Cornered In Conard County. Rachel Lee

of hours early, carting two dogs with him, Flash and Dasher. Dasher was eager to get to work, recognizing the backseat cage of the sheriff’s department SUV as the beginning of adventure. Flash didn’t see it that way, but he was glad to take a car ride.

      He hoped he didn’t unnerve Dory, dressed as he was in his khaki uniform, gun belt and tan Stetson. Not the guy she was used to seeing in shirts with rolled-up sleeves and jeans.

      He pulled into Dory’s driveway, behind a blue Honda sedan that had seen better years. The house was small and old in the way of many in this part of town, but it had been recently painted white. The driveway was two wheel paths of concrete, the sidewalk cracked but not heaving yet, and the porch from a time when porches were inviting.

      Not that Dory would probably care about that. Betty had mentioned that Dory wasn’t very sociable, and that she worried about her being too deeply mired in her work.

      Being mired in work was something Cadell understood perfectly, so he didn’t hold that against her. Given the woman’s background, he wasn’t even surprised that she had told him she couldn’t trust. He figured Flash would be the best therapy he could offer her. Dogs had a way of getting past defenses.

      He left Dasher in the car with the engine running so the air-conditioning would keep him cool and walked Flash on a leash to the front door.

      “Your new home, Flash. You take good care of it.”

      He knocked. There was a doorbell, but cops never used them and the habit was impossible to break. At least he didn’t use the heel of his fist or his big flashlight to resound through the house. A normal type of knock that shouldn’t startle her.

      A couple of minutes passed while he looked around the neighborhood and wondered if she had decided to take a walk. Clearly her car was here.

      Then the door opened, and Dory was blinking at him. “Oh! You look so different in uniform, I almost didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry, I forgot you were coming this afternoon.”

      He smiled. “Not a problem. If you want to take Flash’s leash, I’ll go get his supplies. Can’t stay—my dog’s in the car, and while it’s specially built with heavy-duty air-conditioning to keep him cool...well, I never trust it too far.”

      He hesitated, holding the leash out to her. She bit her lower lip, then blurted, “Can you bring Dasher inside, too?”

      He glanced at his watch and saw that he still had plenty of time to grab a bite at Maude’s Diner and get to the station. “Sure. It might help Flash feel a little more at home.”

      She smiled then, a faint smile, but it reached her eyes as she accepted the leash. “These dogs are practically people to you,” she remarked.

      He had turned and now looked over his shoulder. “Nah. They’re nicer than a lot of people.”

      That made her laugh quietly, and the sound followed him as he went to turn off his vehicle and get Dasher. He liked her, he realized. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. Oh, hell, he didn’t need the trouble.

      But he brought Dasher inside anyway and left him with Dory while he returned to the back of his car. Two bowls, a large padded bed, several tennis balls, chew toys and forty pounds of dry dog food later, he was sitting at her rickety kitchen table, watching her search her fridge for a soft drink to give him.

      “So it’s true computer types drink a lot of soda?” he asked casually.

      “As long as it has caffeine. I can do a good job with a pot of coffee, as well. Orange, cola or lime?”

      “Orange,” he decided. “Cheetos?”

      “Now that’s a stereotype too far,” she said with humor as she passed him the bottle of soda. Evidently it didn’t come with a glass in her world. “Although,” she said as she slid into the one other chair, “I did have a friend in college who loved to eat them sometimes, but she didn’t like the grit on her keyboard. So she ate them with chopsticks.”

      The image drew a hearty laugh from him, and her smile deepened.

      She spoke again. “Thanks for bringing all the doggy stuff. You never said, but how much do I owe you? You’re giving me a well-trained guard dog that you must have spent a lot of time on.”

      He shook his head slowly. “I’m kinda thinking of Flash as an extension of my oath to serve and protect. He’s a gift, Dory, if that won’t offend you.”

      Her eyes widened. “But, Cadell...”

      “No buts. You can be my advertising around town, how’s that?”

      Both dogs, trailing their leads, were sniffing their way around the house, checking out everything. Dory watched them for several minutes, the faint smile still on her face. After a bit she said, “I’ve never received a better gift.”

      “I hope you’ll never need his finer skills.”

      “Me, too.”

      Silence fell. He glanced at his watch and saw he had a little longer. Somehow it didn’t feel right to just walk out.

      Then Dory surprised him by asking, “What else do you teach the dogs to do? There must be a lot involved in police work.”

      “Apart from what we taught Flash to do? Plenty. A dog has a wonderful nose, hundreds of times more sensitive than ours. It can follow scents that are weeks old, and even those that are high in the air. That’s an extremely useful tool in searching, particularly search and rescue.”

      “Do you do a lot of search and rescue?”

      “Around here? In the mountains, quite enough. Hikers, mainly. Then there are elderly people who sometimes ramble and forget where they are. Earlier this summer we had to hunt for an autistic girl. She’d wandered off, become frightened and hid in a culvert out of sight.”

      “Her parents must have been terrified. My word, she must have been terrified!”

      He smiled. “She didn’t trust us, but she trusted the dog.”

      He watched her smile again. For a woman who had come here to escape a possible threat, and who, according to Betty, suffered from a lot of nightmares, she smiled easily. Props to her, he thought.

      “Anyway,” he continued, “it’s possible to train the dogs to hunt only for specific scents, too. Like explosives. Or drugs. Or cadavers.”

      Her smile faded. “Dead tissue?”

      “We train them to distinguish human tissue from animal tissue, and their success rate is about ninety-five percent. They can find buried bodies a century old. And they can smell them down to at least fifteen feet, and some say up to thirty.”

      Her eyes had grown wider. “So they don’t get confused?”

      “No.” But he didn’t want to get into the details. Some things just didn’t need to be talked about.

      She looked down, then lifted her head and drank from her own bottle of orange soda. “How do they learn all this stuff? I mean, isn’t it hard to teach them?”

      “A little patience and they pick it up pretty quickly. They’re remarkable, and they’re eager to please.” Dasher came over and laid his head on Cadell’s thigh. “I think he’s ready to go to work.”

      Dory popped to her feet immediately. “I’m sorry, I’ve been holding you up.”

      “Actually, no. I allowed some extra time.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a folded slip of paper. “Feeding directions and all that. If you have any questions, call me. And if you don’t mind, I’ll drop by every day or so to see how you two are getting on.”

      Holding the paper, she looked at him. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough, Cadell.”

      He chuckled. “Tell me that again when you have fur all over the place. He doesn’t shed a lot, but he’s going to shed.