A woman had stepped out of the cabin onto the porch. She didn’t bother to turn on the porch light, nor did she carry a flashlight. She was simply a slight figure in silhouette for the instant she was backlit by the open doorway. Then a dark furry animal shot past her out the door. The dog was moving at full throttle, coming straight toward the woods, and James.
One bark was all it took to confirm the silhouette. James’s heart squeezed tight and though he would have denied it to his own mother he had to blink away the threat of a watery leak in his left eye.
It was Bogart! He was unharmed! He was in good voice. Recovering his partner was going to be easier than he’d ever thought possible.
James stood to call the dog to him but the sound was lost when the truck’s engine suddenly roared to life. Headlights caught Bogart in their full flare but the dog did not hesitate. He was after the truck and his barking increased, signaling that he had found his prey.
“Prince! No! Come here!” The plaintive cry of the woman who’d been on the porch switched James’s focus. She’d left the porch and was running toward the woods. “Come, Prince! Heel! Heel, boy!”
The dog paused uncertainly and turned to look back at the woman just as she entered the circle of the truck’s headlights. She was dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie but her feet were bare.
“Heel! Heel, Prince!” Her voice was strained with emotion as she bent down to scoop up something.
Even as the driver threw the truck into reverse and floored the pedal, she stood up.
“Bastard!” She launched what must have been a rock or a heavy piece of a tree limb at her Peeping Tom.
James couldn’t help but admire her strength and aim. The missile bounced off the hood of the truck even as it blasted backwards.
“Heel! Heel, Prince!” She began running back toward the cabin.
This time Bogart didn’t hesitate, he sprang after her, easily catching up and circling her with excited barks as she made her way to the porch. The pair was through the door in an instant, and then it was shut behind them with a force that reverberated through the night.
“What the fuck?” James sat back on his haunches as the sounds of the truck tearing back through the forest became ever fainter, and let his thoughts sort themselves out. First things first.
He’d seen Bogart! Knew he was okay. That was a huge relief.
But now he had other complications to deal with. Something else was going on besides the dog-napping of his K-9 partner. Something he didn’t understand. But whatever the something was, he meant to get to the bottom of it.
One thing was certain. Regardless of the events of the night, the woman in the cabin was the prime suspect in the abduction of his K-9.
There were several ways he could work this. He should report back to the sheriff of this North Carolina county what he’d discovered and ask for help. But after weeks of searching, he wanted the pleasure of confronting the suspect himself. That wasn’t exactly legal procedure. Any way one factored it, he was way the hell out of his jurisdiction.
James slid a hand down his face. By nature he was a by-the-book guy, professional, methodical, reasonable. But something had snapped when Bogart went missing. The job of finding him became a personal quest. And he was going to see it through. So then, how best to confront the woman holding his dog hostage?
Maybe the woman who had his dog abducted him herself, or maybe she had had help. No way to judge that from here.
He had learned long ago that ‘female’ did not equal ‘easy to best’, and certainly not ‘harmless.’ Unlike the truck driver, he wasn’t going to give her the chance to get the better of him, or escape. He was going in full force and with overwhelming strength, to teach her a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget,.
He was just going to wait for full light.
# # #
Shay Appleton jumped to her feet when her dog, sprawled at her feet, suddenly lifted his head to listen. “What is it, Prince?” She stared into the shiny alert gaze of her pet with equal intensity. “Do you hear something?”
Prince made a soft nasally sound but his tail did an unperturbed thump of the floor.
Shay glanced at her front door. The bolts were still shoved into place. Was that enough?
For eight heavy heartbeats she stared at the doorknob of her rental cabin, burnished by years of use. It did not turn.
Shay exhaled audibly. Okay, so maybe nothing. Of course it was nothing. Prince wasn’t behaving the way he had during the night when there had been a real problem.
Not until Prince lowered his head back to his paws did the warmth of spilled coffee permeate Shay’s awareness the way it had her jogging shorts.
“Oh damn!” She fumbled to right her mug and grabbed for napkins to catch the steaming liquid dripping over the edge of the kitchen table.