Khaki thumped him on the arm. “Don’t worry about it. You did really well, and you’re getting better. Your nose will improve as you gain more control over your inner wolf. By the time you’re capable of a full shift, your nose will be as good as mine.”
Alex doubted that was ever going to happen, but he didn’t correct her. He looked around the room and saw that everyone but Hale had already left. Well, at least there was one werewolf in the Pack whose nose was worse than his. Hale had a good excuse for having a crappy sniffer, though. His nose had been smashed in by some asshole when he was a teenager, and it hadn’t worked right even before he’d gone through his change.
Alex snorted. Great. He’d beaten a werewolf with a broken sniffer. He should be so proud.
He would have been even more disgusted with himself if it wasn’t for the fact that he couldn’t imagine ever needing a werewolf super smeller. If they needed someone with a great nose, they had Khaki or one of the guys. Because if anyone ever had to depend on his nose to save them, they were screwed.
Chapter 3
“Someone driving by heard the sounds of dogs fighting in there last night around one in the morning.” The uniformed officer motioned toward the big junkyard several yards from where Lacey was standing with Wendy and the rest of the ACS team. “They said there were a bunch of cars parked up and down the street and a lot of people laughing and shouting. The county sent a patrol car out a couple of hours later, but the place had been locked up by then.”
Lacey cursed silently. She knew what all that meant—a dogfighting event. This place was well outside the more populated parts of the city, so they probably thought no one would be around to hear anything. If that person with a conscience who happened to drive by at just the right time hadn’t called the police, no one would have been the wiser. As hard as Wendy and the other members of her squad worked, there was only so much they could do. Dallas had a long history of dogfighting, and it only seemed to be getting worse. The number of dead and injured dogs they’d found lately made her sick to the stomach even thinking about it.
Wendy left the patrolman to keep an eye on Lacey while she and the other officer from the Animal Cruelty Squad served the warrant that would get them into the huge, sprawling complex of old cars, racks of repair parts, and do-it-yourself garage facilities.
Lacey clutched the shoulder strap of her big first-aid bag and fought to control the butterflies filling her stomach. She’d been going out with Wendy and the other cops from ACS for a while now, but that still didn’t mean she was used to these situations. There was a good chance she was going to see some broken and abused dogs in there, and that was something she would never get used to.
She used to wait back at the vet clinic while Wendy went out on these calls. Wendy would find the injured animals and get them transported to the clinic as fast as she could, but after four horribly injured dogs had died en route, Lacey decided that had to change. There was simply no way she was going to sit around and hope that the dogs survived long enough to reach her. She needed to be there when the animals were found.
Wendy hadn’t been very supportive of the idea at first, but once she realized it was actually a benefit having someone who knew dogs so well on the team—and that Lacey was smart enough to stay out of harm’s way while the police were doing their thing—she’d finally relented.
“I’m just the caretaker here, Officer,” the old man who answered the door said after Wendy showed him the warrant. “I ain’t the owner and have no authority to let you in here. The owner wouldn’t like it much.”
“It doesn’t matter what the owner likes or doesn’t like,” Wendy said firmly. “This piece of paper means we get to go in there and search the property for signs of dogfighting. You can either let us in or wait all cool and cozy in the back of a patrol car while we let ourselves in.”
The crotchety old man squinted at Wendy from behind his glasses and grumbled something under his breath but let them in. The minute they were inside, he pulled out his old-style flip phone and started punching buttons. Lacey didn’t doubt that the man was calling the owner.
A few minutes later, Wendy came back outside, her face grim.
“It’s bad, but I don’t think the dogs are here anymore,” she said.
Lacey’s heart sank. If there weren’t any dogs around, it likely meant that all of the animals had already been disposed of.
Wendy led her into the junkyard, then took a circuitous route toward the back, which opened up to an obvious fighting pit—a chain-link fence set up in a circle fifteen feet across with a single makeshift gate to let animals and handlers into the ring. Lacey didn’t have to look hard to see the splatters of blood everywhere or chunks of flesh. The ground all around the pit had been trampled flat. A lot of people had been standing around watching.
“I told you there weren’t any dogs here,” the caretaker said from behind them. “You can all just shove off now.”
Wendy pointed at the dark reddish-brown stains on the ground inside the fence. “Where’d all the blood come from then?”
“What blood?” The old man squinted, trying to see. “Oh, that. It was probably just some of the boys goofin’ off and gettin’ into a fight.”
Wendy walked over to pick up a bloody bit of fluff lying on the ground just inside the gate of the fenced-in circle, then held it up. “So I guess those boys have fur?”
The old man started stammering and trying to talk his way out of the lie, but Lacey ignored him. Right now, she was more interested in the clear trail of blood leading away from the pit. She followed it, knowing it would probably stop wherever the dogs’ bodies had been loaded into a vehicle, but she had to know for sure.
The old man moved faster than Lacey would ever have imagined, jumping in front of her and cutting her off. “You cops can’t just go wanderin’ around wherever you want. I know my rights!”
“I’m not a cop,” Lacey told him.
At times like these, it was probably a good thing she didn’t own a gun. Lacey shoved past the man without waiting for Wendy or any of the other officers to intercede. She didn’t need their help to deal with a piece of crud like this. She despised people who abused animals, and the anger she felt made her fearless.
She followed the trail of blood until it stopped cold at the edge of a gravel road that circled around the property. Behind her, Wendy was arguing with the old man, but Lacey tuned them out, more interested in the separate trail of blood heading off to the left. She broke into a run, ignoring the caretaker shouting at her to stop and Wendy urging her to slow down.
Lacey was moving so fast she almost missed the sudden right turn the trail made. She quickly doubled back and saw that the blood disappeared under the back end of a Honda Accord. She held up her hand, motioning everyone else back, then dropped to her knees and leaned forward to get a look under the car. Her heart broke at the sight of the three pit bulls she found there, bloody and savaged beyond belief. Only one of the dogs was even conscious, and he growled at her in a menacing tone.
“Easy there, big boy,” she whispered. “I’m here to help you guys, I promise.”
