Dog Days (7 page)

CHAPTER SIX

A
s soon as it was light, I put Cisco’s tracking harness on him and took him out to search. He picked up her trail immediately, as I’d known he would, and it led straight into the woods and across the mountain, as I’d known it would. Those woods eventually join up with the Nantahala National Forest, and the odds against finding a single lost dog in all that wilderness, even with the aid of Cisco’s nose, were not good.

We searched for over an hour before I reluctantly called Cisco off. He looked uncertain and confused, because he was trained to keep searching until he lost the scent, and even training exercises ended with a mock “find” and a reward. But it was after eight and I hadn’t yet opened the kennel. We might well track miles into the woods on the trail of a dog who had too much of a head start to be found, and I simply couldn’t afford the wasted effort. There had to be a better way.

I played a quick game of tug with Cisco and let him munch down a handful of treats before we turned back. “It’s okay, boy,” I told him, ruffling his ears. “We’re not giving up. Just falling back to regroup.”

I had given Pepper, Mischief, and Magic their breakfasts before I left, but after last night’s incident I wasn’t comfortable about leaving them outside while I was away, either in my double-fenced kennel play yard or my fenced backyard. So, even though the kennel dogs were waiting to begin their day with breakfast and exercise time, the first thing I did was hurry to the house to release my own three charges from their crates. Then, with Cisco beside me, I trotted across the drive to Dog Daze.

I hesitated, glancing around, when I saw the bicycle with the paw print helmet dangling from the handlebars parked outside the gate. But when I heard the barking of a couple of dogs in their outside kennel runs, I hurried up the walk. The door was unlocked and I rushed inside. “Corny?”

He called cheerfully back, “Good morning, Miss Stockton!” He came from the kitchenette with a mug of steaming black coffee, which he presented to me. Cisco raced to greet him and sat, without being asked, at his feet, grinning up at him. Corny stroked Cisco’s ears and added, “The dogs are fed, the dishes are in the dishwasher, Chi-Chi and Dimples have had their meds, and I’ve just started opening the kennel runs. Oh, and I stopped by a farm stand on the way in for fresh blueberry muffins. I left one on your desk, warm from the micro.”

I stared at him. He was dressed today in red plaid Bermuda shorts and an emerald green shirt with white piping around the collar, matching green Crocs, and white socks. But that was not why I stared. “How did you get in here?” I demanded.

He straightened up from petting Cisco and looked confused. “The door?”

“It was locked.”

“Oh.” He waved that away. “I used the code.”

I glared at him suspiciously. “I didn’t give you the code.”

“Well, it was easy enough to figure out.” He looked pleased with himself. “Cisco’s birthday.”

Now I was the one who was confused. “How do you know Cisco’s birthday?”

He widened his eyes in every appearance of sincerity. “Doesn’t everyone?”

I sucked in a breath, and let it go. Two things were clear: I had to get a better security system, and I had to stop being so suspicious. The man had brought me coffee, for heaven’s sakes.
And
fresh blueberry muffins. And he’d fed the dogs and washed the dishes and Cisco adored him. So I said, in a much more patient tone than I had originally intended, “Listen, you really can’t just …”

And then I stopped as something occurred to me. “Corny, you didn’t happen to come back here last night, did you?” So much for not being so suspicious. “Maybe for something you forgot?”

“Gracious, no.” He smiled confidently. “I hardly ever forget things. Organization is the key to a happy life.”

I nodded, making such an effort to keep my expression pleasant and nonjudgmental that it’s a wonder my skin didn’t crack. I pretended to turn toward my office, and then looked back. “Oh, by the way … what kind of car do you drive? I need to know for, you know, the employment papers.”

The minute I said it I felt like a jerk. He made coffee. He brought muffins. He had
not
been tailing me in a dark blue sedan and he had not tried to break into the kennel last night. Why should he have, when he obviously could have just used the keypad? I was not just a jerk, but a stupid one as well.

But Corny looked not in the least offended. “Oh, I don’t have a car,” he assured me breezily. “They wreak absolute havoc on the environment. I’m a cycler all the way.”

“But …” Again I stared at him, somewhat at a loss for words. A bicycle might work fine on a college campus or in a suburban area like Chapel Hill, but these were the mountains, for heaven’s sake, with nothing but long rural highways to connect the widely scattered farms and houses to town. I finished lamely, “Are you staying nearby?”

“Not far,” he replied cheerfully.

I should have been more persistent, but I already felt bad about practically accusing him of attempted B&E, and after he had come in early to feed the dogs. Besides, the faint sugary aroma of warm blueberry muffins lingered in the air, beckoning me toward my office. “Well,” I said, turning that way, “stop by my office when you get a chance and fill out the employment application and W-4. I’ll leave them on my desk. Go ahead and let the rest of the dogs out. I’ve got some phone calls to make.”

“Sure thing, Miss Stockton.” He practically skipped through the metal doors and down the corridor toward the kennels. I had to admit, I had never had an employee this excited about his job, and I resolved to be more gracious in the future.

I munched on the muffin and sipped my coffee while working up the courage to make the series of unhappy, embarrassing phone calls that were awaiting. The first one was to the vet’s office, just so they wouldn’t be surprised should someone happen to bring in the lost dog they had last released to my care. I admit, I was half hoping someone already had, but no such luck. The second was to the ranger station, where I left a message for Rick. I left a message on the machine of our newly opened animal shelter, just in case someone spotted her on the road and had the good sense to take her to the shelter. Then I started calling my neighbors up and down the highway, asking them to please call me with any sign of the missing golden retriever—not that they would have done otherwise. When it comes to dogs, I am everyone’s first phone call around here.

All the while, Cisco lay patiently beside my desk gazing up at me in hopes of a dropped muffin crumb. Because I felt so bad about losing his girlfriend in the first place, I saved the last bite for him—even though, to be honest, it was so good I wanted it all. While he licked his lips, I picked up Corny’s resume and dialed the first number on his list of references. It was a pet store whose doors had long since closed, telephone disconnected. The second was a grooming salon that didn’t keep records back that far. The third one claimed to remember Corny fondly, although they kept referring to him as a her and calling him “Corkie,” and gave him—or her—the highest recommendation. Coming from an assistant manager who didn’t sound old enough to be giving one anyone a recommendation, I supposed it was a start. The last call I made was to a Professor Rudolph; it went to voice mail so I left a message.

All the time I was on the phone, I absently turned Cameo’s pink collar around and around between my fingers. I had left it on my desk to dry after scrubbing it, so now she was out in the wilderness without even a collar. Not that it would have made a difference, with no tags, and even the little tracking button I’d found removed. But what was I supposed to do? I had a full kennel for the weekend, more day care dogs coming in, and a half day’s worth of grooming to do. I couldn’t just take off into the woods looking for a dog who wasn’t even mine.

Cisco tilted his head toward me in a way that looked remarkably like a reproach.

I heard Marilee come in, followed in a few minutes by Katie, and I went out to introduce the girls to Corny. They wrinkled up their noses when I sent them off to clean the kennels, but Corny intervened. “Already done,” he told me brightly. “It doesn’t take long if you have a system.”

I was impressed. If he could do twice the work of the two girls in half the time, already he was saving me money. I told the girls, “Okay, go sweep the dog hair out of the playroom, and fill the swimming pools outside. Then you can start taking the boarders out to play two at a time.”

They hurried off, glad to be out of kennel-sanitizing duty, and I heard the first of our day care clients pull up. It had been Melanie’s idea to leave flyers advertising doggie day care in all the pet-friendly hotels, campgrounds, and cabins in this and surrounding counties, which resulted in almost more business than I could handle. I’d actually considered closing down the day care, despite the boost in income, because even with the help of the high school girls it was too much to keep up with. However, if Corny continued to prove as efficient as he had so far, this would be my most profitable summer ever.

I spent the next hour or so showing Corny how to check in our day care and grooming clients, although the truth of the matter was that he probably could have shown me, and his gushy bedside manner was so over the top that even the clingiest dog went happily with him to the playroom, and moms and dads left with carefree grins on their faces. I am always pleasant to my clients, of course, but I tend to be a little less demonstrative with my admiration than Corny was. Judging from the way the clients—not to mention the dogs—responded to him, however, I wondered if I should reconsider my approach.

I sent Corny off to bathe Petals the bull dog and started out to the play yard to set up the agility course for tomorrow morning’s lesson. I was stopped by Cisco, who lay with his nose pressed so pathetically against the crack at the bottom of the door that I didn’t have to be a pet psychic to know what he was thinking. How could I really go about my day as though nothing had happened when I knew there was a lost golden retriever out there somewhere? How could I give up before I tried everything in my power to find her?

I went into the grooming room, where Corny was just lifting Petals into one of the drying cages and crooning to her about how pretty she was. A beagle and a cocker spaniel waited their turns, munching on chew strips, and soothing classical music came from the radio in the corner. The entire room smelled like lavender, with barely a hint of wet dog. Usually the grooming room was a madhouse of barking dogs and blow-driers, flying fur and soap suds. Grooming was not my favorite thing and my technique probably showed it. But today the place reminded me more of an upscale beauty salon than the barely controlled chaos to which I was accustomed.

I waited until Corny latched the cage and turned the drier on low to clear my throat. “Um, Corny—”

He turned expectantly.

“I hate to leave you alone on your first day,” I began, “but I lost a dog last night and …”

His eyes flew wide and he clapped a hand over his heart. “Oh, no! Oh, who was it? No, don’t tell me, I can’t bear it. You must be heartbroken! How could you even come to work today? Please, let me—”

“No, no.” I held up both hands to protect myself from the flood of his compassion as I said quickly, “Not lost as in dead. Just lost. I took in a rescue yesterday and she got out of the house in the middle of the night …”

“She ran away?” If possible, he looked even more distressed.

“I’m afraid so. We had some excitement in the middle of the night and I left the front door open, and when I got back she was gone.”

“Oh, no.” He sank to the grooming stool, his eyes filled with dismay. “Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.”

“Well, the worst part is she was lost to start with so she has no idea how to find her way back here, and I really don’t know where to start looking. But I feel like I should at least try. So if you can manage by yourself here for a few hours, I want to take Cisco out to search the woods, maybe ride up and down the highway to see if I can spot her.”

“Maybe she went back home,” Corny suggested hopefully.

“I doubt that. Home is Virginia. I think her family was just traveling through.”

“Well,” he said, trying very hard to be helpful, “if I were a dog and I were lost, the first thing I’d try to do is find my way to the place where I wasn’t lost. If only you knew where that was.”

“Thanks, Corny, but …” Then I hesitated, looking at him thoughtfully. The Hemlock Ridge Campground was only about five miles from here as the crow flies—or the dog runs. Once my collie Majesty had walked all the way from my house to my Aunt Mart’s house in the dark and the rain, and that was practically all the way to town. Golden retrievers are known for their tracking sense; what if Rick had picked her up as she was on her way back to the last place she had seen her folks?

“You know something?” I looked at Corny with a new and cautious appreciation. “You may have a point. It’s worth a try, anyway.”

I took a business card from the holder on a shelf and scribbled my cell number on the back of it. “I’ll bring one of the girls up to answer the phone, but I’ll only be gone a couple of hours. Go ahead and start Max’s bath, and don’t be afraid to call me if you have any questions.”

He took the card. “Don’t worry, Miss Stockton,” he assured me fervently, “I’ll take care of everything. I’m just … so
sorry
.”