“Wait. I’ll go in with you,” he called. “Just let me get unhitched so the truck isn’t hampered by this extra weight.”
“What difference does that make?”
She had paused with her hand on the doorknob and he could tell she wasn’t likely to listen to anything but the most blunt warning.
“One, we may want to make a quick getaway and the trailer will slow us down. And two, I want to check the house before you go wandering around in it.”
“Oh, please.”
Seeing her rolling her eyes and knowing what she was liable to do next, he left his unhitching task half finished and joined her on the back porch, taking the steps two at a time.
She held up her new house key. “Here. I suppose you’ll want this.”
“Thanks.” As John took the key, his hand brushed Samantha’s and a tingle shot up his arm. Did she sense the same extent of awareness he did? A quick glance at her expression hinted that she might, yet there was no smile ticking at the corners of her mouth, no typical twinkle in her dark eyes.
He eased the key ring from her hand, letting his touch linger as long as he thought he dared, and fit the key into the shiny, brass lock. Something seemed off, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it might be.
Scowling, he looked over his shoulder at Samantha. “Do you sense any problems?”
“No. Why?”
“I can’t say. It just feels wrong, somehow.”
“Probably because you’re opening my door instead of yours. This whole stupid situation feels weird to me.”
“No argument there,” John said.
He turned the knob. The door swung open. The kitchen was dimly lit, the house was quiet. He froze. Turned to Sam. Saw her understanding dawn.
They had not been greeted. There was no sign of her old, faithful dog.
Samantha pushed past him. “Brutus! Where are you? Here, Brutus. Here, boy.”
John grabbed her arm to stop her from going any farther. “No. Wait. Let me check first.”
“Let go of me. He’s my dog.”
She tried to twist free but John held her fast. “And you want to be in good enough shape to take care of him if he needs you.”
He pushed her back as he drew his gun and started from the kitchen into the hallway. “At least stay behind me.”
Samantha gave his shoulders a hard push. “Then go. Hurry. He might be hurt.”
Or worse, John thought, keeping that morbid notion to himself. If anything had happened to Sam’s dog she’d be inconsolable, and with good reason. She and Brutus had more than a long history together, they shared a difficult past that had forever tied them to each other.
Large-breed dogs like hers didn’t usually live as long as smaller ones did and the old dog might have simply laid down and gone to sleep, never to awaken. That would be bad, yes, but not nearly as hard to take as if Brutus had been the victim of the criminals who had been targeting Sam.
Her voice weakening and starting to break, she kept calling, “Brutus, Brutus,” as they made their way through the house and completed their inspection.
Back in the living room, John holstered his gun and turned to her. “I’m sorry, Sam. He’s not here.”
“He has to be. He was fine when I left him this morning. There were new locks on the doors and they haven’t been broken or tampered with. I saw you check them. So how could he get out?”
“I don’t know. Are you positive he didn’t slip past you as you were leaving this morning?”
“You picked me up. Did you see him come outside?”
“No. And he’s pretty hard to miss, especially since he usually stays so close to you.”
“Then where is he?”
The sight of tears slipping past her dark lashes and starting to trickle down her cheeks hit John like a sucker punch. He opened his arms. She stepped into his embrace.
As he held her and she wept silently, his practiced glance kept sweeping that room and the part of the hallway he could see. There had to be a clue. Something that would lead them in the right direction. Why would a criminal bother the harmless old dog, yet leave the house intact?
Reluctant to ease his hold on Sam, he nonetheless took a step back so he could look into her eyes as he spoke. “I think we may have missed something, honey. We were looking for Brutus, not other clues.”
He took her hand. “Come on. We’re going to search this place again from top to bottom. And this time, I want you to look for anything that may be different. Understand?”