Just as the plane lifted off, a dog started barking outside the mansion. Loudly. Then it started to howl. Miss Ruby, sitting at the desk in the study, stood and went to the window. Outside she saw a dog. It was hard to tell from the distance, but it looked like a blue heeler, rolling around on the ground and barking. It was off to the side of the driveway, about fifty yards from the road. It came to its feet and shook its head back and forth, lifting its head to the sky and howling. And from where she stood, it looked like it was foaming at the mouth.
“Oh, no. A rabid dog,” she muttered. Retrieving a small two-way from her desk, she pushed the button.
“Robert, there’s a dog out front by the road goin’ wild. Looks like it might be rabid. Call the county animal control and then check it out, sugar,” she said.
“Copy. On my way to the front door now.”
Miss Ruby went back to her desk and sat. A few minutes later, the dog raised another horrible ruckus.
She returned to the window and pulled back the drapes. Robert and two other men were standing where she had last seen the dog. She could hear it barking like crazy, but she couldn’t spot it anywhere.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, they better catch that thing before it gets into the pasture with the cattle,” she muttered. Retrieving a pistol from the desk, she left the study.
As soon as she exited the room, Boone walked in. The study was just off the main hallway that led to the front door. He was going to have to be quick.
The tracking device X-Ray had given him before he had left the hotel was the size of a hearing-aid battery. Boone had seen a lot of things in his day but it never ceased to amaze him how such things were becoming smaller and smaller. He wanted to find something that Miss Ruby was likely to take with her if she left the ranch, but her purse wasn’t here and he didn’t have enough time to search the house.
Smoke curled up from a cigarette she’d left burning in the ashtray. On the desk next to it was a jeweled cigarette case. Boone pried it open and found a nearly full pack of cigarettes inside. He removed them, put the tracking device at the bottom of the case and the pack on top of it. Snapping it shut, he heard the front door open and voices in the hall.
It was time to go.