Tucker Read online

  “Do it now,” she said. “See if she’s even receptive to it. I can show you where she lives, but I can’t guarantee you that she’ll talk to you just because of me.”

  He pulled out his phone, quickly dialed the number Addie gave him, and he walked a few steps away. She heard him identify himself as Tucker Wilson. On behalf of the US Navy War Dogs Division. She loved that. As soon as he hung up, he turned back around and said, “She said she’ll talk to me.”

  “Good. Where?”

  “Not at home, she doesn’t want to be there for the conversation,” he said with a wry smile. “Yeah, I’m not surprised.”

  “Why?” Addie asked.

  “Because home will also remind her very much of the girlfriend she defended, even though she may not have had any reason to. So I’ll go find out,” he said.

  As he walked back to his driver’s seat and hopped in, she asked, “Will you let me know the outcome of the meeting?”

  He titled his head, studying her, and then said, “Maybe.”

  She frowned and added, “I am trying to save the dog. If Olive lied, and my sister’s lying about all this, which it seems she has, once again,” she said on a sigh, “I’ll feel even worse.”

  “Well, if anybody lied about it, including Olive too,” he said, “we need to make sure the animal is rescued, and then we go after the perpetrators of the lies because a lot of government time and energy was wasted protecting a War Dog that didn’t need to be in the pound at all.”

  “Ouch,” she said. “That scenario would cause a rift like you wouldn’t believe in my family.”

  “Sounds like your family needs to be shaken up anyway,” he said.

  “I know. I know,” she said. “It’s just not that easy.”

  “Doing what’s right is often not easy,” he said, “but that’s what makes it worth doing.” And, with that, he drove away.

  Tucker watched as Addie pulled away from the family home, right behind him. The question was, would she follow him all the way to the coffee shop where he was due to meet Olive? That wouldn’t surprise him either. The one thing that Addie had going for her was the dog’s reaction to her arrival at the pound. The dog was overjoyed when Addie arrived. Already a bond was there, and that made his heart smile.

  As for the sister, she was a Class A bitch. And he had zero interest in having anything more to do with her, other than institutionalizing her. The fact that she was orchestrating all this was one thing, but to consider that she was orchestrating it at out of hate was another thing entirely. And that would never be acceptable. Now he had to figure out how to stop it on this end, while Badger worked his magic on his end.

  As Tucker drove, his phone rang. He put the phone on the dash carrier and punched Talk. “Hey, Rodney. All ready for the wedding?”

  “Honestly? I would have canceled it if I had the chance,” his soon-to-be brother-in-law said. “We’ve got that damn firebug going on here, and I can’t get any help.”

  “I’ve got a dog here that was trained for fire sniffing with various accelerants,” he said, “but she’s on death row in the pound. Has until Friday.”

  “What!” He quickly asked, “Any chance we can get her on loan?”

  “Well, you can bet, if I can get her out, she won’t be going back,” he said. “And we’re working the angles right now to get her released, at least temporarily,” he said. “We have to get the stay order extended first though, and so far we’re running up against some roadblocks.”

  “If you want help from me,” he said, “I do know the Governor. I can certainly put in a good word for her, if she can come help me out.”

  “Not only can she come help you but she can also quite likely tell what accelerant was used and if anybody in your crew or on your staff has been using it recently.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Rodney said, “I need her, and I need her now.”

  “Then you start making phone calls,” he said. “I’ll go see one of the women who said the dog was dangerous, and her testimony is partly why the dog is sitting in the pound, awaiting her death.” He added, “And then I have a problem with the woman who was supposedly bitten by the dog but has this hate relationship with the War Dog, even though she’s the one who begged to get it. I still don’t understand her motivation on that part.” He took precious moments to try to explain, ending up with, “I’m here now at the coffee shop,” he said, as he pulled into the parking lot. “I’ll contact you afterward to let you know what comes of this interview.”

  “Well, I won’t wait for you to call me back,” he said. “If that dog can help me, I need her here.” And, with that, his soon-to-be brother-in-law hung up. Tucker smiled because Rodney and his sister had been together for a good ten years. They should have tied the knot a long time ago. But, for whatever reason, somebody was always putting it off to a better time, and, of course, that’s what would have happened here again.

  Tucker hopped from his truck, slightly distracted, only to smile when a car pulled in and parked on the other side. Addie might have thought she was hiding, but there was no hiding something like that. Ignoring Addie, who had followed him to the coffee shop, he headed inside, not knowing who he was meeting but hoping he could spot Olive somewhere.

  When he saw a nervous woman sitting in front of the window, he ordered a coffee for himself, as he continued to study her, wondering how he could make this work on his behalf. He didn’t have any legal backing for this job, not on paper anyway, but he was hired by Titanium Corp on behalf of US Navy Commander Cross to find this War dog and rescue her. And that was something he took seriously, especially in this case with her slated for death on Friday. So he was officially here. It’s just he didn’t have any written proof of it. It would all be determined by his attitude, as he played the tough guy. He had to because the dog’s life was riding on it.

  And, with his coffee, he walked over, stood at the edge of the table, looked down at her, and said, “Are you Olive?” His voice was hard, distinct.

  She looked up, nervously spilling the coffee in the cup in her hand, and she nodded. “Yes. Yes,” she said, “I am.”

  He nodded, sat right down across from her, and said, “So I need to hear from you exactly what happened.”

  “What do you mean?” she squeaked.

  “You’ve said the dog was dangerous and attacked you several times.”

  “Well, he didn’t, … she did attack me,” she said.

  He pulled out his phone, already on Record, and a notepad and started taking notes. She looked at the phone with a frown. He looked up and said, “I’m taking notes.” He added, “And recording this.”

  Her eyes widened. “Recording it?”

  “Yes, recording it,” he said. “You must sign this statement, confirming you’re telling the truth.” He watched the color bleach from her face. And he stared at her hard. “You’re not telling the truth, are you?” She gulped, looked at him, and then turned toward the window. “You do understand that a life is being taken because of your statement, correct?”

  “But it’s just a dog,” she said, with a startled look.

  “A dog that hundreds of thousands of military dollars have been put into for her training. That’s a War Dog. An animal that went to war and saved thousands of military lives because of her training, and now you’re saying that she’s dangerous, too dangerous to be left alive. And so all that money and training will go down the tubes.”

  “But she’s retired,” she said, still trying to assimilate the information he had given her.

  “No, she’s needed at a job site not very far from here where there’s a firebug,” he said. “You do realize that’s what she’s trained for, right? Sniffing out accelerants and arson.”

  She swallowed again. “No, I didn’t know,” she said in a bare whisper.

  “So we need to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Do you want to start again?”

  She swallowed hard and said, “I never really had anything to do w
ith the dog.”

  He stopped, leaned back in his chair, and stared at her. “What did you just say?”

  “I was scared of it,” she said quietly, but almost so quietly he couldn’t hear.

  “You had nothing to do with this dog, and yet … you said in a written declaration that this animal was dangerous. Is that correct?”

  She stared at him, her eyes huge, and then she gave a very small nod.

  “I see,” he said. “So what you’re essentially saying is you lied.” Her eyes widened, and he said, “Is that correct?”

  And she slowly nodded again.

  He shook his head and quickly sent a message to Badger. “I’m handing your name and phone number off to my boss,” he said. “He’ll get in touch with you about making a new legal statement, recanting your lies from the earlier one,” he said.

  “Unless … I don’t want to deal with him, right?”

  “No, not at all,” he said. “However, not only did you lie,” he said, “but a life is at stake, and we have to get all this rescinded before that dog is put to death.”

  “But …” And then she fell silent.

  He gave her a hard look. “But what?”

  “What if I hadn’t come here to meet you for coffee?” she said in a small voice.

  “Do you really think I wouldn’t have tracked you down to your house?” he said. He switched tabs on his phone and held up her address to show her.

  She looked at it and squeaked.

  “When you start lying at this level of lies,” he said, “there are consequences. Did you not think about that?”

  “She said that I wouldn’t have to do anything.”

  “And who’s that?” She fell silent. “You mean, your best friend, Bernie?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “Do you think I won’t talk to her too?”

  “Have you yet?”

  “Of course I have,” he said. “She was not happy with me. So you shouldn’t be calling her and telling her about how you spilled the beans with me. You’re aiding and abetting her in a lie, and you’re already in enough trouble right now. At the moment it’s probably forgivable. If we save the dog. But, if you continue on this pathway, then there could be criminal and civil charges.”

  “But it’s just a dog.”

  He stopped and stared. “Just a dog?”

  She swallowed hard. “Okay, so it’s a fancy dog,” she said, “but I didn’t think there’d be any harm done. After she bit Bernie, I thought for sure the dog should be put down. So I just added a little to the story to make sure that they believed her.”

  “And was that done on your own or with Bernie’s assistance?”

  “Well, she told me that it wouldn’t hurt, and then it would help to make sure that this dog didn’t hurt anybody else.”

  “Did you ever see the bite wound on Bernie?”

  “No, of course not,” she said with a wince and a shudder. “I can’t stand to look at anything like that.”

  “So how do you know if she’s been bitten?”

  At that, she gave another squeak and stared at him, her mouth open.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “You don’t even know if she has or not, do you?”

  “No,” she said slowly. “I … I don’t.” She took a long slow deep breath. “Oh, my God, is she just doing this to get that dog killed?”

  “Well, that’ll be the question I ask next,” he said. “Would she do something like that?”

  She slowly nodded. “Yeah, she would. She hated that dog.”

  “And yet she insisted on getting it,” he said.

  “But the dog didn’t like her,” she said. “It was obvious the dog didn’t like her.”

  “I wonder why.”

  She shrugged. “She didn’t treat it very well. I told her that she shouldn’t treat it so badly, but she said that it was just a dog and that it didn’t matter.”

  “How badly did she treat her?”

  “It would be sleeping on the floor, and she’d come up and hit it with something hard, like with the leg of a chair, and it would jump back, growling at her all the time.”

  “But, of course, she never did that when anybody else was around, did she?”

  “No, she never did.”

  “I’m surprised the dog didn’t attack her and rip her leg off for that kind of behavior,” he said. “What else did she do to the dog?”

  “She would feed the dog and then chase her away when it was half done and take the food and dump it and wouldn’t feed her again for another couple days. Or she’d pour stuff on top of it that wasn’t any good for the dog, like dish soap. And then she wouldn’t let the dog out to go to the bathroom, and it would shit everywhere and then …” And she stopped. She shook her head. “She didn’t treat it very nice.”

  “So, even if it did bite her, what would you say to that now?”

  “She probably deserved it,” she said, “but, I mean, all dogs are bad. I mean, I’m scared of all of them.”

  “So, because you’re scared, they’re bad?”

  “Well, no.” She stopped and said, “I was bitten when I was little.” She added, “So I’m just really, really scared of them.”

  “Did this dog deserve anything that your friend did to it?”

  “No,” she said, “she was just …” And then she stopped again. “Honestly she’s not a very nice person.”

  “And yet she’s still your friend?”

  “Well, I don’t have many friends,” she said, “and she’s not somebody that you become unfriends with.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, you’re only not friends when she decides you’re not friends. It’s not like I can turn around and tell her that I don’t want to be with her anymore.”

  “You sure about that?” he asked. “Because it sounds like it would be to your benefit to find other friends.”

  “I don’t have any,” she said, “so I don’t really have a choice.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said, staring at her, his brows pulling together, as he wondered at that kind of dependency in a really ugly relationship. “What do you get out of the relationship?”

  She just stared at him.

  “You get out of it the fact that you’re not alone,” he said, “and I get that, but you need something more to be fully living your life too.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “I understand more than you think,” he said. “The bottom line is, it’s still not a healthy relationship if you’re only there because you can’t get out of it.”

  “Well, she’s my friend,” she protested.

  “Your friend told you to lie, and now you’re next in the line for the lies that you said based on her advice. Over something that she’s lied about too,” he said calmly.

  She just stared at him and said, “I need to talk to her.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t do that now that I’ve talked to her and now you,” he warned, “because that’ll be a whole different ball game with her once you do.”

  She sank back. “I … I just don’t even know what to do right now,” she said, nervously pulling her purse closer and looking like she was ready to run.

  “Well, you tell me,” he said. “What do you think you should do?”

  “I’d like to go home and have a shower,” she said. “I feel icky all of a sudden.”

  “Can you go home and not call her, or will you feel compelled to call her and to let her know all about our conversation?” he said in disgust.

  “Well …” Then she stopped and shook her head. “No, I won’t call her,” she said. “She’ll rip into me pretty badly for it.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because absolutely no way am I ever supposed to have told you about this.”

  “You didn’t,” he said. “I already knew.”

  She looked at him intently and then nodded slowly. “And that might help me,” she said.

  “Besides, even if you did tell her, w
hat would she do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said in a whisper, “but I don’t want to find out either.” She looked up, shamefaced. “She can be mean.”

  “So you go home,” he said. “Don’t contact her.” And then he lowered his voice, until it was soft and gentle. “Now I want you to think about other ways that you could find friends, who are true friends, who you want to have healthy two-way relationships with, who you wouldn’t be ashamed of knowing.” He added, “She lied. She’s tried to cheat the system to put an animal, … an innocent animal, to death,” he said. “There will be fallout, and you don’t want to be associated with it any more than you already are.”

  She winced and shuffled closer toward the edge of her seat. “I still don’t have any way to get to know people,” she said, “and being alone sucks.”

  “But being alone is way better than being associated with somebody like her,” he said quietly. “You need to come to some understanding of just what you have to offer in a friendship and find another way to make some friends. Maybe volunteer somewhere, do something that makes your heart smile—like taking an art class or a cooking class or something—instead of being with people who make you cringe,” he said, “especially right now when she finds out that you have recanted your statement.”

  She looked at him and said, “But you only have my word for it.”

  He picked up his phone and said, “I recorded it. Remember?”

  She stared at him in shock, bolted to her feet, and ran from the coffee shop. Of course she would try and recant her confession to him. People were like that. They would tell you the truth until it came back on them. And then they didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He finished his coffee, got up, and slowly walked outside. And he was not at all surprised to see Addie waiting for him at his truck.

  “And?” she asked.

  “Olive was never attacked, never had any exposure to the War Dog, but she did say how badly your sister treated the dog, including getting blindsided by chair legs and stealing her dog food and then even adding dish soap to the food available to her.” He watched her face as she heard his words.