Miles swore and shook his head, but he unlocked the gate to let Evans in.
Evans nodded. “Thank you,” he said politely.
He walked over to look at the dogs. Miles went back into the house. A while later, Miles watched through the window as Evans caught the dogs with neck loops and transferred them to the van, and then picked up Slash and put him in the van. He left a pink summons stuck to Miles’ door and drove away.
*
“Oh no,” Frank said aloud, as the TV reporter turned to the next story—an autistic boy who had been savaged by his pet dog. Frank reached for the phone, watching the screen.
“You often hear about how good dogs are for autistic children,” the reporter started. “And there are dogs specially trained as service dogs for those who need them. But as a California foster mom recently found out, not all dogs are good for all autistic kids. Mary Beamer adopted a border collie from the local SPCA, hoping he would help out with her children, both foster and adopted. She currently has sixteen of them! One is fourteen-year-old Nicolas, a high functioning autistic boy who had been passed from home to home until he finally found the Beamers and found his place there. He has flourished under their care, gaining in confidence, becoming mainstreamed at school, and learning skills through various programs. Everything was going great for him, until this afternoon…”
Frank missed the next few details as Errol answered his phone.
“Turn to the six o’clock news,” Frank said
“What?” Errol swore under his breath. Frank heard him flipping on the TV, then heard the same feed over the receiver as he was watching on the TV.
“At first, things seemed to be going great between Shep and the children. Being a herding dog, he worked well with the children when they went on outings. But Nicolas was afraid of dogs and preferred to watch Shep from a distance. Witnesses say Nicolas had wandered from the playground where the other children were playing, and when Shep went to round him up, Nicolas ran away. The dog pursued, and when he caught up with the boy, attacked him. Nicolas is in stable condition in the hospital, with injuries to his legs, back, arms, and face.”
As they moved into the next story, Frank muted the TV. Errol did the same. They were both silent for a moment.
“One of ours?” Errol asked.
“Our border collie went to California.”
Errol swore fiercely. “Are we ever going to get ahead of this thing?” he demanded. “It doesn’t seem to matter how much manpower we put on tracking these dogs down; we can’t get ahead of them. How could they all be violent? It doesn’t make sense, Frank. How could all of them be vicious? I could understand one or even two, but to have all of them show up in the news like this… It’s creepy.”
Frank suppressed a shudder. “Do you still believe they just happened to feed on the flesh of their owners who just happened to die of natural causes?” he asked.
“Hell, no!” the captain responded vehemently. “Those dogs attacked and killed the Johnsons. Nothing else makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Frank agreed.
He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment, trying to move past the images of the dogs barking and snarling at him.
He needed to stay focused on the present, figure out how to solve this thing. With the support of the police department behind him, it had to be easier. But most of the dogs had gone to rural areas, small shelters not even on the internet. Some of them not even in the phone listing. And the little rural shelters hardly kept any records. A receipt with a credit card number on it, no tracking of the individual dogs; they operated like a street-corner lemonade stand.
“We’ll find them,” Errol promised. “Somehow.”
“I’m just afraid the only way we’re going to find them is hearing about them on TV,” Frank sighed. “So far out of seven, we have five—the lab, the German shepherd, the two cockers, and now the border collie. We are still missing the Rottweiler and the golden retriever.”
“The Rottweiler went to Florida.”
“I heard.” Frank’s stomach clenched. “That’s where my daughter is. I haven’t been able to get a hold of her. Believe it or not… she recently adopted a new dog.”
Errol’s voice was cautious. “What breed?”
“I don’t know.” Frank swallowed. “I never asked.”
“I’m sure she’s all right. Just because we’re dealing with this situation… that doesn’t mean everyone who adopted a dog is in danger. There are only two more out there.”
“And one of them is the Rottweiler,” Frank said, trying to shrug off his goosebumps. “That Rottweiler was a devil. I remember the look in his eye.”
“We’ll find him. We’ll have him by tomorrow,” Captain Errol promised.
Frank looked down, nodding. “Absolutely,” he agreed. “By tomorrow.”
When Frank still hadn’t heard back from Elsie by the next morning, Janice was getting concerned too. She still wasn’t worried about the dog, but she wondered what had happened. Elsie had always been responsible. She’d always kept in contact with them, returned their calls promptly, and done all the right things. It didn’t make sense for her not to call back. Something was wrong. Frank made a decision.
“I’m flying out there.”
“Frank, you can’t,” Janice protested weakly. “Your job… the money…”
“It doesn’t matter. I have to find Elsie, make sure she’s okay. Everything else is secondary.”
“I’m sure we’re just overreacting.”
“No. We’re not. She hasn’t answered her phone in twenty-four hours. Something is wrong.”
“There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Frank agreed. “But… I have to go. I have to make sure. What do we know about this dog she adopted? Anything?”
Janice was reluctant to answer. “Not very much,” she admitted. “But it isn’t one of the Johnson dogs. She said it was taken from its previous home for animal cruelty.”
Frank teetered between tentative relief and fresh concern. “An abused animal? That could be dangerous…”
“She said they had a special program. The dog passed with flying colors.”
Frank shook his head. “So did all of the Johnson dogs.”
“What will Captain Errol say? You’re right in the middle of this investigation.”
Captain Errol, as it turned out, had no objection to Frank going to Florida to check on his daughter to make sure the dog wasn’t one of the Johnson dogs. In fact, he said he was going as well.
“I don’t believe she got one of our dogs,” he said. “It’s just too bizarre of a coincidence. But I’m going to come with you. We’ll make sure she’s okay and we’ll find out where that Rottweiler went to. We’ll get ahead of this one.”
Frank choked up. He swallowed the hot lump in his throat, a few tears escaping his eyes. He was thankful Errol couldn’t see him over the phone.
“Thank you, sir. I’m going to head over to the airport right now. I’ll—we’ll—catch the first flight out. I’ll meet you there?”
“You’ll get there before I will. Buy two tickets. The department will reimburse you for the trip to Louisiana too. I’ll call you when I get to the airport and we’ll meet up.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
Chapter Nineteen
WHEN THEY GOT OFF the plane, Errol picked up his voicemails. He turned his gaze toward Frank, the blood draining out of his face. He listened stoically to the rest of the message and pressed the ‘end’ button.
“Not Elsie,” he told Frank immediately, getting that important detail out of the way.
Frank blew out his breath. “Okay,” he said with more calm than he felt. “What happened?”
“A guide dog in Maine.”
“Who did he kill? His owner?”
“She’s not dead. But he tore off most of her face. She got too close to his kill, another dog that had strayed into his yard. She’s in pretty serious shape. She will need extensive facial reconstruction. Lost
a lot of blood. No one knew what had happened until hours later. The dog’s already been destroyed. They’ll check for rabies.”
“None of the dogs have had rabies,” Frank said. He shook his head. “At least rabies would make sense. This… this is just madness.”
He swallowed back the fear and anxiety, tried to overcome the panic that made his heart race. “We have to get to Elsie. Right now.”
“Okay. We’re going.”
There was no answer at Elsie’s door.
Her car was there, parked in front, but no Elsie.
Frank took a quick trip around to the back yard, but it was empty. No Elsie. No dog.
Errol banged on the door.
Frank called Janice to tell her he was at Elsie’s house and to see if by any chance Elsie had called her.
Janice’s voice across the miles was tearful. “No, I haven’t heard anything,” she said. “Please… find my baby.”
“I will, honey. I will.”
Her tears galvanized him. Up until then, he had been relying on her strength, her sanity, to get him through this. Now, she needed him. He couldn’t lean on her and her calm reason any longer. Now it was up to Frank to end the nightmare once and for all.
They knocked on the neighbors’ doors, but no one could remember seeing Elsie over the last day or two. And none of them were close enough to have keys or to be able to tell him what kind of dog Elsie had adopted.
They looked at him with quizzical expressions and shrugged. What did it matter what kind of dog she had? It was big and black; that’s all. She ran with him in the early morning and late evening, and he was never out in the yard barking. They didn’t ever see him as anything other than a blur moving away through the darkness.
Frank cupped his hands to stare through the windows into the interior of Elsie’s car. Why was her car still here? If she were at work, she would have the car with her, and the dog would be at home. She didn’t run with the dog in the middle of the day. So where was she? And where was the dog? Frank straightened up and leaned his elbows on top of the sun-heated car, putting his face in his hands and trying to focus.
“Is there a problem, officer?”
Frank dropped his hands from his face, looking at the young woman approaching from the street.
“Daddy? What are you doing here?”
“Elsie! Oh, Elsie, you’re okay!”
Frank hurried around the car and gave her a big hug, relieved beyond words, tears coursing down his face. Elsie hugged him back, then held him at arm’s reach, brushing away tears with the back of her fingers.
“What is it, Daddy? What’s wrong? Is Mom okay?”
“Yes, everybody is fine. Thank goodness you’re okay.”
“Well, why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, puzzled. “I don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
“Why didn’t you call me back?”
“My phone is… broken. I have to get a new one. Did you leave me a message? I’m so sorry. I couldn’t access the voicemail remotely; my PIN isn’t working. Really, what’s wrong? Is that all? I didn’t return your call, so you flew out here?”
“It was more than one call,” Frank said weakly.
For the first time, he looked down at the dog at her side. He saw with relief it was not a Rottweiler. All the anxiety flowed out of his body.
“I thought… I thought your dog had hurt you. I was worried something had happened to you.”
“My dog? He wouldn’t ever hurt me. I told you, he’s very gentle.”
“Dogs can be unpredictable,” Frank explained. “And those dogs of the Johnsons… well… there’s been some attacks. One of them came here and we couldn’t trace it.”
Elsie looked down at her dog, looking momentarily concerned, then she shook her head. “There’s no way,” she said. “He’s very sweet.”
“It was a Rottweiler,” Frank said. “Not… whatever that is.”
Elsie laughed. “A mutt,” she said comfortably. “Well, would you and your friend like to come inside for a cup of coffee?”
Frank nodded. They all went inside. Frank and Errol sat on stools beside the counter while Elsie made the coffee.
“What are you doing home this time of day?” Frank asked. “I was worried when I saw the car here, but you didn’t answer the door.”
“I had to take Chief to the vet. It’s just at a little strip mall a few blocks away.”
“Is he okay?” Frank asked.
Elsie laughed. She dug into her purse and pulled out a cell phone. In several pieces. Turning it over in his hand, Frank could see teeth marks.
“He ate my cell phone. Some parts of it, anyway. We are taking x-rays every day until everything is out of his system, making sure it’s all moving along properly…”
Frank looked at his daughter’s wry expression and burst into laughter.
EPILOGUE
FRANK SAT IN ELSIE’S living room, the TV playing sitcoms while she sent out some work emails. Chief had climbed onto the couch next to Frank and wouldn’t be dissuaded from curling up in his favorite spot. His warm body was snuggled up against Frank’s leg, and he was snoring and grumbling in his sleep. Frank’s heart had raced when the big dog initially jumped up onto the couch, but it had now slowed, and he watched the dog’s feet twitch in his sleep.
Frank’s cellphone rang, and Chief’s head went up, startled. Without thinking, Frank patted him on the head and scratched his ears. The dog put his head back down, making a noise almost like a purr as he settled back in.
It was Errol’s name on the caller ID. He had checked into a local hotel for the night. “Captain?”
“They found the last dog,” Errol reported.
“They found it?” Frank said. He exhaled. “That’s all of them, then.”
“That’s all of them.”
“Where is it?”
“Just a couple of counties over.”
“And it didn’t attack anyone? Everyone is okay?”
“Everyone is fine. It was harder to track because the kid who adopted it ended up selling it to someone else and never had his full name or address. But bylaw control ended up bringing it back in.”
“Why? Did it get loose?”
“The dog was abused. Badly beaten. They were going to see if they could nurse it back to health, but… hearing the whole story, they’ve agreed to just put it down.”
“So it’s over. That’s it now.”
“That’s all of them. Now you can rest easy.”
Frank breathed in and out slowly.
Rest easy? Sleep without nightmares? He doubted it.
But one could dream.
Chapter Twenty
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IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME in his life that Gabriel had woken up in hospital. He’d been in and out of hospitals as long as he could remember. But his head was thick and sluggish, and he couldn’t remember what had happened. He looked around for his mother. Keisha would tell him what had happened and why he was there again.
She wasn’t there. There was a visitor chair pushed against the wall beside his bed. That seemed like an odd place for it to be. Keisha would pull it out, push it at close as she could to his bed so that she could hold Gabriel’s hand and look into his face. That’s what she always did. She might leave his side to go to the restroom, or get coffee, or talk to a doctor, but it wouldn’t be for long, and she would sit beside him again when she got back. Why wasn’t her chair close to the bed?
A nurse came in. She had a flowered smock, and her stethoscope was pink. She had blond, curly hair, and a broad red face.
“Oh, you shouldn’t be awake,” she commented, seeing Gabriel’s eyes open. She flipped through his chart for a moment; then she prepared a syringe to inject into his IV.
Gabriel tried to clear his throat and talk to her before she could finish the injection. She pushed the plunger slowly and glanced aside at him as he grunted.
“There, now. This will put you back to sleep,” she told him. “You’re going to be just fine, Gabriel.”
He wasn’t able to raise his voice before the whirling darkness swallowed him up.
When Gabriel awoke again, he was dizzy and nauseated. He tried to sit up a little, hoping that it would help him to regain his equilibrium. He listened to the hospital noises. A patient yelling down her hall. A young female voice, tones strident, very angry. The tired voices making announcements over the PA system. Footsteps and wheels up and down the corridor. It was all familiar, but that didn’t reassure him. The chair beside him was still empty.
A nurse came in. The same one as before. For an instant, Gabriel thought maybe he should play possum. If she didn’t know that he was awake, she wouldn’t drug him back to sleep again. But there had to have been a reason that they had wanted him to be asleep. They would explain it.
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