When mom is done with Sophia, she hands the phone back to me. “Hello?”
“You get my girl home, and then you find this fucker, Wyatt.” I can hear the tears in mom’s tone too.
“Yes ma’am,” I agree.
Hanging up with Mom, I slip my phone back into my pocket and pull Sophia to me while petting the top of Athena’s head.
“You’re the best girl, aren’t you, Athena?” I whisper to her.
“Did Mom tell you everything?” I ask Sophia.
She nods her head. “Why can’t they just let me go?”
“I don’t know, Goddess. But I promise I’ll find them and make them stop.” Dropping a kiss on the top of her head, we both stand, going back the way we came. “I’ll have to go to the station when we get back. Ripp will come sit with you.”
“Okay.” She sounds so despondent and distant. I hate every second.
After I get her settled in the car, I head back inside to talk to Carol.
“How’d it go? That was fast.” Concern is written all over her face.
“It went great. She’s perfect. But I did get a call, and I’ve got to get back to the station. Are we all set to take her, or would you rather we come back another day?”
“You can take her. I’ve got her all packed up because I had a hunch it would go well.
She hands over the box of supplies for Athena, along with a crate for the house.
“When you have new people over, you’re going to want to do the same as I did earlier. Let them come to her slowly andintroduce them as a safe person. That way, she views anyone who comes in without the introduction as an intruder, and she knows to be on alert. We’ll go over that more in-depth, but after talking to your chief, I assume you’ll want to start that on your own today.”
“Thank you so much. I’ll be in touch at the beginning of the week.” I turn and practically run out of the kennels back to the truck with Athena on my heels.
Opening the back door, I slide the items from Carol over behind Sophia’s seat and then tap the seat for Athena to hop in. She seems to relax once Sophia is back in her view. Reaching her paw forward, she presses her head into Sophia’s shoulder, licking at the tears.
Kane walks into the station with me after we arrive at the same time. We go straight to Chief’s office and shut the door behind us.
“What have you found? I won’t have this town mistrusting my officers.” Chief gets straight to the point.
“We have James on facial recognition from some traffic cameras. But none that match up with the signs. We also have Hugh in Massachusetts. That’s a parole violation, so we’ve notified his PO. James was in a stolen vehicle the two times he was caught on the cameras but not the same one. He’s basically untraceable at the moment.”
Chief watches both of us. “And how is he not getting caught on these cameras?”
“There’s beenoutagessomehow at the same times that we need access to the cameras. They’re rolling outages, too. One camera is down for about ten seconds, then the next one, so on and so forth.”
Leaning back in the chair, I stretch my legs out in front of me, processing the information. “So is he also hacking the camera system?”
“That’s my belief, but I can’t prove it.” Kane pulls out his laptop and opens a few videos, clicking through each one and letting them play.
“You can barely make out their faces,” I say quietly as I watch them.
“Well, facial recognition confirms it’s them, and we trust it. But you’re right. There’s no guarantee. Hugh hasn’t been caught on camera for a minute. So he could be anywhere at this point.”
Chief chimes in next. “What is our next step? We’re obviously adding vehicle theft to the list of crimes these guys are racking up.”
“I’ll keep monitoring. See if I can find anything for you. But at the same time, we need boots on the ground to find this fucker.”
“What about Athena?” I ask.
“Who the hell is Athena?” Kane looks between us.
