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Too late. A Doberman leapt at her, mouth open wide, forelimbs extended.
She brought her handgun around, but she knew she wouldn’t make it in time. She steeled herself for the blow, but it never came. Instead, Turk launched himself into the Doberman’s shoulder, much the way he did with Misty at the junkyard. The Doberman went sprawling, and Turk turned around, teeth bared, ears flat and snarling, his back to Faith and his fangs toward whoever approached.
The dogs were taken aback by this a moment, and Turk was able to easily fend off the occasional lunges made by one or two animals. After a moment, though, the pack realized that there were only two enemies and began to converge again, tightening the noose.
Turk leaped right and left, intercepting every dog that came too close to Faith, moving with a grace and power that far outstripped the other dogs.
But not to the tune of twenty-three to two. She had bought them a few extra minutes, but time was running out.
The dogs rushed them at once. She lifted her handgun and shouted.
And then a sheriff’s department cruiser and three animal control vans came flying over the hill, skidding to a stop in front of the hole in the fence. A dozen officers came pouring from the vans and sprinted toward the dogs. The pack split, half the dogs going to deal with the new threat, the other half resuming the attack on Turk and Faith.
Faith watched as the animal control officers sprayed something at the dogs that brought them to the ground, yelping and rubbing their eyes in the dirt. A few more pack members left to assist their comrades, but there were still five who remained with Turk and Faith.
They prepared to leap, and Michael jumped in front of Faith and Turk and sprayed all five of the other dogs with a bottle. Faith caught a hint of the acrid smell and guessed that was why the dogs immediately dropped to the floor and rolled around, yelping.
Michael looked at Turk, who wagged his tail and licked his hand in gratitude. Michael turned to Faith and said, “You owe me.”
She grinned and said, “You owe me for being right again.”
“What part of wait for us don’t you understand?” he asked, frowning. “You could have gotten killed.”
“Would you have watched a victim die?”
He sighed deeply and didn’t respond. He did chuckle, though, and she saw a smile when he looked away and waved at Tom.
The Deputy Sheriff was dragging a very distraught Jay Chung from a stand of trees. Jay was whining and blubbering, repeating over and over, “My dogs! What about my dogs?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Faith caught movement and turned to see Arthur Warhol a few hundred feet away being tended to by a few other deputies. She turned back to Jay, who pouted and whined about his dogs, not even glancing Faith’s way as Tom led him to the waiting cruiser.
“You all right?” Michael asked Faith.
“Sure,” she said. “Right as rain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
“You sure about this, Faith?”
Faith nodded. “I’m sure. Vanheusen might be a mad scientist, but he’s a well-meaning mad scientist. He gave you the neutralizing agent, didn’t he?”
David smiled wryly. “I guess you could say that.”
The “neutralizing agent” turned out to be white wine vinegar. Pheromones were essentially scent packets. Once the scent wore off, the pheromones no longer worked. Vinegar, as it turned out, was a potent enough smell to override every other scent.
“Besides, the dogs need a place to go, and I don’t want to put them into a shelter. I don’t… I don’t really want them to go back to their original owners either.”
At Faith’s recommendation, the judge had agreed to overlook the illegal lab out of gratitude for his assistance in apprehending the Dogwalker, the name the press had given to Jay.
As the flight attendant went through the safety presentation, Michael replied, “I suppose Vanheusen is all right. He’s a bit of a spazz, but that’s chemists for you. He’ll give the dogs a good home.”
“I think so,” she agreed.
“So what’s next for you when you get back home?” he asked.
Faith weighed whether or not to tell Michael the truth. After a moment, she simply said, “I plan on taking a few days to relax before the Boss gives me another headache to deal with.”
Michael chuckled. “Good luck with that. The Boss can smell happiness from a mile away and destroy it from two miles. I swear he was born to be a pain in our ass.”
