It would be dumb for all of us to try to get into the building. Someone needs to keep watch from outside in case anything goes wrong. I would volunteer for that job, except Roxie could be in there. If she is, I want to be the one to rescue her. Stacey offers to do guard duty. “If you’re not out in exactly ten minutes, I’m phoning the police. You can deal with your dad,” she tells Nathaniel.
“Make it fifteen,” Nathaniel says before the rest of us head into the building.
The door is slightly ajar. It creaks when I push it open.
Stacey was right about the dog smell—and the smell of lemon. Mason points to a box on the ground. Inside are bones, the kind you can make soup from. Maybe that’s what the dognappers use to lure dogs. Anger courses through my veins. Is that how the dognappers tricked Roxie into going with them?
I stop myself from calling out Roxie’s name. We have agreed not to make any noise. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.
There are no walls inside the house—just rough wooden pillars. The floor is covered in sawdust. Someone must have been doing construction work in here. Muriel stops in front of a makeshift counter. On it are two tin plates, two chipped coffee mugs and a half-empty can of baked beans. There’s no mold on the beans—someone must have eaten the other half of that can quite recently. For a moment I can hear my mom’s voice in my head: Imagine having a child who lives on the street. But then I think about Roxie, and my heart hardens again.
There is a creaking noise. Someone is walking on the floor above us. We all freeze. If we can hear someone, isn’t there a chance that he—or they—can hear us too? And if there are dogs in this place, where are they—and why aren’t they barking?
I am standing by one of the only windows that is not boarded up. The window is streaked with grime, and there is a long crack running through it like a scar. When I hold my flashlight to the cracked glass, I see a cramped courtyard outside. Is that where they let the dogs out?
More footsteps upstairs and now voices. Two guys. One is the squeegee kid. I recognize his gruff voice from when he yelled at us by the pool. The other guy must be his accomplice. And I’ll bet you anything he is wearing runners.
“How do you know they didn’t follow you, Cal?” a strange voice says.
“I got rid of them, Seb. Trust me.” The voice belongs to the guy who pushed Mason and me into the pool. Cal.
“Trust you? I can’t believe you were dealing with some kid.”
“That wasn’t just any kid. That was a smart kid.”
In the yellow light from my flashlight, I can see Muriel smile. Who can resist a compliment, even when it comes from a dognapper?
“We should get outta here just in case. I’ll get the dogs from the basement.”
The basement?
I can see my friends’ eyes glimmer in the dark. My own eyes must be glimmering too. We are all wondering the same thing: How do we get to the basement first?
Upstairs, the conversation continues. “We’ll never find another squat like this.”
“We should leave town, Cal.”
“How’re we gonna leave with six dogs?”
Six dogs?
Mason waves us over to where he is standing. Without saying a word, he points with his foot to what looks like a trapdoor on the floor. And then we hear what sounds like a small dog whining.
“Willy?” Nathaniel calls out.
“Shhh,” Muriel tells him, but it’s too late.
The voices upstairs stop for a moment, and then I hear the guy named Seb say, “There’s someone downstairs.”
I can feel my heart beating in my throat. There’s someone downstairs. Those must be the same words my mother used during the break-in at our house, and fear seeps through my veins. I need to get out of here. But then I remember that Roxie might be in the basement, and I know I cannot bolt.
What surprises me is that Mason does not take off. Roxie is not his dog—and neither is Willy. And yet there is Mason on his knees, pulling up the trapdoor, even though we can hear the dognappers coming down the stairs.
What if they try to trap us in the basement, the way the squeegee kid tried to trap the others in the pool house? I think about rats and spiders, but then I hear movement in the basement. Could that be Roxie?
I am in the basement before Mason. The stench is a million times worse than the smell of spoiled food in the cafeteria. Six dogs that no one has been cleaning up after. But, oddly, there is also something lemony in the air. And then I remember what Larry told us about the stolen bark-breaker collars. Citronella smells like lemons.
I shine my flashlight in front of me. I think I recognize the standard poodle I saw on the poster. He is sprawled out on the floor, panting. It is hard to believe his coat was ever white. He is wearing a plastic collar with a small box attached to it. The citronella must be inside.
“Roxie?” I call into the darkness.
I am answered by a whimper. That can’t be Roxie.
But when I follow the sound, it leads me to her. She is whimpering because she is chained to the furnace.
I don’t know if I am more angry or sad. No—I’m definitely angry. How could anyone treat dogs this way?
Roxie knows it’s me, because she stops whimpering. I unlatch the chain from around her neck. “Let’s get out of here,” I say as she licks my face.
Nathaniel has found Willy. The Pomeranian is dancing a circle around him. Mason, Muriel and Nico are rounding up the other dogs—Rexford, the standard poodle, a Dalmatian and a sheltie.
I shine the light on the stairs as I rush back up with Roxie at my heels.
But someone is blocking my way. “What do you think you’re doing?” an angry voice asks.
I could be scared. I should be scared. The person I am looking at is bigger and older than I am. Someone I have never seen before. Not the squeegee kid. This must be Seb. My eyes drop to his feet. He is wearing runners. Though I can’t see the bottoms, I know the soles are worn.
If I am afraid, you cannot tell from my voice. “I’m taking back my dog,” I say. “The one you stole.”
“You can’t prove I stole her. I’ll say I just turned up here tonight. That I don’t know anything about the dogs. All kinds of street kids use this place as a squat.”
“We’ve got your footwear prints from the park,” I tell him. “And we’ll get your fingerprints from that can of baked beans. Plus, you dropped your emails. It shouldn’t be too hard to prove you took the dogs.”
“Why should I believe you?” Seb asks. “What are you—twelve years old?”
“Thirteen,” I tell him.
Mason is coming up the stairs with Rexford in his arms and the sheltie close behind him. Rexford squirms out of Mason’s arms and makes a beeline for the door. The sheltie follows him.
The printout of the email is sticking out from Mason’s front pocket. Why didn’t I think of telling him to leave it with Stacey?
Seb has spotted the paper too. “It looks like you’ve got something of mine,” he says, reaching forward to pull the sheet from Mason’s pocket.
“It’s all yours,” Mason says. His voice is calmer than I expect.
Seb scans the sheet, then tears it up and lets the pieces fall to the floor.
“That won’t help,” Mason tells him. “We already took photos with our cell phones—close-up shots so we could get the fingerprints. From that sheet of paper you just tore up and from the can of beans.” Mason is bluffing, of course, but Seb doesn’t know that.
Muriel is coming up the stairs with the poodle. “Cellphone photos are—”
I shoot her a look, and she stops in midsentence.
Mason reaches into his back pocket for his cell phone and makes as if he is about to hand it to Seb. “You can have my phone, if you want it. I already emailed the photos to one of our associates. For safekeeping.”
Seb sneers. “Associates? What are you?” he says. “Some kind of middle-school forensics squad?”
“We’re from forensics camp,” Muriel says. “But now that you mention it, forensics squad sounds much cooler.”