Amber by Dan-Dwayne Spencer (e book reader .TXT) 📕

went to DEFCON two. I counted backward from ten to calm myself.

He made a curve and passed a large building across from a grassy park.

I yelled, “Stop, that’s where we’re going.”

Stoney threw on his brakes and the tires screeched on the pavement. I pointed at a metal building with brick trim. The low porch led to double glass doors with a forest green canopy overhead trimmed in creamy beige.

“That’s not the jail,” He exclaimed. “It’s the County Animal Shelter. You know where they take all the stray dogs and cats.”

“Whatever it is, that’s where they’re holding Rose,” I replied.

“A children’s playground is across the street,” Roger said. “Pull over and park there.” He pointed to a dark spot by the curb where the moonlight cast a shadow under a tree, and from there we could clearly see the front of the building. “Let’s not get the van too close to the door. This thing is like a rolling neon sign advertising our presence here. With any luck, they won’t see us parked in the darkness.”

“What time is it, anyway?” Jimmy asked.

Roger turned his wrist over to read his watch. “4:51 am.”

“Roger, quick…give me your watch,” I demanded.

“No. Why should I?” Roger pulled his wrist away from me like I was going to rip it off his arm.

“Okay, come with me then… But Roger, only you come. Everyone else stays here in the van. Stoney, keep the motor running. We’ll need a quick getaway if things go sour inside,” I insisted.

Jimmy scowled. “What happened to not separating ever again?”

“All I know is that I have to go through that door at exactly 4:55. So, I don’t have time to argue. If you’re coming, you must be quiet and follow me. Do not at any time get ahead of where I am, and when I say be quiet, I mean it.”

Roger was out of the van and heading toward the building. “What are we waiting for? Hurry up.”

Jimmy and I followed. Stoney and Flower promised to stay in the van and keep it running. For the first time, we started working as a team. Too bad we didn’t realize it.

We approached the door. I stopped and called Jimmy and Roger back. “We can’t go in until exactly 4:55. Stay behind me—remember.”

“There’s no Hoochie Coochie Girls in there, I hope,” Jimmy said. Then he knitted up his eyebrows and his forehead knotted in stress “How do you know all this?”

“No time to explain. Just go with it—please.” I said.

We waited around the corner, peering out to see the door while Roger kept a check on the time. The minute hand moved to 4:55, and I started toward the door but jumped back when a Sheriff’s deputy walked through it. After putting a stob under the edge to keep it from closing, he dug in his shirt pocket for a package of cigarettes, pushed one out, and lit it. He then walked around to the far side of the building. We quietly slipped through the open door and into a lobby.

I whispered, “One.”

I pushed on a door marked, Exam Rooms, It didn’t budge. I moved over to another door marked, Filing Room, it wasn’t locked. I figured the deputy left it open for the same reason he put the stob under the outside door. We quietly passed through that one as easily as we did the first.

I whispered, “Two.”

Upon entering the next room, we froze. A deputy stood with his back to us. He had a file folder and was engrossed in its contents. He pressed on a square button alongside a set of double doors. They opened for him and he kept walking.

We cautiously stepped through the room filled with rows of filing cabinets. Besides the double doors, another door led out of the room. The word, Kennel, was written on it.

Deciding not to follow the deputy, I pointed to the kennel’s door. “This way.”

Inside, that room were small cages built into the wall. Vacant niches upon niches with bars across each one pitted the wall like a dimpled checkerboard. A covered birdcage sat atop a stack of empty animal carrier crates marked with the outline of a cat on each one. It appeared the business had space to house about twenty-five pets per day and were prepared to add makeshift rooms for more small animals too.

“Three,” I whispered. Staring this way and that, I stopped and inspected the room.

“Where do we go from here?” asked Roger.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Look for a door.”

At that moment, a sliding panel to the side opened. A custodian walked through into the room. We dove behind the stack of cat carriers. The man walked straight through and left, never looking our way.

“Four,” I said.

Stepping through the door opened by the custodian, we entered a space where the dogs were housed in sectioned cages. There were four aisles of cinderblock cells, all with chain-link front. Some were vacant, while others contained either a dog or a litter of puppies. Surprisingly, they didn’t bark at our intrusion. Across the room stood another door with capital letters written on it—VETERINARIAN’S OFFICE.

Roger whispered, “It’s like a puppy grocery store. Puppies, puppies, and more puppies for sale. Just walk through and make your selection.”

I pointed. “Look there.” Rose huddled, face to the corner, in one of those cages.

We rushed to her and pulled on the bars of her cell. The only thing we achieved was to make a clattering noise.

She crawled over to the locked gate and put her hands on Jimmy’s. “I’m okay. They haven’t harmed me. They didn’t want me, anyway. They wanted Flower and kidnapped me by mistake.”

Jimmy gave the locked gate a thorough inspection, pulling on the hinges and the bars. “Mistake or not, I gotta get you out