Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (37 page)

Moving slowly, Sullivan unlatched the door and reached in to pet the dog. After a minute, he gently scooped up the animal. Rachel expected the dog to react to being handled, struggle and perhaps try to bite Sullivan, but the animal remained calm.

“In here,” Joe said, opening a door into another room.

Sullivan carried the young pit bull to a steel table and set him down. Rachel followed with Sullivan’s bag and her own. She stood back to watch Sullivan examine the dog. The animal didn’t seem to mind the vet’s hands on him, and when Sullivan stuck the needle into his flanks, the dog barely flinched.

“All right,” Sullivan said to Joe. “Why don’t you let him out in one of the runs for a potty break and I’ll get the next one.”

“You’re so good with them,” Rachel said. “I’ll let you handle them, and I’ll step in if you need help.”

“Whatever,” Sullivan said.

The other seven dogs, adults with scars from past fights, seemed equally unconcerned about Sullivan handling them. They were all big but underweight, and he carried them easily.

When he closed the last cage, Rachel said, “Let’s take a look at the alpha dog we caught with the pack.”

“You don’t need me for that,” Sullivan said. He was already stashing his stethoscope in his medical bag.

“Yes, I do,” she said, leaving no room for argument.

Sullivan’s sigh was audible. “After you.”

Joe led them into the room where the alpha dog had been isolated to keep him from whipping the others into a frenzy. At the sight of Rachel and Joe, the animal leapt to its feet, snarling.

“Aw, now,” Joe said, “is that any way to act after I gave you that good breakfast?”

Rachel stepped closer to the cage. The dog bared his teeth and growled.

“I haven’t been able to clean his cage yet,” Joe said. “I’m afraid he’ll go nuts if I try to shift him to a clean one.”

Looking around, Rachel saw that Sullivan had stopped just inside the room. “Come here and help me, please,” she said.

“What are you planning to do?” Sullivan asked. “Didn’t you have the good sense to vaccinate him when he was unconscious?”

“Of course I did. I just want to get a closer look at him.”

Shaking his head, Sullivan said, “Don’t let him out of the cage. You don’t know what you’re dealing with here.”

“Oh? What am I dealing with?”

“You can
see
that.” He gestured at the dog.

But the animal was no longer growling and snarling. He’d fallen silent, his gaze fixed on Sullivan. He looked a little puzzled, and—what? expectant? He whined softly.

And this one knows him too,
Rachel thought. The dog might not have seen Sullivan for weeks or months, but he remembered the vet.

She dared to say it. “You’ve seen all these dogs before, haven’t you? And they have some kind of positive association with you.”

“That’s crazy. How would I know any of them?”

“You’ve been taking care of them.”

“Good lord,” Joe Dolan exclaimed, staring at Sullivan as if the light had suddenly switched on in his head.

“What?” Sullivan shot a look at Dolan, then Rachel. “What are you two blathering about?”

“You take care of the fighting dogs when they’re hurt,” Rachel said, knowing she could be totally off-base but betting that she wasn’t. “You’re the only person who’s ever been kind to them.”

“You’ve lost your mind, you know that? I’m done here.” Sullivan wheeled around and almost ran from the room.

He was out of the building, with Rachel right behind him, when he stopped abruptly and rounded on her. Leaning down, he said in a gruff whisper, “You don’t know what you’re sticking your nose into. Back off. For your own good. Just back off.”

“No. I want some answers. What’s going on? How did you get involved with dogfighting?”

“You’re making wild guesses—”

“Do you enjoy it? Do you watch them tear each other apart, then patch them up afterwards?”

“No!” Sullivan shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand! Tell me how a vet gets involved in dogfighting.”

“I’ve got work to do.” Sullivan turned away and yanked open the door of his van.

Rachel grabbed his arm, her fingers bunching the fabric of his khaki jacket. “Don’t you dare try to blow me off. I want an answer. Why on earth are you working for a dogfighting operation? What do you get out of it? Do you need extra money that badly?”

For a second his eyes met Rachel’s, then he jerked his head sideways and stared into the distance, his face contorted by anger mixed with shame. “It’s not money. I wouldn’t take money for something like that. It’s filthy work, it’s disgusting, it’s…” He shook his head as if he’d run out of words.

“Then why?” Rachel demanded.

He bowed his head. She waited.

He cleared his throat before he spoke, but his voice was hoarse with emotion. “My son. You know about him?”

Rachel frowned. “Your son who’s in rehab? You only have one, don’t you?”

Sullivan nodded. “You raise a kid, you pour everything you’ve got into him—” He paused, blinked, cleared his throat again. “Then he does something stupid and it’s all gone. It’s all for nothing.”

Rachel placed a hand on Sullivan’s arm and was encouraged when he let it stay. In a quiet voice, she asked, “What happened to your son, Jim?”

He shrugged helplessly. “What happens to a lot of kids? Drugs. He thought it was fun to get high. They set him up to get to me. They got him hooked on meth, they gave him anything he wanted, said they’d run a tab for him, he could pay when he got the money. More and more and more, until he owed them a small fortune. Then all of a sudden they wanted their money.”

“Why didn’t you turn them in? Tell the police?”

“They threatened my son. Threatened my wife and me. They wouldn’t take our money to pay off our son’s debt. Leo Riggs wanted me to make it up in services, tending to the dogs that got hurt.”

“But still, you could have—”

“Don’t you understand? These people are dangerous. They mean what they say. I threatened to turn them in, and our son just disappeared one night. We searched for two nights and days and couldn’t find him. We were scared to death he was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Then Leo called and said if I’d take care of his dogs, our boy would be home within the hour. My wife was going crazy. Hysterical. I would’ve agreed to anything. And I agreed to that. We got our son into rehab, and my wife left so she could be close to him. I started taking care of the dogs. Now Leo won’t let me stop. He’ll kill me if I do. I’m lucky he didn’t kill me when I let the Halls’ dog go after—”

Rachel’s cell phone rang and he broke off.

“Damn it.”
She yanked the device from her shirt pocket. “I’m sorry, just let me get rid of whoever—” She glanced at the screen for the caller’s ID. Marcy Hall. “Oh. It’s—I’m sorry, I—”

“Take it,” Sullivan said. “I need to get going.”

“No, wait.” Rachel grabbed his arm and held on. “Just wait a minute, please. Don’t go.”

Sullivan heaved a weary sigh and stayed where he was.

Still gripping his arm, Rachel punched a button to answer the call. “Marcy? Is something wrong?”

She could barely hear the girl’s whisper. She caught a few words. “…David… Uncle Leo called…”

“What? Marcy, I can hardly hear you. Wait—” Rachel adjusted the volume on her phone. “Where are you? What’s wrong? Tell me again.”

With the volume turned up, she could make out what the girl was whispering. “Our Uncle Leo called David and told him our real daddy wanted him to get us and bring us to him. David made me come. But I don’t think he’s taking us to our daddy. He’s acting crazy, and he’s
bleeding.
I’m scared, Dr. Goddard.”

Rachel felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach, and for a moment she couldn’t catch her breath and speak. “Marcy, are you—You’re with Leo now?”

“I told Leo I had to pee, and I was afraid I might pee in his nice clean car, so he let me out and I came back here in the bushes. He doesn’t know I have a phone.”

Rachel told herself to stay calm. She had to sound calm for Marcy’s sake. “Where are you right now?”

“Out on Bald Knob Road,” Marcy whispered, “where it meets Kirby Road.”

Suddenly Rachel heard a man’s voice in the background. “Come on, girl! What’s takin’ you so damned long?”

“It’s him, I have to go,” Marcy said in a rush. “Please, Dr. Goddard, please find us and help us.”

The phone went dead.

“Oh, no,” Rachel moaned.

“What is it?” Sullivan asked, suddenly brusque and businesslike again.

“Leo Riggs has Marcy and David Hall.” She stared at the phone in her trembling hand as if it might come to life again. “He told them he’s taking them to their real father.”

“Taking them to their real father?” Sullivan said, incredulous. “Like hell he is. He thinks their father’s nigger trash, if you’ll excuse the expression.”

“I know that!” Rachel cried. Terror rose in her, a drowning flood. “What’s he going to do with them? He’s wounded, anyway. How can he even—”

“Wounded?” Sullivan said. “What do you mean?”

“Haven’t you heard? He took his attack dog to the Rasey house last night and killed Beck Rasey—”

“Aw, shit.”

“—and Mrs. Rasey shot him. He’s wounded and the police are looking for him. What does he want with two kids? What’s he going to do with them?”

Sullivan’s face had gone ashen. “We’ve got to stop this. Where are they?”

“On Knob Hill Road where it meets Kirby.”

“That’s close to where he keeps the dogs. Call Tom Bridger and tell him to go out to Leo’s parents’ place. He keeps the dogs in the woods out beyond their house.” Sullivan opened the door of his van. “I’m going out there.”

“You’re not leaving me here,” Rachel said. “I’m going with you.”

“No, you’ll just get hurt.”

“I’m going with you,” Rachel said. Before Sullivan could stop her, she jogged around the van and climbed into the passenger seat.

Chapter Thirty-nine

“Oh, for god’s sake, I can’t get through to Tom’s cell phone,” Rachel slapped her phone against the armrest.

“You keep banging that thing around and you won’t be able to get through to anybody,” Jim Sullivan said.

“This place drives me crazy. One minute you’re in the twenty-first century and the next you’re totally cut off. We don’t have time for this. Maybe I can get through to dispatch.”

Rachel tried twice. No luck. She wanted to pitch her useless phone out the window. “It’s these damned mountains blocking the signals. Are we going to be riding in a valley the whole way?”

“Just hang on a bit,” Sullivan said.

Five minutes later the van emerged from between mountains onto a stretch of road with open land on one side. Rachel tried Tom’s phone but still couldn’t get through. Next she called the Sheriff’s Department dispatcher, and this time she got a connection. “Oh, thank god, thank god.” When she had the dispatcher on the line she repeated Sullivan’s detailed directions to the spot where Tom should meet them.

“I’ll pass it on the minute I get in touch with him, Dr. Goddard,” the dispatcher said.

“Where is he?” Rachel asked. “Where was he headed?”

“Well, ma’am, I’m sorry, but a dispatcher’s not really at liberty to give out that information. Maybe if you called somebody you know in the department—”

“Okay, okay, just find Tom,” Rachel said. “Find him
now.
And tell somebody else what’s going on, any officers you can reach. Call the sheriff. They’ve got to help those kids before Leo Riggs—” Before he did what? She swallowed hard. “He could kill those children. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do understand. I’ll pass it on.”

Rachel punched the button to end the call.

“Leo probably thinks he’ll be safe as long as he’s got those kids as hostages,” Sullivan said. He leaned forward over the steering wheel as if trying to make the van move faster. “God knows what he’s planning to do.”

“If he hasn’t had any medical treatment, he’s probably in a lot of pain,” Rachel said. “He won’t be thinking clearly.” Leo might have reached his hideout by now, with David and Marcy in tow. What would he do in his fury and frustration when he realized he couldn’t get away, that taking the kids wouldn’t protect him from the police? Rachel imagined Marcy cringing in terror as she realized what was happening to her and her brother.

Why didn’t I do something to help her when I had the chance? Why did I let Tom stop me?

***

Tom braked at the foot of the slope and looked up at the little stone house where Leo’s parents lived. Smoke curled from the chimney.

He studied the lay of the land, assessing the danger to his men. This wasn’t a mountain so much as a series of gentle, tree-covered slopes with a few nearly flat patches of ground. The house and several outbuildings rested on the first of those plateaus a hundred feet above the road. Anyone in the house could look directly down the unpaved road and see any vehicles headed upward.