AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She called Tom and Michael over again. “Start asking the neighbors if they saw anything. He would have to be in something big with all of those dogs. It would have been noticeable.”
Tom nodded and split his officers up into groups of two. Faith and Michael helped, working their way outward from Arthur’s next-door neighbor.
No one saw anything. No vans, no RVs, no big trucks. It didn’t make sense. Jay couldn’t have transported two dozen dogs in anything smaller than a full-sized heavy-duty van. He probably had something bigger since he cared so much about the dogs. There was no way no one noticed something that big.
Unless he grabbed Arthur first, then grabbed the dogs. She took a deep breath and let it out rapidly through her nose.
“What is it?” Michael asked.
“He grabbed Arthur first,” she said. “Then he grabbed the dogs. That’s why no one noticed the vehicle. He didn’t bring it here.”
“Dammit!” Michael swore. “All right, any idea on a timeline?”
Faith looked out at the darkening sky. “He kills his victims at night in open spaces where his dogs have room to work, and the victim has room to try to flee.”
“Yeah, but he has two dozen dogs this time,” Michael said, “not a half-dozen. He’s going to need a lot more room.”
“He might not use all of his dogs,” Faith reasoned, “but you’re right, we should assume he’s not going to be within city limits.”
“After the day we’ve had, I don’t think we should assume shit,” Michael said. “This guy’s been one step ahead of us all day. We can’t risk going somewhere else and missing him again.”
Faith thought it over. “You’re right. We need to split up. We need to make a list of places where he might take his victim and send teams to each place. We tell them to call us immediately if they find him. Then we all converge and take him out.”
Michael sighed. “Well, I hate it, but it’s the only choice left to us.”
They called Tom and gave him the new info. “Well,” Tom said, “In town, the only places that fit the bill are the sports complex and the city park. Out of town is desert for sixty miles going west and eight miles going east. I don’t even know how far north and south.”
“Let’s send a pair of officers to each of the in-town places,” Faith said, “and a team to the nature park as well. Lightning doesn’t usually strike the same place twice, so I don’t think we’ll find him there, but it doesn’t hurt to cover all of our bases. The rest of us split up into pairs and started canvassing the ground outside of town. How soon can other agencies get to us?”
“This is the definition of the middle of nowhere, Special Agent,” Tom said, “We’re it until you hit Flagstaff.”
Faith sighed. “I don’t suppose you have helicopters?”
He shook his head. “Wasted the whole budget on the new cruisers.”
She sighed again. “Well, then we’ll do the best we can with what we have.”
***
Faith allowed her mind to wander as she drove to her assigned spot on the grid—a shallow valley in between two low ridges five miles past town. She didn’t fixate on any one thought. If anything important came to mind, she would latch onto it.
In the seat next to her, Turk stared intently out the window, showing the calm he always did before a chase. She knew that just beneath that calm was a power and strength that few humans could match, but this human wasn’t alone. With him were two dozen dogs, many of whom were at least as big and strong as Turk. She would give Turk even odds against one or even two or three dogs, but two dozen?
They needed to be careful. They needed to find the killer and use discipline to wait for the cavalry to arrive instead of going off like cowboys and getting themselves hurt or killed. She knew from experience that this was not idle speculation. So did Turk.
But she also knew that if she saw an innocent person about to be murdered, she wouldn’t hesitate, and neither would Turk. That was the blessing and the curse of their profession.
Or maybe it was just her own blessing and curse. Michael certainly seemed to think so. He protested loudly and persistently that it was a mistake for her to go off alone with Turk.
“We’re partners, Faith. I should be with you.”
“Michael, we don’t have time to stand on ceremony right now. Arthur Warhol is hours or possibly minutes from death, and we don’t know where Chung has taken him. We need to find him ASAP. You have my word that I’ll wait for backup if Turk and I find him.”
Michael looked sadly at Faith and said, “We both know you’ll break your word if you feel you need to.”
His words had cut deeply, but she had to admit that he was right. She had broken her word several times in the past two years, and she didn’t need therapy to tell her that was due to the trauma she had suffered at the Donkey Killer’s hands or that her dishonesty was responsible for the strain on her relationships far more than her paranoia was.
She hadn’t tried to deny that. “I’ll give you a call if we find him,” was all she said.
