Just then Bauer walked in the front door, looked at her, and asked, “Where is it?” She led the way to the back, where the cage was, then watched as he sprayed the items in question first, then carefully took several fingerprints.

  She muttered, “I don’t think I even want to know how you got that.”

  “Good,” Bauer replied cheerfully. “We have all kinds of tricks, but it’ll take some doing to get this run through our system.”

  “Yeah, and what will that be?”

  “I’ll let Badger know, and we’ll see if he can come up with somebody who can do it quickly,” Bauer explained.

  “We did call the police,” Mags added.

  Bauer shrugged. “I know, and I might take this to them too, but I’m leaving it with Badger for now.”

  “Would the cops trust your prints?”

  “Maybe, if this triggered something positive. In that case, they would probably come running themselves. The problem is, the dog was taken, and nobody really cares. The fact that your clinic had a break-in, where there’s drugs, would usually get their attention. However, since no drugs were taken, the cops will stop and consider if it’s worth spending their resources.” He looked over at her. “No drugs were taken, right?”

  She nodded. “Not as far as I can tell.”

  “So, that’s one thing,” Bauer said. “I mean, we should be grateful for that as least.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “I guess I would have felt better if the dognapper had at least taken the painkillers. That would have made Toby’s life easier.”

  Bauer winced. “I know, and I’m sorry because obviously Toby is the priority here, but, for the cops, it’s not. It’s just not a priority at all. The reality for them is that they have other cases stacked up that they probably have a better chance of solving.”

  “Maybe, but this one is pretty-damn fresh.”

  “Did they say anything when they were here?”

  She shook her head. “No, not really. They took the information and told me that they would keep an eye out for the War Dog, then left.”

  Bauer nodded. “Okay, I’ll head back with this. I’ll give it to Badger and see if they’ve got any way to get something out of it. Apparently they have a connection out of California who might help get it run—or possibly even get us hooked up here in town. I don’t know. Between Badger and Kat, they seem to have a pretty long reach. … It’s a little bit different working with them.”

  “But you don’t actually work for them, do you?” Mags asked.

  “No, not technically,” Bauer replied, “but I did agree to take on this missing War Dog case. I’m not sure that gives me any extra benefits though.” And, with a casual look around, he added, “Okay, I’ll head back and start looking at security footage from the nearby street cams and see if I can find a lead.” And, with that, he disappeared again.

  Mags wandered out to the main reception area and saw several vehicles pull in. “I guess that means it’s officially the start of my afternoon schedule, huh?”

  “Yeah, and your lunch break is officially over, not that you ate anything,” Sarah noted, with a chuckle. “Now it’s back to the grind.”

  Mags rolled her eyes at that and returned to her office, knowing that, as soon as the afternoon appointments started, she would have hours put in before she got a chance to take a breather. She could only hope that, by the time the day was done, they had some answers. Otherwise, that poor War Dog would just be suffering.

  And, with that, Mags got to work.

  Chapter 2

  When Mags got up the next morning, she checked her phone for any calls or texts from Badger or Bauer. Nothing. Frowning, she sent off a message to both, asking for an update. Nearly instantly she got a response back from Bauer.

  Nothing yet.

  Hating that answer, she quickly went through the motions of getting ready for work. As she walked across the yard and now into the clinic, Sarah was already inside. “Why are you here so early?” Mags asked.

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “That’s a hell of an answer,” she muttered.

  “Why are you here so early then?”

  Mags looked at Sarah and asked, “How early is it?”

  At that, Sarah laughed. “It’s only 7:00 a.m.”

  Mags groaned. “Right, so we’re both bad.”

  “Or we’re both good,” Sarah disagreed cheerfully. “At least this way you know that we both care.”

  “I get that. I really do, but jeez.” She looked at her assistant. “Please tell me that you have coffee made.”

  At that, Sarah lifted her cup and smiled.

  “Dang.” Mags moved quickly to the back room. “Kind of makes coming in worthwhile if the coffee’s already made.”

  “Oh, you would’ve come in early anyway,” Sarah noted.

  “Yeah, especially right now,” Mags agreed.

  “Although we didn’t have any patients in overnight, so you could have stayed in bed longer.”

  “Yeah, but, once I’m awake, I’m done.”

  “I know, but that also shows how you don’t have a life.”

  “A life? You’re kidding. I know I don’t have a life.” Mags laughed. “I have my own business, so that pretty well wipes out any hopes of a normal life.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, though,” Sarah protested.

  “I don’t know. Everybody I know who has their own business works twenty-four hours a day, and, if they aren’t, they feel like they ought to be.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s all about that work-life balance thing, you know?”

  “When you figure out how I should go about that, let me know,” Mags stated. “At the moment there just seems to be way more work and responsibilities than time for relaxing.”

  “You’ve got to be intentional about taking time off.”

  “I know, and that’s why you’ve been asking for another assistant. I keep trying to find somebody, but, so far, we just haven’t found the right person.”

  “I agree, and I don’t want you to get just anybody,” Sarah declared, with an eyeroll. “The part-time surgery help has been a great addition. Ultimately I would prefer to just handle the front myself, but then you’ll need another tech. You can’t do it all.”

  “I know, and I thought it wasn’t too bad, until Lisa left. What’s that been, two weeks now?”

  “Four actually,” Sarah replied, with a wry look.

  Mags stopped and stared. “Damn.” She scrubbed at her face. “We need to get that job posting up again.”

  “I’ve had it up, and I’ve been going through the résumés,” Sarah told her, “but I’m not seeing anything that sounds terribly encouraging to date.”

  “How is that even possible? Who would have thought getting decent help would be such a headache? I don’t know. Maybe it’s our job posting.” Mags frowned. “Maybe it’s just not getting out the right message.”

  “That’s possible,” Sarah admitted. “Maybe it doesn’t have the right terminology for optimal searching or something. Everything on the internet is supposed to be easier these days, but I think it’s getting more complicated.”

  “Let’s take a look at it later today, just to confirm nothing unexpected is going on. We also need to get another tech in here. Let’s see if we can bring in four or five people to come in for interviews.”

  With that, Mags turned and headed to her office and the paperwork, … the stack of never-ending paperwork. She had invoices that needed to be cross-checked, and the bookkeeper was looking for a bunch of information, probably the old invoices that Mags was slacking on from last month. Mags groaned, as she sat down but hadn’t even started when her phone rang. “Hey, Bauer. Anything?”

  “We’ve got a line on the vehicle,” he replied. “I’ll email you the photo that I found on the traffic cameras. It looks suspicious to me, and I’m wondering if you might have seen it before. Have a look and see if there’s any chance it might be the guy who came in.”

  “But I wouldn’t know,” she reminded him. “I didn’t see his vehicle.”

  “Just take a look,” Bauer repeated and, with that, he disconnected.

  Frowning, she opened up her email and waited for it to load, then quickly clicked on it. As she brought it up, she studied the vehicle. Something about it was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She called out to Sarah on the intercom.

  Sarah walked into the back, took one look at what Mags was pointing to, and said, “Yeah, we’ve had that vehicle here before.” Then she stopped, crossed her arms over her chest, and added, “At least I think so.”

  “That’s the thing. ‘At least I think so’ and ‘Yes, I did see this’ are two very different things. I think so myself, but I can’t remember where, how, or when, even if it was just another client bringing in a patient,” she pointed out. “I don’t know. Bauer is asking.”

  “Of course he is,” Sarah said. “I’m kind of glad he’s on the case.”

  “It should be the cops though.”

  “Maybe, but, in this case, I just don’t think it would ever be a priority with the cops. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the police have been really busy. Apparently the crime rate has gone way up, and, although our problems do count, we aren’t counted as much, when it comes to the pecking order.”

  “Of course not,” Mags grumbled, “with no loss of life, plus it was an animal, not humans involved. Still, we can’t have it pushed under the rug either. Speaking of which, I’ll give the cops a call and remind them that we’re here. I have to get the case number, no matter what.”

  “You do that,” Sarah said, with a wry look. “Let me know if any good comes from it. Personally I think they’ve done all that they’ll do.”

  “Great,” Mags muttered, “I wonder if they even know about Bauer.”

  “I don’t know, but you might not want to mention it,” Sarah suggested, as she walked toward the door again.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t want to do anything to get that whole Titanium group into trouble,” Sarah said. “Not necessarily in trouble, but there could be some stepping on toes. You know how everybody gets when they think somebody is not sharing information or is butting into their jurisdiction.”

  “No, I don’t know how it goes.”

  “As the daughter of a cop, I suggest you take my word of advice and keep the two lines of investigation separate. If they need to come together, they will, but let them do it on their own. Check with the police, but don’t tell them how you’ve got another organization working on it.” With that, Sarah left and headed out to the main desk.

  Mags got up, refilled her coffee cup, and walked back to her office again.

  Sitting down, she called the detective, but there was no answer. She left a message, saying that she was looking for an update on the break-in at her clinic. She had no sooner hung up when her phone rang. She picked it up to find the police officer calling her. “Hey, I just now left you a message.”

  “Sorry about that. I don’t have any update to give you. We don’t have very much at all to go on right now,” he said, his voice apologetic.

  “And yet I need to get that War Dog back,” she told him.

  “We’re on it. I just can’t tell you much.” She hesitated and, in time, he added, “Look. We’re doing our best.”

  And, with that, she had to be satisfied. She wasn’t, but nothing she could do about it. Yet, in the same spirit, she picked up the phone again and called Badger.

  “Hey,” Badger replied. “If you’re looking for an update, we don’t have one.”

  “Thanks, that’s exactly what the cops just told me.”

  “No surprise there. They are absolutely swamped in town right now. I’m surprised you even got a call back.”

  “I wasn’t sure if I should mention anything about you guys working on this or not.”

  “I would do that myself, once they got a detective assigned. If you can give me his name and number, I’ll call him right now and let him know what we’re doing. That way nobody will get any surprises. It tends to go better that way.”

  She quickly provided the information. “Thanks, I would appreciate it, so I don’t feel like I need to hide it.”

  “Oh, you definitely don’t need to hide it,” Badger declared. “I work with local law enforcement quite a bit.”

  “Really?” she asked curiously.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “That’s interesting,” she muttered. “Anyway I really want to get something accomplished on this case today, but maybe that’s asking for too much. Sarah and I told Bauer that we couldn’t commit to seeing that vehicle before.”

  “That’s okay. We already tracked it down. It was dumped on the roadside about one mile from there.”

  “Dumped? As in broken down?”

  “We’re not sure how to look at it at this point,” Badger noted. “It’s not stolen, which is one of the things that we had wondered, but did you think you’d seen it in the past?”

  “I wondered, as did my receptionist. It looked awfully familiar, but we couldn’t say where or when we’d seen it. We do get a lot of clients through here,” she shared, with that note of apology in her voice. Even though she tried her hardest, that sense of apology always seemed to come out.

  “No, I get that,” Badger stated. “If you do remember or if anything triggers a thought, let me or Bauer know.”

  “So, now that you’ve run into a dead end with a truck, then what?”

  “I didn’t say it was a dead end,” Badger corrected. “We’ll run down the owner of the vehicle and have a talk with them, but I’ll get Bauer to touch base with you in a little bit. I know he’s out taking a look at the truck right now, trying to see if it could have been the one that transported the dog.”

  “Oh, so you mean it’s literally just sitting on the side of the road?”

  “Exactly.” Badger laughed. “So, give Bauer a chance to check it out, and then he’ll get back to you.” And, with that, Badger rang off.

  Mags sat here for a long moment, happy that at least somebody was doing something. It wasn’t fair to judge the police because she knew that their caseloads were pretty rough. But having somebody just dedicated to helping her out, that was pretty huge in her book. Taking advantage of being in early, she turned her attention to her paperwork backlog, until her first patient of the day walked in.

  Her day would be all about seeing patients and doing double duty, since she had no vet tech to help, not even her assistant Sarah, who was manning the front desk. By the time Mags ran through the first three patients, dropping the files on her desk to complete later, she saw a message Sarah had left by the phone on her desk. It was a simple one-line note that read Call Bauer. She quickly pulled out her phone and dialed him. “Hey, I’m in between clients right now. What have you got?”

  “I went and checked the vehicle found by the road. It does look like it’s the one that transported the dog. There is blood in the back and some hair too.”

  “But no sign of the dog?” she asked anxiously.

  “No, nothing yet, but the vehicle was broken down. So, either he went and got another vehicle, or somebody came and picked him up.”

  “That’s not much help,” she muttered, clearly frustrated.

  “No, but that’s not really what I’m calling about either.”

  “What then?”

  “If Toby got away, do you think he would come back to you?”

  “Not necessarily. He would be dealing with a lot of pain. He could be disoriented too. So it’s hard to say whether he could find his way back to the clinic or not. Whether he would even want to, from his perspective, is the other question. Even if I was attached to him, that doesn’t mean he was attached to me. Plus I’m the one who did this to him.”

  “Right.”

  “Hang on a minute. Are you thinking there’s a chance Toby is loose?”

  “There’s a chance,” Bauer noted cautiously. “I’m just not sure.”

  “What will it take to know for sure?” she asked, her voice hardening. “Come on, Bauer. Don’t play games with me.”

  “I don’t play games,” he said gently, “but neither do I want to sit here and give you false hope, only to find out I’m wrong.”

  She stopped, pulling herself back at that comment. “Okay, that’s fair. I’m sorry. I’m just wrecked over this.”

  “I get that,” Bauer noted. “So the question at this point in time is whether the man who took Toby still has him or whether Toby has escaped.”

  “I vote for the dog escaping,” she replied. “It would depend on what kind of shape Toby was in when they broke down, I suppose. In theory, Toby could have been quite unconscious, so I don’t know.” She raised her free hand in frustration. “Sorry, I know that is absolutely no help.”

  “Just have your phone close by, in case I need you,” he said. “I don’t know quite what to plan for, but let’s just keep in close contact to ensure there’s no delay in reaching you, just in case.”

  “If you need me for Toby, call me right away, please.”

  “I will,” he declared. “Just know that I’m doing whatever I can.”

  “I know that,” she said. “I’m just so frustrated because I know that Toby’s suffering. Earlier I spoke to the cop who was here yesterday about the break-in, but he didn’t have any update.”

  “No, the only way he’ll find anything is if there are reports of the dog showing up or any rumors about a dog being for sale. But, given Toby’s physical condition, that’s not likely.”

  “Jeez, I would hope not,” she replied in horror. “Why would somebody try to sell Toby at this point?”

  “Because people are idiots, and, if there’s a certain prestige in some circles about owning a War Dog, maybe that’s what the dognapper’s trying to cash in on. But I don’t know that, so let’s not even go there,” he clarified, with a warning.

  “Right, right.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is making me crazy.”

  He chuckled. “It’s good that you care. … Just try to stay focused on the facts, not the potential theories and possibilities.”