Part 7 (1/2)

”I get off work in late afternoon,” she said. ”Or my days offa”Fridays and Mondays, so I have tomorrowa””

Druid barked sharply.

”No,” Brenna told Druid, barely considering it an interruption in the conversation as she returned to Masera, ”though I can't imagine you'd have time on such short notice.”

”Not tomorrow,” Masera said, hesitating at the noise of Druid moving restlessly in the crate, the wire s.h.i.+fting, his toenails clackinga”noises any trainer would know.

And a look on Druid's face Brenna was beginning to recognize. ”I hate to say it, but I thinka”” and she gasped in surprise as the cold dark hit her body again, and Druid erupted into a frenzy, flinging himself against the wire, snapping and tugging and tearing at it with his teeth and nails. Brenna couldn't find the breath to speak, not to Masera on the other end of the phone or to Druid or toa”

Sunny!

Outside, Sunny let off a quick volley of barks, sharp and utterly unlike her.

And then she screamed.

Over and over, she screamed.

Brenna finally found her own breath and threw herself free of the clenching hold on her soul and right out the kitchen door, into the dog room and yelling for her copper-red hound, her sweet-natured, joy-hunting Redbone, slamming up against a storm door that somehow wouldn't open. Senselessa”foolisha”she hurled herself against it, gaining a few inches and so startled by the bone-chilling cold that poured in through that gap that she staggered back when the door slammed closed, given life of its own by a strong wind.

But there was no wind.

And suddenly there was no sound, nothing but the final scream in her raw throat and her own ragged breathing. Silence from Druid.

Silence from Sunny.

The door swung outward with a familiar creak of hinge, unimpeded.

After the briefest of hesitations, Brenna stuck her head out. She reached for the porch light, then thought better and grabbed the flashlight sitting on the was.h.i.+ng machine. The overhead bulb would light up only the porch while blinding her to what was beyond; useless for this purpose.

The flashlight beam quivered along with her hand, splas.h.i.+ng shadows across the clumpy gra.s.s, steadying enough to find the tree at the other end of the run and from there the run cable itself. She took a step out onto the porch. ”Sunny?”

There was no sign of her.

Nothing, until the light created unfamiliar shadows in the middle of the yard, and she stopped scanning the gra.s.s to settle on it, her heart beating wildly in her chest. A disc, gleaming dully. It didn't belong.

A few more stepsa”down the porch stairs, onto the stepping-stone sidewalka”and light and shadow resolved into something recognizable. Sunny's collar. A turquoise nylon collar, looking darker than it should. Another few steps from there and she could reach for it, slowly dropping to a crouch to first touch it, then pick it up. Her swollen hand was stiff and fumbly, the fingers not sure of what they felt.

”Sunny?” she said, a tentative call into the darkness as she stood. ”Sunny?”

She couldn't not look. She couldn't stop herself from going to the barn, from walking the old rail fences of the barn paddocks, calling Sunny's name in a voice that refused to shout, her fingers clenched around the collar, feeling more and more dazed as the moments went by and she slowly realized how little sense it made. Any of it.

She was crazy. Overworked. Imagining things.

Clenching dark cold that stole the breath from her lungs, air pressure slamming the door back on a clear, still night. Sunny's cable to the run broken at the collar, the collar abandoned nearby. If she'd slipped it . . . If she'd slipped it, she'd have left it dangling on the cable. No way for a dog to slip a collar without some force being applied to the collar itself.

The flashlight lowered to point at the ground, seemingly of its own accord, and this time the call came out in a whisper. ”Sunny . . .”

She probably should think about what to do next, about checking on Druid or cleaning her hand or calling animal control to leave a message about her dog, somehow on the loose. But she just stood there. And then those decisions were taken away from her as an unfamiliar vehicle made the sharp turn into her driveway at some speed and charged the hill up to the house, painting her in a bright halogen light and driving her shadow up the side of the barn. The man who got out of it was nothing but a harshly limned shadow in the night.

”Brenna? Brenna, are you all right? What's going on?”

”What's going on?” she repeated slowly, realizing that Gil Masera was here, that the phone was somewhere shattered on the kitchen floor. ”I don't even know how you found my house, never mind what's going ona”” And she gestured half-heartedly with the collar, bringing it up into the headlights he'd left on.

Blood.

Blood soaked the collar, and dripped from her fingers; it smeared across her hand.

She stared stupidly at it. This isn't happening. But her mouth seemed to know better, for it said, ”Oh my G.o.d,” though the words came out faintly.

”Is that blood yours?” he said, his words as edged as usual. No, not as usual. Edged, but different somehow.

But not to be ignored, as her hand started shaking again. With one hand grasping at the fencepost, she sank to the ground, to her knees in the dry gra.s.s. ”No, Ia””

If not hers, whose? Sunny's?

In a few long strides he reached her, tucked an arm around her waist and drew her back up. ”Inside,” he said. ”You can sit down inside.”

Inside, where the blood would be bright and unmistakable. ”Oh G.o.d,” she said again.

But that would leavea” ”No! I've got to find her. She's here somewhere. She's hurta””

”Brenna,” he said sharply, getting her attention. ”You've got another dog inside who needs you. Let me look for Sunny.” When she just stared stupidly at him, he said patiently, ”I've got my headlights and I'll take your flashlight. Druid needs you.”

Druid.

He took her up the porch and in through the dog room, past Druid on his side in the crate, and flipped a kitchen chair around. She sat, only then truly seeing Druid and the flecks of blood around the crate. Blood from his lips, his teeth, his pawsa”injuries self-inflicted in his frenzy. He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes as glazed as hers felt.

She wanted to dive into the crate with him and cuddle him up. But that was what she wanted, and not what he needed; she'd wait until he had some intelligence gleaming from those eyes again. Wordlessly, Masera returned to the backyard; she heard him bellowing Sunny's name, his voice growing more distant as he expanded his search. Waiting, strangely dazed, she sat beside Druid, her hand pulsing with pain and her mind still too befuddled to hold a coherent thoughta”still unable to understand what had kept the storm door closed against her considerable efforts, or what could possibly have separated Sunny from both the run cable and her collar.

She glanced down at the collar, the turquoise that had been so pretty against Sunny's burnished red coata”and wished she hadn't.

It wasn't turquoise any more.

Suddenly she couldn't stand it anymore; she couldn't just sit here and wait for Masera to return; she hadn't heard his voice in many moments, though she could swear she'd heard him rummage briefly in the barn. There was another flashlight in the cupboard over the stove, and she got up to reach for ita”

Masera returned.

A glance outside showed the headlights turned off; he'd darkened the flashlight as well. But he was alone.

”I'm not giving up that easily,” she said, and took the flashlight from his unresisting grip. ”She's out there somewherea””

”I didn't give up,” he said.

She took a step back from him, suddenly noticing the starkly pale nature of his normally Mediterranean complexion, the hollow look of his eyes. And then took another step back, and another, until she was back in the kitchen chair. ”No,” she said. And then, immediately standing once more, determined all over again, ”Take me to her.”

He didn't try to soften his words. ”I already buried her.”

Stunned all over again, Brenna said, ”You what? What do you mean, you buried her? Without letting me say good-bye? Without asking me where I wanted her buried?” She didn't know whether to scream in grief or smite Masera on the spot.