Before It's Too Late

by Sara Driscoll

  Hawk gave a whine from the back and Meg glanced at him through the mesh. Saki and Blink shared the K-9 compartment with him, but they were both curled up, asleep. Hawk sat straight upright, his nose pressed against the grill of the K-9 compartment, taking in all the scents of the country from the cracked window, his eyes bright.

  “Look at him. He totally knows,” Cara said.

  “He always does.”

  “How long since they’ve seen each other?”

  “Must be over two months by now. Think she’ll have forgotten him?”

  “Ha! Never. They were inseparable for too long for that to happen.”

  The driveway wound up the hill through the woods until they broke out into fields and pastures. At the bottom of the sloped driveway, a pretty ranch-style house, fronted by fieldstone with a white wraparound porch, sat in front of a bright red barn and several well-tended outbuildings. Out over the rolling hills, neat wooden fences streamed in straight lines, the fields inside dotted with animals.

  Meg spotted the bay mare in the paddock nearest the house and laughed. “Leave it to Dad. He put her out already. Hawk, look who’s there!” Another whine was the only response.

  “I think you’d better hurry to let him out,” Cara said dryly. “He’s vibrating back there, he’s so excited.”

  Meg pulled up in front of the house, and she and Cara climbed out. Meg opened the back door on the driver’s side. “Hawk, down.” Hawk obediently jumped down and then simply stood at her side, vibrating, as Cara had so succinctly put it, in anticipation. Meg couldn’t stand to torture him any longer and released him. “Hawk, go see Auria.” And just like that, he was off like a shot.

  The horse on the far side of the drive saw the dog streaking toward her. She gave a happy whinny of greeting and then the two of them were sniffing each other and rubbing noses ecstatically.

  “I thought I’d save us a step and have Auria already out to greet Hawk.” Jake Jennings strolled down the porch steps, with his wife, Eda, right behind him. The sisters marched right into their parents’ waiting arms for hugs, then switched to greet the other parent. They broke apart, laughing.

  “I see Blink is having his usual reaction to the rescue,” Eda said, peering over Meg’s shoulder.

  As one, they all looked back at the SUV. Saki had jumped down and meandered in the direction of Hawk and Auria, but Blink still stood inside the SUV, quivering, his ears pressed flat against his head, his big brown eyes seeming even more oversized than usual.

  “I’ve come to the conclusion he’s never going to get over his nerves.” Cara walked back to the SUV and stood outside the open car door, patting her thighs. “Come on, Blink, get down.”

  Blink jumped, but it was abrupt, the landing truncated, so he stayed as close to the vehicle as possible. He pressed close to Cara, his tail between his legs.

  “Oh, Blink. Come here, you big baby. Remember me?” Eda crouched down in front of him, letting him sniff her, then running her strong, capable hands over him. The greyhound visibly relaxed under her touch.

  “He just loves you,” Cara said. “Sometimes I think you’re the only thing that gets him through these visits.”

  “He had a hard life at the racetrack—the kind of life that leaves scars. It takes time and love to heal those wounds.” Eda straightened. “Let’s go see how Hawk and Saki are doing. Come on, Blink. You stick with me.”

  As a group, they wandered over to the paddock where Hawk was standing tall on his hind legs, his front paws braced on the top rail of the fence, nose to nose with the mare. Auria swung her massive head toward Meg when she stepped close.

  Meg remembered Hawk’s early days and her initial terror at his fascination with the mare. He’d been a tiny, sick scrap of a puppy when someone had left him on the front porch of the rescue. Meg had been living with her parents, licking her wounds after the traumatic loss of Deuce. She and Hawk had bonded almost on sight. She’d nursed him back to health, and the tiny dog started to bloom under her loving care, growing like a weed. One morning, Meg couldn’t find him and started to panic, thinking he’d gotten outside and was lost or picked off by a mountain lion or coyote. She finally found him curled up in the corner of Auria’s stall, fast asleep, while her father curried the horse. Back then, Auria was brand-new to the rescue, having been surrendered as practically skin and bones by an older woman who loved her, but couldn’t afford to feed herself, let alone her horse. Auria was a nervous and skittish beast in her new surroundings, her stall bearing the marks of her tendency to kick, but Hawk’s presence seemed to calm her. After that, anytime the stall door was open, Hawk could be found inside. At first, Meg was terrified the mare would kill him with her massive hooves, but Auria always seemed to take special care around Hawk. When the weather was good, Hawk would hang out with Auria and the two would play, chasing each other around the paddock. Early on, Hawk’s short puppy legs and Auria’s slow and weak gait were evenly matched. However, as she gained weight and strength, Auria began to outpace Hawk and would have to adjust her stride to allow him to catch up. During Hawk’s time at the rescue, they were inseparable. Both animals had shown signs of a funk when they’d been separated after Meg’s move to DC, but frequent visits had helped alleviate some of the depression. Already too old to be adopted out when she was surrendered, the Jenningses knew they’d have Auria for life. Seeing as they’d all grown fond of her, everyone was happy with the arrangement.

  Meg stroked a hand down Auria’s neck and crooned to her as she studied her front legs. “She’s looking good, and seems to be moving without pain. No problems since the treatment?”

  “Nothing. We caught the osselets early and got them treated. The old girl is practically new again. She’s a little stiff in the mornings, but aren’t we all?” He rubbed his back for dramatic effect and earned a light smack from his wife.

  “Don’t let him fool you,” Eda chided. “He’s in better shape now than he was in his twenties when he spent all his time behind a desk.” She turned around, her gaze searching. “Where’s Saki?”

  “She went into the barn.” Cara pointed to the open barn door. “Is that okay?”

  “Sure is. Clementine is in there with her litter, but Saki won’t bother them.”

  “How old are the kittens now?”

  “Five weeks. They’re keeping Clemmy busy, let me tell you. Now I’ve got a pitcher of lemonade chilling. Come up to the porch and take a load off. If the animals need us, they’ll let us know. But it sounds like you girls have something that needs discussing.”

  “I’ll say,” Meg muttered. “Hawk, you hang out with Auria. We’ll be nearby if you need us.” She unlatched the wide paddock gate, cracking it open, and Hawk shot through, racing in circles around the horse before taking off over the grass. Auria followed at a canter. Meg relatched the gate and stood for a moment, her hand resting on the smooth wood rail, watching dog and horse frolicking.

  Her father’s hand rested on her shoulder. “Good to see that kind of innocent joy, isn’t it?”

  “Sure is. It’s been a bad couple of days. This is balm for the soul.”

  “You can drop by anytime. The door is always open for my girls.”

  She reached up to squeeze his hand. “I know. And I’m grateful for it. Now we’d better go. We’re keeping Mom and Cara waiting.”

  The group wandered to the porch, slowly climbing the steps to settle in comfortably cushioned wicker chairs. Blink flopped down on the porch floor at Eda’s feet. They made small talk, catching up on the happenings at the rescue and Cara’s training school, while studiously avoiding anything having to do with Meg’s job. Eda disappeared into the house, returning shortly with a pitcher of iced lemonade and a large plate of chocolate chip cookies, which she set in the middle of the table within everyone’s reach.

  “Mom, you didn’t have to bake just because we were coming,” Cara said.

  “She absolutely didn’t,” Jake said, helping himself to a cookie. “But did you seriously think
I’d stop her?”

  Meg laughed as she reached for a cookie. “There are too many chocoholics in this family for that to happen. Including the cook.” She took a bite and sat back, humming with satisfaction. “That really hits the spot.”

  “I thought it might.” Eda poured a large glass of lemonade and handed it to Meg. “Now, chitchat aside, Dad tells me there might be a threat to the rescue.”

  “I just . . .” Words bubbled to the surface, too many words all at once; so, in the end, nothing came out. Meg forced herself to stop and breathe. To take a sip of lemonade and gather herself under the shrewd eyes of her parents. She could read in their eyes that they were already preparing for bad news. “I just don’t know. But neither of us is willing to take any chances. Let me back up and tell you about this case and how it started two nights ago.”

  She explained everything to her parents from the taking of the first victim to that day’s interview with the third.

  “That poor girl,” Eda said. “But she’s got some steel in her and that will get her through. And the one who didn’t make it . . . well, that’s almost beyond bearing. When you think about what she went through—”

  “I try not to,” Meg said flatly. At her mother’s curious look, she clarified, “It’s not that I’m being insensitive, but it distracts me from what I really need to do.”

  “To catch the son of a bitch who’s responsible for this,” Jake said.

  “Yes. But at least two of the three are still alive. For now.”

  Jake reached for another cookie, but didn’t take a bite. “So we get the gist of the case. But that doesn’t explain why my younger daughter calls me in a panic this afternoon and why both of my daughters show up in the evening. Not that we don’t love seeing you, but clearly something else is going on. So what is it?”

  Meg looked at Cara, who simply shrugged. “We always were open books to dear old dad.”

  “And dear old mom,” their mother said. “Something happened this afternoon, something case-related, that has you concerned, not just for anyone else who might be taken, but for us.”

  Meg took a sip of lemonade to wet her suddenly dry mouth, and forced herself to shift the rock of security on which her parents stood. Not because of the threat to them—that they’d take in stride—but because of the threat to their daughters. “I seem to be directly linked to this case. The coded messages that are coming in with each kidnapping, they’re addressed to me personally.”

  Her father’s eyes went dead cold. “He’s specifically challenging you to find the missing women?”

  “Yes. Now, of course, it’s not a one-woman, one-dog show. Brian, Lauren, and Scott are all helping, as are any agents we need in the investigation. But there’s something else. That first night, it was Brian and me together standing over that grave. And we both saw it.”

  “Saw what?” Caution and suspicion mixed in her mother’s voice.

  “The victim. She looked like me. I thought it might be a fluke, until the second and third victims also turned out to look like me.” She turned to Cara. “Like us.”

  Cara stared at her for a moment, head slightly tilted as she took it all in. Then she sat back and blew out a breath. “Which means I might be on his list.”

  “You think he’s targeting both of you?” Jake looked from one daughter to the other.

  “He’s targeting me.” Meg’s tone was sure, with no room for doubt. “But I think we’re all somehow involved. Cara, tell them about the code.”

  Cara set down her own lemonade on the table. “The FBI cryptanalysts deciphered the first message on their own, but it took them some time because they didn’t know what kind of code it was. In the end, it was a substitution code called a Vigenère cipher. To make a long story short, to solve the code, you need a key. If you don’t have it, you can figure it out based on alphabetic frequency. That’s what the professionals are doing with their computers.”

  “Which means you’re doing something differently,” Eda said. “You’ve always been a whiz at puzzles. What did you figure out that works better?”

  “I noticed the key for the first cipher not only told us how to solve the cipher, it also spelled out a word in its own right. The word was ‘Deuce.’ ”

  Meg felt the gazes of both parents snap to her, but she kept her eyes down and said nothing, letting Cara continue.

  “The second key spelled out the word ‘Hawk.’ Once I knew that not only the message itself was addressed to Meg, but that the cipher key was a message for her as well, I started to work the new key backward to find out what the word might be and use that to solve the code. I beat the cryptanalysts and their computers today because of it.”

  “That was this afternoon, wasn’t it?” Eda asked.

  “It was. The word was ‘Haven.’ ”

  Jake muttered a curse under his breath. “So you think we’re in danger because they used part of the rescue’s name as one of the keys.”

  “We don’t know,” Meg said, stress making her voice pitch higher than usual. “But do you honestly think we’d risk you for a single second?”

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” Eda reached over and folded Meg’s limp hand into hers, where it dangled over the arm of the wicker chair. “And forewarned is forearmed.”

  “Damn straight.” Jake leaned forward so Meg couldn’t escape his gaze. “We’ll take every precaution necessary. We’ll make sure we’re armed at all times, if that would make you feel better.”

  Meg blew out a long breath. “It really would. For now anyway. Are the security cameras still on?”

  “Of course, and the trail cameras too. They’re for the protection of the animals and to dissuade anyone who might try to harm or take one, but in this case, they’ll be extra protection for us too. You know where all the recordings are, and you know the password, in case you need access. None of that has changed.”

  “You’ll make sure the volunteers know? And no new volunteers in the short term?”

  “I’ll tell them the rescue has received a threat against the animals. That will be enough for them to be watchful. And no one new for now. You know most of the workers who come in. It’s the same team we’ve had for a while. We can trust them. Meg, they’re good people.”

  Meg blew out a breath, trying to dispel some of the stress with it. “I know they are. We just can’t afford to take any chances.”

  “And we won’t. We’ll even make sure neither your mother nor I am alone with anyone coming in to adopt, so nothing will get past us. No one is going to hoodwink us.”

  Pounding hoofbeats sounded in the paddock and Auria whipped past, mane and tail streaming behind her, Hawk running full out at her side, barking happily.

  Their antics broke the tension and everyone laughed.

  “Okay, enough about that. You know what to do and rehashing it is only going to stress Cara and me out more. So tell us about the rescue. It’s kitten season, so are you overrun?”

  “Of course we are, just like every year. But we’ve got an attractive adoption price and are hopeful of finding homes for them, as well as some of the older, longer-term residents. Did Dad tell you about the two orphaned baby deer we took in a few days ago? Their mother was hit by a car. You have to come see them before you go. They’re in a stall in the barn to make the regular feedings easier, and are just the cutest babies.”

  Meg let her mother ramble on about the day-to-day goings-on at the rescue, letting her gentle voice and the reminder of the good people out in the world soothe some of her worry.

  CHAPTER 11

  Attrition Warfare: Attrition warfare is the attempt to wear down an opposing force by inflicting unacceptable or unsustainable losses. Ulysses S. Grant chose to engage in attritional warfare and accept high casualty rates to his own forces in order to overcome the Confederate Army’s advantages of mobility and independent unit tactics.

  Thursday, May 25, 9:08 AM

  Forensic Canine Unit, J. Edgar Hoover Building

  Washingto
n, DC

  Meg stepped into the bullpen to find Brian, Lauren, Scott, and their dogs already there. “Craig’s not here?”

  “Not yet.” Brian pointed to the covered coffee on Meg’s desk. “Which means he’s hung up somewhere. Sit down and have your coffee.”

  “You are the very best of men.” Meg collapsed into her desk chair and reached gratefully for the coffee.

  “I keep trying to get Ryan to tell me that, but I have yet to hear those blessed words pass his lips. Maybe you could teach him?”

  “You married a Smithsonian archivist. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t teach him a damned thing because he already knows it all.”

  Brian grinned. “Yeah, he is kind of a walking encyclopedia.” He studied her. “How late did you get in last night?”

  “Look that good, do I? Actually, I got to bed at a reasonable time last night. It was leaving my parents’ place in Virginia at six AM that was the killer. They didn’t want Cara and me to drive home last night after a long and stressful day. I dropped Cara, Blink, and Saki off at home and then came straight in.” She toasted him with the coffee cup. “Bless you for this, because the cup I had in the car at six-thirty after hitting a drive-through has well and truly worn off.”

  “I live to serve.”

  “Good morning.” Craig came through the door, carrying a file folder in one hand and a stainless-steel travel mug of coffee in the other. He set both down on the corner of Lauren’s desk and pulled a chair around to join the group. “My office is too small for meetings. Someday we’re going to invest in a conference room for this unit, I tell you.”

  “You run that by Peters and let us know what he thinks,” Lauren said, a twinkle in her eye. “I’m guessing he’ll tell you there are enough other conference rooms in this building.”

  “Who wants a five-minute walk to start an impromptu meeting?” He sat down and tossed back some of the coffee before putting the cup back down. Rocco meandered by, sniffing at his pants, and Craig gave him a distracted stroke. “Hey, boy.”