“I’ll talk to Hansen about getting him to sign some bullshit document,” Faith replied.
“Or we can just get his adoption application from the Plano shelter,” Jessica suggested.
Faith’s lips thinned.“Right.That would be easier.”
Jessica looked at Faith, and before she could ask,are you okay?Faith got to her feet.“I want to know more about Linda Hale.And Matthew Brooks.We know that Sarah was involved with adoptions.I want to know if the other two were as well.If not, then maybe they all interacted with the same dog in the past, and the connection is with that dog’s owner.Whatever’s happening here is about judgment.Wild MO or not, this killer is executing them.Killer, murderer, slayer… this is their punishment for taking lives.They all have reputations for being very adamantlyagainstkilling animals, so I think this is about a specific animal that they couldn’t or wouldn’t save.”
“I’ll start gathering some info,” Jessica said.“Maybe you and Turk can go grab us breakfast and coffee.”
What she was really saying was, You need coffee.I’ll handle this.Faith didn’t feel wonderful about being pushed aside, even for a few minutes, but she just so happened to agree with Jessica this time.
“I’ll leave Turk here,” she replied.
Turk whined, hurt that Faith didn’t want him with her.“Keep looking for clues, Turk.Just because we don’t have any good leads now doesn’t mean there aren’t any to find.”
Turk whined again, but he trotted off and put his nose to the ground anyway.Faith headed out of the shelter.The air outside was warming now, and the gray haze of dawn had receded in favor of the brilliant blue of morning.
The fog in Faith’s mind remained.
She looked up a breakfast café and found one three blocks from the shelter.She decided to walk rather than drive.Maybe some time in fresh air would clear her head.
Her phone buzzed as she left the shelter’s parking lot.David.Morning, Faith.Miss you.
The short message was followed by a heart emoji.Emotion flooded Faith, love, frustration, anger, fear.She marked the message as read and didn’t text back.She needed to get her thoughts in order before she talked to David again.
And she needed to set her worries aside and focus on this case before more innocent people were brutally murdered by this vindictive killer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She deserved it.All of them did.It wasn’t fair that they could pull that kind of bullshit and not suffer for it.
The killer repeated this to himself as he tapped his steering wheel and watched from the parking lot as volunteers for the Arlington Animal Sanctuary spoke to a few dozen parkgoers about their adoption drive.Nine pups sat in front of them, wagging their tails and looking hopefully at the parkgoers.Maybe one of them would give them their forever home.
He scoffed.These dogs would find forever homes.They’d be fine.They weren’t damaged.They were pretty too.Shiny fur, bright eyes, probably perfect teeth, good muscle tone, almost definitely no scars.And so well-behaved.
Yeah, they’d be okay.They were the supermodels of the dog world, posing for the camera with moist eyes leaving a caption on their Instagram photos that read,need someone to hold me.People would fall all over themselves for dogs like that.
Sure enough, as he watched, a young couple with a small child, maybe three or four, approached a Dalmatian that sat near the end of the line.The young Dalmatian perked up, wagging its tail furiously and staring at the little girl eagerly.The girl reached gingerly forward and stroked the dog’s fur.The dog licked her wrist, and she jerked her hand back.For a moment, the killer thought she was afraid, but then she began to jump up and down and turned to her parents.She was beaming.
Five minutes later, the volunteers handed the girl’s father a leash.The little girl hugged the dog tightly around the neck and kissed him softly on the cheek.The dog was literally shaking with excitement.It ran in a circle around the family, leaping at both parents before stopping next to the girl and laying its head gently on her chest.
One big happy family.
The killer started the engine of his ten-year-old Mazda 3 and pulled out of the lot.Traffic in Arlington was always present but not as bad as Dallas or Fort Worth except on the interstates.He stayed off the freeways and allowed the slow but steady drive through the city to calm him.
It wasn’t fair.Just because someone had suffered didn’t mean they were less deserving of love.Just because someone was scarred didn’t mean they were broken.Hunter could have found a family.Even if he couldn’t take care of Hunter anymore, there were other families who could have given him a home.He could have had a chance to live a normal life, at least for his twilight years.
His hands tightened around the wheel.Goddamned fake healers.Liars.They smiled at people in their brightly colored t-shirts and soft faces.They talked about how dogs needed homes, how so many shelter dogs were just “misunderstood”, and with the right home, they could be just as loyal and wonderful and perfect as any dog from a breeder.
“So, bring ‘em out,” he said.“Bring out the misunderstood dogs.Let people see ‘em.Advocate for them.Not the pretty ones that look like they walked off the cover of a magazine.”The light turned green and he accelerated smoothly from the stop, barely noticing the BMW that rocketed past him and cut him off.“And that Dalmatian was purebred.”
The BMW, perhaps disappointed at not getting a reaction from the Mazda, sped forward and cut off a Camry next.The Camry driver fell for the bait, speeding up to try to get around the sedan.Both vehicles ran the red light and narrowly avoided getting t-boned by an F350.The truck laid on its horn, and the driver rolled down his window and shouted, “Fucking idiots!”at the two sedans.
The killer turned right at the next street, keeping a respectful distance behind the riled-up Super Duty. His fingers tightened around the wheel once more when he passed the Arlington Animal Sanctuary, but he kept his eyes stoically forward, not allowing himself so much as a glance at the place.Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the police vehicles parked in the outer corners of the parking lot.
They had increased security.They knew that the killer was attacking animal shelter workers, and they had responded by bringing police officers to deter any more murders.Or the police had taken it on themselves to send officers to the location.
Either way, that complicated things.The killer liked leaving his victims near the animals they helped.It was a bit of revenge for the animals they refused to help, the ones they allowed to die instead.Their perfect, “proper” dogs got to see them die.
