yard with two new puppies. I assume by the way she came around that she’d been drugged.”
“Found her?” Carson echoed with a scowl.
“Stumps sensed a problem during our walk. I looked over the fence and found her out cold on the ground.”
Carson put his hands on his hips, looking up and down the empty row. “Someone took her down to get in here?”
“That’s my guess.” Shane pointed to the sign on the empty kennel door.
Carson gave a low whistle. “That’s a problem.”
Both men knew a missing or stolen dog trained in protection could pose numerous threats to the thief as well as the community. The odds of this ending well for the dog or the people who’d taken him were slim.
“Maybe the tag is leftover and Nico was relocated earlier,” Carson said.
Shane shook his head. “Stumps would disagree.”
“I figured.” He glanced at Shane. “Can I tell him he did a good job?”
“Sure.” Shane knew that Stumps considered Carson an extension of his pack after they had collaborated with the detective and Justice, his K9 partner, on a few cases.
Carson dropped to a knee and rubbed Stumps between the ears, praising him lavishly. Shane nearly laughed. If Stumps had been a cat, he might have purred. He was definitely preening.
Standing again, Carson said, “Let’s go see if Danica can shed any light on this.”
Shane knew what Carson hoped to hear, but his money was on Stumps’s assessment of the situation. Leaving a tag on a kennel and the door open was sloppy work and no one at this facility would make that kind of error. There was too much time and money invested in each of the dogs trained here to let that casual approach stand. Especially not in the case of a protection dog.
As they all headed toward the offices, Shane had no doubt Danica had been attacked for the sole purpose of stealing the dog. Now his questions revolved around who would want to steal a dog with lethal potential, who knew such a dog was here, and how they’d known to strike tonight.
* * *
Danica barely managed to escape the care of two dedicated paramedics. Her office was too small for a medical team, their gear, the puppies and the thoughts racing through her mind. She knew the paramedics meant well. They might even be right about her needing a full exam, since no one had any idea what drug the attacker had used to incapacitate her. She promised to see her doctor tomorrow and sent them along.
She pulled the band from her hair and scrubbed at her scalp, combing her hands through her hair before pulling it into a ponytail again. Dragging the back of her hand across her mouth, she tried to erase the memory of that heavy palm smothering her mouth, strong fingertips pinching her jaw. A tremor slipped down her spine as she glanced out her office window to the darkened training yard. No one was out there—she knew that. No one was watching her talk to a couple of puppies. Still, she walked over and lowered the blinds, twisting the handle to block the view.
Right now, she had a job to do. It was past time to restore calm to the dogs in the kennels. After that, she could focus on restoring herself. Expediting the process, she scooped up the puppies to carry them back to their kennel for what remained of the night.
In the hallway she paused, listening and looking around for Shane and Stumps, relieved they didn’t seem to be in the building. Whenever she bumped into Shane, here or in town, she felt an awkward and uncomfortable secondhand guilt. Until tonight, she’d always managed to maintain her professional footing when he was nearby.
Her arms full of the puppies, and her head a bit woozy, she pushed through the door to the kennels backward. Turning, she found herself face-to-face with Shane—or rather her face to his chest. Did everyone have to be taller than her? When she glanced up, she caught a wisp of concern in his gaze before his eyes iced over with the familiar reserve and disdain.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“My job,” she replied calmly, in deference to the puppies and fussing dogs nearby.
“How are you doing?” Carson asked.
She hid her jolt of surprise behind the wriggling puppies. How had she overlooked her brother standing right behind Shane? She knew they occasionally teamed up for cases, but seeing them together was unexpected. Giving Carson a smile, she walked down the row and settled the puppies into their kennel. She closed the latch and made a note of the time on the clipboard attached to the door.
The instant she finished, Carson pulled her into a big, lingering hug. She eased out of the embrace to get a deep breath and to make sure she wasn’t caught wallowing in front of Shane. “I suppose when they got the call about trouble here, they dragged you out of bed, too?”
“You’re my little sister. I’m allowed to worry.” He looked her up and down, his gaze stopping at her neck. “That looks like a needle mark.”
She nodded, brushing at the sore spot with her fingertips and pulling her ponytail around to hide it.
“Why didn’t the paramedics transport you?” Carson demanded.
“Because I’m fine,” she said. Did they have to do this in front of Shane, of all people? If Carson kept up the big brother routine, she was likely to lose Stumps’s respect, as well. “And I’m an adult,” she reminded him.
“I’d feel better if—”
She held up her hand and cut him off. “Can we take this somewhere else? The dogs really need to get back to normal.”
“Not quite yet,” Carson said, clearly unhappy with the answer. He waved her over as he moved down toward another aisle of kennels.
Her stomach knotted as he tipped his head to the side and pointed. “What can you tell me about this dog, Nico?”
Danica rushed forward, her shoulder bumping Shane in the process. She ignored the sensation, consumed by more bad news tonight. Whatever she’d expected to find, it wasn’t the door to Nico’s kennel hanging open, the kennel empty. “You found it this way? He isn’t anywhere inside?”
“Stumps found the kennel,” Shane replied. He held out his phone to her. “The dog isn’t here.”
She glanced down at the picture of the corgi, frozen in the quiet alert stance in front of Nico’s kennel. “Oh, no.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “This can’t be happening.”
“Talk to me, Danica,” Carson prompted, pulling out a notebook. “Has this dog been stolen?”
She nodded. “Must have been,” she said. Worry and misery swamped her in waves as she reached for the clipboard log they kept on Nico. “According to this, I took him out to the yard one last time before ten. That was a little earlier than usual because of the puppies.”
“You don’t remember taking him out?” Carson asked.
She closed her eyes tight, searching for the memory. “I remember opening the gate and clipping the lead to his collar.” That had to be today, she thought. She’d had the last two
