Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Lexi
Ginger looked at me with her intelligent brown eyes and then walked back to the couch to nudge the things she’d dragged over. I followed her, sitting down on the couch and picking up Basia’s lipstick.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Ginger?” I asked, turning it over in my hand. “Is this lipstick significant in some way?”
She woofed once, surprising me.
“Whoa, is she communicating with you?” Basia asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like I’m missing something here.”
“The guy said she was part of an experiment,” Gray said, joining me on the couch. She petted Ginger from the other side. “‘Company property.’ What do you think he think he meant by that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a pharmaceutical company or a cosmetic company that tests its products on animals,” I suggested.
“That’s horrible,” Gwen exclaimed. “We can’t let them do that to Ginger.”
“But if they rightfully own her, how can we stop them from taking her back?” Gray asked.
I stared at Ginger and shook my head. “Something is not adding up. He obviously tracked her here, so somehow, she must be emitting some kind of signal. But like I said earlier, if it’s a GPS signal, she’d have some kind of collar or vest with a battery pack.
There must be a way to connect to a satellite.
Plus, how did they know that we were in this room and were all ladies? Something is very off.”
Gray nodded. “Really off, and I’m not just talking about the science. Why not wait until someone turned her over to a shelter, read the chip, and called them? They could have picked her up and no one would be the wiser. But this guy was super anxious to capture this dog. Tonight? Why?”
I put the lipstick down on the couch next to the plastic apple and the blanket.
“Okay, let’s start at the beginning. First, let’s make the somewhat risky assumption that Ginger is trying to communicate with us by dragging these items to us.
She gave us this collection of items that obviously mean something to her.
So, let’s play along. What do these things have in common? ”
As I said that, Ginger came and sat on my feet, looking at me expectantly, her tail wagging. It was almost as if she was pleading for us to figure it out.
“They’re…comfort items?” Gwen suggested. “Lipstick, a crispy apple, and a blanket. Maybe those are things that feel safe to her.”
That was too much of stretch to me. “The blanket and the apple, maybe. But how does the lipstick play into it?”
Gwen lifted her hands. “She likes kisses?”
I glanced at the dog, but she just kept her steady gaze on me. We stared at the items, willing them to reveal their secret connection.
“Well, the apple is the only food,” Gray surmised. “Unless she thinks she can eat lipstick. Maybe she chews on the blanket? Perhaps chewing or eating is the connection.”
“Other than carrying them in her mouth over to us, she didn’t chew on any of it,” Basia pointed out. “Maybe these are all things you find in a home, so she wants us to take her home?”
“These items feel too specific to be random things you’d find in a home,” I said.
Gwen rubbed her forehead. “Maybe we just have to accept that they are random items. Perhaps she’s been traumatized by all the recent activity and has lost it mentally.”
We looked expectantly at Ginger. She didn’t look like she’d lost it, but I didn’t really know much about dogs, so that was a purely subjective assessment.
I blew out a breath, feeling like we were going nowhere and somehow it was my fault.
“I can’t be sure, but I feel like there has to be some connection between these things,” I mused. “Why these particular items? Especially the lipstick. I mean, she had to dig it out of Basia’s bag to get it. And why the apple instead of the pear? It just doesn’t feel random to me.”
Gwen leaned forward. “Maybe the order that she brought the items to us is important. Lipstick, plastic apple, blanket.”
Ginger started wagging her tail harder and Basia sat up straighter. “I think Gray is right,” she said. “Ginger is trying to communicate, and I think she’s telling us we’re on the right track.”
“While this is kind of novel, you guys do know this is nuts,” Gray said.
“Ginger is a dog. She can’t possibly know what we’re talking about.
And before you come for me, I know some animals can communicate, like gorillas.
They can use sign language, but only because they were taught specific words, can store the signs in their memory and use their hands to reciprocate.
Dogs don’t have hands or reciprocal language capability. ”
“As far as we know,” I said.
“Lexi is right. There’s a lot we don’t know about animal communication,” Basia said, pacing in front of the gas fireplace.
“As a linguist, I can confirm that not only do dogs communicate with each other, but they can also communicate with their owners reciprocally. Not in the same ways as a gorilla does, perhaps. For example, a human gives an order to the dog and the dog obeys, showing they understood. Sit. Jump. Stay. Come, and so on. The harder part is how they talk with us. It’s much more simplistic.
They bark to go out, they bark to warn, and they bark to show excitement.
They lick and stay close to show affection and can learn to protect on command.
Barking is the key method of communication, but not the only one.
Dogs primarily read each other’s body language, but that’s a rudimentary form of communication.
We’re assigning Ginger an unprecedented level of intelligence. We need to be careful.”
I considered her words. “While I agree with what both you and Gray said, I still think that we accept the benefit of the doubt and see what we can theorize here. Ginger seems to be communicating with us, or at least trying to. Maybe we just have to figure out what she wants to say and take it from there.”
Basia stopped pacing and sat next to Gray, her chin in her hand, staring at Ginger. “Are you trying to talk to us, Ginger?” she asked.
Ginger looked at Basia and thumped her tail again.
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Gray said. “She does look like she’s trying to tell us something.”
“You know, I follow this woman on Instagram whose says her dog talks with her by pushing a series of buttons on the floor, each of which contains a word,” Basia said.
“She teaches the words to the dog and reuses them over and over, much like teaching sign language to a gorilla. But instead of using sign language, the dog uses its paw to push a button. A lot of people online discount her by saying the dog accidentally pushes the buttons, so it doesn’t mean anything, but I’m not so sure of that.
I’ve seen that dog walk around the board several times and deliberately push specific buttons in a certain order that form a coherent thought. It’s somewhat astonishing.”
“Dogs are far more intelligent than we give them credit for,” I murmured and Ginger rewarded me by nudging my hand.
I looked directly at her, pushing aside any doubt for the moment.
“Okay, Ginger, if you’re trying to talk to us, you’re going to have to help us understand what you want to say regarding these items. We’ll start with the assumption that you understand the words yes and no.
We’ll ask you a question. If the answer is yes, sit down.
If the answer is no, bark once. Let’s practice. ”
“Did you like that man that came to the door?” I pointed at the door.
Ginger barked once.
“Holy cow,” Gwen said. “That was an instantaneous no.”
“It was, but we can’t discount it was a random bark based on one question,” I responded.
I held up Basia’s lipstick. “Ginger, is this lipstick important because of what’s inside the tube? The lipstick itself?”
She barked, and Basia let out a gasp. “She said no,” Basia breathed. “Oh my God, she really is trying to communicate.”
“Or she’s just barking at every question,” Gray muttered.
I took a deep breath, trying to temper my expectations. “Okay, Ginger. Is the lipstick important because of its shape?”
Ginger barked again. No. So, either shape didn’t matter or barking was going to be the answer to every question.
“Is the order that you brought us the items important?” Gray suddenly asked.
Ginger immediately sat down and we looked at each other in surprise. “Okay, I’m starting to feel like this is not random after all,” I said slowly. “If we understand her correctly, then she brought us those items in a specific order for a particular reason.”
“If it’s not because of the contents, then each item must symbolize something to Ginger,” Basia said. “But what?”
“A concept?” I offered. “A person?”
“What about a letter or a sound?” Gwen offered. “Maybe she’s trying to spell something out with the items.”
Ginger jumped over to Gwen and sat at her feet, wagging her tail.
“Holy crap,” I uttered. “Did she tell us yes?”
“A spelling dog?” Gray said in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? I think we’re operating in the Twilight Zone now.”
“Wait!” I shot to my feet. “Basia’s right. Lipstick, Apple, Blanket. L-A-B. Lab. Ginger is telling us she’s from a lab. Creepy Guy said she was part of an experiment.”
Ginger returned to me and sat on my feet, wagging her tail and nudging my knee excitedly with her nose. My brain was racing a million miles an hour trying to absorb this information. Had a dog just spelled something out for us? How was that even possible?
“Okay, let’s all just calm down. This is just too much,” Gray said. “It’s one thing to recognize a sign, a signal, or even a button, but this dog would have had to memorize all the letters of the English alphabet, assemble them into a word, and assign a meaning to them. Dogs can’t do that…right?”
I didn’t know the answer, and there was no science I knew that supported such a concept, but for the moment, I was going with it. From a scientific point of view, I considered it part of the exploration phase.
“Ginger, are you telling us you’re from a lab?” I asked her. She continued to sit and wag her tail, looking up at me with expectant eyes. “Okay, she’s still sitting, so we take that as a yes. Is that all you wanted to tell us?”
Ginger barked, which, if I read the signals right, meant no, that she had more to tell us. That gave me an idea.
“Listen, guys, if we put forth the hypothesis that Ginger can spell, then let’s help her communicate with us.
” I walked over to the bar and held up a stack of paper napkins.
“One letter per napkin and we’ll lay it out in the correct order for her.
Make the letters big enough to help her out and put plenty of spaces between the rows of letters to give her easy access to each one. ”
“An alphabet board?” Gwen said, catching on immediately, her eyes alight with excitement. “Ooooh, let’s do it. What do we have to lose?”
Gray looked doubtful but rummaged around in her purse for a pen and we got to work. I pushed the coffee table out of the way, and we started laying out the napkin letters on the floor in front of the fireplace and couch.
Just then the chime sounded in the foyer, indicating the elevator had arrived. We all paused, looking at the door. Gwen ran over and looked through the peephole.
“It’s Glen and hotel security,” she said. “I’ll talk with them out in the foyer. Maybe he has an update. You continue what you’re doing with Ginger, and I’ll be right back.”
She slipped out, carefully closing the door behind her. We heard the soft murmurs of their voices on the other side.
A few minutes later, Gwen keyed herself back into our room.
“So, what happened?” Gray asked while straightening one of the napkins.
“Not much, really,” Gwen said. “They were able to confirm the guy at our door and our version of the encounter.”
“How did he get onto our floor?” Basia asked.
“Apparently, using a key that the staff at the front desk gave him. It sounds like Richard, the bald guy, used a woman to approach the front desk, claiming to be one of us. She told the desk clerk she misplaced her key card. So, they gave her one, and she apparently gave it to Bald Guy. The woman was still in the hotel playing the slots and confirmed it when confronted. She had no idea what he wanted with the key and was only interested in the money he offered her—a hundred bucks. Security escorted her out of the building and told her never to come back or they would press charges.”
“That still doesn’t explain how he knew which floor we were on,” I noted.
“They couldn’t explain that, either, but they suspected we may have been followed and targeted from somewhere else. Four women staying in the penthouse suite implies money and perhaps vulnerability. They believe he was intending to rob us.”
“So, they don’t know anything about the dog?” Basia wondered.
“Not that I could tell,” responded Gwen. “He didn’t mention it, anyway. They have circulated pictures of him from the video to their entire security team and the front desk. They’ve assured me he’ll be dealt with appropriately if he dares to shows his face here again.”
There was an ominous silence before Gray broke it. “Well, that sounds like a job for Tony and his shovel to me.”
We all broke into laughter, releasing some of the tension that had built up.
“Casino security is pretty much the gold standard, so I doubt he’ll try again, but if he is as determined as he appears, he may have someone else watching for us, so we need to be very careful whenever we leave,” Gray said, looking at the dog.
“Agreed,” I said. “But let’s tackle one problem at a time.” I exhaled deeply. “Okay, Ginger, we want to help you, but we need to know what you’re trying to tell us. Can you spell it out for us?” It felt surreal to be asking a dog to spell, but that’s where these crazy events had taken us.
Ginger sniffed at the napkins and then walked around as if familiarizing herself with the layout.
I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I felt dizzy.
I let out an exhale just as she stopped in front of the napkin with the letter H and put her paw on it.
It was deliberate, and Ginger did not hesitate. Chills ran up my spine.
“H,” we all called out in unison.
The silence in the room was deafening as Ginger went to the napkin with the U, then the R, then the T.
“Hurt,” Basia gasped. “Oh my God, she spelled out hurt.”
However, Ginger still had more to do. She padded over to the letter M and then the E. She paused and looked directly at me. It hit me like a punch to the gut.
Ginger had just spelled out hurt me.