Caleb (The K9 Files Book 11) by Dale Mayer (sneezy the snowman read aloud TXT) 📕

sit and just mellow out. As he stood here, looking at it, Graynor nudged Caleb’s leg with his nose. Caleb frowned because, right in front of him, were bullet casings. “Good boy.” After taking several photos with his phone, he carefully pocketed the physical evidence to hand off to the detective. He crouched to study the footprints around the area and noted that somebody had been here for a long time. They’d actually stalked her and sat here, waiting for either her or him to move.

Definitely a concern and he didn’t know how long her stalker had been here, but these footprints were deep impressions. He thought back to when there had been any rain. There’d been a little rain a couple of nights ago but he didn’t know how much. However, with the creek right beside here, it could have flooded upriver and come down here, overflowing and soaking into the ground. A little bit more tentatively he checked another spot on the creek bed, and, of course, with his weight, he sank in fairly deep.

So the stalker didn’t have to be here for all that long. But, as Caleb checked further, he also noted new impressions, where the guy had knelt and propped up his rifle. Gaynor sniffed furiously but remained quiet. Frowning and hating to see such evidence, and yet knowing this was a necessary part of his job, Caleb searched for any other signs. He found a tiny bit of plaid material, one of the red hunter plaids, caught on a branch. He quickly took a photo of it and then of the footprints, of the knee impressions, and sent them off to Badger.

Not a whole lot anybody could do at this point. But, down the road, he didn’t know when this evidence might nail somebody’s hide to the wall. He just wanted to make sure that somebody got nailed before that asshole came back after them. To think that somebody tried to shoot her, him, both of them, was already incredibly disconcerting. When he left the military, he thought for sure that he wouldn’t deal with that issue again. He’d spent the last several years fighting a whole different war. One that he didn’t really want to go through again, but he could do very few things about it if a war happened. He’d take a bullet instantly if it meant keeping her safe.

With Graynor walking quietly by his side, the two of them—old junkyard dogs—slowly moved through the property, checking out every angle, looking for any sign that anybody had been around while they were gone tonight to meet up with the tipster. He didn’t see any sign of recent traffic, but, when they walked by the driveway, he saw impressions where somebody had pulled off to the side of the road. Immediately Graynor’s head went down, and he diligently sniffed the area. “We’ll have to set up cameras, won’t we, buddy?” Caleb sent a text to Badger, to see if he could hook them up with something. Just another home improvement task to add to her list.

Graynor wagged his tail and kept on going. Caleb followed the dog, waiting to see if he came up with anything. And Caleb wasn’t at all surprised when Graynor stopped at a set of tracks and howled. “You don’t like the vehicle these tire marks came from, do you?” he murmured “You know what? I don’t think I do either.”

They were fresh and definitely suspicious. They were fairly wide as well. He frowned at that, took close-up photos, and, from farther back, took more to show the wheelbase dimensions and sent everything to Badger. Didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the case at hand, but, if Caleb could trust anybody to have his back, it was Badger’s group at Titanium Corp. If Caleb ran into trouble, they would be right here with him. And, sure enough, his phone rang not very long later.

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

“I’d like to be asleep now,” Caleb said, “but we’ve rattled the snake’s cage, and the viper is about to strike.”

“You think you had an intruder tonight?” Badger asked, referring to Caleb’s earlier text.

“Yes, her smallest dog was hiding in the bathroom, quivering.”

“Yeah, that’s not the usual response for the dog, I presume?”

“No, we had the others with us, which was probably a good thing. This dog managed to hide. I don’t know what the intruder would have done if she hadn’t.”

“And you think this is where our War Dog is, with these people following you and her?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” he said. “It’s either connected to the War Dog or to the body we found.”

“Either is bad news,” he murmured.

“I know. She’s asleep right now. We just finished another coat on the floor tonight,” he said with a note of humor. “Nothing like coming home to doing household reno projects.”

“Doesn’t sound like you have a problem doing them.”

“Nope. I quite enjoy it,” he said. “It’s very relaxing to get into hands-on work.”

“I’ve always found that to be true,” Badger said, “and it sounds like she’s put a lot of work into that place.”

“She has,” he said. “I think as a way to ease the pain of what she was going through.”

“We all have our methods,” he said, “and I can relate to hers.”

Caleb remembered Badger’s beautiful home that he was busy updating. “I think that’s the way it’s been for her too. It’s a gorgeous house. She’s got five acres here.”

“So are you coming home or staying there?”

He hesitated. “Considering it. Too early to confirm, I guess.”

Badger said, “That’s fine if you’re staying. It’s probably where you belong.”

“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t really have a life or a means to make a living here though. Plus, it’s like going back home again.”

“That’s not necessarily bad,” Badger said. “Sometimes home is where the heart really is. We just have to find our way back again. When is the wedding?”

“Since it’s technically a new day, after midnight, then the wedding