by Jen Blood
Up on the ridge, I saw a flash of movement along the tree line. On the move in an instant, all thought of gossip forgotten, I touched Tracy’s arm as I passed. “I think he’s still up there.”
“You want me to bring my gun?” Hank asked. To his credit, he didn’t look happy at the idea. I shook my head.
“We’ve got tranquilizer darts. No need for anything stronger. We want to take him alive.”
“And you don’t think I do?” he asked, grim.
Together, the three of us trudged up the ridge toward the forest. We’d barely cleared the tree line before I saw him: as skinny and mangy as Hank had said, but twice as big as I remembered him in Nancy’s yard.
“Shit,” Hank said, under his breath.
“Just give him a minute,” I said. “Nancy couldn’t handle him, but Bear was able to establish a bond.” I didn’t mention the scar on his ankle, courtesy of this dog.
“Bear’s not here, though, so that doesn’t do us much good,” Hank pointed out.
“She means if Bear bonded with him, he’s capable of establishing that bond with others and he clearly has some attachment to humans,” Tracy said. “So, what’s our plan here?” she asked me. “I have the tranq. Do you want me to try and lure him into the open?”
“I don’t have any other ideas,” I said. I looked at Hank pointedly. “Are you sure you want to be here? It could be dangerous.”
“You want me to sign a waiver?” he asked. “If we don’t get him, some asshole will shoot him for sure. I don’t much care to see things end that way.”
Neither did I.
Sobered, slow, and steadfast, we moved forward.
We followed a trail through the brush as the sun rose higher on the horizon, warmth coming up from the forest floor. I heard rustling in the distance, and looked at Tracy. She froze at the same time I did, and Hank bumped into my back. He started to grumble, but I held up my hand. He fell silent. Not far from us, I heard a low whine in the brush. Tracy looked at me quizzically. I shook my head, equally uncertain. I motioned the others to stay back, and moved forward on my own.
“Reaver,” I said quietly. The whining stopped. Everything went still. I tensed, unsure what I would come up against if I took another step. Tracy hung back, her tranq gun down. If Reaver was in there and he wasn’t in the mood for visitors, it would take him no time to do serious damage to me if he had the mind for it. I might be able to squeeze off a shot, but whether that stopped him in time was anybody’s guess.
I remained still, holding my breath. Waiting.
There was more rustling in the bushes, accompanied by that same whine. And more movement.
And then, a grizzled head appeared. Reaver stared at me warily. Rather than look at him head-on, a threat among canids, I looked away. Shifted where I stood, so my body wasn’t square with his. He whined again, and took a hesitant step forward. Once he’d cleared the brush, I got a good look at him and felt my eyes well.
There was a fringe of crimson on his chest, dried now. His coat was patchy, raw pink skin showing through on most of his body. I knelt slowly and lowered my head, still not looking at him. Hank started to say something, but Tracy shushed him.
Reaver took another step toward me.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye, noting the way he sniffed the air before moving closer. He looked toward Hank and Tracy, and froze.
No one moved.
Another second passed. Reaver stood, uncertain, his head down and a profound fatigue about him. His ears moved forward, then back. There was a rustle of branches in the distance and he started, his attention riveted in that direction. I thought of his fate if we didn’t catch him now, and had no doubt that he would be dead within the day.
“Come on, buddy. Just come with us. We’ll get you fixed up—you’ll be okay.”
He remained focused on me, struggling with his choices. I was amazed he was still here. Either he was worse off physically than I’d thought, or his bond with humans was stronger. I inched my hand toward the treat bag at my waist, while Reaver watched me with naked suspicion.
“You hungry, Reav?” I asked, voice still quiet. “I bet you are. That’s why you’re out here, huh? You think maybe you can find something…” I got my hand into the bag and slowly withdrew a handful of the bits of jerky I invariably have on hand.
Reaver never took his eyes from me, his nose up and quivering as he sniffed the air.
“I bet Bear’s given you these before, huh? Remember them? What do you say, buddy?” I asked. Moving as carefully as I could, I tossed a couple of pieces low in his general direction, then held my breath.
His entire body seemed to tremble as he wrestled with the choice. Finally, after an interminable pause, he stalked toward the food. He gulped down everything I’d put out and then, to my surprise, he raised his head expectantly rather than running away.
“More, huh? All right. I guess I can do that.”
I tossed another few pieces, this time closer. Reaver hesitated only a moment before he limped forward and gulped the food.
This was promising, but I knew our time was running out. The longer we were out here, the better the chance that something could spook the dog, and we would never see him again.
Reluctantly, I looked toward Tracy and Hank. Reaver stood there—just stood, immovable. I crouched down and held out my hand, my eyes still averted, my body turned away.
Nothing happened for as much as thirty seconds. Then, still looking away, I felt a warm, wet nose against my palm. The swipe of a soft tongue.
Reaver took the food I gave him, then waited patiently, watching my every move, as I pulled the last of it from my pouch. “You ready to go home, boy?” I asked.
He whined, then lay down.
It looked like I had my answer.
Chapter 5
JACK JUAREZ LOOKED OUT over Rockland Harbor, where the summer sun shone bright on the water. He was three flights up, with a bird’s eye view of the tourists walking the boardwalk below. It looked beautiful out, too.
He could take a walk, he mused.
Rock City Coffee was just down the street. They made great scones, and even better coffee. That would pass a few minutes, anyway.
It was ten past nine in the morning, according to the clock on the opposite wall. He’d rented this apartment with the intention of having it double as office space for his new business as a private investigator, but he was beginning to second guess that decision. Maybe he should have chosen a place more visible to passersby.
Of course, not all that many people hired a P.I. on impulse.
Based on his experiences of the past three months since establishing this business, however, not many people hired a P.I., period. At least, not in Midcoast Maine.
Maybe he should get more plants. Or hire a receptionist. Though he had no idea how he could afford one. Right now, he was eating through his savings at a dizzying rate.
Maybe this whole thing had been a colossal mistake.
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, thankfully, before he went spiraling down the rabbit hole of self-doubt completely.
“Just a second,” he called. Who would come without calling first?
He thought immediately of Jamie. Whatever his intentions may have been when first making the move to this area—and even he was unclear on what those were, exactly—he had seen very little of the dog handler since moving to Rockland. Despite the filth and the oppressive chaos at Nancy Davis’s place yesterday, he’d been grateful for an excuse to be part of Jamie’s world once more. He’d told her when he first moved that he was happy to stay on until she hired and trained a replacement who, without question, would be better at K-9 search and rescue than Jack had ever been.
Jack didn’t even really like dogs that much.
Jamie, however, seemed to consider their working relationship finished as soon as they left Bethel after a search in February. They’d had time for an awkward cup of coffee here and there since then, but nothing mo
re. Until she’d called him the day before to come lend a hand at Nancy’s place, he’d honestly wondered if he would ever hear from her again.
Wrapped up in his tumultuous thoughts, Jack checked the peephole in his door, registered a moment of genuine surprise, and opened up.
Bear Flint, Jamie’s son, stood in the hallway looking unmistakably awkward.
“Is your mom okay?” was the first question Jack could think of.
“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s busy over at Nancy’s right now.”
Intrigued, Jack stepped aside and motioned Bear in. The young man looked around briefly, but seemed to find nothing worth commenting on as Jack ushered him in and over to a chair.
After an awkward moment trying to decide where to situate himself, Jack settled for the plush leather chair behind his desk. Bear and Jamie were vegetarians. Bear’s girlfriend was vegan. Not for the first time, Jack reconsidered his choice in office furniture.
“Is everything all right on the island?” he prompted, when Bear offered no information. He was a good-looking kid, tall and muscular, but right now his eyes were shadowed as though he hadn’t slept, and he looked singularly ill at ease inside the office.
“I can’t stay long,” Bear said, as though Jack had summoned him instead of him simply showing up unannounced on Jack’s doorstep. “I need to get back to Nancy’s.” He sat poised at the edge of his seat before looking at Jack abruptly.
“Did you hear what happened over at Nancy’s place overnight? See it on the news?”
Jack shook his head. “No. I usually read the paper, but I haven’t gotten to it yet today.”
“I’m not sure it’s in there,” Bear said. “It happened pretty late. But…” He paused, looking around uncomfortably once more. “Well, Nancy’s dead. Died in the night. And her kid is missing—I mean, her son. Her grown son. Albie.”
Jack felt his eyebrows climb his forehead, honestly shocked. “What happened?”
Bear shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He stood, paced briefly, and then plunked himself down into the chair again. Fidgeted. Wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans, as though his palms were sweating. He looked like he was about to climb out of his own skin.
“Why don’t we go outside and take a walk on the Promenade,” Jack said. “We can talk while we move.”
“That would be good,” Bear said. He was back on his feet before Jack had completed the sentence. “No offense. I just… I get a little freaked out inside.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
#
A few minutes later, Jack walked alongside Bear while the sun shone down, a cooling salt breeze coming off the water. Bear walked with his hands deep in his pockets and his head down, forehead furrowed, utterly oblivious to the world around him. Jack’s concern for the boy grew as the seconds wore on.
“So…” Jack prompted, when they’d walked for a few minutes in silence, Bear’s focus seemingly directed inward.
“I want to hire you,” the teenager said abruptly.
Jack looked at him, surprised. “Hire me?”
“Because of the whole thing with Nancy,” he clarified. “I told you: something happened to her, and now Albie’s missing. I don’t have a good feeling about it.”
“How did she die, exactly?”
“I’m not sure,” Bear said. “I think she got hit. Her head was bleeding, her skull kind of crushed in.” He shifted his gaze from Jack’s for a moment, catching himself. “One of the deputies told me that, anyway. We need to find Albie.”
“That seems more in line with what you do than what I do,” Jack said. “He can’t have gone far.”
“I don’t want you to help us find him,” Bear said, somewhat impatiently. “I want you to figure out who killed his mother.”
“Bear—” Jack began.
“I can pay,” Bear said, cutting him off. “If that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve got a shit load of money. I can pay whatever you want.”
“Tht’s not the issue. I’m just not sure this is worth you spending that money. It sounds like the police are on it.”
“They won’t do a good job,” Bear insisted. “They’ll go after Albie or somebody else who didn’t do this, I know it. You have to figure out who really did it.” He had a stubborn streak like his mother, Jack noted. And a similar sense of justice, it seemed.
“Let’s go somewhere a little more private,” Jack said, noting the tourists around them. “You can explain your case there.”
“I don’t really want to go back inside.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jack assured him. “I know just the place.”
The sun was warm but hardly blazing, the sea breeze cooling the air to manageable. Bear wore jeans and a Flint K-9 polo shirt, an ever-present dog training belt with treats and clicker at his waist. They walked in silence past Time Out Pub—where ladies night had a stripper’s pole, or so Jack had been told. From there they crossed Main Street, cut through the Rite Aid parking lot, and crossed the street once more at Dairy Queen.
Bear kept up a good pace as the foot traffic thinned along Union Street, apart from a cluster of older women in linen suits and sun hats outside the Farnsworth Museum.
Eventually, they hit Limerock Street. Jack was momentarily distracted by a crowd of kids at the playground, but quickly refocused on his ultimate destination:
The library.
This time of day, Jack wasn’t surprised to find the bench out front empty. Bear looked at him doubtfully.
“No one will bother us,” Jack assured him. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Bear did, with the shadow of the old brick library behind them, patrons coming in and out, strolling by, occasionally casting a sideways glance their way. But, just as Jack had promised, no one disturbed them for the next hour, as Bear continued his story.
According to Bear, Albie Davis was not a violent man. At least, not toward his mother. And certainly not toward the animals in their care.
“But he’s been violent toward others,” Jack inferred from the phrasing.
“A couple of times,” Bear said. He dismissed the incidents with a wave of his hand. “But he’s crazy about his mom. He would have been put away years ago if it weren’t for her. Why would he kill her?”
“They were going to have to move,” Jack pointed out. “Tensions were running incredibly high when I saw them yesterday. Maybe it all just got to him, and he snapped.”
“He wouldn’t have done that,” Bear insisted. “Not to Nancy. No matter how stressed out he was.”
“You can’t know that,” Jack said, as gently as he could.
Bear’s jaw tensed, a stubborn cast to his eyes that Jack recognized. Jamie got the same look when she dug her heels in about something.
“Does your mother know you’re here?” he asked, rather than waiting for Bear to continue arguing.
“No. This kind of thing is confidential though, right? You can’t tell her anything if I hire you.”
“That’s right,” he agreed. “I guarantee confidentiality for any client I take on. But why wouldn’t you want your mom to know?”
“I just don’t, all right? This doesn’t have anything to do with her—just leave her out of it.”
The words came out too quickly, and something nudged at the back of Jack’s brain. Bear was lying. Or, at the very least, not telling him the whole story. Jack regarded the boy for a moment in silence, considering.
Both Bear and Jamie were “sensitive”—meaning that they had abilities that Jack, to date, still didn’t quite understand. One of those sensitivities for Bear was the ability to see, even communicate with, the dead.
“Did Nancy…” Jack began, then fell off, uncertain how to continue.
Bear understood what he meant immediately. He looked down, and Jack saw a flicker of embarrassment cross his face before it vanished. “I saw her, but not the usual way. Like, I couldn’t talk to her. She wasn’t actually there.”
“What did you see? An
d when?”
“When we were there yesterday, just before we left,” he said. “It was just this...flash, kind of. It’s never happened to me like that before, so I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Usually if somebody appears to me, they stay and we kind of...like, talk. Nancy didn’t say anything, though.”
“But you did see her, dead.”
“Yeah. Her skull was crushed, brains everywhere.” He rolled his eyes. “Nice, right? What a great party trick.”
“I guess it depends on the party,” Jack said. That got just the hint of a smile from Bear. The older man took a breath, considering things before he spoke again. “I won’t lie to your mother,” he finally said.
Bear perked up, though he remained guarded. “Does that mean you’re taking the case?”
Jack thought for a few seconds. It wasn’t like his phone was ringing off the hook. If he had to spend one more day staring out the window at the tourists strolling by, he wasn’t sure what he would do.
Bear stood and got his wallet from his back pocket. It looked like it was made out of duct tape. The stack of bills Bear took from the billfold was definitely not play money, though.
“I told you,” he said at the look on Jack’s face. “I have money. What’s your retainer?”
Jack frowned. He needed the money, no question, but did he really need it this bad?
“I’m not here looking for charity,” Bear persisted. “Brock left me a ton of money when he died. I get all of it when I turn twenty-one, but I’ve been getting a good allowance every week since Mom moved us back to Maine to stay with him.”
Brock had been Bear’s father—an abusive brute who had only shown kindness to Bear, as his only heir. The man had been dead almost ten years now. Killed, Jack suspected, by Jamie herself.
“I only spend his money if I can help people with it,” Bear said, as though reading his mind. “Anything I need, I earn the money myself or I do without.”
“That’s admirable.”
“The guy was a monster,” Bear said with a shrug. “Even if he was my father. I don’t need that kind of karma on top of everything else.”