So during the drive to the dump, Jeff kept glancing into the rear-view mirror, expecting to see a flashing red light accompanied by the whoop of a siren. He wondered whether some jail time wouldn’t be just the rest he needed. Sitting behind bars might be a heck of a lot nicer than living under Aunt Flo’s roof.
At least for a while.
The truck rumbled along the gravel road to the dump, dust stirring up behind it. Jeff fiddled with the radio — the truck was so old that there were actual push buttons for the individual stations — in a vain attempt to find something good to listen to. None of the buttons had been set to anything he liked — Aunt Flo was a country and western fan — so he had to turn the knob manually to find anything someone under a hundred might listen to.
Between glancing at the radio and checking his mirror for the police, Jeff didn’t have his eyes on the actual road as much as he should.
He had just landed on a station playing something with a really good beat to it and was tapping his fingers on the top of the steering wheel when he saw something suddenly dart in front of the truck.
It had come out of the tall grasses on the right shoulder. Something black, with some white in it.
He thumped the horn as he moved his foot from the gas to the brake. He’d slammed it so hard he thought he’d snap the pedal off. The truck skidded to a halt on the gravel, back end fishtailing, the dust trail enveloping the vehicle and wafting in through the windows. Jeff coughed a couple of times as he waved away the dust in front of his face.
He had no idea what he’d hit, or if he’d actually hit anything at all. But that combination of black and white fur had given him a start. What if he’d run over a skunk? What if it was about to unleash the biggest fart the Canfield area had ever smelled? If Aunt Flo thought the garbage was a stinky mess, just wait till he brought her truck back reeking of skunk juice.
But no, what he’d seen was not a skunk. He’d seen it only for a fraction of a second, but it was way too big to be a skunk.
Jeff was going to have to screw up his courage and check out what it was.
He opened the door, stepped out of the truck, and came around the front very slowly.
His heart sank.
It was a dog.
Not just any dog, but a dog that looked a lot like Pepper. It wasn’t Pepper — he could tell that right away from the black and white markings, but it was the same kind of dog.
A border collie, mostly black, with a bit of white fur on his snout and under his neck and on his legs. Or hers. He didn’t know if it was a he or a she.
“Oh man, I’m so sorry!” he said to the dog.
The dog was lying on his side, and Jeff thought maybe he was dead because his eyes were closed, but then he saw his chest pump up and down. He was still breathing!
Jeff knelt down and gently lay his hand on his side. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “You’re going to be all right!”
Of course, Jeff knew no such thing, but what else was he going to say? He continued moving his hand over him, tentatively checking to see whether anything was broken. There was no blood, and nothing about the dog looked bent out of shape. Jeff looked at the bumper of the pickup, and while there was no blood, there was a tiny wisp of black fur stuck to it. So the truck must have hit him, but maybe it had been nothing more than a nudge, not a serious blow. Jeff had hit those brakes fast and hard.
Jeff got his face right up next to the dog’s, but struggled to focus as he found himself blinking away tears.
“Please don’t die,” Jeff said as a tear rolled down his cheek. “Please be okay.”
The dog’s chest continued to go up and down, but other than that there was no sign of life.
Jeff started crying harder. This dog reminded him so much of Pepper. The dog he’d loved with all his heart that had been taken away from him, and if that weren’t bad enough, now it looked like maybe he was going to be a dog murderer.
A tear dropped from his cheek and landed on the dog’s black nose.
And it twitched.
“Hey,” Jeff said, and sniffed.
The nose twitched some more. Jeff stroked the dog’s side soothingly.
And then, one eye fluttered open.
“Yes!” Jeff said. “You’re alive! You got hit. You ran across the road and I almost ran you right over. I hit the brakes. I hit ’em fast as I could. But you can’t run into the road like that!”
The open eye blinked.
“Does anything hurt? Did anything get broken? Huh? Whose dog are you, anyway?”
Jeff felt around under the dog’s jaw, looking for tags. He found a collar under the fur, but no tags.
“I’m going to try and lift you up, okay?” Jeff said. “You shout out if it starts to hurt.”
Jeff slipped his arms under the dog and ever so slowly lifted him off the gravel. If anything hurt, he wasn’t showing it. He was limp in the boy’s arms.
“Gonna take care of you,” Jeff said. “I’m going to make sure you’re okay. And I’ll find your owner. We’re going to make it okay.”
Jeff came around the passenger side of the truck, managed to open the door, and carefully set the dog on the passenger seat.
The dog made a small whimpering sound as Jeff slipped his arms out from under him.
“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
Jeff closed the door and ran around to the other side of the truck. He had to take this dog someplace where he could look after him, but he couldn’t take him home. Aunt Flo hated dogs.
At that moment, Jeff thought of Emily’s train station.
That was perfect! He would take the dog there.
“I know where I can take you,” Jeff said. “I know a safe place.”
Seventeen
Daggert’s cell phone rang.
“What?” he said. After leaving the bus station and hunting around Canfield for the dog, he, Bailey and Crawford had spent the night in a cheap motel. Now they were up, sitting in a diner, plotting their next step over a second cup of coffee.
“It’s Wilkins, sir,” a man said.
“Wilkins? Who the hell are you?”
“I work in the control room, sir. I’ve worked for you for four years.”
“Oh yes, Watson. What is it you want?”
“I have good news and bad news.”
Daggert gritted his teeth. “Bad news first.”
“We lost contact with the target. We’d almost reestablished it, but then it was gone. We think there was some kind of impact, that the animal may have had a serious fall, or even been hit by something.”
“Hit by what?”
“Don’t know. But it was enough to disrupt the circuitry, at least momentarily.”
“And you have good news?”
“Yes. Just before we lost our connection, we were able to pinpoint a more tentative location.”
“Yes?”
“The dog is near Canfield.”
“I already knew that, Watkins.”
“Wilkins, sir.”
“The dog got off a bus in Canfield. We’re still in Canfield. Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“We narrowed the dog’s location to be west of the town. We did a GPS overlay and it was in the vicinity of the local garbage dump.”
“The dump?”
“Yes, sir. It’s not far from where you are now.”
Daggert thought about that. It made sense. A dump would be a good place for the animal to hide out, and scrounge some food. Plus, there’d be rats. A magnificent buffet, if you were a dog.