It was dark out by the time I left—but I was only away for a short while to pick up a salad that I brought back.
By the time I pulled my car back into its slot, no other vehicles were in our parking lot. My entire staff should be gone by now, and our security company should be on duty.
I turned off the alarm and walked through the main building at the entrance, wanting to go right into the shelter area and visit with our residents before I went back to concentrate on paperwork.
I went outside, onto the path where dog enclosures were on my left. Honey was still there, and she barked. Of course.
Other dogs nearby joined in. Also of course. Only . . .
I’d been around animals for a long time now. They had, if not a language of their own, certain nuances in how they barked or what other noises or moves they made. Somehow, this wasn’t a normal greeting plus watchdog kind of bark that surrounded me.
It was more frantic. More of a warning. But of what?
I stopped walking, only one enclosure down from Honey’s. Inside it was Hannibal, a Great Dane mix, whose loud, anxious bark sounded like a harbinger of something frightening. What was going on?
And then I heard it. A low growl, vicious and disturbing and very, very nearby. But where . . .
Suddenly, an animal emerged from behind our center building.
A pit bull I hadn’t seen before ran toward me, teeth bared, seemingly prepared to leap on me, at my throat.
Ready to kill.
Chapter 26
“Hi, there, fella,” I said in a soft, soothing voice that I might use on a shrieking human infant. “How did you get here? What can we do to get you calm?”
His growl only rose, like a revved engine. He stood half crouched, his forepaws stretched out with his head nearly to the ground. It was those rear legs I had to watch. He looked ready to spring.
“How about a treat?” I continued. “Are you hungry?” I glanced around from the corner of my eye. Fortunately, I didn’t see any of our inhabitants running around loose. That rarely happened, but obviously one had managed to get out of his enclosure. Only, I didn’t recognize this guy. We get a lot of pit bulls here, and pit bull mixes, but the dog facing me was nearly all white, with a black circle around one of his eyes. The only dogs of similar heritage I was aware of that were currently our residents had more black on them.
If this wasn’t one of our rescue animals, who was he? How had he gotten here?
The same way Efram Kiley had been murdered and Honey, the Westie mix, had been set as bait for a trap in our storage building?
The same way someone had started to target me?
My imagination was running wild. But if fear and adrenaline could trigger offbeat ideas, I certainly had good reason for them.
The dog’s growl had muted down to a whisper. Did that mean he was chilling out a little? I saw no collar around his neck to grab on to, but if I could get close enough to pet him, maybe I could steer him toward the nearest empty enclosure, about four cages down from where we participated in our current standoff.
I took one baby step toward him. His growl intensified again. I wasn’t stupid. He’d perceive my coming closer to him as more of a threat. So, I couldn’t move.
But this couldn’t go on all night. At least I hoped not.
Were the security cameras on? Was help on the way? I couldn’t count on it.
I didn’t have my purse with me, and I hadn’t stuffed my BlackBerry into my pocket, so I had no way to call for help. I was on my own here—just Mr. Vicious, all the other nearby but fortunately secure dogs, and me.
I tried to recall everything I’d ever heard about what to do if a dog seemed ready to attack. Don’t make eye contact, since that’s a threat. If necessary, assume a fetal position. Use pepper spray, assuming you just happen to have a container in your pocket.
None of that seemed particularly helpful at the moment. I decided to wing it.
I stopped looking directly at him, in case that made him nervous. Staring over him, I edged toward the cages. He turned a little, still growling yet looking a little confused.
Good. Confusion might be helpful—unless it led to fear and his excuse to jump me.
I inched along, my back touching the enclosures of Honey and her neighbors till I reached the empty one. So far, so good.
I opened the gate very slowly. The dog had turned, his back toward the central building, since I had moved into a spot that had previously been beside him.
I could do one of two things: lock myself inside and wait till morning or help otherwise arrived, with him growling at me through the wire bars—and perhaps endangering other dogs if he had escaped in some way that could be imitated. That would also potentially place my employees at risk, if he attacked whoever arrived first.
Or, I could take a chance on getting him inside.
No choice, really. Time to act. I stopped pretending not to look at him, stared him straight in the eyes, and growled as loud as his most vocal rendition. He bared his teeth and leaped toward me.
I screamed. Had I made a huge mistake? As he launched himself toward me, I turned, protecting my throat with one hand and using the other, plus one leg, to shove him as hard as I could into the enclosure.
I felt the skin of my arm rip as I swiped against the latch on the gate while avoiding his teeth, but I managed to get him inside and shove the gate closed. Panting and crying, I locked it from the outside.
I noticed pain then, from my new wound and the one in my leg from the knife, and my assorted bruises.
But I wasn’t badly hurt. The angry dog, barking and hurling himself at the metal rungs, was confined.
Everything was under control.
No need to call 911. The danger was over. I nevertheless double-checked the lock on that enclosure. The dog inside was starting to calm down. Once he realized he was trapped, he sat down and regarded me with fury in his eyes, as if I were his evil stepmother who had foiled his good time.
Poor thing. Now that he was no longer a threat, I had a moment to think. He was a dog. Dogs should be peoples’ friends and allies, not their enemies.
This particular dog clearly didn’t know that now. Had he ever? Would he in the future? I certainly hoped so.
I’d see what I could do to make it happen. But for now I decided to phone EverySecurity.
The nearest camera might not pan far enough to pick up what had happened. Not so coincidentally, it was the same one that may not have been in working order the night Honey was moved into the storage building, and the same one that Efram had covered the night he was killed. I’d no idea, after the Honey incident, if it was even working. I had never gotten a straight answer about that from the security company, whose representative had claimed they would check out the camera feeds and get back to me. They hadn’t.
The dog and I had certainly made enough noise to tell them something was wrong now—sounds that would be picked up by cameras farther away. Shouldn’t their patrol be here already to help? Maybe that was stretching things regarding their abysmally inadequate services.
They’d been of so little use recently that I hoped I would be able to convince Dante that they should be fired. This was the last straw from a hugely overgrown haystack. We hadn’t had that discussion yet, but this time we certainly would.
Murmuring comforting words to the other dogs in enclosures along my route, I dragged myself inside the main building to my office. I collapsed on my barely comfortable desk chair, as exhausted as if I’d just completed running one of the marathons I sometimes entered to solicit more donations for the benefit of HotRescues.
Marshaling all my energy and ignoring my pain, I made that first call to EverySecurity. I didn’t explain all the circumstances to the dispatcher who answered, just said there had been some trouble here and I needed help.
As if I trusted they’d be of any use at all now, especially since I had everything under control.
Next I called Matt Kingston. Animal Services n
eeded to take control of this dog . . . maybe. Vicious dogs did not belong on the loose, and holding a license to run a shelter gave me certain obligations to protect the public. Plus, we weren’t permitted to take in strays, which this dog might be.
But I knew that the overworked, understaffed, and limited facility public shelter system would take the official position that there was only one answer to this apparently untrained dog: put him down, as they were potentially considering with the animals taken into custody from the dogfighting location. Whatever Matt might personally think, that might be what he was required to say.
Or he wouldn’t tell me, just take possession of this dog and do what he had to.
Good thing I only reached Matt’s voice mail. So why did I feel so deflated about it? I left a message.
Better choice: I called Si Rogan. I needed him to come as fast as he could to assess how brutal this dog really was—and if he could be retrained. I never, ever wanted to be responsible for putting a healthy dog down, even indirectly, and this guy looked as healthy as any dog I had ever seen. Hopefully, Si would back me and help me figure out a way to save him.
I reached him immediately, and he promised to come right away.
For the first time that evening, I let myself relax a little.
But not for long. A backlit figure appeared at the door to my office, causing me to scream.
“EverySecurity,” the guy ID’d himself, holding his credentials as he wedged his way inside. “I got a call that you’ve had a problem here.”
He looked vaguely familiar, had probably been here before. He was moderate in height and weight and, of course, wore one of the standard dark green uniforms of the security company. His identification said his name was George.
I stood to face him. “You could say that,” I retorted. “Where were you guys?” I proceeded to ream him for somehow allowing an apparently vicious, stray dog get into the premises without any notification to us. “He could have injured, even killed, some of the animals sheltered here.”
“He was one of the animals sheltered here.” I could see George’s face, now that he wasn’t backlit, and although his somewhat bulbous features appeared pretty much expressionless, there was an irritated gleam illuminating his small eyes. “Or he was about to be.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“I think you know . . . Look, let me talk to my supervisor. We’ll get back to you.” He disappeared as fast as he’d shown up to frighten me. I followed long enough to make sure he exited through the reception area door, into the adjoining parking lot. Then I returned to my office.
He thought I knew . . . what? I knew that he knew plenty. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he, or someone else from EverySecurity, had let that uninvited dog onto the HotRescues premises. But why?
My BlackBerry rang. I was back at my desk and dug my phone from my pocket before letting my legs collapse until I was seated again on my chair.
It was Matt. “I’m outside, Lauren. Just saw a security guy drive his car away. Let me in and tell me what happened.”
Usually, I’d have reacted quite negatively to his ordering me around. I don’t like anyone telling me what to do—not even Dante, although I tolerate it with him, since he has the ability to get the HotRescues board of directors to fire me.
Right now, though, I decided that obeying Matt was in my best interests, so I didn’t tell him to stuff it. Instead, I agreed to let him in right away.
I went to the door to the parking lot and opened it. There he was. Talk about my acting uncharacteristically. I flung myself into his arms. I didn’t even consider the fact that he might not want me there. I just held on.
Fortunately, those arms closed around me. “You okay?” he demanded.
When I looked up to assure him that I was fine, he kissed me. I kissed him back. Then, I decided it was time to get sensible again.
“Come in,” I said. “I’ll show you.”
I locked the door behind him and preceded him through the reception building and out into the shelter area. Of course the dogs began their usual clamor of greeting. I smiled wryly, glad that they were all safe behind the gates of their enclosures.
I stopped in front of the cage where I’d tricked my unwelcome visitor into entering. He was standing now, and barking as loudly as his nearby compatriots.
“I don’t know where he came from,” I told Matt. “But he was loose here, and maybe scared. We had a standoff for a while.” I didn’t tell him about my disagreement with the representative of our security company. Plus, I downplayed this visitor’s aggressiveness.
“So he’s a stray.”
“Probably,” I admitted sadly.
“And you don’t know his background, whether he’s been trained for dogfighting or anything else?”
“Unfortunately, no,” I said. “I know Animal Services needed to be informed, so I called you. But I’m hoping we can take him in, and that he can be retrained. And speaking of that . . .” I smiled broadly as I saw Si Rogan approaching from the opposite end of the path. “Thanks for coming, Si,” I said.
“So this guy attacked you?” Si sounded angrier than I’d ever heard him before. He didn’t look at Matt or me but only at the dog. “Hey, fellow, who are you? What’s your problem?” He turned toward us. “Please stand back.” He reached to open the gate.
“That may not be a good idea,” I cautioned him, then tilted my head apologetically. “Sorry. You know that better than I do.”
He slipped inside the enclosure. I noticed then that he was wearing not his usual jeans and shirt from his dog training school, Rogan’s Dog Obedience Studio, but leather-covered garments. If the dog bit at him, the leather might get hurt but Si wasn’t likely to.
He stared down at the dog, who’d crouched again as if ready to spring and begun growling as loudly as I’d heard him at his worst before. I’d recalled then that eye contact would only make an aggressive dog worse, but Si’s expression, whatever it was, must have somehow registered in my prior foe’s mind as belonging to someone even more alpha than he. The dog stopped growling and lay down on the ground submissively.
He’d met someone who could handle him.
That only made me smile. But I didn’t want to break the mood by talking aloud to Si. I waited and watched. So did Matt, beside me.
In a few minutes, Si came back out of the enclosure. “If it’s okay to leave him here overnight, I’ll bring appropriate equipment tomorrow to transport him to my school. I think I can rehabilitate him.”
“That’s wonderful!” I smiled all the more, which earned a shy smile from the dog trainer. “You’re wonderful. And that means Animal Services doesn’t need to get involved, Matt.”
“But this dog’s a stray. Plus, he attacked you, didn’t he?” I hadn’t exactly said so, but Matt had undoubtedly seen the scratch on my arm. “I’ll need to have him impounded for observation.”
“No. We just had a minor disagreement.”
“And I’ll take personal charge of him,” Si said. “That way, HotRescues isn’t taking in a stray.”
I thanked Si with a warm smile. “That’s wonderful! I won’t have to worry about anyone killing him for having a . . . bad disposition at times. Thanks for coming, Matt, but everything’s under control now.”
Si was grinning now, too. I suspected he liked the idea of winning out over Animal Services.
“Fine,” Matt said. “I’ll talk to you soon.” His eyes met mine, as if he intended to remind me by his soft glare about how I’d greeted him before . . . with a kiss. But that had been in the heat of the moment, so to speak. I’d enjoyed it, as I’d enjoyed kissing him before, but it didn’t mean anything.
Did it?
Didn’t matter. Matt left. Si didn’t.
“Do you know how the dog got here?” Si asked. “I mean, I was here earlier today and didn’t see him. Did one of the staff pick him up somewhere? He doesn’t seem the usual kind of animal cared for by HotRescues.”
“You’re right. And, no, I don’t know how he got here. It’s really strange.”
Si nodded. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, especially if I can make sure he can have a productive life from now on. I’ll keep him isolated, of course, to watch for rabies and all. But was Animal Services already here to pick him up?”
“What do you mean?”
“I found one of these near the back gate when I came in.” He handed me a piece of paper with the Animal Services logo at the top—one that appeared to be a memo from a commissioner to someone at SmART. Odd. How could that have gotten there?
Unless . . . could it have been in Matt’s possession? Had he been at the rear gate sometime today?
Had he been the one to let the vicious pit bull mix inside?
He’d undoubtedly have access to dogs like that, especially after the dogfighting ring Animal Services had just broken up. But why would he do such a thing?
If he did, was it an indication that he’d been responsible for some, or all, of the other things that had been going on at HotRescues?
Like Efram’s murder?
He was one of my suspects, after all. But not a serious contender—or so I’d believed.
“I’m leaving now.” Si interrupted my thoughts, and I nearly blessed him for that. “If you’re okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, when I come by to bring this guy to my place.”
“I’m fine,” I told him, and walked him to the back gate. “Thanks so much for taking care of this, Si. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you’re saving that dog’s life.”
“You don’t need to.” He smiled at me, then went through the gate.
I realized how sad that smile looked. The guy apparently was still attracted to me, but I felt nothing toward him but friendship. And gratitude.
Maybe someday I’d have a drink with him, make sure he understood why I just wasn’t seriously interested, in him or any man.
Although if Matt weren’t such an enigma . . .
I hurried back toward the front of HotRescues, observing all the inhabitants in the artificial light as I passed by.
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