Chapter 19
Honey leaped at me from the other direction, all
excited, as if she thought we were playing a game of doggy tag. I
tried to block her with my body. Getting buried by large packages
of dry dog food—what were the big ones doing on top of that
unstable pile?—would probably hurt like hell as they fell on me,
but they could kill her. Not to mention if that damned knife
plunged into her. Sticking out ominously, the knife was one of the
largest we had. It appeared to be attached to one of the bags in a
way that would hurtle it, treacherous point first, toward whoever
was in the bag’s path as gravity and momentum catapulted it
downward.
I grabbed Honey and attempted to run, but I tripped
on some of the bags that circled us on the floor. I sprawled out,
careful to release Honey so I wouldn’t squash her.
The graceful maneuver didn’t get me out of the
knife’s path. As the bag of food whomped me, I felt the blade slice
my calf, through my pants, as easily as if I was a cake and this
was someone’s birthday.
“Ow!” I screamed.
“Ms. Vancouver, where are you?” yelled a voice from
downstairs, startling me even more. I bit back further noise,
inhaling my pain. Was it someone from EverySecurity, checking in
since I’d called? Or was whoever did this still here, ready to
finish what he’d started?
I lay still, my leg shrieking and my mind reeling.
How could I protect myself and Honey?
Honey? Now where was she? I’d released her as I’d
fallen, and now I didn’t see her.
I didn’t dare call her and give my location away
until I knew who the person downstairs was. But the person who’d
done this obviously didn’t care about hurting a dog. Maybe that was
even a major part of his plan—kill a dog and a human, and enjoy
every moment of doing both.
I heard barking from the opposite end of the
warehouse—still upstairs, I thought. Which meant Honey was still
alive.
It also meant the excited little pup was divulging
to the intruder where we both were.
I was in no position to sneak toward her and muzzle
her. I was in no position to do much of anything . . . except
maneuver my aching body in a circle, trying hard not to move my leg
too much. Trying even harder to ignore the small, but growing,
puddle of blood that looked so much like an expanding red ameba
from a horror movie, ready to morph into something even more
dangerous.
I heard footsteps growing closer. My back was now
aimed in that direction, and I curled up even tighter, trying to
protect myself.
“Ms. Vancouver, are you all right?” demanded an
unfamiliar voice.
I lunged to my feet, ignoring the pain . . . and
holding the knife that had sliced me as my own weapon of
self-defense. I’d fortunately been able to wrest it from the food
bag.
Fortunately, despite my haziness and fear, I only
wielded the thing as a means of protection without having to use
it.
The person who stood there was Ed Bransom, the guy
from EverySecurity company.
Sure, he could have been the fiend who’d done all
this. The security force had better access to HotRescues than
anyone else but my staff and me. But I didn’t think so.
In case I was wrong, I kept the knife aimed at him
until I heard a lot of noise from downstairs. “Up here!” I shouted,
and it was only another minute before some other guys in security
uniforms appeared.
And Matt.
“Are you all right, Lauren?” he demanded. One of
the security men had him by the arm, but he wrested it free.
“I will be.” I turned and placed the knife on a
remaining stack of dog food bags. “I wish I hadn’t had to touch
this, though. It might have been a helpful way of determining who
set this up, although I’d be surprised if he left fingerprints on
it. That would violate TV Cop Show 101.”
“You’re bleeding,” Matt said unnecessarily, but he
was looking at my stabbed leg.
So was I. “No kidding.” Leaning down, I unpeeled
the dissected fabric from my skin. Bright red wasn’t my favorite
color, and I scowled at its abundance right around the wound.
Fortunately, the cut didn’t look very long or deep. I’d live. I
turned back to Matt. “What are you doing here?”
“Exactly what we asked,” said the security guy
who’d previously had Matt’s arm. His nametag said he was
Clifton.
“I got a call.” Matt’s tone was oddly
expressionless for a guy who’d seemed so interesting and interested
only an hour or so previously. “Did you try to reach me? It came
from the HotRescues number, but when I answered no one was
there.”
“It wasn’t me,” I said.
“Sure you got a call from here,” Clifton said at
the same time. Was that sarcasm? What did he mean?
Matt glared at him, then turned back to me. “Why
don’t you sit down?” This time, he sounded as alive as when I’d
eaten dinner with him.
He rearranged some of the pet food bags into a
seat, then helped me onto it. Not exactly a soft, upholstered
chair, but at least it kept me from keeling over where I’d stood. I
suddenly felt woozy. From loss of blood or stress? Most likely, a
combo.
I remained aware enough, though, to discern the
unspoken battle raging between Matt and the people supposedly here
to protect HotRescues.
Where had they been before? If the only problem had
been Honey getting loose on the grounds, I couldn’t hold them
entirely responsible—although I still wanted to know why they
hadn’t seen anything on any security camera, assuming that was
true.
Someone had been around and set this thing up.
EverySecurity had been hired to protect HotRescues’ grounds, as
well as our residents. They’d failed. Again.
I’d fire their butts right out of here, but not
immediately. I needed their cooperation in looking into who’d done
this.
Besides, I’d need Dante’s okay. He was the one
who’d hired them.
“Did the HotRescues silent alarm go off
before?”
“You’re sure it was set?” Clifton countered, which
gave me the answer. It hadn’t. So who had turned it off?
Or had I forgotten to set it? Surely I
hadn’t.
Of course, Efram could have shown his killer how to
turn it off.
“Did you or any of your guys see someone sneak onto
the HotRescues grounds while I was out?” I asked him next. Maybe
someone on patrol would have picked up what the cameras apparently
didn’t.
“No way,” he said.
“We’d have grabbed ’em,” seconded Ed. “This guy,
though.” He nodded toward Matt. “He was lurking around outside. I
saw him as I drove by on patrol. That’s why I stopped and radioed
for backup, then I got a call that you’d phoned the office. I
didn’t like this guy’s story, so I left him with my men, came
through the fence, then heard you.”
“I see.” I looked at Matt. I didn’t ask why he’d
been there. He’d already claimed he’d gotten a call from the
HotRescues number.
Claimed? The security guys didn’t believe him, and
I realized I considered what he said rather far-fetched, too. I’d
been the only human here. I hadn’t called him.
The only explanation I could think of that might
corroborate his story was that the perpetrator had hung around
after setting his trap and called Matt.
Possible? Sure. Probable? Not really. Why would the
sadist imperil himself by hanging around that long?
While I was musing about this odd scenario, and
hurting all over, the cops and EMTs arrived.
Despite the late hour, I made the EMTs wait to
examine me until I called Nina and told her what happened, asked
her to come to HotRescues and keep an eye on things—particularly
Honey. The little Westie mix stayed near me now, mostly because I
held on to her leash once I got the security folks to bring her to
me again. She seemed fine, if a little excited. But I also told
Nina to call my friend Carlie if Honey seemed at all hurt. Carlie’s
veterinary skills were unrivaled, and she was back in town.
Besides, I always used her animal hospital if any of our HotRescues
animals needed medical attention, even if she wasn’t there to do
the work.
Then I had to contend with the medics. I told them
I was fine. Just needed bandaging, plus some low-dose painkiller.
Antibiotics? I’d use an over-the-counter antiseptic salve on the
wound. We even had most of that in our first-aid cabinet here at
HotRescues, for situations where our personnel scraped their arms
or got nipped. That would be good enough.
But they dug in their white-soled shoes and
insisted that I needed to see a real doctor, at a real medical
facility, right away. I’d already done all the fighting that night
for which I could muster any energy, so my arguments sounded lame
even to me.
I felt tearful as I shambled like a creature in a
monster film while returning Honey to her kennel. “Someone will be
here to keep you company soon,” I promised, and gave her another
hug before securing the gate—and checking it again.
Then I let the EMTs have their way with me,
shuttering me into the back of their emergency vehicle. At least
they didn’t blast the siren.
I’d half hoped that Matt would come along, a
shoulder for me to lean on while I kept weight off my leg. But
since I first rode in an ambulance, then in a wheelchair, I didn’t
genuinely need that kind of support. Just support of the moral kind
. . . and I wasn’t sure Matt could provide any just then. He was
still being questioned when I left HotRescues.
Once I arrived at the hospital, the wait in the
emergency room seemed interminable. Even worse, I spent most of the
rest of that night similarly to one I’d endured nearly a week
before—undergoing another heartless interrogation by Detective
Stefan Garciana, who found me there.
He insisted on shooing me into a corner to talk
while I waited. My injuries weren’t life threatening. My irritable
mood was—to Garciana’s life, not mine.
“I thought you were a homicide detective,” I hissed
at him at one point, keeping my claws sheathed. I sat tensely in an
uncomfortable hospital waiting room chair, glaring and trying to
ignore the buzz of activity in the vicinity. A lot of people must
have gotten sick or injured that day. “No one was killed.”
“I just figured this situation could be related to
the homicide I’m still investigating,” he said mildly. “The one
that also occurred at HotRescues.” As if he needed to remind
me.
Despite the late hour, the guy looked wide awake.
His dark eyebrows were raised, as if he gave a damn what I said to
him. His black, wavy hair looked recently combed, and he
again—still?—wore a formal-looking suit. The epitome of a police
detective. Not that I wanted to know the best characteristics of a
quintessential interrogator.
“So, tell me what happened.”
I did so briefly, without mentioning that I’d dined
earlier with Matt or that he’d shown up at HotRescues, apparently
during the time I’d been frantically searching for Honey.
He knew about the latter, though. “And you’d called
Matt Kingston from Animal Services to help?”
I could have said yes to protect Matt. But he
worked for a government agency involved with law enforcement, too.
He should be perfectly able to take care of himself.
Besides, the seeds of doubt had started inching
their roots into my thoughts. I’d no theory why Matt would have set
up Honey and me that way. I didn’t genuinely believe he’d done it.
But the facts were that he’d been around HotRescues, and he’d
claimed it was because of a phone call that only I had been in a
position to make—and I hadn’t done it.
I felt trapped in a living conundrum.
Presumably Matt had caller ID on his cell and could
see that the number had been HotRescues’. His phone records would
confirm it—or not.
If he’d received that call, and not from me, then
maybe whoever set the trap had wanted to send a message. Frame
Matt. Make things even more confusing.
My thoughts were definitely engaged in unrelenting
somersaults. But I didn’t tell the detective any of that.
What I did tell him was the bare-bones truth. I’d
left HotRescues for a while. When I came back, one of our
residents, Honey, was missing, and I’d looked for her. When I’d
found her, she had seemed like the bait in a trap set by an unknown
perpetrator for an unknown reason.
He didn’t ask if I’d been interrogating people from
my own suspect files that day. I didn’t volunteer it, either. But
that was the only thing I could think of that would cause
anyone—one of those very suspects—to try to hurt me, possibly warn
me from conducting another day like this one.
Maybe they’d succeeded.
But how had whoever it was avoided the security
patrols and camera? If it was Matt, he hadn’t eluded both, since
the security patrol had captured him. But apparently neither he,
nor anyone else, had shown up on the camera.
How would I deal with this in my organized computer
files? Add a file on Matt? Yes. But would this help me identify the
killer?
At the moment, I’d no idea.
I, therefore, asked Garciana a question of my own.
“Do you really think this was connected with Efram Kiley’s murder,
Detective?”
“We can’t rule it out,” he said grimly.
Neither could I.
Then I really pushed the envelope. “If so, that
should at least convince you I wasn’t the killer,” I said, looking
right into the detective’s cool brown eyes.
“Maybe,” he said. “Unless you did this all yourself
to try to throw suspicion somewhere else.”
I felt almost as if that damned knife was stabbing
me all over again. Maybe, this time, in my gut. “I didn’t!” I
exclaimed.
“That’s what I intend to find out,” he
responded.
So I wasn’t off the hook—or knife blade—yet.