Daniela didn’t know what to say. “I thought you were only coming to get the dog, and you’ve already accomplished that.”
“No, not necessarily,” he said. “We found the dog, yes, but I don’t really know what the circumstances are, and what’s best for her. So that’ll take a bit to figure out.”
She smiled and relaxed slightly. “I hear you,” she said. “I guess I was hoping you wouldn’t turn around and take off right away.”
“No, that’s not the plan,” he said.
Her smile brightened, then she nodded and drove out of the parking lot. “Good. A rental agency is up here, if that’s okay?”
“As long as it’s one of the big companies, it will be fine,” he said.
Once she had parked, he hopped out and went inside. Daniela got Sari out of her car seat and held her as a precaution, not knowing how Shambhala would react with Weston gone.
Once inside, Weston asked to rent a truck, preferably one with a large cab and a canopy. It took about fifteen minutes to get the paperwork done, and he came out with a set of keys. Walking to the back seat, he pulled out Shambhala, then turned and walked around to where Daniela was buckling Sari back in.
“I’ll take the dog to the police station to make sure there’s no paperwork involved in keeping her, and then I’ll head back to your place.”
“What about going out to Grant and Ginger’s house?”
He frowned. “I forgot about that. I guess I’ll wait and see what the cops say, then maybe head there next. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to see if Shambhala has things there. Maybe she needs to find some closure herself.”
“That’s probably a good idea. On the other hand, I don’t know about just leaving the two of you alone.”
“Why not?” he asked with a frown.
She shrugged. “I get the feeling you can get into trouble without much effort.”
He chuckled. “Maybe so, but we’ll be okay.”
She looked at Sari and said, “Maybe I’ll just take her home then.”
“Is there anything you need for the next couple of days that I can pick up?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ll just pick up a few groceries on my way home.”
“Well, here. Let me give you some money at least,” he said, pulling out his wallet, and he gave her a few hundred dollars. “Go ahead and stock up on whatever you need. I’m pretty low maintenance. I can live on coffee, bread and something for sandwiches. A steak once in a while.”
She nodded and smiled. “I can handle that.”
“Okay, give me an hour or two.” He checked his watch. “I’ll give you a call and check in.” With that, he said goodbye and headed to his new vehicle.
Weston loaded Shambhala into the front seat of the rental truck and hopped into the driver’s seat. He could see that Daniela was heading back out the way they had come, while he was heading to the police station.
As soon as he got there, he parked and took Shambhala out, still with just the rope on her, and walked up to the front door. Once inside, he asked to speak to Detective Kruger. The woman looked at him in surprise. “I spoke to him about this dog earlier.”
She nodded and told him to wait a moment. She made a couple calls, but Weston couldn’t hear what was going on. A few minutes later he looked up to see a salt-and-pepper-haired man walking through a side door with his hand out.
“I’m Detective Kruger,” he said.
Weston smiled, shook his hand and introduced them. “This is Shambhala.”
He looked at the dog in surprise. “Wow. How did you get a hold of her so fast? You appear to be on first-name basis already.” He studied the dog. Shambhala was alert but not aggressive.
“We found her behind the feedstore,” Weston said. “I was hoping to take a trip up to Grant and Ginger’s place, take a look around to see just how Shambhala was living.”
The detective nodded. “That’s fine with me, and nobody’s living there at the moment.”
“Did they own the property?”
“Yes, it appears they did,” the detective answered. “We contacted Grant’s brother, Gregory, but haven’t heard anything since.”
“Right,” Weston said. “If you’re not from Alaska, it would be hard to know what to do with property up here, I suppose.”
“Exactly.”
Weston handed over a Titanium Corp business card with his cell phone number and his name written on the back. “If you get any information on the case, I’d appreciate knowing about it.”
“You don’t think their deaths have anything to do with the dog, do you?”
“Not sure, I just want to make sure it doesn’t,” Weston said.
“And if it does?” the detective challenged.
Weston frowned at him. “I’m staying at Daniela Rogers’s place. She’s adopted my daughter. The last thing I want to do is introduce any danger to them.”
“Is picking up a dog that’s been running wild going to do that?” the detective asked with a frown.
“I want to make sure that’s not the case.” On that note, he said, “We’ll head out now, so we can get back in time for dinner.” As he turned away, pulling Shambhala’s rope, he noticed she seemed to be keeping an eye on a nearby detective a little too closely. Was it his suit? Bringing back memories of her old life?
Weston and the dog walked back outside, where they both hopped into the front seat of the rental truck. Weston pulled up his GPS and plugged in the address where Shambhala had been staying. It was a good twenty minutes there as he had to cross town, but then they’d been homesteading, so that made sense. He set the GPS for directions, and, following the computerized voice, he headed out toward Shambhala’s old home. Almost as soon as they hit the outskirts of town heading in the right direction, Shambhala sat up with interest.
“I’m sorry you can’t stay out there anymore, girl,” Weston said. “It just won’t work now.”
Shambhala didn’t appear to notice what he was saying, and the closer they got to the homestead, the more she seemed to relax and to be more comfortable inside the vehicle. When he turned onto the driveway, she barked excitedly.
“They’re not here now,” he murmured. If the dog didn’t know her owners were gone, this wouldn’t be the homecoming she wanted.
Sure enough, when they got to the place, he opened the truck door, and she jumped out and raced up to the front porch. She started to whine, then jumped up on the door, which creaked open. It was a single-story log-cabin-style home with a couple bedrooms off the back. He walked in to see just the barest of furnishings and no obvious signs of anybody having lived here in several weeks.
Shambhala raced through the cabin, whining and barking, obviously searching for her family.
Weston leaned against the door, hating to see her anxiety and her sense of loss, but it was better if she got used to this now.
She came back, looking for them still, then darted out the front door and headed to the fields. Weston followed, giving her a chance to check out everything she could because that was the only way for her to come to terms with it.
Finally, after twenty minutes of checking all her favorite spots and the places she expected to find her family, Shambhala came back with her tail down. The look in her good eye when she stared at Weston almost broke his heart. He hopped down so he was sitting on the small deck and reached out a hand to gently scratch the back of her head and to hold her.
“They would have come back if they could have,” he murmured, “but they couldn’t.”
Shambhala didn’t seem to understand what he said, but then why would she? He didn’t even understand the truth of all this. He only knew what the detective had told him. And, in his heart of hearts, he hoped it was as simple as that, but he wasn’t so sure it would be.
With Shambhala at his side, they did a search of the house, garage and another outbuilding, then walked through the fields. In the six weeks the family hadn’t been here, nature was already taking over. Weeds were everywhere, and, if vegetables had been planted here, they were quickly being incorporated back into the landscape.
Weston found no tractor equipment, no vehicles, just whatever had been here at the time they died. And, for that reason alone, he figured Shambhala must have been in the vehicle at the same time when the Buckmans died. He collected the dog dishes, the couple toys he saw and a collar and leash hanging off the door. He put them on her then headed toward the rental truck, whistling for her. She was still racing around but finally stopped, looked around one last time and ran to him. He opened the driver’s side door; she hopped in and moved over to the passenger side.
“At least we got that done. I’m sorry it wasn’t better news.”
He drove out farther, looking for the location where the slide occurred, wanting to see where the accident had been.
As they got close, the dog started to growl. Finding that reaction odd, Weston pulled off to the side of the road, and, slipping the leash on her neck to keep track of her, he hopped out.
It was a little farther down, maybe another fifty yards, but he stopped because it was obvious parts of a rockslide and a vehicle had been crushed underneath the rocks. Part of it had been removed but part of it was still wedged under some rocks. The dog started to whine.
“I know, Shambhala, but it’s too late for them.” He knew no bodies were left in the vehicle, and they were back in the morgue or had already been buried by now. He studied the marks on the road, wondering if it really had been an accident. He hated to think it was anything other than that, but it was just way too possible. And, with a final look, he called Shambhala. “Come on, girl. Let’s go home.”