“That’s pretty sad. These dogs give their lives for the military,” his grandfather said. “You’d like to think that they had a decent retirement package for their service too.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Greyson said with a laugh. “But it’s never that easy. You know that.”
“I know,” his grandfather said with a big roll of his eyes. “We’re doing nothing but retirement planning.”
“And here I thought you had already retired,” he teased.
“Well, I’m definitely retired, but that doesn’t mean that I planned it all that well. The high property prices in New York when we sold helped, and we definitely bought something a lot smaller here, so we’re just fine. But you know—now that you are on a pension too—there’s never that much to spare. And, depending on how our health goes, it could get ugly at the end.”
Greyson nodded. “That’s the one thing I do get covered,” he said. “Yet I feel like I’ve already done the ugly part, and now I’m looking at finding a second wave of life again.”
“You’ll find it,” his grandfather said. “Just have some trust.”
“Do you know anything about the local rescue center around here?”
“Nope. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” he said. “Do you know where it is?”
Greyson brought up his cell and checked his GPS app. “According to this, it’s only about fifteen minutes away.”
“Well, it’s in the same direction we’re headed. Just a side trip,” his grandfather said, as he glanced at the GPS map on Greyson’s screen. “Do you want to hit that before we head home?”
“That would be great, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ll need to pick up a rental, so I can travel around the island looking for this dog. But I figured it could wait until tomorrow.”
“No need to do that,” his grandfather said. “We have two vehicles.”
“No,” he said. “That’s not necessary. I can rent one.”
“That’s just insulting,” his grandfather stated adamantly. “We have two we’re hardly using anyway. I haven’t done much driving around at all. What’s the point? We have everything we want within walking distance. You can take one of our vehicles.” His voice was firm. “If you feel like you need to pay for it, you can take us out for a meal.”
“Well, that was a given anyway,” he said with a laugh. “Anybody got any luaus around here?”
“One of the local restaurants down on the beach around the corner from our place does a big one. Not sure if any are scheduled for this next week though.”
“We’ll find out,” Greyson said. “That would be an enjoyable dinner.”
“It’s always a good time,” his grandfather said. They drove in companionable silence, interspersed with talking about everything and nothing, when his grandfather pointed to a sign on the street. “I think that’s the exit we want, isn’t it?” Just then the GPS gave instructions to take that exit.
“You’re doing pretty good, Grandpa. You’re ahead of the GPS.”
“Stupid computer things,” his grandfather said with a shake of his head. “That’s why so many old people have dementia now. We stopped using our brain cells.”
Greyson laughed. “I don’t think your brain cells are in any danger of dying anytime soon.”
“I hope not,” he said. “I’m seventy-four now, and I’d love to see another ten, fifteen years.”
“In good health with enough money and your own home and a great climate, absolutely,” Greyson said. “I’d think that would be very doable.”
Taking the exit, they turned the corner into another small suburban area. After driving through that, they came out on the other side to what looked like much more of a countryside community, more spacious. Up ahead was a rescue center sign. His grandfather parked in front of the building. “I’m coming with you,” he said.
The two men hopped out of the truck, and Greyson walked in to talk to the woman across the counter. She appeared to be the only one on staff, and she was looking a little harried.
She looked up, frowned, and asked, “May I help you?”
“I’m here on behalf of the War Dogs department,” he said. “I believe you were holding the dog that had been accidently shipped here, until transport details could be arranged to ship her back to Denver.”
“Right,” she said, shaking her head. “We haven’t had a dog lost or stolen in all our years, and now we’ve got a high-profile animal that we’re trying to help out in a spot, and, sure enough, it goes missing.”
“Goes missing?” Greyson pounced. “So was it stolen, did it jump out, did somebody accidentally leave a gate open? What happened?” He held up his hand at the woman’s affronted look. “Believe me. I’m not accusing anybody,” he said. “I’m here to do my best to track down the dog and to make sure it’s okay.”
Some of the stiffness left the woman’s shoulders. She nodded. “We don’t have a clue,” she said. “Nobody saw what happened. We had one dog in that run and one dog in the next one. Only the one was taken.”
“Okay,” he said, “that’s good to know. But no sign of the missing one?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing at all. And that was pretty frustrating too. We’re not in the business of losing dogs.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “So what can you tell me,” he said, “from start to finish.”
“Let’s see. The dog came crated and was delivered at four o’clock in the afternoon. We took it out into a run, gave it some food, water, and a bit of exercise. We were here through six o’clock. All the security was checked at the time. No, we don’t have cameras. We don’t have anything other than a basic alarm, and, no, there’s no alarm on the dog runs.”
“Right.” He stopped, turned, and looked around, noting a sleepy-town atmosphere to the place. “Did anybody know? Was there any fanfare, like media coverage or anything like that?”
She shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. No.”
“How was the dog? Socially?”
She looked at him, clearly puzzled.
“Was he aggressive or cranky?”
“She,” the woman said with emphasis, “was calm, patient, and well-behaved. She drank some water but then went and laid down in the run.”
“You didn’t have any trouble with her? She wasn’t difficult to approach?”
“No, not at all,” she said. “And I can see that may have been part of the problem. It looks like, you know, if somebody wanted to, they could have come up and spoken to her and even potentially stolen her.”
“Now this was a Malinois-shepherd cross,” he said, “so it looks like a fairly intimidating dog.”
“That was my concern going in,” she said. “I don’t know why anybody would want a dog like that, unless they wanted it for a watchdog or a guard dog.”
“It’s possible,” he said. “Do you ever get any theft or crime around here? Have you had any other animals stolen?”