Ethan Read online

  At the word attack, Bella slipped him a half look, and her ears went up.

  He smiled and said, “No, Bella, just guard.”

  She relaxed but continued to stare out around the area, her head moving from side to side ever-so-slowly, as if she were keeping up a full 180-degree search. At one point, she got up and walked around several times, looking out into the trees around them.

  “Is she not happy about the trees?”

  “She’s aware of the body over there.”

  At that reminder, Cinn winced. “Right.”

  “And death does affect the animals.”

  “Maybe, but in this case, he tried to kill her too.”

  He pointed to Bella’s shoulder, where it had a bit of a burn mark. Cinn hadn’t even seen it. She’d been so focused on her own pain. She gasped and leaned forward. “He almost did kill her,” she exclaimed.

  “Well, he tried. But he missed, and, when she got around behind him, and he saw me coming at him too, I think he realized he wouldn’t have much of a hope. Before she got him, he decided to take the easy way out.”

  “Does that mean they’ve used these dogs to kill people?”

  Silence was his only reply.

  She turned to look up at him. “Seriously?”

  His face was grim. “It’s a possibility.”

  “That’s not the dog’s fault though,” she said. “They can’t put her down because of that.”

  “I don’t know that we can prove that’s what those guys did. But he certainly took an easy way out, and he took it fast.”

  “You should find out who he is,” she urged. “Before the cops get here.”

  He looked at her in surprise.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know how much the police will tell us after the fact.”

  “Glad to know we both think alike.”

  Her thoughts still fuzzy, she gazed up at him in confusion. “How is that?”

  “Because I already checked. His name is Gary Foster.”

  She frowned, rattling through her brain to see if that name meant anything, but then she shook her head. “I don’t know him.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, “but I have a photo of his driver’s license and credit cards.”

  “Do you have anybody who can track down who he is?”

  He shrugged, but, in a cheerful voice, he said, “Maybe.”

  She’d take that to mean a definite yes. She smiled. “This is something you know how to handle, don’t you?”

  “Wherever there are assholes in the world, there needs to be people who protect the innocent from them. I’ve always been one of the protectors.” He gave her a gentle smile.

  She nodded. “I figured as much. I thought at first maybe you were a new recruit for Levi’s team. But now, you know something? I think you need to have your own team. A canine team.”

  He studied her face in surprise. “I’m beginning to think so too. And fits in with the rest of today.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  In the distance she could hear sirens. She sure hoped they were for them. She didn’t want to deal with the cops, but she really wanted to go to the hospital, if only to get some pain meds, to get her shoulder taken care of and then to get back home to bed, where she planned on staying for a hell of a long time.

  “I told the police team I was with today at the drug-manufacturing property that’s what I was looking to do.”

  When his words sank in, she stared at him in astonishment. “Wow. Still, if you can make Bella do what Bella’s doing, I think there’d be all kinds of work for you.”

  “It’s not as if I’ll be running down killers,” he said, “but, if Bella has other training, … or I can enhance her existing training—for all the dogs, not just her—then we could work for many agencies.”

  “I think there’ll always be work for well-trained dogs.”

  “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

  Ethan wasn’t ready to make any plans yet. In the distance he could hear sirens and other vehicles approaching. He smiled down at her and said, “The cavalry is coming.”

  Instead of looking pleased, she’d winced. “I’d rather go straight home.”

  He studied the level of pain evident on her face. “We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.”

  “No ambulance though,” she warned.

  “I told you that I’d drive you,” he said quietly. “But I may have to deal with the police first.”

  “So that’s the trade-off,” she said quietly.

  He crouched in front of her. “You hang in there.” He could see her pain-fogged gaze deepening. Worried, he said, “Forget it. I’ll tell the cops I have to take you to the hospital first. Then I’ll come back and talk to them.”

  She gave a strangled laugh. “It’s not that bad. Besides, the cops won’t let you leave the crime scene.”

  “Well, they won’t leave you here either,” he warned. “So it’s me or the ambulance.”

  Suddenly Bella growled, a sound that raised the hairs on the back of Cinn’s neck.

  “Not quite,” a stranger called over.

  Ethan spun, squatting low, until he saw Flynn standing a safe distance away.

  Ethan glanced at Cinn.

  She nodded. “I sent out a distress call to him too.”

  Slowly Ethan rose on his feet, standing protectively at Cinn’s side. “Bella, stand down.”

  The dog relaxed, but her gaze never left Flynn.

  Flynn nodded and approached. “The cops are here. We’ll let them talk to her, and then I’ll take her to the hospital.”

  Ethan was of two minds, but she needed to go to the hospital, and he needed to stay here with the cops. He glanced again at her, but she was smiling up at Flynn.

  “Thank you. I’d love the assistance.” She reached up with her good arm to Flynn. He carefully helped her to stand on her feet, staying right beside her in case she fell.

  Ethan watched the color drain from her face with the movement. But he deliberately didn’t take a step closer. Independence was fine, but it was also a good gauge to see a person’s will to live. And, in her case, she was doing just fine. He nodded at Flynn and said, “If you don’t mind …”

  Flynn gave a clipped nod. “I know Cinn well. She’ll be fine with Anna and me.”

  Ethan realized he was not being butted out but being reassured that Cinn would be okay. And then it didn’t matter how reassuring Flynn was because they were suddenly surrounded by police. Bella didn’t like being crowded. She growled and moved back slightly.

  Two of the men appeared to know Flynn. But nobody knew Ethan. They weren’t the cops he’d worked with earlier, so they must have called a detachment closer to the scene. He stayed quiet as discussions about what happened went on. And finally the men turned to him. He stared back, his gaze flat.

  One of the men frowned at him. “Where’s the dog?”

  He pointed twenty feet off, where Bella still lay on his command.

  “How dangerous is she?”

  “In the wrong hands she’s a killer,” he said calmly. “In the right hands she’s a savior.”

  The officers didn’t like hearing that.

  Flynn spoke up, “It’s like anything.” His voice was quiet but authoritative. “Dogs and guns are both weapons if they are used that way. The fact of the matter is, she’s been standing guard over Cinn to make sure nobody else comes after her. And that is priceless.”

  Ethan wasn’t so sure that was the case, but he had brought Bella on purpose. He looked at the leader of the police group and said, “I was working with law enforcement out of Houston earlier today.” He mentioned Sergeant Mendelsson’s name. Several men nodded. “You can verify with him that I’m the real deal.”

  The commander motioned to one of the men. He stepped back and pulled out his phone. “I’m calling to confirm Ethan Nebberly’s identity.”

  Ethan stood, his stance casual but alert, his arms crossed over his chest, but he would go from
zero to sixty in two seconds flat if he had to. In the meantime, he glanced at Bella. Her ears were up, her shoulders hunched, and, though she was in a lie-down position, she watched every move Ethan made. He had to remind himself that she was watching his hand signals. If he made the wrong one, there could be a disaster. He looked at the commander and said, “We can stand here and wait for confirmation, or I can show you the body, and we can go from there.”

  “What body?” the commander asked sharply.

  Ethan motioned at Cinn. “The man who shot her.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  Ethan shook his head. “I didn’t have to. The dog went after him. He tried to countermand my orders on the dog. When she wouldn’t listen to him, he turned the gun on himself.”

  The officers studied Ethan, as if trying to figure that out. Ethan shrugged and waited. It didn’t matter to him what they said. If they were any good at their jobs, the evidence would prove his story to be true. He looked over at Cinn and said, “I’ll see you at the hospital in a bit.”

  The men looked at her, and the commander asked, “Are you okay to go on your own? Do you need an ambulance?”

  She took several steps with Flynn beside her all the way. “I’m heading there now. I’m ambulatory, so no need to waste anybody else’s time.”

  The commander said, “I’ll meet you at the hospital later then. I need your statement.”

  “I can tell you right now. I was hunted down, shot and stayed flat. I called for help. Both these men came to my assistance. Ethan arrived a good forty minutes ahead of Flynn. Ethan went after the shooter. Just as he said, I could see them in the trees, and then there were gunshots. Once Ethan knew I was no longer in danger, he came to me. But now I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty shitty. So if you’ll excuse me …” She gave everyone a wan smile and then grabbed Flynn’s forearm.

  Gently he led her away from the group.

  Ethan watched them go.

  When she was a good ten to twenty feet away, she turned to look back at him and whispered, “I’m fine.”

  Seeing that, hearing her voice, something inside him relaxed. He turned to look at the policemen and said, “Shall we? You may want to mark this spot,” he added, pulling the paper-wrapped slug from his pocket, “where I found this.”

  One of the officer’s had gone back to the police cars and arrived now with cones and markers. They staked out the spot where Cinn had been shot.

  Ethan pointed where his vehicle was parked up on the other side of the tree line on the highway. “You can walk up there and confirm that’s my vehicle. I headed here from that spot right into the tree line. Now I’ll take you where the body is.”

  He stepped forward and snapped his finger, bringing Bella to his side. He reached down a hand, and she nudged his fingers with her nose. Gently he stroked her forehead. He wondered at anybody who could abuse such a beautiful, obedient, well-trained animal who was just looking for somebody to love.

  The commander stepped up beside Ethan, but his gaze was on Bella. “The sergeant confirmed your identity. He also said that you subdued three dogs, even though the officers were all ready to shoot them, and that you appeared to have good control over them.”

  “It’s what I do,” he said simply. “Over eight years in the military working with dogs. I wasn’t about to let them be shot just because they had shitty owners.”

  The commander fell silent at that. “We do the best we can,” he said, “but, if we can’t get a dog to not attack us …” and he left his words hanging.

  Ethan nodded. “Understood. But I was there. And Bella, as you can see, although I didn’t train her, is extremely obedient.”

  “Don’t different trainers have different commands?”

  “Yes, but some commands are universal. I don’t know all she can do yet,” he admitted. “I’m hoping to find out more about her and the others. She is by far the most amiable. I have the other two dogs back at my place. Plus an injured one currently at the vet that was badly abused and shot.”

  The sergeant whistled. “Asshats.”

  Ethan agreed, but he had a lot harsher words for them.

  It took another few minutes to walk into the trees. He reached down, caught Bella’s attention and ordered her to find the man who shot himself, then unhooked her leash. Bella bounded forward. She headed farther into the trees, stopped for a moment, took a slight adjustment in her direction and went left. Ethan followed.

  The commander asked, “How can you be sure she’s not tracking a squirrel?”

  “I can’t,” he said cheerfully. “But she has no love lost for that man. She went after him instinctively and with way too much eagerness.”

  “You think he abused her?”

  “Abused her or possibly had a hand in training her. But there was no love in the training. If anything, what I saw when she went after him was hate.”

  “Were you capable of calling her off?”

  Ethan nodded. “It was close, but, yes, she did finally come at my command. But, when the guy saw me and the dog working together, and he realized he couldn’t get Bella to do what he wanted her to do, he turned the gun on himself.”

  “But there was no reason for him to kill himself. He could have just shot you and Bella instead.”

  Ethan gave a hard laugh. “I can’t be killed quite so easily as that.”

  Soon they were upon the body. Ethan stood at the perimeter and waited while the cops approached. The gun was still in the man’s hand, but there was no way to mistake that he was dead. He’d blown the back of his head open.

  Bella sat a good ten feet from the body, her gaze locked on it.

  Ethan called her to him. “Good girl. Come here, Bella.”

  She trotted toward him and positioned herself behind his right leg.

  The commander said, “Could she have killed him?”

  “Yes, she definitely could have. I’m not sure she wasn’t going to. I think he preferred a bullet over the dog.”

  “But you said you called her back, correct?” the commander asked. “We can’t have killer dogs running around loose.”

  “Killer dogs, in this case, would be dogs trained to kill,” he said gently. “And Bella is not running around loose. As you can see, the victim has no dog bite marks. I wouldn’t let her attack him, but he didn’t know that. He had already panicked, trying to get the gun into position before she reached him. As it was, she listened to my command just before she got to him.”

  The men looked at the body, reassured no bite marks were on the man himself. They relaxed. With her at his side, Ethan stepped back another few feet, making more room for the men to maneuver.

  “We’ll have to take your statement,” the commander said, “and verify what you say is exactly what you did.”

  Ethan didn’t say anything.

  “Do you live around here?” one of the officers asked.

  Ethan shook his head. “No. I’m renting a property close by. It belongs to Gunner Redding.”

  At Gunner’s name, all the officers looked up.

  “You know Gunner?”

  He gave a slow nod. “And Flynn and Levi and Stone and Logan …” He named a bunch of the other men who lived locally. He could see the relief on the commander’s face. He understood. It was one thing to have a complete stranger tell you a story, but quite another thing entirely to tell a story like this and have a half-dozen good men to back him up. If they gave Ethan a good reference, chances were this would go a lot easier. “Feel free to call Gunner if you want.”

  “And the others?”

  He inclined his head. “Of course.”

  At that, the men turned and studied the dead body, while one of them stepped back and made phone calls.

  Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets. “Are you okay if I leave now?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home to check on the animals. I want to drop off Bella there, then go to the hospital.”

  The commander nodded. “We wan
t your cell phone number and the address where you’re staying.”

  Ethan pulled out a notepad, quickly wrote down his cell phone number, the address where he was staying, and then underneath he added Gunner’s name and phone number. He tore off the page and handed it to the sergeant.

  The man noted the numbers, folded up the sheet of paper and placed it in his pocket. “We’ll be down at the hospital soon too.” Then he stopped, turned to one of the men at his side and said, “Daniel, you go with him.”

  Daniel looked at him in surprise. “You mean, meet him at the hospital?”

  The commander shook his head. “Go with him back to his place, check out the address, see what state the dogs are in and then head to the hospital with him.”

  That made Ethan respect the commander all the more. He was making it clear he didn’t trust Ethan, but, at the same time, the commander was willing to give Ethan a chance. He’d contact Gunner and probably Levi, question them whether they knew who Ethan was and what kind of man he was, but the commander was also very concerned about the dogs, whether that was because he didn’t want them loose and killing everybody else around them or he was concerned for the dogs’ sakes.

  Daniel pushed his hat back on his head, studied the commander’s face for a moment, then gave a shrug and said to Ethan, “Lead the way.”

  With Bella at his side, Ethan walked back to his vehicle. “Do you have a cruiser with you?”

  Daniel nodded. “But I came with somebody else, so they can take it back.”

  Ethan led Bella into the truck bed, opened the passenger side for Daniel and said, “Hop in then.” He went around to the driver’s side, got in and headed up the road.

  Chapter 8

  There was just something about hospitals that Cinn hated. Maybe it was the antiseptic smell. Maybe it was the misery of everybody in the crowded emergency room, with crying children and an old couple who looked like their world had just been decimated.

  She looked at Flynn. “I don’t need to be here, you know? Isn’t there a clinic I can go to?”