Because she had chosen to go to the back door, Selena was first into the yard with the K-9s. They had stopped barking and were gathered in a circle, staring at a small reddish object on the ground.
Selena gave the command for them to back off. Scout obeyed while Rocky and Grace froze, looking to the open doorway for their special humans.
“Out here!” Selena stood over the object the dogs had found, guarding it as if it was a ticking bomb.
Next out the door, Finn paused on the porch as Kyle and Meadow rushed past.
“Isla too. Here,” Selena yelled. “Somebody hand me an evidence bag.”
Kyle did. Inverting the plastic bag over her hand like a loose glove, Selena closed her fingers around the lump the dogs had found and pulled the bag down over it, leaving the red handful of raw hamburger on the inside. She straightened. Displayed it. Said, “It looks intact. I don’t think any of them were tempted enough to taste it.”
“We should get a shovel and bag the grass and dirt under it, too,” Isla said.
Selena pointed to Finn as the others used their K-9 partners to search the perimeter of the property, and Isla took her place guarding the possible evidence still on the ground. “There’s a shovel in the garage. Get it for us?”
“Sure.”
Returning at a jog, he handed the shovel to Isla. Selena was crouched beside Scout, checking him over.
“It looks like it was laced with gopher bait,” Isla offered. “See the kernels of grain? They’d have to ingest a lot of it to make it fatal. One lick wouldn’t do it.”
Selena straightened, caught Finn’s attention and said, “Strychnine. Their first symptoms after eating it would be nausea. If they vomited, they might survive. If not, convulsions and eventually death, providing the dose was large enough.”
“Just like...”
She nodded. “Yes, like Zeb Yablonski, although he was probably given the poison in a liquid. There’s no way anybody could force him to eat an uncooked, grain-based rat bait like some lowlife mixed into this hamburger meat.”
“The dogs just left it alone? None of them ate it? Amazing.”
“Remember how I had to give Scout water? Even though he was thirsty, he wouldn’t take it from you. This is why we train our K-9 officers that way. People don’t realize that they’re in danger daily.”
“I’m glad they’re all okay,” Finn said, speaking quietly because Kyle had returned, given the all-clear and was reporting the potentially lethal attack.
“There’s a lot more to my job than running around with a dog on a leash and looking busy,” Selena said. “The more you learn about K-9 officers, the more you’ll appreciate their special skills.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that.” He glanced at the open door. “Like tracking down dumb kids who think they’re superheroes.”
Smiling, she nodded. “The same can be true of some adults. I’ve seen police officers get themselves killed by thinking they can do the impossible.”
“You came close to doing that when you got us out of that cave.”
She had to laugh. “Not me, mister.” She reached to lay a hand on Scout’s broad head and scratched behind his ears. “All the credit for that rescue belongs to my partner here. He’s a good boy. A very good boy.”
“Will you reward him for not eating the poison bait?”
“Yes, but not with food. Watch.” She called to the others. “Are we ready to wrap up out here?”
A chorus of yeses echoed. “Okay,” Selena said. “Everybody back in the house.” She gestured. “Donovan first since we know he’s a target.”
“I hope this had nothing to do with my troubles,” Finn said, leading the way as directed. “Hurting your dogs sounds more like the guy who dognapped that labradoodle you’re looking for. You know he’s still around.”
“Yes and no,” Selena said. “The communications our team has had from the RMK have shown nothing but kindness for Cowgirl. We suspect he gets along fine with animals. It’s people he has it in for.”
“I can understand feeling like that without taking anger out on people,” Finn said soberly, returning to the remains of their meal.
Across the kitchen, Kyle, Meadow and Selena were handing well-worn toys to their K-9s and praising them. Isla was at the refrigerator, carefully double-bagging the evidence and storing it.
Selena turned to join him, relieved that the training had held and that all the K-9s were healthy in spite of the lethal bait.
At first, her gaze rested on Finn. She began to smile. Then it hit her. One member of their party was conspicuously absent.
Pointing to an empty chair she asked, “Finn. Where is your brother?”
The surprise in his expression was not comforting.
Angry and worried, Finn shouted, “Sean!” loudly enough to startle humans and animals alike. He rose so quickly his chair teetered and almost fell backward. “Sean.”
The teenager peered around the corner from the hallway. “I’m here. Don’t bust a gut.”
“Where were you?”
“In the...” he pointed down the hall “...you know.”
Finn reacted as if his body was a balloon and all the air had been let out at once. He sagged against the table. “I thought—I was afraid...”
“What? You figured I’d ditched you again? That didn’t work too well the last time I tried.”
Something about the youth’s expression gave Finn pause. Yes, Sean had obeyed him this time. That was good. The wary look in those Donovan-blue eyes, however, was far from comforting. “It won’t work if you try it again, either,” Finn warned.
A familiar shrug was all he got in reply until Sean had rejoined the others around the crowded kitchen table. Shoveling spaghetti into his mouth, the teen said, “Not bad cold. Better warm, though.”
“You can nuke it over there if you want,” Selena said, pointing to her microwave.
It didn’t surprise Finn when Sean acted unimpressed, but the whole room fell silent as soon as he began to report on his exploration of the back of the house.
“You know, there’s a little window in the bathroom. I opened it,” Sean remarked casually.
“Were you thinking of climbing out?” Finn asked.
Another shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not. The thing is, I saw a guy running away. He hopped the fence next door.”
“What did he look like?” Selena asked.
“A guy. I don’t know.”
Finn chimed in. “Tall? Short? Fat? Thin?”
Grinning and clearly enjoying being the center of attention, Sean took the time to fork in another mouthful, chew and swallow, and then blot his lips on a napkin. “Tall. Kinda old, I guess. He was limping, but he did jump the fence pretty easy.”
“Did you see where he went?” said Kyle West. Finn deferred to the FBI agent.
“Away.”
Kyle stood and leaned across the table, facing the teen. “Look, kid. This is not some video game you can reboot and do over. The people we’re dealing with are serious, and you’d better lose the attitude. Now. You got that?”
It was a little hard for Finn to stand back while his baby brother was chastised, but the confrontation seemed to be working. He watched Sean swallow hard, put down his fork and look back at the irate agent.
“Now that we understand each other,” Kyle said, “let’s have a detailed description of the man you saw running away when the dogs started barking.”
“I—I didn’t see his face. He was already pretty far away by the time you all left to check the dogs.”
Kyle’s “Go on” was more tempered, and Finn nodded slowly to enforce his agreement.
“Like I said, he hopped that wooden fence next door. I think I saw black-and-white shoes when he jumped. Then he took off running.”
“Other clothing?”
“Dark. Just dark, like maybe black. A ski hat, I think. And—” he paused “—gloves. Yeah, gloves. They were black too.”
Judging by the way Selena and the others briefly glanced at the refrigerator holding their evidence, the mention of gloves was not a good sign.
Silence fell and hung there like a thick fog on a winter’s morning. Finn was starting to empathize with his brother. It was a wonder anybody had seen anything, yet these officers were acting as if Sean had somehow failed them.
“What about a vehicle,” Finn asked. “Did he keep running, or did you see him drive away?’
“I—I didn’t see how he left,” the boy said, “but come to think of it, I heard an engine rev up. It sounded a lot like Dad’s old truck when he was in a hurry.” At the mention of his late father, Sean’s vision misted.
Finn stayed stoic, but he identified with the teen. Losing James to natural causes had been a terrible blow to the family. So had the eventual forfeiture of their small farm and the forced move to town. He got that. And he shared the sorrow. For Finn, however, that had been only part of the pain, the loss.
He had lost everything, including his freedom, and just when it was beginning to look as if he had a chance of regaining it, along came an assassin.
It was looking more and more like Edward had targeted him, Finn reasoned. Yes, he’d made enemies in prison, but there was nobody else in his life, before or currently, who would actually benefit from his death.
Further thought took him to his own heirs, namely Sean and his mother, Mary Donovan. This case had to be solved while Finn was still alive and well in order to safeguard his loved ones, because once he, Finn, was out of the picture, they might also be in danger, particularly if Edward was as manipulative and self-serving as Finn believed him to be, especially after prior discussions with Zeb.
Finn shivered in spite of the warm kitchen. Actions didn’t have to make sense to killers, like the one who had ended Zeb’s life or the one who was being pursued across the western states leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Dead was dead. It hardly mattered how a person lost his or her life, except that the perpetrators must be brought to justice.
What Finn wanted most was to prove his own innocence. He was more than willing to assist in capturing a different villain, an evil man who thought so little of life he’d tried to poison innocent dogs.
Kyle retook his seat. “Chances are we’re dealing with two different black trucks and drivers,” he said. “Catching up with either will be difficult because at least one set of plates was stolen, but we may have a chance. Who knows?”
God does, Finn thought. His faith was still active, even if it had taken more than one hit. Survival during the wreck and ensuing attacks had bolstered it a lot.
So had ending up among these extraordinary people. If he had been asked to choose a group of individuals with which to surround himself, he could not have done better. They were wise, dedicated, experienced and gifted with true concern for private citizens, even ones who had made mistakes. People like him. Like Sean. Like pretty much everyone, if he were honest about it.
What saddened Finn was the time he had wasted being bitter and blaming God for his problems instead of looking to Jesus, to the Bible, for answers. Of course life was confusing. He had a mortal mind, not the capacity to see all sides from a divine perspective. Perhaps he’d never understand why bad things happened to good people, but he didn’t have to know every detail in order to trust his Heavenly Father.
Believing isn’t a matter of reason, Finn mused. It never had been. The closest he’d come to understanding faith was to equate it with freedom. Freedom to place his full trust in something amazing that he couldn’t see but had glimpsed in others. It was spelled out in the Bible, of course, but nevertheless required an open mind and a willing heart. Therefore, that was what he should be praying for, he concluded. Instead of figuring out how to escape his trials, he should be asking the Lord for more faith to endure.
Except he didn’t want to merely endure, did he? He wanted to win. Everybody did, whether they admitted it or not. He’d thought it was best to pull away from Selena and do his own thing, telling himself it was all for her sake, but it was starting to look as though God had other ideas.
That or this was a test of his self-control. Being forced into close proximity with Selena was beginning to show him another possibility. Maturity had changed them both. That wasn’t the real problem. What vexed Finn was how he was finally able to process the depth of the affection he’d once felt for her.
Then again, he asked himself, was self-realization a good enough reason for him to let down his guard, to open his heart to the possibility there might be a future for them as a couple?
The first answer that popped into his head was negative. If he cared for Selena, and he did, the best choice he could make was to walk out of her life for a second time. Even if his conviction was reversed, he’d still carry the stigma, still be viewed as an ex-con. What would that do to Selena’s reputation as a law officer?
The ridiculousness of his random thoughts made Finn smile and shake his head. Borrowing trouble by imagining probable scenarios was not only futile; it was self-defeating.
Selena’s softly spoken “Finn” drew him back to the present. “What were you just thinking about?”
Unwilling to give a full reply, he merely huffed and said, “Impossibilities.”
“Ah.” She grinned as she looked at each of the others in turn, ending with him. “Our specialty.”