4 Woof at the Door (28 page)

“I’ve got to get my sling back on. I can’t believe you did this. It was lucky I was here.”

“Yes, it was.” A thought hit me. He hadn’t mentioned the petal I’d taped to his door. Could he have not been back to his office yet? Had he been in another room when I first arrived? “Russell, how long have you been here?”

“‘Bout an hour. I had lunch with a friend. Why?”

Which meant, if I wanted to tell him how I felt now, I’d have to actually say the words. “I can only work on one fear at a time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I have to go, Russell. I’ll call you later, okay?”

I headed off. Russell followed me out to the parking lot. From my rearview mirror, I saw him standing there, looking after my car, as if in the hopes that I might return.

Chapter 20

Though immensely disappointed in myself, I drove straight to the office and removed the daisy petal from Russell’s door. The moment it felt right to tell him had passed me by. More importantly, there was too much going wrong in my life to trust my emotions just now. When you’re dangling off a cliff, no one could be more beloved to you than the person who pulls you back to solid ground, yet that doesn’t mean those feelings will last.

I couldn’t stand to throw the petal away, and so I folded its tape on itself and put it in my pocket. I drove off to my first appointment and made a point of not returning to the office at the end of the day, merely went through my thankfully short work day in something of a daze.

Afterward, as I started on my long drive home, it occurred to me that much of my confusion regarding Russ had started with my attraction for Damian Hesk. Seeing him again might help me to put things in focus. I drove to his ranch, pondering what to say.

By the time I got there, my stomach was in knots. I decided to be upfront for once and blurt out my reasons for coming. Then I would make a hasty exit.

“Damian. Hi, I was hoping you’d be back from work. I’m sorry to drop—”

“Hey, Allida,” Damian interrupted. “Good to see you. You can help feed the animals”

“I have something to tell you. Yesterday you hinted that you’d be interested in dating me. That made me face up to my feelings for Russell Greene. The guy who shares my office space?”

“And?”

“And I think I’m in love with him.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. For my sake. I hope he makes you happy. Get the door for me, would you?” He tossed me the keys.

I hadn’t been expecting a big reaction on Damian’s part. It’s not as though he should be groveling at my feet and pleading with me to give him a chance, or anything. But a frown might have been nice. Or a sigh. A blink, even.

Demoralized, I unlocked the door to the animal’s house and swung open the heavy wood-plank door. Damian, his muscular arms struggling with the weight of the two huge plastic buckets of meat, followed me into the center of the animal shelter.

“What’d the police have to say about the contents of the warehouse?”

“Not much. They tend to spend their words on questions. But they arrested Hank Atkinson earlier today”

“On what charges? Do they think he’s the murderer?”

I shrugged. “I guess so. They’re awfully tight-lipped about their cases”

“Must be who was behind all of this. I have to say, he’s paid me quite a bit of money over the past couple years for my work on his commercials, but I never liked the guy the much”

“Neither did I.”

Damian was slowly scanning his animals, who were all inside the building with us. He seemed tense.

“Do you think all of this could have been Hank Atkinson’s doing?” I asked. “That he took the keys from Larry and stole the wolf?”

“Something’s wrong,” Damian said under his breath. “The animals are agitated”

I followed his line of vision, immediately chilled by Damian’s words. I’d assumed that they were acting this way out of hunger, but on second look, Damian was right. All of the big cats, wolves, and bears were pacing and “talking,” the tigers and lions roaring. Kaia was prancing from side to side in his cage and was salivating. The two bears kept rising to full height and growling.

Damian’s brow was furrowed. “What the hell is going on?” he muttered.

“Maybe a stray animal wandered in here and upset them,” I suggested cautiously.

“No.” He shook his head. “That wouldn’t set them all off like this.” Damian threw a switch by the door and a florescent overhead light came on. He stared at the cement floor ahead of him, then paused and checked each cage. He stopped at Kaia’s cage and peered through the thick mesh. He pointed. “There are shoeprints in Kaia’s den. Somebody’s been in his—Damn it! He’s limping!”

Damian pivoted and returned to my side. He took a big sniff of the slightly acrid air. “Allida. Do you smell that?”

I inhaled deeply. “What?”

“It smells like singed hair. Or fur. I think somebody’s been in here with a cattle prod! That’s the only reason…”

He let his voice fade. I sniffed again, but the odor of animal waste was still too strong for me to detect anything else.

He ran to the switches, shoving me toward the door. “I’ve got to help Kaia. Call the vet. His number’s right there over the phone.”

“Wait, Damian. Should you go in there? If Kaia’s injured—”

“I raised Kaia from a newborn! He’s as gentle and well-trained as any dog!”

“Yes, but an injured, scared dog can badly hurt its owner. Shouldn’t you wait until the vet can come give you a hand?”

“Yeah, you’re right, damn it all.” Damian crossed his arms as if to hold in his anger. “How the hell could this happen?”

The same way somebody got Atla away from where he belonged and over to Ty Bellingham’s,
I thought. I picked up the phone. The line was dead. “Phone’s out. Someone cut the line.” I grabbed my cellphone, just in case. Not surprisingly, there was no signal.

“Shit! Kaia’s limping badly! Go to the house. Check that phone. If that’s out too, just drive to the nearest gas station and call nine-one-one.” He pressed the button to open Kaia’s cage.

“Damian, don’t!” I grabbed his arm, but he pulled away from me as if I were a five-year-old child clinging to him. “This is a trap! Can’t you see that? Somebody’s trying to lure you into that cage”

“Yeah, but I’ve got to see if I can help Kaia. Whoever’s done this is going to have to get through me first before he hurts one my hair on my animals’ hides!”

“Oh, for—” I stopped. I was wasting valuable time trying to argue with him. I ran toward Damian’s house, patting my pockets for my keys in case, as I strongly suspected, the phone lines to the entire residence had been cut.

My pockets were empty. I remembered then. I’d planned to make a hasty exit and had left them in the ignition.

I bolted through the front door and raced toward the first phone I could locate, in the austere living room. I picked up the handset. No dial tone. “Shit!”

Could I really leave Damian here with a wounded wolf while I drove off for a phone? A trip to the nearest gas station and back would easily take half an hour. But what choice did I have? I just didn’t have the physical strength to be of much help.

I ran back to my car, cursing my physical shortcomings. I grabbed the handle on the car door. Locked! How could that be? I peered through the window. No keys in the ignition.

Dear God! What was happening?

I raced into the carport and tried the door of Damian’s van. His doors were locked as well. I had to get the keys from Damian, if he was still all right.

I ran to the animals’ building, but then approached the doorway on tiptoes. Waited by the door, listening. The animals were still making a racquet, but I heard no human voices. “Damian?”

No answer.

I knew it! I knew it was a trap! But there was nothing for me to do now but step into it myself. I couldn’t go the ten miles on foot to reach the highway. Couldn’t run and hide and leave Damian in the cage with an injured wolf.

The lights were out inside the circular open space. I stepped quietly into the shadows, giving my eyes a minute to adjust to the muted darkness. “Damian?” I whispered.

The door on Kaia’s cage was shut. Damian was inside, crouched against the wall. He’d been gagged and his hands were tied behind his back. His forehead was bleeding, but he was conscious and breathing, struggling to work his hands free. Kaia was beside him.

“Oh, my God. Damian. I’ll get the door.” He shook his head, grunting at me, pointing with his chin at the doorway behind me. Just as I started to turn, I spotted a padlock on Kaia’s cage that hadn’t been present moments ago, locking Damian and Kaia inside.

I automatically flinched and took a step back as someone stepped briskly through the doorway. I recognized the shapely figure and long black hair.

“Allida, is that you?” she said, her eyes not yet adjusted to the muted lighting inside.

“Janine. I should have known. It was you, all along!” I said in answer. “You killed all those people!”

“What are you talking about?” Janine asked. “What’s going on, anyway? I just came out here because you called me and said Damian was hurt and needed help. What’s the matter with—”

Somebody rushed up behind her and conked Janine on the head with what looked like a baseball bat. Janine crumpled to the floor.

I gasped, horrified, then found myself gazing at Chesh Bellingham, who stood over Janine, bat in hand, breathing deeply as she watched over her.

I cursed in silence, but hoped for the best. “Chesh, thank goodness you’re here. That woman was trying to kill us. She knocked out Damian and locked him in the cage. Help me find her keys, so I can go call the police.”

Chesh laughed. “Now, why would I want to do that, Allida? I’ve finally got both you and Damian exactly where I want you.”

“You trapped us? Not Janine?”

&lquo;Fraid so. See, the police would have gotten ‘round to figuring it all out sooner or later, if I just killed my husband. That’s the oldest crime in the book, right? I needed more victims”

“You killed Larry and Beverly just to throw the police off the trail?”

She shrugged. “Larry could identify me as the one who bribed him to get Atla and the key to this place, so that was a no-brainer. And it was high time I got even with Beverly for breaking my tailbone. You gave me the idea for the perfect person to frame—Janine. It’ll look like you came in and found what she did to Damian, struggled with her, and you both bit the big one.” She chuckled. “That’s something of a pun, isn’t it? Sorry it has to end this way, Allida. I’ll give Doobie your regards.”

“You’ll never get away with this. No one—”

“I’m going to step outside the door till this is over. Course, if you do make it out somehow”—she reached behind her back and pulled out a long, dark object that had been strapped in place by her belt—“I’ve got a stun-gun. You won’t get far.”

She pressed the buttons and opened all the animal cages.

I jumped over Janine and raced toward the doorway as it slammed shut and the lock was thrown. Just as I reached the panel of switches, the overhead light went out. She’d thrown the circuit breaker.

Chapter 21

Atla dashed out of her cage and into the open space. My first thought was to distract Atla by throwing some meat for her, then duck into her cage and close the gate. Yet Janine was still unconscious and unable to defend herself.

I needed to feed Atla in the open space and all of the other animals in their individual cages. Since Atla was already nearly upon the plastic industrial-sized barrel full of meat, I tossed her the first piece I could grab, which were rock hard because Damian fed them their food frozen.

Reserving a club-like piece of meat-on-bone to use as a weapon, I worked at a feverish pitch, hurling food over the animals and into the backs of their cages. The bucket probably weighed as much as I did, but my adrenalin was pumping, and I could now lift it by the handle.

Damian, meanwhile, was rubbing his tethering in a sawlike motion against the bars. In the cage with him, Kaia was more agitated than ever at the sight of me feeding his companions. There was no feeding-slot on his cage, however.

A bear came out of his cage toward me. He was enormous. I felt like Jack of the beanstalk to his Giant. Bears are omnivores. They prefer nuts and berries to meat. I didn’t know what to feed him.

“Where’s the bear’s food?” I cried to Damian. I dropped some meat by the bear’s feet, unwilling to risk trying to pitch it past him.

Damian grunted and gestured with his chin in the direction of his house. The bear got down on all fours to sniff at the meat, and I kept going, hoping for the best.

When I was only two-thirds around the circle, Janine started screaming. I’d had a concussion once. Screaming upon awakening was common.

With no time to gamble on the animals’ reactions, I dropped my make-shift club and flung the rest of the bucket contents in the general direction of the remaining third of the cages.

“It’s all right,” I cried to Janine as I ran to her. I grabbed her under the arms and dragged her as best I could toward Atla’s empty cage, next to Damian. Janine tried to fight me off. I managed to pull her to her feet and get her stumbling with me in the direction of Atla’s cage.

Atla started to head toward us. “Atla, stay,” I demanded. I began to manually crank the pulley-driven gate mechanism. Atla followed us as far as the threshold to her cage.

“Stay,” I said again. Fortunately, she held her ground just outside the gate as it shut.

Though Damian’s legs were bound, he managed to hop toward the bars that separated Atla’s and Kaia’s cages. Beside me, Janine lay sprawled on the floor where I’d unceremoniously dropped her. Kaia was howling, but did not impede Damian’s progress.

Through a series of head jerks and noises, he indicated he needed me to reach into his pocket. I had little space to work with between the bars and it was slow going, but I eventually managed to pull out a Swiss Army knife. I flipped open a blade as he turned himself, and I soon managed to cut through the rope on his wrists.

He yanked off the red bandana gag in his mouth and said, “Give me the knife. I might need it.” He started to untie the ropes on his legs. “We can’t leave the animals like this. They’ve never been out together, except within their own species. Sooner or later, they’ll start fighting.”