Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Sam settled on the barstool next to him. “I understand completely. I’m like that. I enjoy what I do at the resort because every single day it’s something different. Speaking of the resort, we had a very strange incident recently that I didn’t put together with all the odd things going on in Knightly until you mentioned Vince. That’s what I was going to tell you, Harlow.”
Rainier set a coffee mug in front of him. Sam flashed a quick smile of acknowledgment. “Thanks, man.”
“What was the strange incident?” Alek asked.
“One of our security guards, Patrick Sorsey, brought a dog with him to work a couple of weeks back. Patrick has five kids and works all the time. A good man and crazy about his dog—a golden retriever, about eight years old. Patrick says he brings her to work with him to give her a break from the kids.”
“I’ve seen his dog,” Shabina said. “She’s very sweet. He calls her Belle.”
“That’s the one,” Sam said. “Patrick heard her yelp, and then she went silent. She was in the heavier brush close to the parking lot. It was a night with little moon. Patrick called and called, but she didn’t respond. She’s a very well-trained dog, and she loves Patrick. She prefers to be with him to anything else. His truck was right there. If she could have made it out of the brush, she would have at least gone to his truck, even if she was injured. At least that’s what all of us believed.”
“Is she still alive?” Shabina couldn’t wait. She loved her dogs fiercely. The thought of Belle injured or perhaps attacked by any number of predators was distressing. She put plates in front of both Sam and Alek; omelets stuffed with various ingredients.
“Yes, but we couldn’t find her that night, and all of us looked. We could see where something had gotten her because she thrashed around on the ground before running into thicker brush,” Sam said. “We looked for her for nearly two weeks. Once, there were vultures circling, and I went up the side of the mountain to look, but she wasn’t there. After two weeks, all of us believed she was dead, that a coyote or mountain lion got her and carried her off, even though there were no tracks to indicate that.”
“How did you find her?” Alek asked.
“Belle came back on her own, but she was in terrible shape. Her body was swollen, and she could barely breathe. She shook continuously. It was easy to see she’d been very sick. Stella and I thought her symptoms sounded very close to Helen McKay’s dog, the one that had been bitten or poisoned.”
A chill slid down Harlow’s spine. “You took Belle to the vet. What did she say happened?”
“She was examining her when I left to come here. I’m waiting for a report from Stella, but I believe Belle was bitten, maybe by a rattlesnake. There was a site on her body where the skin was eaten away and looked infected,” Sam said.
“That does sound the same as Gwen, Helen’s dog,” Harlow said. “I swear something is stalking everyone, ready to bite without provocation. I honestly think that rules out some viral or bacterial illness.”
“At least nine people are dead, but both dogs are still alive,” Shabina said. “Does that mean dogs are able to deal with the toxin better than humans?”
The group exchanged long looks, each trying to puzzle out why a dog would have a better chance of fighting off the effects of a deadly toxin than a human being. Dogs were closer to the ground, and the chance of a snakebite nearer to their hearts was probable.
“We don’t know for certain it was a bite,” Sam said. “That was a guess from my observations. And it makes sense since there were no tracks of any other animal at the attack site.”
A knock on the door had Alek jumping. It was Rainier who answered it and let in two deputies, Mary Shelton and Griffen Cauldrey. Harlow knew both well. Griffen was married with twin sons. His wife, Mercy, was an English teacher. They’d been together nearly twenty years and could just look at each other to know what the other one was thinking.
Mary’s husband, Dakwan, ran their farm. He hunted and fished as so many others did to get through the winter. He also had a carpet-laying business that kept him very busy. He was a hard worker. Harlow had always liked him. He was jovial, his laughter booming when he was around company. When he took his wife to the Grill for dinner and dancing, he always swept her off her feet, held her close, dipped and whirled. The two looked as if there was no one else on the dance floor, they were so into each other.