a stickler for discipline—Ashley crossed the threshold with a warm, friendly smile on her face. She’d learned a long time ago to mask every thought, every feeling she had with a smile.
“Officer St. James reporting, sir,” she announced the moment she stepped into the lieutenant’s rather small office.
Lieutenant Rener barely looked in her direction, acknowledging her presence with a curt nod. He held out an address for her. When she took it, he told her, “Someone called in a disturbance.”
That seemed like it should be more under the jurisdiction of the police department that dealt with people, not animals. But for the time being, Ashley held her peace, confident that if an explanation for rerouting this to animal services was in the offing, she would hear it soon enough.
“A woman called to complain about a barking dog,” Rener told her.
She glanced at the address. It was for an apartment complex nearby. They were garden apartments, if she recalled correctly. Garden or not, it was still people living on top of each other, she thought, suppressing a shiver. She’d had all she could stand of close quarters during her foster family days—which was why every penny she’d earned had gone toward buying a house. She’d lived on ketchup soup and mustard sandwiches until she could finally afford to put down a down payment on a place of her own. Her house was tiny—a forty-five-year-old house with three small bedrooms and a postage-stamp-size backyard. It was clear that the place needed work. But it was all hers.
“How long has it been barking?” she asked her supervisor.
“According to the woman who called in with the complaint, all morning.” He looked up from the report he was going over. “Go see what you can find out. If the owner’s there and the dog’s been abused or looks like he’s been badly neglected, put the fear of God into them. Tell the owner if you have to come out again, the dog comes back with you,” he told her as if she was a rookie and didn’t know the drill by heart. “Can’t have the good citizens of Aurora listening to nonstop barking.”
Ashley couldn’t tell if the lieutenant was being sarcastic, droll or was actually on the level with his comment.
“Yes, sir,” she said, beginning to ease out of the office. “Anything else?”
She said it for form’s sake. She really didn’t expect the man to say anything more. But he did and it was equally as unnecessary as what he’d just told her.
“Yeah. If the owner’s not around, have the complex manager unlock the apartment for you and bring the animal in with you.”
Ashley resisted the very real temptation to roll her eyes at the instruction, which she found to be rather insulting. At the very least, it told her that the lieutenant was not paying any attention to her as an employee. She was good at her job, needed next to no instructions and animals seemed to respond to her because she got along better with them than she did the people she had to work with.
People had secrets, they had petty jealousies, they had agendas. With animals, what she saw was what she got. She liked that a lot better.
“Yes, sir,” she murmured as she left Rener’s office and closed the door behind her.
* * *
Ashley could hear the barking even before she parked the small Animal Control van near the apartment and got out.
Rather than aggression, what she heard in the barking was more along the lines of pathetic whining. It was as if the animal was calling to get someone’s attention.
Ashley’s jaw tightened as anger swept through her. More than likely, the animal had been abused. It was probably chained, starved and beaten, as well. There was nothing she hated more than an animal being the scapegoat for its owner’s inadequacies and frustrations. Not to mention that in some cases, abusing and torturing small animals was also the starting point for a budding serial killer.
The dog’s pathetic barking felt as if it was reverberating in her chest.
A slender redhead of medium height, Ashley lengthened her stride as she quickened her pace, cutting across the parking lot.
The barking sounded increasingly more pathetic the closer she came to the apartment. She could feel her heart twisting in her chest. That poor dog, she couldn’t help thinking. It sounded as if it was in real pain.
The apartment the sound was coming from was located on the ground floor. Its kitchen window was facing the parking lot. Rather than knock on the door, Ashley decided to look through the window first to see what she might be up against. Though she loved all breeds of dogs, she wasn’t naive about the way some responded to strangers, no matter how well-meaning that stranger might be.
There were blinds at the window, but they were slightly cracked open, just enough for her to be able to see into the apartment.
It took her a few seconds to get her eyes accustomed to the interior of the apartment. A lot of light was not coming in, and consequently, a large portion of what she was trying to make out was shrouded in shadow.
Taking out her flashlight, she aimed it at the interior of the apartment.
She saw the dog first. It was a Jack Russell terrier, a breed of dog known to be high-strung and hyper. Clearly agitated, the small, wiry dog was running back and forth around something.
No, someone.
Oh, God.
Ashley’s mouth dropped open. She could see someone lying on the floor. The flashlight wasn’t enough to make out all that much. But there was definitely a person on the kitchen floor.
It was either a woman or a long-haired man. He or she was facedown on the vinyl in what looked like—
Blood.
Dear God, it was blood. Ashley’s stomach twisted. Her hand shook as she took out her cell.
Breathe, damn it. Breathe. You’ve seen blood before, Ash.
She heard a voice on the other end of the line. She wasn’t even sure what the voice said. She just launched into her request.
“Dispatch, this is Officer Ashley St. James.” She rattled off her badge number as proof of who she was, then said, “I need a bus sent to 198 San Juan. Apartments off Newport Avenue North. Not for an animal, it’s for a person,” she insisted. “And send backup! Fast!”
Obviously, Dispatch had pulled her badge up on the computer and would think she was asking for assistance with someone’s pet.
Agitated, Ashley barely heard the voice on the other end confirm her request. Terminating the call, she was vaguely aware of pocketing her cell phone. During the call, her eyes never left the figure on the floor.
The dog continued to circle around it, barking and growing progressively more and more agitated, as if it knew that its master couldn’t survive long, not with the kind of blood loss that the pool on the floor indicated.
Whoever it was, was bleeding out, Ashley thought. She had to do something. She couldn’t just stand there, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
Her heart in her throat, Ashley raced back to the leasing office to get the manager.
The
