'DEVON BRADY LEFT THE HOUSE ten minutes ago,' Fraser said when he picked up Marrok's call. 'Nick Gilroy left before her. I think he's looking for the donkey.'
'Did she take Ned with her?'
'Yes, he looked pretty spry.'
'He should. It's been two days,' Marrok said. 'Are you still at the farm?'
'Yes.' Fraser was silent. 'Bridget says she thinks… she was nervous last night.'
His hand tightened on the phone. 'Any sign?'
'No, but I've been keeping my eyes peeled. I'm going to take another look around after I hang up. Bridget isn't often wrong.'
No, she wasn't, Marrok thought. In her own way her instincts were as sharp and accurate as Ned's. Bridget would appreciate the comparison. She liked animals better than she liked most people.
Devon had said something like that the night he'd met her. She would probably get along very well with Bridget.
If he could keep her alive long enough to meet her.
'Don't take any chances, Fraser. Your job is to report, not engage. Call me when you finish checking the area.'
'I will. I'll see them before they see me.' He hung up.
Dammit, he had at least an hour before he reached Denver, and it would be another hour before he could make it to the small town of Bayside.
He didn't have Bridget's gift, but he had a bad feeling. He wanted to be off this plane and able to move.
IT WAS A BUSY MORNING AT the clinic, and Devon was drawn into the usual hubbub of sick animals and concerned own ers as soon as she walked in the door. She immediately turned Ned over to Hugh Dalks for his exam and didn't have a chance to pop her head into his examining room until the morning was almost over. 'How's he doing?'
'You say that he was just operated on day before yesterday?' Hugh shook his head. 'I'd never guess it. The tissue is almost completely healed. The stitches are almost unnecessary. I'm tempted to take them out.'
'He must have good genes,' she said lightly.
'Extraordinary genes.' He was rubbing Ned's belly. 'Did you know he has an ID microchip in his neck?'
'It doesn't surprise me. That's not so unusual. He's a valuable dog.'
'Since you said his own er had disappeared, I thought you might want me to decode it and try to find the address. It wasn't easy. First, I tried the Vera chip RFD reader. Nothing. Then I tried the Avid remote. Still nothing.'
'Weird, those are the two most frequently used microchip ID companies.'
'Yeah, that's what I thought. Then I tried that old Sentar reader that Nick used years ago when they first started to microchip animal. It gave me the code number, but when I typed it into the computer the screen went blank, then it flipped as if it was going to another Web site.'
'And?'
'Some kind of text came up, but it was all screwy.'
'Screwy?'
'It's as if the chip was for another dog. Even the name is different. Not Ned. It's Paco.'
'It must have been a tech error when they entered the information.'
'I'll say. They've got everything wrong. Name. Date of birth, and the rest of the text isn't even in English.'
'Really? Do you still have it up on the computer?'
'Sure, I thought you might want to see it.' He went to the shelf and pressed the button. 'There it is.'
Devon frowned as she stared at the text message. It was long, and Hugh was right, it was completely bewildering. It had to be in another language, but she couldn't identify which one.
She had a memory of Marrok's words soothing Ned. She hadn't been able to decide what language he'd been speaking either. 'Print it out for me before you blow it away, will you?'
'Okay, but I don't know why you'd want it. As I said, it's screwy.' He lifted the Lab down from the table. 'We'll have to make him a new one if you decide to keep him.'
She nodded absently. 'Yes, we'll do that.' She looked down at Ned. 'Well, are you ready to go out to the reception desk to meet and greet?'
Ned trotted toward the door.
'Smart,' Hugh said. 'If you don't want him, I might be persuaded to take him.'
It seemed Ned was very much in demand. 'You like him?'
'What's not to like? He's smart, and I have an idea he's a man's dog. Might to might.'
'That's a chauvinist thing to say. Women aren't mighty?'
'Am I in trouble?'
'Maybe.'
'Come on, Devon,' Hugh coaxed. 'Give him to me. You don't want a rickety old dog like that.'
'Old? You're crazy.'
Hugh chuckled. 'Yep. But it's not me, it's that microchip.' He headed for the door. 'Completely nuts. The only part of the chip I could read was the line for the birth date at the beginning-5/13/82.'
Her eyes widened. 'What?'
'I know. Told you so.' He left the examining room.
Devon shook her head. Hugh was right. The tech that had made up that chip must have been stoned. The life of a big dog like Ned was only in the teens. The chip would have put him close to thirty years old.
'Come on, Grandpa,' she told Ned. 'Your audience awaits. I saw a cute husky pup out there you can impress.'
THERE WASN'T ANYONE in the woods.
Fraser breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't great in the forest like Marrok, but he would surely have been able to catch a sound, a glimpse, if someone had been here. He'd done his duty and now he could go back to the farm house, where he felt more comfortable. Bridget was wrong, and he shouldn't have let her spook him.
Though she never meant to do that, and he'd a hell of a lot rather she spoke up than keep those creepy feelings to herself. She'd saved his neck a couple times in the last three years he'd been working for Marrok. It still wigged him out, but he accepted it better now than-
A tearing pain in his shoulder.
A bullet. My God, he'd barely heard it. A silencer…
Run.
He could see the two men bursting through the bushes ahead of him.
Turn around and run.
They mustn't catch him.
Marrok had said that was the worse thing that could happen to him.
Another slicing pain in his back.
Keep running.
Find a place to hide.
Or get to the farmyard where someone would see him.
They were behind him, running fast.
And he was slowing, stumbling…
Faster…
The blood was flowing, spurting…
Don't let them-
'SHE'S NOT AT THE FARM,' Rachoff said, when Caswell answered. 'She got into a van with the dog just as we got here. You said to try to be discreet, so I had a man follow her and report back to me. She went to a veterinary clinic in one of those strip shopping centers and hasn't come out. Shall we wait here until she comes back?'
Caswell thought about it. 'It would probably be safer than taking a chance in a public place.'
'It would be my choice.' He hesitated. 'But we had to put down someone who was snooping around the woods. One of Marrok's people?'
