“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.

  “No, not all that easy, as it turns out,” he murmured. “I’ll pop in before the end of the day, regardless of how it goes.”

  “Bring me the dog. You know how badly I need Toby back.”

  “What happens when you get him back?”

  “I’ll fix him. As much as I can, at least. Then I wouldn’t even dare leave him here. I would probably take him home, to my house.”

  “You’re that attached?”

  “Absolutely not. Sort of. Honestly, I was of two minds as to whether I could talk Badger into letting me keep Toby. But I want to make sure he’s okay, before putting him back out there.”

  “I’m not sure that there would be much talking required, since Badger’s job is to confirm these animals are well looked after,” Bauer explained. “So, I can’t imagine anyone would think you keeping him would be a problem.”

  “Maybe,” she conceded. “For years I deliberately didn’t take in strays because I know there’s no end to it. Yet just something about Toby drew me in.”

  “That’s good to hear. Maybe he will try to come back to you.”

  “I don’t know. You have to remember that I’m also the one who just took off his leg.”

  “But, if he was in a lot of pain before, he may not hold it against you.”

  “It’s hard to say,” she replied, but she knew she didn’t sound very convinced at the idea. “Anyway, my next patient is here, so I’ve got to run. Keep me posted.”

  “Talk to you in a bit,” Bauer said, then was gone.

  She got up and walked in to see the next patient, followed by the one after that and the next one after that. By the time midafternoon rolled around, she walked out to the reception area and noted the waiting room was empty. “Is that it for the day?” she asked Sarah.

  “No. Mrs. Sampson just canceled,” Sarah shared in exasperation. “Her dog was doing much better, so she decided not to come in, and Beth is running late, so I’m not sure when she’ll be here. She did phone to say that she was on the way, but she was definitely running behind.”

  “In that case I’ll grab another coffee.” Mags headed back to get it. As she walked back out with a steaming cup in hand, Sarah looked at her and asked, “Did you phone Bauer?”

  “Yeah, a couple hours ago. Did he call again?” she asked, pulling out her cell phone.

  “No, not since the one call earlier.”

  Mags nodded. “I was hoping he would, though. I mean, when he had some information.” Because now that she had the hope that Toby could be loose somewhere, she couldn’t get that out of her mind.

  Just then, Beth walked in with her small Corgi.

  “Hey,” Mags greeted them. “Come on back, and we’ll take a look.” And that was the last thought she had for Toby for another half hour. By the time Mags walked out to the front lobby again, two more clients were waiting, and it just continued for the rest of the afternoon. When she was done for the day, she put the rest of the files on the ever-growing pile on her desk and sat with a thud and dropped her head in her hands.

  Almost immediately a man said, “Now that’s a tired look.” She lifted her head and stared, as Bauer smiled back at her. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t want to sit out in the waiting room, so I convinced Sarah to let me in here.”

  “That’s fine.” Mags gave him a wave of her hand. “It doesn’t much matter. I’m just tired.”

  “Tired and stressed.”

  She smiled. “It all goes together, doesn’t it?” She saw several messages waiting for her too. She stared at him. “Give me a minute to go through these messages, will you?”

  “Sure.”

  She quickly flipped through the stack. She winced at the quote from the window guys but wrote it down. There was a message from the insurance company and one from her sister and some junk in between. None of which was important enough to hold her attention, given the current situation. She sat back, then looked at him. “Did Sarah offer you coffee?”

  “No, but that’s fine. I’ve had plenty of that today.”

  Mags nodded. “Me too. I think I’m swimming in the damn stuff.” She looked over at him, waiting for any word.

  “I’m hesitating to confirm it, but am seriously wondering if Toby did escape.”

  She just stared at him, her mind racing. “I don’t even know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing at this point.”

  “Me either, but it keeps bringing me back to the fact that the dog was injured.” He studied Mags’s features for a long moment. “The question is, what would he do if he did escape? I spent a little bit of time searching the area earlier, and there was some blood, but it rained this morning, … so I’ll go back out this evening and see what I can confirm from my vehicle, just looking at the surrounding location where the vehicle broke down. I wanted to see if you had any opinion on whether Toby would come here and whether he was capable of walking that far.”

  “Theoretically, yes. Toby was in a lot of pain before I took off his leg, but it wouldn’t surprise me to think that he could continue to function quite normally, if not even better, because the leg was gone.”

  “Would there be a lot of pain?”

  “Absolutely, but not necessarily from the mechanics of walking.”

  “And cornered, would Toby be dangerous?”

  “Dangerous as hell. I would hope he would come here, but I know that’s a bit far-fetched. I mean, I kept him in a cage the whole time. Even though I was looking after him, and I would like to think he understood that I was helping him, that doesn’t mean he did,” she shared.

  Bauer nodded and stood. “Good enough then. Thanks.” And, with that, he turned and started toward the door.

  She called out, “Wait.”

  He looked back at her. “What?”

  She hesitated, then shrugged. “Keep me in the loop.”

  He smiled, his features softening. “Always. … One of these days we could go have a coffee or something and just be normal, instead of always bonding over animals.”

  She laughed. “That’s what we do though, isn’t it? Bond over animals.”

  “Maybe.” Then, with an awfully cheerful note, he added, “But one of these days we could bond over coffee.” And, with that, he was gone.

  Mags frowned at the doorway.

  Sarah poked her head around the corner and asked, “Did he just ask you out for coffee?”

  “I think that’s what that was,” she muttered. “I’m just not quite sure.”

  “If it was, take him up on it.”

  “Why would I do that?” Mags asked, frowning at her assistant.

  “Because he’s cute. I kinda like his crooked smile,” Sarah said, with a laugh. “His short dark hair and your auburn hair, falling out of the braid all the time, are good contrasts. He’s ripcord lean, and you are all lightness, yet you are both strong personalities. Plus he’s deep, and you’re a girl who needs deep.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  At that, Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’ll never connect with anybody superficial. It’s got to be somebody with more heart than common sense in a way. Although, at first glance, he doesn’t quite fit the part.”

  “You think? No, I wouldn’t think so.” Mags had to laugh. “He would probably be quite insulted at your take on it.”

  “I think it might take a lot to insult him. He’s very confident, even with that leg of his.”

  “So what if he’s got a prosthetic? A lot of Badger’s men do. Including Badger and Kat both, for that matter.”

  “I know, right? Just to think about what those people went through is pretty amazing.”

  “That’s another reason to not even have it be part of the equation.”

  “I get that,” Sarah said. “So, now that you’ve talked yourself into exactly the same thing, make sure you talk yourself into accepting his offer.”

  “It was hardly an offer,” Mags argued. “It was one of those casual, back-door, around-the-bend offers. So, maybe sometime, when life calms down, we could go do something like that. It was hardly a serious suggestion.”

  Sarah frowned at Mags, as if she were some dummy. “Oh, it was serious all right. If you ask me, he was testing the waters. You know something, Mags? For a really smart woman, sometimes you can be a little dense.” And, with that, Sarah disappeared.

  It had been a long day, with lots of running around and checking in on various things. Bauer had finally talked to the owner of the truck. The elderly woman told him that she didn’t even know it was missing. When Bauer asked her when she had last used it, she shrugged, thought it was the previous week maybe. Then when he explained where it was found, she just stared at him in shock. When he told her that he was having the vehicle towed back to her, she was very appreciative.

  Earlier he’d gone back to the vehicle and had taken a good look. Figuring out what was wrong with it, he had called a tow truck and had arranged to get it back to its rightful owner, after talking to the cops. But because it wasn’t reported as stolen, and there was no way to prove that it was even involved in at least the theft of the dog, the cops had been okay with Bauer taking it away, after forensics had secured it.

  Bauer considered that shortsighted on their part, but, from the cops’ perspective, it was a case of too much conjecture and not enough actual evidence. Then, with a couple sandwiches in his pockets, a thermos of coffee, a bottle of water, and a leash in his backpack, he headed out to where he’d found the vehicle and started walking slowly back toward the vet clinic.

  He had absolutely no idea if the War Dog was even loose. He wanted Toby to be, but that desire didn’t give Bauer any factual evidence. He had traced a lot of tracks around the area, including in the grass and the fields around here. To him that just added credence to the fact that the dog might very well have taken off on his dognapper, but what would it take for a dog in that condition? Bauer didn’t know. Mags had mentioned how the surgery site had been fully bound with surgical dressings, and, short of it getting banged up, it would hold through the dognapping event, without too much bleeding initially. However, if Toby were up and moving around, then the bleeding would likely start again.

  And, with that thought, Bauer headed into the brush, wondering just how far Toby would have gone before any blood signs would show up. Bauer needed something concrete to support his theory and to prove he wasn’t just blowing in the wind here. So far, he found absolutely nothing. He kept walking and checking the area, looking for any sign of a dog or a blood trail, but he kept seeing tracks of a man instead. That made Bauer pick up his pace, hoping that it wasn’t the same guy who had stolen the truck, who had stolen Toby. The tracks appeared not to have been from today, but that didn’t mean that this guy had or had not already found the War Dog. The rain had been light, not enough to wash away the tracks.

  As Bauer moved quietly through the almost waist-high grass, it was hard to see anything, and that was both good and bad because, if Bauer couldn’t see much, nobody else could either. He stopped to check the area, looking for signs within the high grass and then kept on going. He thought he saw something up ahead, but, as he watched, it was a coyote moving steadily through the area, its nose down.

  At that, Bauer frowned. The time was running by, but Bauer kept moving, and he wanted to keep going as fast as possible in the direction of the vet clinic, yet he didn’t dare take a chance of missing any sign. He hadn’t gone too much farther when he caught sight of something that made his heart flutter. The grasses were flattened, and a trail ran up through them. Also a bit of blood was on the ground. He bent down, took a closer look, then realized that a rabbit had died at that same spot. Swearing, he got up and kept moving rapidly through the grass. If the dog were here, Bauer would find it; there just wasn’t any guarantee Bauer would find Toby anytime soon—or before this other guy did.

  As Bauer walked carefully but steadily forward, searching the whole area, he thought he heard another voice off to the side. He slipped behind several trees and listened. And, sure enough, another man was wandering around, calling out for a dog.

  Bauer frowned at that and watched him carefully. No way to get close enough to take a picture, although Bauer could walk up and say something to the man. However, Bauer didn’t want to alert him to his presence. He didn’t know if this was the same guy who had stolen the War Dog or somebody completely different. Either way, it was very interesting that he was here in the same area, looking for a dog. That made two of them.

  Highly suspicious.

  Bauer kept ever-so-slightly behind the man, keeping an eye on the trails that Bauer was following, as the man called out again and again. It almost sounded like he cared. And that was possible too. So maybe this guy was over the moon about the dog and just really wanted to have him in his life. That still didn’t justify stealing Toby, not when Toby was injured, plus taking him from the post-surgery care that Toby so badly needed. And it sure as hell didn’t justify breaking into the vet clinic and terrorizing Mags.

  She had done nothing but look after animals and had gone well beyond the norm in Toby’s case. But that didn’t mean this guy knew anything about it. He may have interpreted the adoption process she told him about as being something that he might never pass and had chosen to take another route that would ensure his success. Although stealing a War Dog, especially in the condition Toby was in, wouldn’t have ensured anything, if you really thought about it.

  Stealthily, in case this guy had a reason for going where he was, Bauer just stayed at a parallel pace, keeping his gaze wide and checking on his GPS to see how far away the stranger was.

  Bauer was about one and a half miles from where the truck had been found, heading deeper into the brush, yet also cross-country to where the vet clinic was located. He still wasn’t quite convinced that the dog would go back to Mags. However, animals were very good at understanding who was there to help and who wasn’t. But surely the War Dog knew to stay away from this other guy. If he’d escaped once, hopefully he would know to keep out of this man’s range. But what if Toby wasn’t capable of moving anymore? What if the pain or the blood loss had been too much?

  Frowning at that possibility, Bauer kept moving, picking up the pace, as the other man started to swear in frustration.

  “Where are you? Dammit, I can’t just spend all day out here looking for you.”

  Bauer wondered at that because, if they were after the same dog, that may be what it would take.

  Finally the other guy raised both hands and yelled, “Fine, you win. Stay out here. I’ll come back tomorrow, and you damn-well better be here.”

  He seemed angry now, not as concerned about the War Dog, as himself. Bauer frowned at that.

  And then the guy trudged back toward the road.

  This caught Bauer’s attention, since he hadn’t seen a vehicle parked anywhere close by.

  Again taking note of the GPS location, Bauer followed behind the other man, but, instead of coming back to the road where Bauer had parked, this guy went down another shorter crossroad, which more or less looked like the access road to a farmer’s field. But, sure enough, a small car was parked there. Bauer got close enough to get the make and model, then quickly took a picture of it and sent it to Badger. Unfortunately getting the license plate proved to be impossible because the vehicle had none.

  He quickly added an update to his text to Badger, then headed back, following the trail where the man had walked, literally taking his footprints every step of the way back again to where the other man had been. Reorienting himself, Bauer stopped and waited. He needed something to pop up and to give him an idea of what to do.

  Off in the distance, he heard the coyote and mumbled under his breath, “Smart enough, aren’t you? You’ll let that dog die and come down after it, won’t you? How hungry are you?” Most of the time, coyotes wouldn’t go after something big like Toby, but, if hungry and seeing an opportunity with the injured dog, anything was possible. It was a food source, and sometimes one had to eat the other in order to survive. It sucked.

  Nature was a bit brutal when it came to things like that, but, right now, Bauer needed to find Toby and to ensure he didn’t become part of the food chain. Bauer kept walking steadily. As he got a little farther away from the road and any sign of that vehicle, he tried several whistles used with military dogs. No way to know just what Toby’s personal trainer or handlers would have used for any kind of extra training. Everybody had one, even though they weren’t supposed to, but, if Bauer could just hit on the right one, it’s possible the dog would respond.

  However, if the dog were unconscious and incapable of responding, then Bauer couldn’t do anything to get Toby to raise his head, and, within this long grass, even that wouldn’t be much help. But Bauer kept at it, walking carefully and getting closer to something, he just didn’t know what.

  When he watched another coyote streak by, he headed in the direction of the coyotes. He had always trusted animals more than people. Animals had instincts, and people might not like what their instincts were telling them when they watched animals, but animals could be trusted. They would take Bauer somewhere; he just didn’t know where.

  Chapter 3

  Back home Mags finished doing the dishes, picked up a cup of herb tea, and stepped out onto her deck. She surveyed the area all around her, studying the fields and the brush.

  “I don’t know where you are, Toby, but please, if you can get anywhere, come here. I’ll help you, and I promise I won’t put you back in that cage.”

  She knew that he had disliked the cage. What animal did? They were sitting ducks and couldn’t move. A victim in so many ways, yet in terms of a vet clinic, there weren’t a whole lot of other options. But now all she felt was guilt. She felt guilty that his time with her had been so difficult and only got worse when he was taken.

  Unable to help herself, she tossed back the last of her tea, then put on her hiking boots, grabbed a vest to protect her from the light breeze taking over the countryside around her, and headed out in the direction where the broken-down truck had been found. She knew it was only a faint hope because, even at this point in time, no way that War Dog would be anywhere close to the same position he’d last been in. If he was smart, he would have tried some different directions.