“Hardly. It was probably a sophisticated cocktail of drugs your friend had, and Versed was a part of it. We don’t need or use such drugs for animals, only painkillers, not ones that kill the memory. So, where is this going?”

“Obviously nowhere,” Gabe said, noting that Dane showed no particular reaction to the mention of an amnesia drug. “I actually came today to tell you someone’s been harassing Tess Lockwood by putting one of John Hillman’s taxidermy dogs on her back porch. It belonged to Jonas Simons. I just wondered if you ever treated this dog.”

“The Simons boys—all three of them—don’t get their dogs treated, neutered, nothing, though I have sewn up a couple of wounds from fights they had with coons.”

“Or fights with each other?”

Dane shrugged and looked away. He started to straighten items on his counter, dropping scissors into some sort of sterile bath, his rubber gloves into a waste bin he opened with a foot pedal. He let the bin slam closed.

“I don’t know about the dogs fighting each other,” Dane said, obviously trying to keep his temper in check. That’s the way Gabe liked it: let them get riled.

“But,” Dane went on, gesturing more broadly as if that would convince him, “I did not harass Tess Lockwood by putting a mounted pit bull on her back porch, if that’s what you’re implying. Sheriff, are you still on a mission to pull me into her case, or any of the others? You know I had an alibi from when Teresa Lockwood was taken, so give it up.”

“I know both you and Dr. Linda Stevens said you were going to see her and that you arrived, visited awhile and headed back. A single witness, a friend or more than a friend.”

“Just leave her out of this! And Marva said you went to see her at the spa. Make a case, Sheriff, or get out of my life. Unless you have a search warrant, and want to go looking for lost little girls in these drawers or cupboards, get out of my examining room!”

“Thanks for your cooperation, Dane. I’ll be seeing you,” he said, and walked out.

* * *

After Gabe called Tess to tell her to be ready in half an hour, he walked into the police station with the pit bull in his arms. He put the dog down on Ann’s desk.

“You tagged this and entered it in evidence,” he said, “but forgot to tell me who owned it.”

Her cheeks colored. She didn’t meet his eyes, staring at her computer screen as if she’d read her next words there.

“If you mean it might belong to my brother, I wasn’t sure. Lots of people have pit bulls.”

“Recently dead ones mounted by a local taxidermist? I hear his name was Sikkem.”

“I thought it might be, but I wasn’t sure. You don’t hire me to solve cases. You didn’t ask. You haven’t asked me anything of importance lately.”

He ignored that barb. All he needed was her brothers tampering with Tess’s confidence, complicating his investigation by leaving terror presents on her back porch.

“Are we adversaries now, when I need my entire staff to pull together at this time—all times, Ann?”

“I don’t want to be your enemy. You’re the one backing off, getting confused, getting too close to a witness and victim.”

“She’s helping me. I have to be able to trust you.”

Ann started to say something else but shut her mouth and bit her lower lip.

Keeping his voice calm, Gabe gave her instructions. “Please phone Jonas and tell him I’d like him to stop by my office before work tomorrow morning. Ann,” he added, putting his hand around her wrist as she started to write that down as if she would not remember it, “I’d like for us to be friends.”

“Strange how that word can hurt—friends. And please take that dog off my desk. I hate dogs. I’ve always hated their dogs.”

“It must have been painful to watch your brothers pit their dogs against each other.”

“I don’t know what you mean. And if I did ever see a dogfight, it wasn’t as bad as when people fight.”

He picked up the dog. “Tell Jonas he still owes John Hillman for his work, but, if he wants it, he has to pick up the dog here.”

Gabe ignored whatever Ann was muttering as he walked back to his office with the dead dog in his arms. He felt he was getting nowhere fast, but at least he hadn’t turned up any human bodies—yet.

16

On the highway to Chillicothe, Tess started to realize what else it meant to be a law enforcement officer, besides being on call all the time. Cars slowed down when they saw Gabe’s vehicle, though they were going the speed limit. Even huge semis moved out of their way, as if Gabe had the siren and light bar on. It was a strange kind of power she’d never experienced, though she was familiar with the feeling that people were looking at her. Yet everything about being with this man seemed new and amazing. Since she felt safe bouncing her deepest fears off him, she’d decided to share something else she was agonizing over.

“Gabe, I found something disturbing in one of the books Miss Etta loaned me. It’s called Stockholm syndrome. It means that sometimes hostages express sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors. They’re so grateful to be fed and kept alive that they come to need and like—even love—their abductors. Is that insane or what?”

“Sounds crazy, but it happens. Do you think it figures in what happened to you?”

“I’m not sure, but it makes me wonder if that could be a reason I can’t remember things. Could there be someone I think well of now who took me and hurt me years ago? I like almost everyone in Cold Creek except Dane and Bright Star Monson—which I realize doesn’t narrow suspects down one bit for you. And,” she added, eager not to dwell on the subject, “I meant to tell you I called my sister Char out in New Mexico and asked her if Mom and Dad ever used the word smacking when they punished us. She’d never heard it and had no memory of a scarecrow either. She about had a fit when I admitted I’d been thinking of calling our father.”

“I’m sure your mother and sisters were hurt by his desertion. As the youngest, you maybe don’t remember too much about it.”

“We were all devastated. I remember that. He must have been really upset or bitter about something to leave. I know he partly blamed Mom for not keeping me with her the day I was taken, but Kate and Char hinted it was more. I know all the jokes about traveling salesmen, but I never heard he had someone else. He met the woman he married out west after he moved there.”

“Yeah. Well, it might be rough to talk to him after all this time. You might want to put it off.”

She pulled her seat belt out a bit and turned toward him. “Gabe, he was never under suspicion for taking me himself to get back at my mother for something, right?”

Gabe looked as if she’d hit him. His eyes widened, his nostrils flared. He didn’t look at her but kept his eyes on the road. “Vic Reingold and my father considered it. But they decided no.”

“He had an alibi?”

“There were rumors he’d been out of town, but he’d gone for a walk near the falls. He took off work that day and wasn’t traveling. He told Vic, who interviewed him, he had some tough things to decide about his marriage. The parents are always looked at immediately in abuse or kidnap cases, but Vic believed him.”

“Your father did too?”

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence stretched between them. She thought he was going to say something more, but he didn’t, so she continued, “Anyway, it was great to talk to Char. She’s always good at calming me down. It’s the social worker in her. Kate says she’s a bleeding heart. Kate’s a lot more ticked off that Mom left the house to me alone, but they’re both still supportive in their way.”

“There are advantages and disadvantages to being an only child, like me. The youngest kid, the middle kid, the oldest and in between can all have problems, but when you’re the only kid, it’s all on you. You’re the firstborn, but you’re always the baby too.”