slow and steady—inhale … exhale. Her ribcage barely responded. Panting for breath was about the best she could do.

  She needed to regain control. Though in her current state, under the influence of whatever drug this guy had used on her, she had no idea how she was going to accomplish getting the upper hand.

  * * *

  When Cole returned to the vacant lot next to Mattie’s, it had been taped off, and headlights from one of the cruisers lit the area where the weeds were smashed.

  McCoy parked his Jeep at the edge of the lot, and he and Stella got out.

  “I had dispatch send a bulletin out statewide. Every officer in the state will be looking for her,” McCoy said. “I’ve also called in the crime scene unit from Byers County. They should arrive shortly.”

  “I’m going to go see if I can turn up anything on the surveillance cameras out by the highway,” Stella said before turning away to sprint to her car.

  “Where are the cameras?” Cole asked McCoy.

  “There’s one at the feed store and one at the gas station, both installed in the last few weeks. We might be able to get a view of the highway off one of them.”

  “I have the dart secured in my truck. We need to get that to a lab as soon as possible to confirm if I’m on the right track about the drug that was used.”

  “We’ll turn it over to the crime scene unit. You said that a reversal agent is required?”

  “From what I’ve read, the drug shouldn’t even be used without having a reversal agent on hand. Gloves and a mask should be used to avoid human exposure.”

  “Can it be deadly?”

  “You saw Robo. Without the respirator, he would have died. But I don’t know how large a dose he was given. It might have been a purposeful overdose.”

  “But what about death by accidental exposure?”

  “The product insert warns about dizziness, nausea, respiratory problems, and unconsciousness. That’s just from exposure. It’s not meant to be used on humans.”

  “What is the drug’s purpose?”

  Cole explained how the drug was used for immobilizing wildlife that had to be transferred or processed for research studies.

  “Who has access to it?” McCoy asked.

  “It’s an opioid dispensed by veterinary prescription only.”

  “Wildlife managers, then?”

  Cole nodded. “I got some of my information from Ed Lovejoy. He said he’d heard of it but never used it.”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “I woke him up. As far as I know, he’s at his house. I’ll take you there.”

  “I have the keys to Mattie’s vehicle. Let’s take it. Robo will be safer if he’s secured in his compartment.”

  Cole hurried to the Explorer with Robo running out front. He loaded into the back as soon as Cole opened the hatch, clearly eager to be inside his own domain. McCoy took the driver’s seat, and Cole gave him directions to Lovejoy’s property, which was about a half mile outside of town beyond the high school.

  McCoy gave Cole a sideways glance. “You should know that we ran Ed Lovejoy’s gun against the casing and slug recovered from the ram site. Although the casing and slug are a match with each other, Lovejoy’s gun was eliminated.”

  “All right.”

  Ed’s place was dark when they pulled up.

  “You’re staying here,” Cole told Robo, echoing what he’d heard Mattie say countless times. She always told Robo what was expected of him.

  Robo sat and stared at him as Cole opened the door to leave.

  They walked through what little remained of a yard. Tufts of grass and weeds sprouted here and there on what consisted mostly of hard packed soil in front of a white, boxy modular home with green trim.

  McCoy stepped upon the wooden deck and thumped on the front door. When there was no answer, he pounded harder. A porch light came on and a voice shouted from within, “Hold on, damn it.”

  Wearing royal blue boxers, a T-shirt, and a serious scowl on his face, Ed opened the door. He adjusted the scowl somewhat when he took in the fact that the sheriff was his midnight caller. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got a situation that I need to talk to you about. Can we come in?”

  “I suppose so,” Ed said, opening the door. “The place is a mess.”

  Cole followed McCoy inside and verified that Ed’s statement about his home’s condition had been spot on. They’d entered the kitchen area where every horizontal surface was covered with dirty dishes. He wondered if the beige linoleum on the floor had ever benefitted from a wet mop, and a cat’s litter box in need of scooping sat against the wall next to the refrigerator. Dingy white undershorts and socks nested in a pile beneath the kitchen table where it appeared Ed had kicked them off.

  They all stood inside the doorway in the kitchen. A brown tiger cat that weighed more than was healthy for her came into the living room from the hallway, crouched, and watched the newcomers from afar. If Cole remembered right, her name was Kit.

  McCoy started the conversation. “We need information about this drug that was used on our police dog. What can you tell us?”

  Ed glanced at Cole. “Was it BAM or Thianil?”

  “Thianil.”

  “I don’t know much about it. I’ve never worked with it.” He repeated what he’d told Cole earlier on the phone.

  “Do you know of anyone who’s been
killed by it?”

  Ed shook his head. “We don’t use it that I know of. I mean, maybe it could be used on cougars or coyotes, but not food animals.”

  “Who orders the drugs for your department?”

  “We use a vet that’s assigned to the project. Cole is handling the order for our next sheep project.”

  McCoy looked at Cole.

  Cole nodded. “BAM kits—ordered but not in yet.”

  McCoy turned back to Ed. “Do you keep any of these drugs on hand?”

  Ed gave the same answer he’d given to Cole, explaining how kits were stored at the state supervisory level.

  “And that’s Tucker York?”

  It gratified Cole that the sheriff had come to the same conclusion he did. Tucker York would have access to the drugs.

  “I need to contact him,” McCoy said. “He was in town today. Do you know if he’s still here?”

  Hearing that Tucker York had been in Timber Creek concerned Cole. He didn’t know that the supervisor had returned. Could he be the one who attacked Mattie?

  “He left,” Lovejoy replied. “Said he was headed to Grand Junction before going back to Denver.”

  “I need his cell phone number.”

  “Why do you need to talk to him? I don’t think he can tell you anything more than I can.”

  McCoy fixed his stare on Ed, and his deep voice rumbled. “Darting a canine officer with a sedative is a serious offense, never mind that this drug might have been meant to kill. I plan to find the person who did it, and I’ll follow every potential lead to get information.”

  Ed appeared reluctant, but he turned to cross through the living room, going toward the hallway. “It’s in my phone. I’ll go get it.”

  The cat leapt from where she crouched and scampered into the hallway in front of him.

  The sheriff hadn’t yet mentioned that Mattie was missing, and Cole guessed he had his reasons. He followed McCoy’s lead and remained silent, noticing the worry lines etched on the sheriff’s face as he studied his surroundings.