Cornered In Conard County. Rachel Lee

energetic. I hope you like to jog.”

      Her smiled dawned, and he felt his heart skip. Too much perfection?

      “As it happens, I jog every day. Two or three miles. Would that be enough?”

      “Like anything else, the faster you go, the faster they tire. They’ve got a lot of endurance, though, which is why they’re such good working dogs. Both are also courageous to a fault.”

      He watched her look from dog to dog almost pensively. He pointed to two on the right end of the kennels. “Those two are almost ready to join the force as K-9s. Their handlers are about to finish training with them. But the other four are at various points in training, and any would make a good guard dog quite quickly.”

      She nodded. “Which would you recommend for a computer geek who can forget the time of day half the time?”

      Cadell couldn’t suppress a laugh. “The shepherd would lie at your feet and give you soulful looks. The Malinois might poke you with his nose to get your attention. But...they can all be mischievous. No guarantees on that.”

      He didn’t expect her to decide just by looking, so he opened two of the kennels, freeing the shepherd and one Malinois. Far from racing away along the dog run, they stepped out, surveyed the newcomers, then politely sniffed both Betty and Dory. Once their immediate curiosity was satisfied, both sat on their haunches and waited expectantly.

      “I’ve never seen dogs so well trained,” Dory exclaimed.

      “Most people don’t want to be jumped on,” Cadell replied. “They will if you want them to, but I don’t recommend it. Hold out your hand palm up. Once they’ve sniffed it, you should be able to pet them.”

      * * *

      DORY LOVED THE look of both dogs. Something about their eyes, at once alert and...empathetic? Did dogs feel empathy? She had no idea, but she was drawn to squat down so they were at eye level. Both dogs met her gaze steadily, which surprised her. She held out both hands, one to each dog, and as promised got nosed. Only then did she reach out to bury her fingers in their thick coats.

      She’d never had a pet, she knew next to nothing about what she was getting into, but she knew in that instant that she very much wanted one of these dogs. She had the worst urge to wrap her arms around both their necks and hug them.

      Amazed by her own response, one she almost never felt with people, she sat back on her heels and tried to regain her composure. “They’re both beautiful. I have to decide right now?”

      “Of course not,” Cadell answered. “But it might help if we went out in the paddock and played a bit with them. They have different personalities, just like people do. One of them will catch your eye more than the other.”

      So, for a little while, Dory forgot everything else as they played fetch with tennis balls and tug with a twisted rope. In the end she settled on the Malinois. Yeah, she could see the mischief in him, but she loved his coloration, a dark muzzle and legs that looked like they were cased in dark socks. There was something else, too, something that happened when their eyes met. It was almost as if the dog were saying, “I’m yours.”

      Crazy, she thought, but she announced her decision. A Malinois it would be. As she turned toward Cadell to tell him, a smile on her lips, she saw the heat in his gaze. Quickly shuttered, but not so quickly she didn’t feel a responsive heat in herself.

      She swiftly looked to the dog that had stapled itself to the side of her leg. Cadell Marcus was a very attractive man. Well built, a strong face and a great smile. He stood there in his sweatshirt, hands on narrow jean-clad hips, waiting, and she didn’t dare look at him again.

      These kinds of feelings frightened her almost as much as her nightmares. She was broken, she thought as she stroked the dog’s head. Broken in so many ways, and all those ways led back to George. A spark of anger stiffened her spine.

      “This one,” she said to Cadell.

      He smiled. “You’re already a pair. He really likes you. Great choice. We can start training you right now, if you like.”

      “Training me?” she asked, surprised.

      “Training you,” he repeated. “All we’re going to do is ask him to use his native personality and skills for your benefit. But you need to know how to bring that out of him.”

      Looking down at the dog, she felt a real eagerness to get started, to develop a relationship with him. “Sure. What’s his name?”

      “Flash. But you can call him something else if you want.”

      She smiled again. “Flash is a good name, especially since I’m a geek.”

      He laughed and turned toward Betty. “It’ll be a couple of hours. If you want to stay, there’s coffee and snacks in the kitchen.”

      Betty glanced at her watch. “I’ll be back about twelve thirty, okay? You two have fun.”

      Cadell waved and returned his attention to Dory, leaving her inexplicably breathless. “Let’s go,” he said.

      * * *

      NEARLY A THOUSAND miles away in a Missouri state prison, George Lake sat in the yard enjoying the taste of sun. Two more days and he’d be out of here. He had to school himself to patience.

      At least no one bothered him anymore. He’d grown strong and tough here, and he intended to take both away with him. He would also take distrust. He knew better than to tell even his friends here what he had in mind. Any one of them could blab, and this time no one was going to be able to link him to what he had planned.

      So he sat there smiling, turning his face up to the welcome sun. Life was about to become so good. Just one little hitch ahead of him.

      “Say, man,” said a familiar voice. Ed Krank sat beside him.

      “Hey,” George answered, opening his eyes just briefly to assess the yard for building trouble. There were no warnings.

      “So whatcha gonna do? Man, I can’t believe you’re getting out in two days. How can you stand waiting?”

      “I’ve been waiting for twenty-five years. Two days look short.” Which was a lie. Right now they looked endlessly long.

      “They don’t give you much when you leave here,” Ed remarked. “You got something lined up?”

      “Sure do.”

      “Good for you. Somebody said you had some money.”

      George managed not to stiffen. He knew where that came from. Even the oldest news got passed around here relentlessly, because there was so little new to talk about. Money had been mentioned in the papers long ago. “Anything I inherited they took away from me when I was convicted. No, man, nothing like that.”

      “Too bad.”

      Except that he’d been using the computers at the prison library when he could and had been tracking his little sister’s life. She still had most of the life insurance, because she’d gotten money for the house, too. And she apparently had a tidy little business going.

      If something happened to her, say, something deadly, he’d be her only heir. This time he’d get it, because this time he was determined that they weren’t going to link him to any of it.

      Oh, he’d learned a lot of lessons here, just listening, occasionally acting.

      Dory might have disappeared a couple of weeks ago, but he’d find her. She had to surface online again, and he’d spent some time in classes learning how to use those skills, as well.

      He’d find her. Then he just had to make it look like an accident.

      “I’ll be fine,” he told Ed, not that he cared what Ed thought about it one way or another. “I made some plans.”

      Ed laughed. “Got plenty of time in here to make plans.”

      “No