Kendall and McGreary joined the mayor at the shelter door. Kendall had a bad feeling as he watched the door swing open. The lights were on, but the reception room was empty.
“Hello?” the mayor called out. No response, only a disconcerting stillness underneath the hum of the fluorescent lights. “You know these people,” she told Kendall. “Go in and find out what’s going on. They need to understand that I can only protect them if they cooperate.”
“Whoa. Hold up,” McGreary said. “This is my jurisdiction now. I make those decisions.”
The mayor spun on him. “Do you want to resolve this without a fight or not? If you want to show me what big balls you have, I’ll borrow a microscope. But I promise I will make this such an embarrassment for your superiors that you will be confined to base for the rest of your life.” The mayor finished the sentence with a nod toward the television cameras.
“What about if just the two of us go in?” Kendall offered, pointing to McGreary.
“Fine. But you will not go in with your guns drawn,” the mayor ordered. “They’re only armed with dog bones and bags of kibble.”
“Agreed,” McGreary said. “But one attempt to resist and all bets are off.” McGreary held the door open for Kendall and they stepped inside.
Kendall thought the quiet was disorienting at first. Then it was frightening. He had stopped in the shelter almost every workday for years now and he knew it as a place of near-constant activity and noise. But now the shelter seemed lifeless.
“Hello? It’s Kendall,” he called out, really just to hear something in the stillness. The absence of response—not a bark or a growl, not to mention a human voice—the wrongness of the silence, made him shudder.
McGreary looked to him for an explanation, but Kendall couldn’t offer one. They moved quickly to the upper floor and entered the room that had served as the isolation room. Empty.
“Is there a basement?” McGreary asked.
Kendall nodded and led the way to the door that opened onto the stairwell. The door was closed, but unlocked. Kendall pulled it open. “Hello,” he called down the stairs to the lights below. “It’s me, Kendall of the NYPD. You’re gonna need to come out of there now.”
No answer.
Kendall took the stairs slowly with McGreary right behind. He knew the basement was empty long before they reached the bottom floor. The cages Kendall had helped move down here were gone. Large plastic bags filled to overflowing with soiled newspapers, disposable kennel pads, empty bags of dog food, and red barrels marked for “Sharps Disposal” had taken their place. The room smelled of disinfectant and, underneath that, urine and feces.
McGreary turned on Kendall. “If you know something about this bullshit, you’d better tell me now before someone gets hurt.”
“I don’t know crap.”
“And if you did, you’d tell me?”
“Look, Lieutenant, the last thing I want is for one of your Jeep jockeys to get surprised by someone hiding behind a corner, OK?”
McGreary’s radio phone squeaked. “All OK in there, sir?”
He grabbed the phone. “There’s no one here.”
“Excuse me, sir?” The radio crackled.
“You heard me. No one home.”
“Sorry, sir. That’s really not possible. We saw them go in. We’ve been monitoring the rear exit from the start. No one came out.”
“Then I—” McGreary loped across the room to a large set of metal shelves. “Stand by,” he said.
A square rust mark on the floor appeared to match the footprint of the shelving unit, but the mark was four feet from where the shelves now stood. McGreary gave the unit a tug and managed to move it five inches—enough to see the door behind it. McGreary pulled the unit the rest of the way, uncovering the entire doorframe. A rope tied to the back of the shelving unit ran under the door. “What’s this?” he asked.
Kendall shrugged.
McGreary yanked on the rope and it came free from under the door. “Looks like they went through and then pulled these shelves behind them.” He tried the door handle. Unlocked. His hand dropped to his gun.
“Stay cool,” Kendall warned.
McGreary opened the door, revealing the inner door. Someone had taped a handwritten note to that second door: “You are looking at the property of the Catholic Church. Do not even think about entering. Signed, GOD.”
Kendall barely suppressed a smile.
McGreary noticed. “You think this is funny?”
“Well, actually—”
McGreary gripped his phone so hard that his knuckles turned white. “They’re in the church.”
“Repeat that, sir?” the phone squawked.
“There’s a damn connecting door in the basement. They’re all in the church.”
After a confused pause, the voice on the phone asked, “What are your orders?”
“Damned if I know,” McGreary said. “Heading out to you now.”