Muzzled (3 page)

Could it be Purple Pants returning to steal another one of my dogs? Heart skipping several beats, I stashed my cell in the back pocket of my jeans and sprinted to the front door.

One step through the doorway I stopped. Paralyzed with dread. I tried to yell, but the sound stuck in my throat. All I could do was stare in silent horror as a stony-faced Purple Pants hauled Stella from the car, and as though she was a piece of garbage, tossed the dog over my front fence.

“No—” My throat closed over and a red hot fire invaded my chest as I raced across the yard to the whimpering Stella—in time to see Purple Pants thrust one arm through the open window and gesture with an arrogant middle finger. In time to hear tires gouge the bitumen as the pus-colored Holden slewed from one side to the other and took off up the road. In time to inhale a nose full of exhaust fumes.

Before I could close my gaping mouth, a fire-engine red Toyota Yaris, a car reminiscent of a matchbox toy, spun in through the gateway and came to a four square halt beside me. Out of the car, like an avenging angel, tumbled my best friend, Tanya Ashford and her eleven-year-old daughter, Erin.

“What’s going on? Did the dog get run over? Who’s the
wrinkly
who took off in the crap car?” Tanya’s rapid fire questions could barely be heard over the roar of the disappearing Holden.

“It’s Stella.” I squatted to check on the miserable brindle greyhound bitch lying in a heap at my feet. “And that
wrinkly who took off in the crap car
stole her and, deciding she was faulty, brought her back.” I gazed up at Tanya and shook my head in disbelief, struggling to stem the tears prickling like hot daggers behind my eyes. “He-he just tossed her over the fence, Tan!”

“Come again?”

“That piece of shit threw Stella over the fence.” The red hot fire burning in my chest turned white. “If I find him I’ll kill him—tear off both his arms and beat him over the head with the bloody appendages until he stops breathing—and then I’ll kill him.”

“Hallelujah!” Tanya stood, hands jammed hard on hips, eyes flashing. Her body language screamed retribution. With that one word—hallelujah—I knew, without a quibble, Tanya would hold the geriatric thief down while I kicked him repeatedly in the nuts.

Turning away, I cupped Stella’s face in both hands and planted a kiss on her long nose. In return, two sorrowful brown eyes met mine and a rough tongue licked its way across my cheek.

“Did you get the car’s rego, Kat?” Tanya hunkered down beside me, her fingers reaching to smooth Stella’s brindle fur.

“The plate was dirty.” I closed my eyes trying to visualize the car’s number plate. “I think the first two numbers were seven and three and there was what looked like a V somewhere in the mix.”

“Might be enough to find an address. Anyway, I’ll ring my mate, Paul Simmons—ask him to check it out on the police data base.”

“Paul Simmons?” I frowned. The name rang a distant bell.

“Yeah. Remember that star footballer I dated back in high school?”

Still frowning, I shook my head.

“Well, I ran into him a couple of weeks ago and guess what—he’s a cop now—
and
he owes me one.”

A hazy image of a fresh faced high-school footballer’s woebegone expression after Tanya dumped him flashed into my mind. “Dated? Tan, you gave the poor guy his marching orders two days into the relationship.”

All nonchalant, Tanya shrugged one shoulder and stood up. “Anyway, as I said, we caught up again recently and got to talking over a cup of coffee at
Rivers
, you know that new restaurant on Philip Highway, and Paul admits the dumping was his fault. He knew the most important rule I dated under—
never ever stand me up
.”

I shook my head at her. Tanya might be my best friend in the world and a powerhouse to have on side in times of trouble, but she still had the ability to leave me open-mouthed, gob-smacked at times. “If I remember rightly, the reason Paul stood you up was because he was called away to the hospital. His mother had been in a car accident and was in intensive care. The poor guy sent you a text from the hospital and rung several times afterwards to apologize.”

“Yes, I know Paul was sorry at the time, but aren’t you forgetting something?” At my duh look, Tanya continued. “Because Paul stood me up that night I made the mistake of my life.” When my duh look intensified Tanya glanced surreptitiously at her daughter who was leaning against the door of the Yaris, completely absorbed in her new Smart Phone and likely discussing how to make petrol bombs with her 2001
Facebook
friends. “Kat, think about it. That was the night I let Dan tempt me into his bed.”

Suddenly the penny dropped. Being in Dan’s bed that night instead of at the movies with Paul had changed the course of Tanya’s life.

“As I said,” Tanya reiterated, “Paul owes me one.”

“You’re right there.” Noticing two of Stella’s stitches had burst, I added, “And if Paul comes up with an address for us, I say we pay the dog-napper a visit. See how
he
enjoys being tossed over a fence.”

Erin, phone cemented to one hand, strolled across to stare at the blood seeping from Stella’s torn stitches. The baby skin between her eyes wrinkled. “How ’bout we toss that bad man in a prickle bush instead?”

“You bet, pumpkin,” I said. Although Tanya’s daughter and I were always at loggerheads, after Ben and I rescued her from a couple of lowlife thugs who kidnapped her and locked her in a dark cupboard, she and I had come to an amicable understanding. She was still a pain-in-the-butt but she was
our
pain-in-the-butt–and we loved her. “And if there are no prickle bushes around,” I promised, “we’ll improvise. Okay?”

Erin’s evil grin was a carbon copy of her mother’s. “Better still, let’s like, chuck him into a hive full of angry bees.”

Tanya slung one arm around her daughter’s shoulder and drew her closer. “Good idea, cupcake. Or what about a piranha infested river?”

“Both options are fine by me,” I said giving the nearby gate a vicious kick as I stood up. “At the very least the man will be eating custard through broken teeth.”

When Stella let out another soft whimper I bent and scooped her into my arms. “I’m taking Stella inside to clean her up. Got time to help?”

“You betcha.”

With Tanya and Erin tagging along behind, I lurched up the path in the direction of my front door, all four of Stella’s limbs sticking in the air like table legs.

* * *

Naturally Tater and Lucky behaved like it was the social occasion of the year when I brought Stella into the lounge room and lowered her onto the sofa.

“New friend, guys,” I told the bouncing twosome. “And she’s hurt. So be gentle, okay?”

Lucky immediately raced into the kitchen and came trotting back with her new purple squeaky toy lizard which she presented to Stella. Tater, not to be outdone, strode around the room, head up, tail cocked, a picture of cool. Probably eager to let the newcomer see he was a Hugh Grant lookalike—only shorter.

“Why would anyone want to steal a greyhound they could legitimately adopt?” Tanya mused as she selected a bottle of Betadine from my ever-present first aid kit, broke a bag of cotton balls with her teeth and placed the bottle and the open bag on the coffee table beside me.

I shook my head, every bit as confused as Tanya. “All he had to do was fill out a GAP application form and buy the dog.”

“And why bring her back a few minutes later?”

“Got me.” I finished bathing Stella’s torn stitches and tipped a few drops of Betadine onto a cotton ball. “None of it makes sense.”

Tanya chewed on her bottom lip and you could almost hear her brain ticking over as she snagged the basin of bloody disinfectant water and emptied it into the sink. “Unless he stole the wrong dog.”

“You mean he thought he was stealing one of my racing dogs?” I blew the bangs out of my eyes. “But which one? The only brindle dog I have racing at the moment is Big Mistake and although Stella’s brindle, no-one could mistake her for Lofty. For a start, he’s eighteen kilos heavier than her. Plus he has all those extra bits and pieces girl dogs aren’t born with.”

“Still, it might pay to apply extra security around Lofty—just in case he
is
the brindle greyhound the dog-napper’s after.”

I gave her a thumbs up. “I’m ahead of you there, Sherlock. There’ll be a new super-lock fitted on Lofty’s kennel as from today.”

After I’d finished attending to Stella, Tanya collected the used cotton balls, dropped them into the pedal bin under the kitchen sink then moved across to the room to give me a quick hug. “Sorry, Kat, but I’ve gotta get going. Will you be okay?”

“Yeah. No sweat. And thanks for your help.”

“I’d hang around in case the dog-napper came back but my shift at
The Luv Bug
starts in half an hour and I gotta drop Erin off at her Dad’s first.”

“That’s okay, I’m racing at Gawler, but hey, we’ll find this guy, and when we do, we’ll kick his ass to Sydney and back. No-one messes with my dogs and gets away with it.”

“Right on, girlfriend.” Tanya stooped to rescue her hot-pink faux Gucci handbag from Lucky’s mouth before sending a grin in my direction. “Hey, d’ya remember that young stud who often pops into my shop to test the new products—you know, the guy who looks a lot like
Angel
from the
Buffy
series?”

I nodded. How could I
not
remember someone who looked like
Angel
?

“Well, he’s trialing our new range of blow up bimbos this afternoon.” She wiggled her eyebrows as she ushered her social-network obsessed daughter in the direction of the front door. “Last time he trialed a new product,
The Luv Bug
was overflowing with drooling women and we sold out of the new merchandise in an hour.” Tanya winked. “Shame you can’t come along and watch.”

“Tempting,” I said regretfully. “But if I’m not driving out of my gateway and heading toward the Gawler dog track in the next ten minutes I’ll have the Chief Steward breathing all over me. And he won’t be drooling over my alluring curves and scintillating sex appeal. Oh no. He’ll have me reaching deep into my hip pocket to pay a hefty fine—and that’s after scratching all my dogs from the meeting.”

4

Even though I donned my Superwoman cape and made do with a two minute shower, dragged cotton knickers up over still-damp skin with one hand while drying my hair with the other—and even though Jake loaded the dogs in the trailer for me and secured their registration papers in the glove box of my car—it still took me twelve minutes to get ready. I’d have made it in five if Lucky hadn’t taken a fancy to my best pair of mandatory black track shoes. With no time to check more than half a dozen of her 101 secret hiding caches, I finally settled for wearing my second best track shoes, the pair with the split in one toe.

So…when I skidded through the gate and past the pissed off guy with the misshapen cowboy hat who was manning the ticket box and wriggled into the last empty space in the trainer’s car park at Princes Park, Gawler—beside a washed-out, grey Ford Falcon van with
Clean me
scrawled across the dirty back windows and a caterpillar-like ten-berth dog trailer attached—it was one minute to kennel-closing.

Yikes!

A curl of dust stalked the tractor as it dragged the sand track in preparation for the first race. Ben, his normally laid back features creased in a frown, came loping toward me. He had the left front door of my trailer open and a collar fastened around the canine occupant’s neck before I’d even switched off the engine. “Where’ve you been?”

“Long story,” I told him and grabbed two more leads and muzzles before rocketing from the car. No time for explanations. Not even time to tuck my plain white shirt into the waist band of my requisite black trousers.

Ben urged the first dog to jump down from the trailer then lobbed the lead at a mate who always helped him out at the track. “Here, Bazz. You take Witchy Woman?”

“Her rego papers are in my glove box,” I called out and tossed him a blue denim kennel mattress before he took off at a run toward the kennel house.

“Get that one through, mate, and Kat and I’ll be right behind you.”

With that, Ben snaffled another lead and opened the second door on the left side of the trailer while I managed the two dogs on my side.

Naturally, friendly ribbing from fellow greyhound trainers followed me as I made a mad dash toward the checking-in steward at the door of the kennel house.

“What happened, Kat? Lose your way?”

“Someone musta nodded off to sleep in the bubble bath.”

Air tight in my chest, dogs bouncing on the end of their leads, I lengthened my stride and ignored them.

“Hey, Katrina, darling, if Benjamin’s wearing you out in bed, you can pass him over to me. I’m always up for it.” Of course that remark from Mary Parker, aged in her early forties and dressed like a teenage slut, made me pause long enough to fire a lethal laser glare in her direction. A glare that screamed: ‘
Leave my man alone…or die
!’ With anyone else my glare would have blistered skin—Mary merely ran a seductive tongue over her bottom lip—then smirked.