She held her daughter close.
“No,” she repeated in a breathless moan, waves of desperate panic sucking the air from her lungs. “Please… take anything you want from me… please, please… just don’t hurt the baby… I’m begging you don’t hurt my baby—”
Anton leveled his gun at the spot where the screeching infant was clenched in her mother’s protective embrace, the small body against her chest, their hearts pressed together, beating together.
“It won’t hurt,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
Kuhl heard the dogs start to bark moments before Anton radioed him from the house.
“Phone lines are down,” Anton confirmed. “Everything’s cleaned out in here.” A pause. “The robin has a cellular.”
Pulled to a halt in front of the rescue center, Kuhl listened to him over the van’s radio and then had Ciras contact the two men posing as utility workers back on the road. They had strung a chain across the foot of the drive to bar access. The signs hung from its temporary posts — one facing the eastbound lane, one facing west — advised visitors approaching the center that it was closed for the day due to emergency electrical repairs. Anyone who attempted to disregard the warnings and somehow tried to enter the drive would be verbally redirected by the men or, if required, stopped by more extreme means.
Kuhl stared out at the rescue center for perhaps thirty seconds, rain beading his windshield, drumming on the roof of the van with increasing rapidity. The silver Honda Passport belonging to Julia Gordian was the only other vehicle in the dirt parking lot. Inside the center’s front door were two signs, one of particular interest to him.
Customized in the shape of a greyhound, the sign on the upper portion of its glass pane read:
WELCOME TO THE IN THE MONEY STORE
A smaller changeable message board below it read:
BACK IN 15 MINUTES
It was the latter that held Kuhl’s eye.
He regarded it silently as the penned dogs downhill continued their raucous barking. He had expected his target to be inside the shop. The operation, then, would have been a fast and uncomplicated piece of work — his team entering as utility men, catching her off guard. Instead, they had found her sign on the door. And yet she must be on the premises even now. If not in some backroom of the shop, then certainly on the grounds. Her vehicle was here. She had not been seen leaving the drive on foot. And he doubted some unknown exit from the property existed… where could it lead? There was little but woodland for miles in every direction.
Kuhl listened to the husky, agitated barking of the greyhounds. He must assume the Gordian daughter had also heard it and could not wait for her to become alarmed.
Very well, Kuhl thought. Very well.
He shifted in his seat so he could see Ciras as well as the pair of men behind him.
“Prepare yourselves,” he said. “We take her now.”
Julia had been giving the rescues some exercise out back when the first droplets of rain sent the squeamish dogs into a mass retreat from the yard… all except Viv, who’d continued to play the role of devoted sidekick, sticking to her like glue even as the rest of the greys piled up against the cinder-block structure that held their kennels.
Conceding defeat to the weather, Julia let the dogs inside and returned each to its individual stall.
She had no sooner left the kennels, Viv close at her heels, when she heard the barking down at the house. A loud, excited commotion that abruptly gave her pause.
If you’re looking for a watchdog, the greyhound isn’t for you. I’d tell you a grey’s bark is worse than its bite, but you’re not too likely to notice one of them doing either.
It was a line Julia had used on the Wurmans the previous weekend, and, her efforts to discourage their interest in adoption aside, it was also the absolute truth. The outburst from their backyard pen wasn’t just unusual; she’d never heard anything quite like it. Not out of her own dogs, Rob and Cynthia’s, or any of those awaiting placement at the center. Greys just weren’t barkers. Julia knew a deep, throaty woof was about the biggest fuss you could expect to hear, and would be a rare occurrence from even one dog at a time. She also knew from experience that a single barking grey normally wouldn’t set off its companions in a group… but from where she stood outside the kennel door it was clear that several, if not all, of the Howells’ five dogs had joined in the uproar. Which made things seem that much more conspicuously odd to her.
Julia didn’t get it. And Viv’s distressed behavior was a fair indication she felt the same. The dog had sidled up against her leg for reassurance, her whole body shivering with tension.
Julia stood there in the rain midway between the kennels and the shop’s rear entrance, laying a hand on Viv to comfort her.
“It’s okay. Be cool.” She stroked Viv’s neck as the barking persisted, then remembered the dogs had let out a few sounds of complaint last week when a doe and her two fawns came straying from the nearby woods to graze in Cynthia’s herb garden. Although they’d stopped once the deer were scared back into the trees, Julia supposed the visitors could have returned with braver attitudes than before. There was no reason for her to conclude the racket meant anything was seriously wrong.
Still, Julia wasn’t inclined to ignore it. Viv was still trembling against her thigh. The dogs behind the house hadn’t settled down in the least. And she couldn’t help but wonder why Cynthia hadn’t stepped out and quieted them by now.
“Come on, kiddo, how about we go see what’s doing?” Julia said. A moment later she moved on, starting to hook around the shop instead of heading for the back door, wanting a straight, unobstructed view of the drive farther downhill.
Hesitant, ears pinned against her head, Viv lagged behind a second, and then went slinging after her.
Their course change proved a short one. Julia had taken only about a dozen steps before she halted again with a sudden, extremely potent blend of surprise and caution.
She reached down toward Viv, this time pressing a firm hand against her chest to stop her in her tracks. About twenty yards ahead at the side of the shop, a couple of men in power company uniforms stood by a window in the falling rain. One of them was leaning forward to peer through it with his face almost pressed to the glass and his hands cupped around his eyes. The other stood with his back to him, gazing out across the property toward the wood line, his head moving from side to side.
The discovery gave Julia the creeps. It was a strong reaction, sure, and she was ready to admit the uncharacteristic barking of the Howells’ dogs might have quite a bit to do with its provocation. She had, after all, passed the linemen working down near the roadside transfer station, or storage depot, or whatever it was. Julia guessed it might be possible they had attempted to reach her at the shop for some reason, found its door locked, and decided to see whether she might be located in a back room.
Possible, yes. Except she didn’t believe that in her heart. There was a lurking quality to their presence she would not allow herself to dismiss as anything else. Since when did utility workers go snooping through windows if you didn’t answer the door? She’d adjusted her message board to say she’d return in fifteen minutes — not a long wait by any account. Not even if they had urgent business. And as far as the guy facing away from the shop, his head turning ever-so-slightly left and right as his partner leaned up against the windowpane… Julia couldn’t help it, but he struck her as being on the lookout.