Dog Days (6 page)

“Thanks, Aunt Mart,” I said, although the last thing I wanted to see was another tomato. That was something else everyone was tired of by now—which was why everybody I knew kept bringing their tomatoes to me. “I’ll try to run by some time tomorrow.”

“Don’t you work too hard, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am. And Aunt Mart?” I added just before I hung up. “Save me a piece of that pie, will you?”

She chuckled and promised she would, and I hoped she was a little less worried about me than she had been when she’d first called.

The next phone call was from Sonny, and it came just as I was putting away the dog dishes. I had already let the house dogs out into the exercise yard and was thinking about allowing Cameo to join them when the phone rang.

“Hi, Raine,” Sonny said. “I just thought I’d call and check on—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I interrupted. My frustration at having had to be so polite about the whole thing with my aunt came out sounding like impatience as I went on, “I’m not the one people should be worried about. Wyn is. You know the only reason he married her is because of the election, and that’s just creepy. I mean, they’ve been living together right under everybody’s noses, not to mention working together, all summer, and you heard she’s pregnant, right? How’s that going to look on election day? Of course they had to hurry up and get married before the newspaper picked a candidate, or she started showing, whichever came first. The whole thing is just so sneaky. So
political
.”

There was a brief silence, and then Sonny said, “Actually, I just called to check on the dog Rick brought in this morning. But, oh my. It sounds like you’ve had an interesting day.”

I crinkled up my face in a grimace that barely reflected my mortification, and I was glad she couldn’t see. I had no choice then but to tell her the whole sordid story, beginning with how I’d unwittingly walked in on a wedding reception to which I had not been invited, and ending with how I’d tried to punch Buck out on my front walk. “I don’t know if they’re telling anybody about the baby yet,” I added, somewhat reluctantly. “So you probably shouldn’t spread it around.” Although why I was protecting them I didn’t know.

Sonny said thoughtfully, “I haven’t known either you or Buck all that long, but this seems so bizarre to me. I could have sworn he was still carrying a torch for you.”

I didn’t like to say so, but there had been more than one incident over the past few months that made me think the same thing. Perhaps what I was really upset about was that I had allowed myself to be so misled.

“Of course,” Sonny went on, “you divorced him for a reason, remember? I do like Buck, but he was not a good husband to you and, even though this must be painful—endings always are—maybe you could look at it as a good thing.”

“I do,” I assured her quickly, albeit in a voice that was still tense with the bitter taste of emotions I’d sooner forget. “I’m relieved, really. I’m glad he’s moved on. It’s just the way he did it was so …”

“Cowardly,” she supplied for me, and I sighed.

“Exactly.”

She sighed too. “Men,” she said. “They live by their own rules, don’t they?”

I took the phone out onto the back porch and sat down on the steps so that I could watch the dogs. Cisco ran the length of the exercise yard closest to the rescue pen, occasionally emitting a bark that would cause Cameo to look up from munching grass. Pepper chased him, nipping at his tail feathers, and he ignored her. He had eyes for no dog but Cameo. Mischief and Magic were always happiest in each others’ company, and took turns playing tag-team relay with a dog-proof soccer ball with a handle on it.

“Anyway,” I added, “I didn’t mean to go off like that. Thanks for calling about the dog. It turns out she was perfectly healthy, with a microchip, and we’ve got phone numbers. So maybe it won’t be too long before we find her folks.”

“Didn’t you say there was blood on her coat?”

“Doc couldn’t figure out where it came from any more than I could. Sometimes if a dog has been on the run for a while it’ll be hungry enough to eat a squirrel or a rabbit, or she might have come across something already dead.” But even as I said it I was uneasy. Those explanations had never sounded right to me, and they were no more convincing now.

“Raine …” Sonny’s voice sounded thoughtful, maybe even worried. “Something happened to that dog. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but she was awfully stressed out this morning.”

“Well,” I admitted, “any lost dog is going to be stressed. Especially a pampered house pet lost in the woods. She had one of those designer collars with rhinestones on it, definitely not a dog used to roughing it.”

“No, it was more than that,” Sonny insisted. “She was traumatized. She had been through something, was worried about something. She felt guilty.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. “Your superpower.”

Although an otherwise rational person, Sonny occasionally got “impressions” from animals that even less rational people might call communication. I myself am extremely rational, and while I absolutely believe in talking to dogs, I have a problem when the dogs start talking back.

“Raine.” There was mild admonishment in her tone. “You have to admit I’m right more often than not.”

She had me there. I refuse to call her a pet psychic, but the things she had purportedly learned from dogs had proven to be unerringly accurate, if often hard to interpret. So even though I pretended to be skeptical, I always listened.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What was she guilty about?”

“I’m not sure,” Sonny answered. “You know how dogs are. They so often feel responsible for things that have nothing to do with them.”

“Well, she seems fine now,” I said, watching as Cameo came over to the fence and made eye contact with Cisco, wagging her tail. Cisco immediately spun with excitement and flung his paws up on the fence. I suppressed a chuckle. “Cisco is wild about her. They played like old pals in the rescue run this afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Sonny said. “The poor thing needs a friend now.”

“By the way,” I said, “I took your advice and hired an assistant today.”

“My goodness, you have had a busy day! Good for you. Who is it?”

“No one you know. Just some stalker from the Internet. He’ll probably turn out to be a serial killer. He’s great with the dogs, though.”

She chuckled. “Well, as long as you’ve got some help.”

Pepper, who had been trying so valiantly to get Cisco’s attention all this time, gave it her best shot with a running dive and a nip on his shoulder. Cisco returned an annoyed snap and her ears went down; she tucked her tail and ran to the other side of the yard. Cisco leapt up on the fence again and barked at Cameo. I didn’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt, so I decided a little judicious intervention was in order.

“I’ve got to go, Sonny,” I said, standing. “Cisco is making an absolute fool of himself over Cameo. I’ve never seen him act like this before.”

She laughed. “He’s in love.”

I started down the steps. “If they weren’t both neutered, I’d be worried.”

“Love is about more than sex, Raine,” she advised sagely.

Once again I sighed. “Don’t I know it,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later, Sonny.”

My last duty of the day was to feed all the boarders and turn them out into their individual outdoor runs while I washed their dishes and made sure their kennels were clean and sanitized for the night. All the kennels at Dog Daze have raised beds, but some of the boarders bring their own fluffy beds, blankets, or personal toys, which sometimes become the victims of accidents during the day. I tossed a few such misfortunes into the on-site laundry and went back to my office to close out the computer.

I spent a fortune remodeling Dog Daze last year, and Miles, whose crew was in charge of construction, might have added a few items for which I was never billed—like the oversized industrial dishwasher that washed and sanitized all the dog dishes so they did not have to be done by hand—although I was never able to precisely nail him on it. The result was that Dog Daze is way more luxurious than my house, with air-conditioning and radiant heated floors throughout, piped in music, the aforementioned washer-drier, a kitchenette, two bathrooms—one with a shower so that I don’t have to run back to the house to clean up when a dog throws up on me or I slip in the mud during an agility class—and even a bunk room where I’d spent more than one night during the winter simply because it was warmer than my house. So I don’t really mind working long hours at Dog Daze, especially when I can take Cisco down with me and squeeze in a few extra minutes of agility practice between chores. Tonight, however, Cisco was interested in nothing but Cameo, who was still in the rescue run, and it was clear his heart was not in the practice. I left him flat on his belly with his nose pressed against the crack at the bottom of the door while I wound up the day’s business.

According to the paperwork Crystal had given me on Cameo, her owner’s name was April Madison of Highlands, Virginia. I knew she would have half a dozen messages already from the microchip company and from Crystal, but I wanted to make sure my contact information was also on her list, so I called and left another message. While I did so, I took Cameo’s pink rhinestone collar back to the grooming room and started scrubbing out the scuffs and dirt with saddle soap. That was when I noticed something odd.

A few stitches had been neatly sliced away from the double layer of leather just near the buckle, and I could clearly see the shape of a small round object inside. I finished leaving the message for April Madison and went back to my desk where, after a moment’s rummaging, I found a letter opener with which I used to pry the object out.

“Whoa, Cameo,” I murmured, setting the small metal button in the center of a sheet of plain paper on my desk. “You must be more valuable than I thought.”

Although I had only seen them in specialty high-tech catalogues and online, I was pretty sure what this was. It was a GPS locator of the kind commonly used by cops and spies and, more recently—and much less commonly—by owners of championship dogs and cats who had a tendency to wander. The only thing I couldn’t understand is why someone who would go to all the trouble to microchip a dog
and
put a GPS locator in her collar would be careless enough to lose her in the first place.

Tourists. I’d never understand them.

CHAPTER FIVE

I
live in a big old farmhouse that was built in a time before climate change, when thick green forests and a complete lack of asphalt made air-conditioning unnecessary. Even now, I make do with ceiling fans and open windows in most rooms of the house, but I relented a few years back and put a window air-conditioning unit in my upstairs bedroom, where the temperature can easily climb above eighty degrees in the daytime. The hum and hiss of its motor is soothing white noise to me, and that’s probably why I did not hear the intruder until it was too late.

In fact, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have heard anything at all if it hadn’t been for the nightmare. The bomb, the car, Cisco, Melanie and Miles who wouldn’t run no matter how much I screamed at them, no matter how hard I tried to warn them. And then a sudden, explosive sound that propelled me upright in bed with a choked, indrawn scream, my pounding heart shaking my whole body, gasping for breath. Cisco and Cameo were standing at the window that didn’t contain the air-conditioning unit, heads forwards, tails curled, staring out intently. I realized that the sound that had awakened me was the bark of a dog only because, at that moment, Cameo barked again.

Of course Cameo should have been safely in her crate downstairs with Pepper, Mischief, and Magic—my bedroom really wasn’t big enough for all five dogs—but the way Cisco flopped down in front of my closed door with his nose pointed downstairs, emitting a loud sigh every thirty seconds or so, assured me that the only way I’d get any sleep that night was if Cameo joined us. I brought her upstairs, Cisco forfeited his duck-printed dog bed for her, and we were all sleeping soundly by ten thirty.

And so we remained until—I squinted my eyes at the digital numbers on the clock—four forty-five. It should have been pitch dark outside, but a glow of light illuminated the two dogs at the window clearly, and above the hum of the air-conditioning I could hear the faint staccato rapid-fire barking of multiple dogs. The kennel. Something had disturbed the dogs in the kennel, and triggered the security lights.

I came to this conclusion about half a second before Cisco gave a deep determined bark, and Cameo joined in the fray. Both goldens stood with their tails curled high and their feet planted stiffly, barking at something in the yard. I rolled out of bed and rushed to the window just in time to see the shadow of a man running across my yard away from the kennel.

“Hey!” I shouted.

I flung open the door and ran down the stairs in my bare feet, followed closely by two barking, galloping golden retrievers. By this time all three dogs in the living room were awake and barking in their crates and over the cacophony. I thought I heard the sound of an engine starting. I flung open the door just in time to see the flash of taillights midway down my drive. I wouldn’t have seen anything else of use at all except that the curve of my driveway brought the fleeing automobile into the momentary reflection of the kennel security lights.

It was a blue sedan.

I found my rain boots in the hall closet and pulled them on before racing across the yard in my nightshirt to the kennel building. I was vaguely aware of Cisco bounding along beside me, barking just as though the burglar—or whatever he was—had not already escaped. The window glass was unbroken, and the lock clicked open as I punched in the code on the keypad. Nonetheless I checked the petty cash and the locked drawer in my office where I kept the checks from day’s receipts. All accounted for. Apparently the barking of the dogs, along with the security lights, had scared the prowler off before he was able to do any damage. What kind of idiot tries to break into a dog kennel, anyway?

One thing was certain. I was
not
calling the sheriff.

I spent fifteen minutes or so passing out treats and trying to calm down the kennel dogs, then I turned off the interior lights and used a flashlight to cross the yard back to the house. At the bottom of the steps I stopped, my heart lurching with alarm. The front door was standing wide open.

I knew exactly what had happened. I’d rushed outside, pulling the door closed behind me, only it hadn’t caught. Cisco had followed me, because the instinct to run by my side was even stronger than his obsession with his new girlfriend. Cameo had no such instinct.

I caught Cisco’s collar and ushered him quickly up the steps and into the house, closing the door firmly behind us. Almost as soon as I did, I could have sworn I heard the back door slam closed, and I my heart jumped to my throat. I glanced wildly around the room, closing my fingers around Cisco’s fur and pulling him close. Had someone been in the house? Was he here now? What had I been thinking? I’d just seen someone running from the kennel; his partner could be inside, waiting for me; it might all have been a diversion just to get me trapped inside, and I’d been so worried about losing the dog that I’d blundered right into it. And me, a cop’s wife.

Ex-wife.

I stood frozen in place for a moment, heart pounding as I strained to listen. I heard nothing except Mischief’s claws clicking on the bars of her crate as she stretched to try to see what was happening. I eased open the door of the coat closet and found a heavy stick that I used to prop open the screen door when carrying things inside and, so armed, made my way through the house toward the kitchen. Cisco was fascinated by the stick and trotted beside me with his head up, waiting for me to throw it. I hoped I didn’t have to.

The back door was closed, just as I had left it, and when I checked the windows everything seemed quiet. The security lights were still on and I could have easily seen someone trying to flee across the yard. And why weren’t the dogs barking? If anyone had been inside my house they’d be having a fit by now. I was starting to think I’d imagined hearing the door slam when I checked the lock. The dead bolt was unlocked. I was sure I had locked it. I always lock it. Well, almost. But I’d locked it tonight … hadn’t I?

I twisted it closed and went quickly to check the rest of the house. I looked in closets and under furniture, behind draperies and in hidden cubbies. There was no sign of an intruder. And with every passing moment my heart sank deeper in my chest. Because there was also no sign of Cameo.

I called for her, I checked every room again, knowing all the while it was futile. She was a stray, she’d been frightened in the middle of the night, and there was an open door. Of course she’d bolted.

And I was as irresponsible as the owners who had lost her in the first place.

I pulled on jeans, took my flashlight, and searched the perimeter of the house, the yard, the kennel area, calling for her all the while. It’s an exercise in frustration to try to find a runaway dog in the dark; believe me, I’ve tried it before. She could have been hiding in a dozen different places, or deliberately running from me, or, as every instinct in my body told me she had done, she could have taken off for the woods the minute she was free.

Eventually I was forced to admit defeat. I returned to the house a little before dawn, where Cisco was watching for me with his paws on the window. He looked at me anxiously when I came in and I felt just awful. I sank to the floor and put an arm around him. “Oh, Cisco,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

I don’t think he understood.