Страница 31 из 43
I could imagine her holding her thumb and index finger to the phone. “Well, don’t you worry, that kit is as good as gone once I get back inside. Do you still hide your key under the flowerpot on the porch where every burglar would look? I locked up after the paramedics left.”
I thought I heard a stifled laugh. “Yes, silly. Can you…”
“That’s not Jake, I hope.” It was Margot’s unmistakable voice.
“I’ve got to go now, Patty. Thanks for calling,” Bo
***
Fred and I went back down to Bo
I tried in vain to remember if I had seen the stain earlier. Was it the old lady who moved it? I peeked through the beveled glass window of the door in case she had brought someone with her I hadn’t seen; someone she dropped off to do the dirty work, while she drove away to divert suspicion. My heart was beating so fast that I was sure whoever might be in there could hear it.
Then Fred, who had lost interest in the flower pot’s new location, turned and barked. The bark was short and to the point, not his repetitive alarm bark, but his, “What’s up?” bark.
I held a single finger to my lips, telling him to be quiet, and went back to checking for the intruder. The beveled glass made it too blurry to see inside, so I slowly crept over to the next window. I saw nothing unusual, and no movement inside, so I went over to the flower pot. I half expected the key to be missing, but it was there when I looked under the pot. Perhaps it was one of the paramedics who had moved it, and my paranoia had gotten the better of me.
“Stay out here, Freddie, and warn me if anyone shows up,” I said, turning the key in the lower lock; the one I had set from inside before closing the door after they took Bo
Once inside, I went to Bo
Relieved, but disappointed the trick didn’t work when the only apparition I saw was myself, I opened the top drawer. Bo
I took the kit and checked the rest of the house looking for the file in case Gray Hair put it somewhere else. I looked in the dresser drawers, the bathroom, and even under the bed, but found nothing. If it was here, she did a great job of hiding it.
My next stop was the kitchen, where I knew Bo
Bo
***
Fred was waiting quietly when I came back out. To my surprise, it looked like he was obeying orders and sitting where he could see anyone coming up the road. “Good, boy,” I told him, and gave him one of Bo
It was gone in a millisecond and he looked up at me begging for more. He ate the second one even faster, but instead of asking for another, he turned toward the road and cocked his head to the side. I couldn’t hear anything, but I could see a big cloud of dust down toward Upper Bear Creek Road. Someone was headed our way. I didn’t have to guess who. If the book had been left to frame Bo
We made it back to our cabin in time to see two sheriff’s SUVs pull into Bo
***
My first instinct was to hide the evidence in my cabin, but the devil’s advocate inside my head whispered that my place was probably next on the sheriff’s search list. Fred and I could try to make our escape in my Jeep, but the voice in my head said I’d be caught before I got off our road. Fred solved my dilemma by ru
Fred was halfway on his way to the top of the hill when I caught up with him. Any other time I would have never caught up to him but he had stopped to sniff out something. When I got closer, I saw a dark hole under a rock ledge. Fred had found some critter’s den. I was afraid he would run into it and wake a sleeping bear or mountain lion. I wanted to call him back, but didn’t want to chance being heard by the deputies below. Sounds up here could travel for miles.
I walked over to Fred and whispered, “That’s not a good place to hide the bag, old boy. The owner of that den might eat it for breakfast.”
My fears were allayed when he didn’t go into the den, and ran over to a rock pile several feet away. He looked at the rocks then looked back at me and barked. “Shh, Freddie,” I whispered.
He barked again, so I rushed over to see what was so important before he did it again. He’d already started digging by the time I reached him. At first I thought he’d found another creature. I wasn’t worried about snakes because I’d never come across one in the twenty years I lived up here. And I knew it couldn’t be a large animal, so I assumed it was a marmot or chipmunk. It was neither. There was no hole, just a pile of rocks. Then it hit me. He had found the perfect hiding place. I could bury the plastic bag under the pile of rocks. Any bloodhounds should be distracted by what was hiding in the larger den. I looked at Fred in amazement. He sat there with a huge grin on his face. His dumb human finally caught on, or so I thought. Maybe I was imagining things; no dog is that smart.