Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Lexi
Something woke me. A prickle on the back of my neck. A shift in the room. Ginger’s cold nose against my arm.
Ginger was standing up, staring at me. Fully alert.
Then I saw it. Her foil had shifted completely. Probably while she slept. Her shoulder blades were now bare and exposed.
“Shoot, shoot,” I uttered, adrenaline slamming into me. I reached out and quickly re-covered her shoulders with foil, smoothing it down.
Gray jerked awake beside me. “What’s wrong?”
“The foil,” I said. “Her GPS chip was exposed. I don’t know how long it’s been uncovered.”
“Damn.” Gray jumped from the recliner with impressive speed and looked out the window just as two dark SUVs and a police car with a wash of red and blue lights pulled into the driveway, blocking Gray’s car in.
We froze.
“They brought the police,” Gray said, disbelief sharp in her voice.
My stomach dropped. “We don’t have time to hide Ginger.”
Ginger stood in the center of the living room, utterly still. No barking. No whining. Eyes locked on the door like she knew exactly who was on the other side.
A firm knock rattled the thin front door.
Neither Gray nor I moved.
The knock came again. “Ladies,” a deep voice called. “We’re here to retrieve our dog. Please don’t make this difficult.”
I muttered, “Oh, I’d love to make it difficult.”
Gray gave me a look. “Lexi, we can’t disobey the police. There’ll be another way.” She opened the door.
Baldy stood front and center, puffed up with importance, the same entitled posture he’d worn at the hotel and the vet. The two thin, anxious scientists hovered behind him, Mr. Whiny and Mr. Skinny, looking miserable and cold. Two uniformed police officers stood nearby.
Baldy spread his hands like we were old friends. “Thank you for cooperating. We’ll take the dog and be out of your way.”
I stepped in front of Ginger. Behind me, she let out a low growl. I felt it vibrate through my ankles.
“You’re not taking the dog,” I said. “Not until we can verify your ownership properly.”
“What’s going on?” Basia stepped into the room with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, blinking at the light.
“We’ve come to take our dog back,” Baldy said. “We’re not leaving without her.”
Gray folded her arms. “You’re not taking her. You threatened us at our hotel and again at the vet. We even took her to an emergency vet to get her checked out. These thugs followed and harassed us. Officer, you can confirm that with the vet. That’s not normal behavior.”
“We’re not thugs, and we were simply trying to retrieve our property,” Baldy insisted.
“That man put his hands on me,” Basia said quietly, pointing at him.
One of the officers finally spoke, his tone measured. “Sir, let’s slow this down. You called us saying these women stole your dog.”
“They did,” Baldy said. “They took her and refused to give her back.”
The officer glanced at us. “Is that true?”
“No,” I said immediately. “We found the dog loose. We always planned to take her to the shelter in the morning where they could read her chip and get the official paperwork filled out.”
“That’s correct,” Gray said. “We even tried to take her there tonight, but the shelter was closed.”
The second officer frowned. “So, you were intending to turn the dog over to a shelter in the morning where the rightful owner could pick her up.”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “Which is why I’m confused about the word stealing. If anything, these men tried to take the dog from us, without proof, and wouldn’t wait to retrieve her properly in the morning.”
The officers exchanged a look.
The first one turned back to Baldy. “Sir, can you explain why you needed us to come out here at this hour instead of picking the dog up at a shelter tomorrow?”
Baldy bristled. “Because the dog is extremely valuable to us. And she has an upcoming appointment that cannot be delayed.”
“That’s not really an answer, sir,” the officer said calmly. “People don’t usually call the police at four thirty in the morning unless there’s an immediate threat.”
“There is an immediate threat,” Baldy insisted. “She could have run again. She’s already escaped us twice.”
The officer sighed. “Look. From where I’m standing, it sounds like these women were acting as Good Samaritans and intended to turn the dog in properly. That’s not theft.”
Relief flickered through me.
“Which means,” the second officer added, “the reasonable solution is to retrieve her from the shelter in the morning.”
“Yes,” Gray agreed. “Exactly our point.”
For a moment, it looked like it might end there. That was before Mr. Whiny lifted something from beneath his coat.
A dart gun.
“No!” I shouted as the police scrambled for their weapons and I dived toward Ginger.
It was too late.
The dart whizzed past Baldy’s arm, nearly hitting him in the elbow and missing me by a half inch. It buried itself in Ginger’s right flank. She yelped, took a couple of steps, stumbled, and then collapsed.
“What the hell?” I sobbed as chaos broke loose.
Everyone was shouting as I crawled toward Ginger with tears in my eyes. I yanked the horrible dart from her leg before pulling her head into my lap. She whimpered a few times before her eyes rolled back in her head and she lay deathly still.
One of the policemen grabbed the scientist with the dart gun, slamming him against the wall and forcibly removing the gun from him, while the other policeman stood between us, arms stretched wide. Both the cops looked stunned at what had just happened.
“You shot the dog?” the policeman shouted at Mr. Whiny. “Are you crazy?”
The scientist cringed. “Sorry! Sorry! No, no, no, she’s fine. It’s a dart gun. It’s just, she can run really fast. And she already ran away once…well, technically, twice. It’s a sedative. She’s sleeping, not hurt. We couldn’t risk her getting away again. Check her, you’ll see. She’s okay.”
Baldy rounded on him. “You nearly shot me, you son of a—”
“Enough,” the policeman roared and everyone in the room fell silent. “Everyone shut up and let me check the dog.” He knelt next to me and with surprisingly gentle hands felt for the pulse at her neck.
“She’s alive,” he said, standing back up. “But you did yourself no favors by shooting that dog without warning.”
“I’m s-sorry, Officer,” Mr. Whiny said, his lips trembling. “We, we just couldn’t lose her again.”
The policeman holding Mr. Whiny finally released him with a small, disgusted push but kept the dart gun safely in his hand and out of reach of anyone else.
“Okay,” the policeman said. “Everyone needs to calm down. If you have proof of ownership, we can settle this right now. Nobody is shooting anything else tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” Baldy said smoothly. “I’m going to reach into my coat and pull out the papers, okay?”
“Easy,” the policeman said, his hand on his service weapon.
“Absolutely.” Baldy carefully pulled out a folder and handed it to the policeman. “She belongs to us at Tango Bio Research Solutions of New Jersey. She is a fully registered research animal and that’s her microchip number.”
I was so angry, I was shaking. “You could have brought that to the shelter tomorrow where her chip could be properly read. We have no chip reader here, so there’s no way to verify this dog is chipped with the number you are claiming on that piece of paper.”
The policeman looked between me and the bald guy and shrugged. “She’s got a point. These papers say a golden retriever, but there are thousands of them in this city.”
“We don’t need the chip to verify the dog is ours,” the bald man said.
“We were able to track her because she has a specialized GPS tracking chip between her shoulder blades. Not only that, but she has a unique birthmark under her right front paw. It’s an irregular oval shape of pinkish-white pigmentation.
You can check it for yourself, Officer. That’s our dog. ”
Once again, the policeman knelt and lifted her paw. My throat tightened when he looked up. “He’s right. Between being able to track the dog here and the birthmark…well, that confirms it for me. I’m sorry, ladies, but I’m going to let them take their dog.”
I felt the room tilt. I heard Gray swear under her breath.
The second officer sighed. “Legally…the dog is theirs.”
“No,” I said, louder than I meant to. “You don’t understand what they’ve been doing to her.”
“If they’ve done anything illegal, that’s something for Animal Control or the state and federal authorities,” the officer said gently. “But they are her legal owners.”
Baldy stepped forward and clipped a leash onto Ginger’s collar with practiced ease. He gave me a smug smile as he lifted her into his arms. “We’ll take good care of her.”
His words didn’t match his tone. He didn’t even look at her or touch her gently. He didn’t say her name. He just turned and walked out the door carrying her with his minions in tow.
The policemen sighed. “Sorry for the trouble, ladies. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a Good Samaritan.”
One of them closed the door behind them. I heard the cars pull away from the house and the lights on the police cruiser went out.
And just like that…Ginger was gone, swallowed by the night.
I just stared at the door while still sitting on the floor. Basia was crying softly and Gray stood rigid, fists clenched at her sides. I didn’t realize my entire body was shaking until Gray knelt next to me and touched my arm.
“We’re not done with this, Lexi,” she said quietly.
I nodded, swallowing hard. “You’re damn right we’re not. We’re going to figure out exactly what that lab is doing. And then we’re going to get Ginger back—or, at the very least, make sure she’s safe.”
Basia wiped a tear from her cheek. “We owe her that.”
A sound came from the hallway and Gwen stepped into the room, rubbing her eyes. She looked at us and then frowned. “I got up to go to the bathroom. What’s going on? Why is everyone up?”
Basia gave her a quick update while I stood and looked out the window into the darkness.
“I slept through all that?” Gwen said. “How’s that possible?”
“If only I could sleep that deeply,” Basia said, sighing. “It’s okay, Gwen. There’s nothing you could have done.”
I turned, my gaze steady. “They think this is over. But they have no idea who they’re dealing with.”
“They abso-freaking-lutely do not,” Gray said, starting to pace, her fists still clenched. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her so mad.
“We need to get back to the hotel right away for better Wi-Fi and my laptop,” I said. “I guess the bet with Slash is off.”
“Yes, it is,” Basia agreed, a glint in her eye. “We aren’t about fun at this point. We’re all about justice.”
“I agree, and I’m totally in, but can I go to the bathroom first?” Gwen asked and then hustled along when Basia silently pointed her finger at the bathroom door.
That moment, standing in the living room of that little beach house, our heartbreak turned into something sharper. They may have taken Ginger back, but that didn’t mean this fight was over.
Not by a long shot.