That wasn’t the news Weston had expected to hear. For some reason he thought this would be a simple drive out to the homestead to see Shambhala was well loved and doing fine. Then he’d drive back, visit with his daughter and escape. But the whole trip was already far more complicated than that.
“I’ll contact the police to see if I can get a report on the accident and find out if anybody knows what happened to the dog.”
“I have the number for the police,” she said, hurriedly standing up. Putting Sari down on the chair, the little girl just sat there and stared at Weston.
He tried a smile, but nothing seemed to work to make her change her expression. Except the photo of the dog. He pulled it up again and said, “Shamba.”
The cherub’s face split into a happy smile. “Doggy.” She tapped the screen. The dog disappeared. She stared up at Weston with her huge eyes, and tears welled up in the corners, her bottom lip trembling.
Immediately he brought the image back up again and showed her. “Shamba.”
When his screen went black, he got the same response. And, just as Daniela came running back with a card in her hand, he got the picture up before the waterworks started. She scooped up Sari and smiled as Sari tapped the phone again.
“She appears to like doggies,” he said with a wry smile.
“She’s also got a mind of her own.” Daniela laughed. “She wants what she wants when she wants it.”
He wrinkled his nose at that. “I’d say that is probably something all of us would like to achieve—but it’s also a family trait,” he said. “I’m not necessarily an easy person to get along with either.” He looked at the card. “Do you mind if I step out on the porch to make a call?”
She motioned at him. “Please do. I’ll get her a little bit more to eat and some milk.”
He nodded, smiled and stood. He took the card and stepped outside and dialed. Behind him, he could hear Sari asking, “Doggy?”
Daniela chuckled. “I guess that’s the only thing that’s really important to you, isn’t it?”
“Want doggy,” Sari said, her bottom lip trembling.
“No more tears. Let’s get you some milk.” She walked over to the fridge.
Weston smiled as he waited on his call to be answered. As soon as somebody did, he identified himself and said he was here at the request of the K9 division, looking into Shambhala’s history.
“They owned a dog,” the officer said, “but we found no sign of it when we went to the cabin.”
“And why did you go there?”
“Standard procedure, to make sure there were no children, visitors, elderly, or pets left behind who would suffer with the loss of this couple.”
“And were there?”
“An old cat was in the cabin who didn’t take kindly to being removed. It’s been adopted through the cat rescue coalition.”
“What about the dog?”
“No sign of it. We heard talk of a dog being there but found no sign of her when we were there.”
“Do you think it was buried with the truck?”
“The truck wasn’t buried. There was a rock slide on the road. They tried to drive around, and the truck went over the edge.”
“So, if the dog had been in the back, it could have jumped free?”
“I suppose so,” the police officer said slowly, “but I think it would have shown up by now.”
“I’m here at Daniela Rogers’s place. She thought she saw this dog at the feedstore.”
“I hadn’t heard anything about that,” he said briskly. “Maybe call them and see if they’ve seen it around.”
“I can do that.” Weston hesitated and then asked, “Was there anything suspicious about the rockslide accident?”
“No,” the cop said, too quickly. “The case was ruled an accident.”
Thanking him, Weston hung up and thought about that. Something was definitely off in the officer’s tone. But then he didn’t know anybody here, and he was an outsider. It could be the detective was just having a crap day and didn’t want to be bothered. Or he hadn’t done his job and didn’t want to have the case be questioned.
Weston brought up the feedstore on his phone, found the number and dialed it. When somebody answered, he explained he was looking for this dog, and it may have been seen around the feedstore.
“A couple dogs have been hanging around but only one recently,” he said. “A cream-colored one. She was looking pretty thin though. We put food out at times, if we get a bag that’s busted or somehow damaged. We have an awful lot of critters around—skunks, raccoons and the like—so who knows how much these skittish dogs may ever get of it.”
“Okay,” he said. “Are you against me coming in with a big crate and trying to catch her to see if it’s the one I’m looking for? If she’s not, I’d still like to get her to a rescue to help her.”
“It’d be nice if you could rescue her,” he said, “but we can’t get close enough to really help any of them.”
“Well, surely rescue groups would come in and help, right?” Weston asked.
“We called them early on. They tried a couple times but didn’t get anywhere.”
“Do you know what breed the cream-colored dog is? Does she have only three legs?”
“From what I can remember, she’s kind of shepherd looking but not quite. And yes on only having three legs. That’s partially why everyone here was giving her handouts. They felt sorry for her.”
“Yes, that’s likely her then,” Weston said. “I’m coming into town. I should be there within the next two hours.”
“We’ll see you then.”
Chapter 4
After hearing Weston’s plan, Daniela hesitated and then asked, “Do you want me to go with you?”
Weston looked at her, surprised, then glanced down at Sari, who was snuggled up against her mom again. “You don’t have to,” he said gently. “I know you need to be with her.”
“That’s the thing about little ones,” Daniela said with a
