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  Outside in the yard, she wanted to ask if the crime scene unit had found anything conclusive, but she was afraid Finn had given that update while she’d been zoning out. No sense in offering him more proof that she was useless as an investigative partner.

  Despite the warm afternoon sun pouring over the yard, she fought chills. She zipped her windbreaker, shoved her hands into her pockets and kept her gaze away from the gate while she tried to come up with a valid reason to go back inside.

  Shane looked around but didn’t give Stumps any kind of command yet. Relaxed, the stocky corgi snuffled each blade of grass. He perked up his ears when the kennel door opened and the Malinois puppies tumbled into view, trying to drag Tyler.

  For a split second, the teenager looked more like himself until he spotted Danica and Shane and his expression turned sullen.

  “Give me a second,” Danica said to Shane. If something serious was going on with Tyler at home, she wanted him to be able to speak with her privately.

  The puppies raced up to her and she jutted her knee out to discourage them from jumping. When they mostly succeeded in controlling themselves, she lavished them with praise.

  “Did you find Nico?” Tyler asked.

  She probably shouldn’t tell him, yet she thought he could use a little good news. “Not officially. I believe the dog we found today is Nico, but his microchip is registered to a new owner.”

  “Wow. I guess the dogs can look alike.” Tyler shuffled his feet, mindful of the puppy playing with his shoelace. “Will you be at game night tonight?” he asked.

  On Thursday nights, the youth center sponsored a game night to help kids connect and find positive distractions. Cards, board games and some video games were always available, along with plenty of pizza, cookies and soft drinks.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” she said. Hours surrounded by people having fun would be divine.

  “You don’t have to be here?” he asked, perking up a little.

  “No. Everyone wants me to take it easy, even though I feel fine.”

  “That’s good.” Tyler wouldn’t quite look at her. “I’ll be there, too.”

  She jumped on the opening. “Will you tell me what’s going on with you?”

  He wrinkled his nose and shrugged, his gaze on the puppies rolling around on the grass. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m good.” He jerked his chin toward something behind her. “Is he a bodyguard, too?”

  “What?” She glanced back to see Shane stalking over. “Oh. Not at all. I should go. I promised to help him and Stumps look for anything that might lead to the thief.” She moved back to intercept Shane. “We’ll talk tonight.”

  “All right,” Tyler said. “Be careful.” He easily corralled the puppies so they wouldn’t follow her as she walked away.

  “He really has a gift for this work,” she said to Shane.

  Shane scowled at him. “How can you tell? He’s just a kid.”

  “A kid motivated to improve his life, with the common sense and grit to do it.”

  “And your impeccable guidance,” Shane added, his voice sour.

  Why did he have to make her sound like one more challenge in Tyler’s life? Not all Gages were out to ruin the lives of young men, although she understood why Shane would be wary.

  That was one of her flaws, understanding an opposing viewpoint. Her teachers and bosses often praised that characteristic, but Danica didn’t think it was really a positive trait. Seeing someone else’s side of the equation left her open to ridicule from family who expected automatic loyalty and made it challenging to take a hard line with people who deserved it. She’d learned to hide her frequent internal conflicts, but that only left her feeling alone even when she was surrounded.

  She wondered what Shane would say if she blurted out all her thoughts about his past and admitted her long-standing infatuation with him. She nearly laughed at the idea of how quickly his expression would shift from judge and jury to abject horror.

  “Why do you get on with Carson so well?”

  Shane stopped and stared at her. “How is that relevant to anything?”

  “He seems like the only Gage you trust. If we’re working together—”

  “I don’t trust him. I respect him,” Shane interrupted. “There’s a difference.”

  Difference, yes, but she thought trust and respect went hand in hand. You couldn’t have one without the other. “You respect him because?”

  “He works his cases objectively.” Shane halted, his hand poised on the gate latch, the line of his square jaw tight. “For the record, I respect your work, as well.”

  The admission startled her, but before she could ask a follow-up question, he opened the gate. The hinge squeaked and she shivered like the last leaf of autumn. She had not heard that sound before the thief grabbed her.

  Shane gave Stumps the command to search and she watched the dog eagerly go to work. Seeing him in action made her feel marginally better. If there was any sign of the thief out here in the woods, Stumps would find it. Her forced proximity to the human half of the team might be uncomfortable, but she knew the corgi’s skills.

  CHAPTER 6

  Shane could practically hear Danica thinking. He just couldn’t quite pin down any of her conclusions. Much like the Larson brothers and this stolen dog case. It should have been simple and might have been if the chief had left her out of it. She was a witness, not an investigator. The proof of that was all over her automatic protection and defense of that kid, Tyler.

  Something was up with him and Shane intended to find out what. It meant waiting until Danica wasn’t around, which could get tricky. Why had he invited her on this search? Oh yeah, because she’d looked so miserable in her office trying to ignore the window at her back.

  He really should give her brother a heads-up that she wasn’t nearly as okay as she let on. Mind on the case, Colton, he chided himself. His partner was excellent at picking up details that didn’t belong in a certain area, but a search required Shane’s full attention, as well.

  “How many cases do you work in a year for the police department?” she asked.

  He paused, enduring a long-suffering look from Stumps, unwilling to risk missing a clue because she sidetracked him. “About half my caseload each year involves official police cases here and around the county. Why?”

  “Curiosity,” she answered with a shrug.

  Of course. It seemed he would forever be the curiosity of Red Ridge. Shane returned to the task at hand, hopeful Danica wouldn’t interrupt again.

  “Why didn’t my attacker strike earlier in the evening when I had Nico in the yard?”

  So much for hope. He figured she didn’t remember asking this same question last night since she’d passed out in his car not long after. “Must have seemed too risky,” he replied, “even if he had a drugged treat for the dog.”

  He wished she’d let him concentrate, yet he could hardly admit to her that she distracted him. It was more than the conversation—it was just her. That whisper of warm scent in her hair, the graceful way her compact body moved, and the barely-there version of her typically bright smile she reserved just for him.

  How ridiculous to be flattered that she had a smile she used only on him, especially when it was a less-than-happy smile.

  There was something in her gaze, too. Something indecipherable in those green depths when she looked at him that made him twitchy. He was used to people who had known him since he was a kid watching him with a measure of suspicion or pity. Suspicion he could handle, though it fueled his perpetual anger toward Sergeant Gage, Danica’s dead grandfather. The pity was much worse, as if no one believed he could ever come all the way back to a normal life after eighteen months in the state pen.

  It had been here, or rather in the training center classroom, when she’d first aimed that inscrutable look at him. He dragged his mind
back to the task at hand, only to have her wrecking his concentration again.

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “If Nico sensed aggression he could easily have attacked the thief when the man came after me.”

  “Better to drug one victim at a time,” Shane agreed. He paused as Stumps continued searching. “What do you think the Larsons are using to mute his aggression now?”

  “If the vet cooperating with them has any sense, it will be something as mild as Benadryl.”

  “Great, they can pick that up anywhere,” Shane muttered. No chance of connecting them that way. He looked back toward the gate. They’d come at least a hundred yards and Stumps hadn’t found anything. He knelt down, gave the dog praise and then turned the search in a different direction.

  “You were hoping to possibly track veterinarian drug records?” she asked as they reset.

  “It crossed my mind,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t expect the Larson twins to be that sloppy, but luck breaks cases open more often than not.”

  “And sooner rather than later, I hope,” she said. “For Nico’s sake.”

  As they passed the gate, Shane took a hard look at the signs left from the crime scene evidence collectors. Stumps was a master at the search game, but he wasn’t coming up with anything today.

  “He had a long night last night,” Danica said, as if she’d read his mind.

  Shane wanted to sigh, but he was careful not to telegraph any of his own emotions while Stumps was working. “I don’t think fatigue is the problem.” Shane kept his tone upbeat. “I’m not seeing anything out of the ordinary back here either. We might be working on the false assumption that this is how the thief got in.”

  She frowned, her auburn eyebrows knitting over her pert nose. “You’re back on the theory that someone I know is involved.”

  Shane kept his gaze on his dog, watching for the slightest signal that Stumps was onto a clue for the case. “The chief dumped this case in my lap.”

  “Our laps,” she said.

  He ignored that. “Knowing where Nico is should make it easier to connect how he got there.” At least he hoped having a location would be more helpful in this instance than it had been in the case of the gun deal. “But how did they find out about Nico in the first place?”

  Danica seemed to fold in on herself, trudging along in Stumps’s wake. She’d resisted the known-assailant theory in Finn’s office, though she agreed that identifying the thief was the best way to connect the theft to the Larsons. “Questioning the staff is obviously my next step,” he said with far more patience than he would typically use. “Any idea who I should start with?”

  “No one I work with would do this,” she said, her voice tight.

  Stumps turned back, his head tilted and ears perked up.

  Shane glared at her.

  She pointed at the fake smile she’d pasted on her face. “It’s all good,” she said in the neutral tone she used for training.

  Not all good. That smile was a little scary. He encouraged Stumps to keep searching while he did the same thing. Resigned at the lack of progress, he gave up. “You should find something else to do while I handle the interviews,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “If that’s how you want to waste your time.”

  “A thorough investigation is never a waste of time.” Anger rushed over him like heat lightning on a summer night. “Stumps, come.” He bent down and gave the dog high praise, telling him this exercise was over.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Didn’t you?” He had no use for her excuses. “Is it in the blood? This assumption that what you know is the truth and damn any facts to the contrary.” He heard himself overreacting, saw her go pale and still he couldn’t rein it in. “A good investigator learns as much from the dead ends as he does from the solid leads.”

  “My grandfather was a good cop,” she murmured.

  Another time or topic and he might admire her tenacity. “Your grandfather came after me with a single-minded purpose and a leaky theory.”

  “After…after that happened with you, all of his cases were reviewed,” she said. “None of his other convictions were overturned.” She folded her arms over her chest, her chin high, utterly defiant.

  He wanted to shake the smug expression off her face. Did she expect him to apologize for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? “Well, bully for the honorable Gage name. That makes me feel so much better about being locked up for eighteen godforsaken months. I suppose I shouldn’t be upset at all.”

  Her bravado evaporated instantly. “Of course you should be upset.” Her hands fell loosely to her sides. “Of course you should hate all of us. Forever.”

  Were those tears glistening in her eyes? He couldn’t allow himself to care. He shoved aside yet another impulse to soothe her. She didn’t deserve any kindness from him. He suddenly wished he’d never looked over that fence last night.

  “Nothing I can say or do will replace that year and a half for you. There’s no way for me to restore what you lost or make a dead man pay for his sins. I was only trying to be clear that the training center staff is like family.”

  As if that made it any better from his perspective. “Family isn’t all unity and bliss.”

  She winced. “I know that, too. Everyone in that building cares about what we do and they know Nico’s theft is a danger to the community as well as our reputation. I was only trying to point out that no one has a motive to steal Nico for the Larson brothers.”

  He stared at her a long moment, then looked down to his partner. Off duty, Stumps had moved between them, as if he could somehow defuse the fight that had exploded as abruptly as a land mine. Taking a deep breath, Shane attempted to make his point without shouting again or losing his temper. “Did you ever learn why your grandfather framed me?”

  She jerked back as if he’d slapped her, her eyes wide. “No,” she admitted with a tiny shake of her head.

  “Is that enough proof that you might not know or comprehend what motivates everyone around you?”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes on the trees behind him. “I understand what you’re saying.” She stood a little straighter and at last she met his gaze. “It’s hard for me to accept, that’s all. Make sure you apply the same objectivity to your interviews as my grandfather should have used with you. Please.”

  That left him reeling. “That’s low.” He wondered when such a fine-boned and petite woman learned to wield that intensity like a weapon. Looking at her now, he marveled that her attacker had prevailed.

  She shrugged a shoulder and then turned on her heel and marched off. Rather than go through the training center gate, she walked the reverse of the path he’d taken last night, skirting the fence.

  “Where are you going?” he called after her.

  She didn’t reply, though he knew she’d heard him. He started after her and stopped short. Danica wasn’t his priority. As a witness, she’d given him all she had. It was broad daylight and people were out and about. She was safe. Besides, the case was about the stolen dog. Danica had merely been collateral damage in the theft.

  So why did it make him uneasy to let her go off alone?

  He leaned back against the fence until his heart rate slowed and his mind was clear. Conducting interviews would be useless otherwise. He was about to head inside when he noticed the pale yellow-green of young box elder leaves flipped upside down. Common enough when leaves were tossed by wind or rain, but the day was clear and calm. He moved closer, noticing the sapling had been crushed a bit, leaning away from the surrounding underbrush in the trees butting up to the training center.

  “Back on the clock, bud,” he said to Stumps. “Let’s see what we see.”

  Shane had to bend at the waist to duck into the break someone had made. The air was markedly cooler on his face and arms under the co
ver of the trees. A few paces up the hill, the ground cover had been flattened as if someone had stretched out for a nap. Shane crouched low, confirming his intuition. Someone had watched and waited right here, enjoying a perfect view over the privacy fence surrounding the training center yard.

  Questions nagged at Shane as Stumps nosed around, sorting out what belonged here and what was different. With Hans and Fisher, why did the Larson twins feel the need for another attack and protection dog? Were they expecting Nico to protect the stash that the police were sure existed and could not pinpoint?

  He’d basically accused Danica of being too trusting and assuming the best of the people around her. This find gave him cause to take a hard look at everyone who knew about Nico, but until he came up with a motive for better direction, the investigation was doomed to stall out.

  Stumps sat down suddenly, his gaze locked on a small pile of debris at the base of a tree just to the left of the window in the shrubs.

  “Good boy,” Shane said. He took a picture of the alert. His habit wasn’t exactly standard practice for all K9 teams, but it helped him with his logs when he was working a case. Carefully, he nudged aside the top layer of debris to find a red temporary badge with the K9 training center logo stamped on the front. Only two ways to get one of these: take a class or volunteer.

  So much for Danica’s naive belief that no one at the training center would ever be involved in the theft. He called the police station and requested a crime scene unit while he debated his next steps.

  * * *

  Danica stalked around the outside of the training center and forced herself to turn for the front door. She wanted to go back to the Larson offices, though it was a ridiculously stupid idea. She could just imagine the lectures from everyone if she wandered off in search of trouble.

  If only she didn’t feel like such deadweight on this case.

  Shane was the investigator and he was probably used to dealing with grumpy witnesses or reluctant informants, yet she couldn’t sit around and do nothing while the twins ruined a good dog.