Love Inspired Suspense September 2015 #1

by Margaret Daley

  Tired and disappointed, he pulled into the parking lot to the animal hospital. The thought of seeing Lydia picked up his spirits as he and Brutus made their way inside. He paused in the doorway and surveyed the area. Two women were waiting, one with a poodle and another with a cat in a carrier. He headed toward Williams, a bored expression on his face. When he saw Jesse, he straightened.

  “I gather nothing exciting happened here today.” Jesse could remember his own assignments that consisted of standing around, watching and waiting for something to happen.

  “It’s been slow. Dr. McKenzie told me there have been a few cancellations for routine yearly checkups. I can’t blame people for that.”

  “Then it’s been a successful day if nothing happened. Are these two ladies the last for the day?”

  “I think another one is coming and that should be it unless there’s an emergency like this morning.”

  “I heard about that. What was it?”

  “At lunch I found out it was an overdose of chocolate.”

  “That’ll do it to some dogs. Did he make it?”

  Williams nodded. “Dr. McKenzie has two more patients and after that she wants to check Calvin, the dog who ate too much chocolate. Then she’ll be ready to leave. I think the day has been long for her.”

  Jesse approached the receptionist. “Where is Dr. McKenzie?”

  “Exam room two.”

  He walked down the hall, rapped on the door and opened it. Officer Collins saw him and said goodbye to Lydia and then left to pick up Kate at school. He stood in the corridor, watching Lydia finish up with a beagle and then escort the young lady with her dog on a leash out into the hallway.

  “The medicine should take care of her allergies. If you can, and I know it can be hard with Lady, keep her inside for a while to give the pills a chance to work.”

  The woman smiled. “Thank you. She was scratching so much she was bleeding. I’m glad you’re all right, Dr. McKenzie.” The lady glanced at Jesse.

  “Officer Hunt is a friend from high school,” she said as she strolled a few feet down the hall.

  When Lydia came back toward Jesse, Brutus took a whiff of the air and moved closer to her. The K-9 sniffed her white coat, then sat in front of her and gave one bark.

  Jesse stiffened. “He smells a component of a bomb on you.”

  NINE

  Lydia heard the words Jesse said, but for a moment their meaning didn’t register. A bomb ingredient? What? How?

  “Take off your coat and let me see if it’s on your slacks or shirt. Something on you has triggered Brutus.” While Lydia took it off, Jesse said to Brutus, “Good boy,” then gave him a treat.

  As Jesse went into the storage room at the end of the hall, he said, “I’m hiding the coat, then I’m going to see if he does the same thing.”

  When he returned, Lydia followed him and Brutus. Her heartbeat galloped as though she’d run a mile at full speed. How did she get the scent on her? She held her breath while Brutus checked the area and sat, then barked at a cardboard box.

  Jesse retrieved the coat from behind the carton. “Do you have a paper bag? I’m going to take this to the lab and see if they can tell what Brutus is smelling.”

  “Yes, there are some in the break room.” Lydia’s legs shook as she made her way there.

  Jesse and Brutus were right behind her. “I’m going to assume it’s connected to this case until the lab tells me otherwise.” He dropped the coat into the sack. “So the question now is how did this happen?”

  She shook her head. “It could be anything. I handled animals all day.”

  “I want to evacuate the building while I walk through with Brutus and see if he can detect it anywhere else. I’ll have Officer Williams guard you outside in my SUV.” Jesse started for the front of the hospital. “Who’s all here?”

  “I’ll let Matt and his assistant know. They’re in exam room three. JoAnn is getting my last patient.”

  As Jesse disappeared through the door into the reception area, Lydia swiped her hand across her sweaty forehead and hurried to let her partner know what was going on. In the doorway, she called him out into the hall.

  Matt frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brutus detected a bomb ingredient on my coat. Jesse is evacuating everyone. I think more as a precaution.”

  Matt settled his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll let Chris and Mrs. Marlowe know. We’ll be right out.”

  “I’m so sorry, Matt. I shouldn’t have come back to work. I put everyone in danger.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know what’s going on.” He squeezed her shoulder and turned to go back into the exam room.

  Lydia rushed down the corridor, her heart beating as fast as her steps. In the reception area, Officer Williams waited for her. “Where’s Jesse?”

  “Outside with the staff and people in the building. He wanted to make sure no one else triggered a response from Brutus. Then he’s going to go through the building. He’s called Detective Caldwell.” He escorted her to the parking lot at the side of the building.

  Brutus sat in front of JoAnn, and Jesse instructed her to remove her coat.

  Lydia watched the scene as though she were viewing a movie, not really part of what was happening, just an observer. If only that were the case.

  *

  Five minutes later after sending everyone but JoAnn and Lydia home, Jesse reentered the building. The bomb squad as well as Thomas were on the way. But he’d questioned Williams, and he reassured Jesse that he didn’t see anything unusual. And yet Brutus found a suspicious scent on both Lydia’s and JoAnn’s coats that wasn’t there when he left in the morning.

  He started in the reception area with Brutus, who stopped, sat and barked in front of one of the chairs. But there was nothing around it that could be a bomb. Jesse put a marker on the chair and continued the walk through. Exam room one was another place that Brutus indicated the scent. Jesse searched the whole place, but nothing appeared to be a bomb.

  When he checked a room next door, again Brutus smelled the steel table and area around it and sat immediately. An animal had left its scent on it?

  When he reached the area where the sick or recovering dogs were kept, once again Brutus gave the sign he’d sniffed an ingredient in a bomb. An American Eskimo was still hooked up to an IV.

  His phone rang, and he answered, “Thomas, I’ve almost completed my search of the building. Brutus has found several places, but there isn’t a bomb. Is the bomb squad here?”

  “Yes, they’re moving the people and animals away from the veterinary hospital and evacuating the surrounding stores. I’ll send in the commander. You two will need to decide what to do. I’m having Officer Williams take Lydia home.”

  “No. I need her to walk me through the people who were in these rooms. This could be the break we’ve been looking for. When it’s safe in here, I need her to come back in.”

  Jesse wanted her as far away from the building as possible, but she and her assistant had more than likely interacted with the Laughing Bomber.

  “So you think the bomber was at the animal hospital today?”

  “Yes. I’ll be outside after I finish my search.” Jesse disconnected, wishing there were more dogs like Brutus in the city. Had this become some kind of game to the man behind the bombings?

  *

  Lydia chewed on her fingernail as she paced in a circle near Officer Williams, five hundred yards away from the animal hospital. What if a bomb went off while Jesse and Brutus were inside searching for it? Lord, please keep them safe.

  She stopped when another man went into the building. “Who’s that, Officer Williams?”

  “The commander of the bomb squad.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Probably the sergeant found more evidence or a bomb.”

  Her chest constricted as if someone were trying to squeeze the breath from her lungs. She gasped for air. “Then they should be getting out of there.�
� She began her pacing again, needing to move, to do something other than stare at the building. She felt so helpless.

  No, I’m not. I have the Lord. He can give me peace. It had taken her a while after her daughter’s death and Aaron’s adultery to understand that. She began to pray. All she wanted was to see Jesse emerge from the animal hospital unharmed.

  Ten long minutes later, Jesse and the commander came outside and made their way to Thomas. She started for them.

  Officer Williams blocked her. “My orders are for you to remain here.” He cocked a smile. “You don’t want to get me in trouble, do you, Dr. McKenzie?”

  “Please call me Lydia since we’re going to be hanging out together for a while. What’s your first name?”

  “Don.”

  “No, Don, I don’t. At least they are outside the building if it goes up.” She intended to have a few words with Jesse when she spoke to him. This waiting was tying her up into knots.

  Finally Jesse headed across the street toward her while the whole bomb squad went into the building. Did that mean they found a bomb and they were going to try to dismantle it?

  She went around Don and took several steps toward Jesse, the grim expression on his face solidifying her stomach into a huge lump. “What’s wrong? Is there a bomb inside?”

  He shook his head. “But there were more traces of one of the ingredients that triggered Brutus with you and JoAnn. The bomb squad is going through the building, then I need you to go back in with me. I think the bomber was at your hospital today.”

  “But he didn’t leave anything?”

  “An American Eskimo dog.”

  JoAnn, who stood not far away, approached. “That would be Mr. Jacobs.”

  “The dog, Calvin, ingested chocolate. I remember his owner. You didn’t pass him in the reception room?” Lydia tried to grasp the fact she’d possibly stood in the same room with the Laughing Bomber, not once but twice.

  “I went out the back door to check the rear of the building.” Jesse waved Officer Williams to join them. “The first patient this morning was an American Eskimo, a white dog. Do you remember the man who came with Calvin?”

  “He was carrying the dog,” Lydia said.

  “So if Mr. Jacobs had the smell on him, he transferred it to the dog and that’s how you and JoAnn got it on you. Did you move the animal to the room next door?”

  “Yes, that’s where I washed out his stomach and gave him activated charcoal. We started an IV, too. When he was stabilized, Calvin was transferred to the area where we keep an eye on the recovering animals. I’d planned to call Mr. Jacobs to let him know his dog was getting better, but we wanted to keep him at least overnight.”

  “But you haven’t yet?” Jesse asked.

  Lydia shook her head. “I was going to check on Calvin one more time before I made the call.”

  “We need his owner’s address, phone number and a description. Also, I want you to make that call and tell Mr. Jacobs he can come pick up his dog.”

  “He was about seventy years old and walked with a limp and had slumped shoulders. He had gray hair and a pasty white complexion. I thought he was sickly. I don’t remember the color of his eyes. JoAnn, do you?”

  Her assistant thought for a moment. “Blue or gray—not dark eyes. But he’ll be on our security tape.”

  Like the color of eyes I keep seeing in my thoughts. “Yes, we had that installed last week as one of the security measures. It’s monitored by an outside source, so even if something happened to the building, there would be a record.”

  Jesse smiled for the first time since he arrived. “Good thinking. This is all promising.”

  “So you think this old man is the Laughing Bomber?” Lydia couldn’t picture the frail man as a maniacal murderer.

  “It’s possible or he’s working with materials that make up a bomb. That’s what Brutus is trained to sniff out. We don’t know yet if it’s the ingredients in C-4. Brutus found four places in the building. A chair in the reception area, the exam room and the one next door as well as the place where you monitor the animals. Did he seem familiar to you, Lydia?”

  Again she tried to run through the faces she remembered at the bistro while she was there. Again nothing but Melinda’s image popped into her mind…a vision of the waitress, Eve, serving a young couple materialized. “I remember a few others, but they aren’t Mr. Jacobs.” She’d been looking at the photos over the weekend that Jesse had left of the victims, so was that a true memory or wishful thinking? “The waitress put two plates down at the table next to me. A young couple sat there.”

  “You can show me their photos when we get home. The more you remember the people who are in the photo array, the more I think you’ll remember the rest of what you saw.”

  When we get home. If she hadn’t made a bad mistake with Aaron all those years ago, she could have married Jesse.

  “No one wants it more than me. This man is holding the city hostage.”

  Jesse glanced toward the animal hospital. “Tyler is waving at us. We can go inside. JoAnn, I want you to go, too.”

  “You betcha. The very idea he was in our building standing only a foot away from me gives me the willies.” Without waiting, JoAnn marched across the street.

  “The Laughing Bomber better watch out. JoAnn is fierce when she’s on a mission.” Lydia walked beside Jesse. “But she’s right. The ‘willies’ are a good description of how I feel.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” A steel resolve laced each of Jesse’s words. “You can’t go to work until we find this guy. He hasn’t given up trying to get to you.”

  “I agree. While I was waiting for you to come outside, I told Matt I wouldn’t be back tomorrow. He’s thinking of closing down the animal hospital and sending everyone on vacation for the next week at least.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first. I’ve heard of a couple of other places closing, too.”

  “He thinks he can make house calls if one of our clients has an emergency.”

  Jesse introduced the bomb squad commander to her, and she shook his hand. “I’m glad you didn’t find a bomb. That it was a false alarm.”

  “We’ve been kept busy this past week with false alarms, but I’d rather people be cautious and call than the alternative. I’ve collected the evidence to see if we can narrow down the ingredient Brutus smelled. I’ll put a rush on it. We should hear back soon.”

  Lydia and JoAnn entered the building with Jesse with Brutus while Thomas kept the others out until they retraced their steps. JoAnn stopped at the reception desk and found the contact information for Mr. Jacobs and gave it to Jesse.

  Then Lydia proceeded through what she and JoAnn did with the American Eskimo. The only places Calvin went were where Brutus indicated.

  “JoAnn, you’ve been a big help. You can let the others come in.” Jesse waited until she disappeared down the hallway. “Lydia, let’s go into your office and give Mr. Jacobs a call about Calvin.”

  She sat at her desk and picked up the phone, her hand trembling as she punched in the numbers the old man had left. She let it ring ten times before she hung up. “No answer.”

  “I’m taking you home and then Thomas and I are going to the address he gave JoAnn. I’ll have Officer Williams stay until I get back.”

  “Just the two of you are going? He could be the bomber.”

  “Reinforcements will be hiding, waiting for a signal from us if we think it’s him or he makes a run for it.”

  “I can’t imagine Mr. Jacobs running. And he looks nothing like the drawing of the man in the appliance store or the fake orderly who was in my room.”

  “I know. This case has more questions than answers.”

  “Do you want me to continue trying to call him?”

  “No. Let me see what we discover first. Are you ready to leave?”

  “In a minute. I have a couple of animals to check on.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Lydia began listin
g in her mind all the instructions she would have to give to Matt about the animals left until their owners were able to pick them up. “There are a couple of dogs and one cat that needs to stay, but Matt should be okay if the place is locked down.”

  “Yes. The security system is good, or I would never have let you come to work at all.”

  The intensity in his look and voice made her feel protected but also something more. If she didn’t know better she would think that Jesse cared about her. Of course, he cared if she were safe. That was the kind of person he was. Expecting more was setting herself up to be hurt—like she’d hurt him.

  *

  Jesse pulled up in front of a small white house, well kept, with a fenced backyard. The blackout shades were down on every window they could see. The hairs on his nape tingled. It didn’t feel right. He called Thomas, who was behind him in his car. “It doesn’t look like anyone is home.”

  “Let’s park up the street. Maybe we should check with a couple of neighbors to find out about Mr. Jacobs. He isn’t the man who owns this house, and there isn’t a driver’s license for the guy.”

  “He won’t be the first person to drive without a license. And the house is listed as a rental.”

  “But I haven’t gotten in touch with the owner to see who is occupying it right now. I’ll take the neighbor on the right. You visit the one on the left.”

  Jesse parked and unloaded Brutus from the rear, then approached the house on the left. He rang the doorbell and waited. Turning, he noticed a car in the driveway so this time he knocked. Still no answer. He decided to go across the street and see if that person was home.

  An older woman, probably in her late sixties, opened her door but left the half glass/half screen shut. “Is something wrong, Officer?”

  “Do you know your neighbor directly across the street?”

  “No one has been there for a while or at least no one I’ve seen. I keep an eye on the street since I’m home all the time. I thought Mr. Sims would have rented it by now, but he hasn’t put up a sign.”

  “Who lived there last? We haven’t been able to get in touch with Mr. Sims yet.”