“I wonder though,” he said. “It’s possible, but, as I don’t know what set it off in the first place, I don’t know how to explain whether it would happen again or not.”
“I don’t think it would happen again,” she said. “By the time my parents went for a holiday, my sister thoroughly hated the dog, and the poor thing’s life was not great. I didn’t know who I was supposed to complain to. I kept interfering, but I don’t live at home, and my parents just had enough, and they left Bernie with Bernie. I don’t know what happened after that.”
“So there was a bad situation, which they couldn’t handle, and they just walked?” he asked incredulously.
She looked at him, and then, not knowing what else to do, she answered with the truth. “Yes.”
Chapter 2
“I get that this probably makes my parents not seem very responsible,” Addie said hesitantly, feeling disloyal again.
“It sounds like a recipe for disaster,” he said shortly. “They brought an animal into this scenario, and they could easily have contacted the War Dog Division and returned her.”
She thought about that and then said, “And I don’t know why they didn’t do that.”
“Well, if they didn’t have the guts to deal with your sister, they probably didn’t want to admit that it was a mistake.”
“Maybe,” she said, hating to frame her parents in this exact way. “They’re not bad people. They’re just … ineffective?” she said unhappily.
“Does that make it any better?”
“No,” she said, “but the problem is, I don’t know how to help the dog now. I didn’t know how to help her back then either,” she said, throwing out her hands. “I’ve hardly even slept since this happened. All my sister wants is for the dog to be dead, and it makes her happy every time I get upset about it.”
“Because she wants to see you suffer?”
“Maybe,” she said quietly, “that would be in line with my sister.”
“She sounds like a psychopath,” he said in a short answer.
“Well, I hope not,” she said, “because we do share blood, and I’d hate to think I was the same.”
“I don’t think sharing blood has anything to do with it,” he said. “Sometimes people like that just don’t care about anything but what they want, and they thrive on other people’s wounds.”
“Doesn’t make her sound very nice at all,” she said, hating the entire conversation. She stood and said, “Look. I don’t want to talk about my family like this.”
“No, you don’t have to,” he said, “but, if you’ve got anything inside you that wants to see this situation rectified,” he said, “you need to help me get her out of here.”
“And I said I would, but I was hoping you had a methodology that would work legally.”
“Not sure yet,” he said thoughtfully. “I need to talk to your sister.”
She winced. “Do you have to?”
“She’s the one who raised the complaint, so I’ll say yes,” he said. “I also need to get the full file. And, so far I’m not sure if anybody here will be cooperative, and I’ll have to get some legal push to do that.”
“I’d like to see the file myself,” she admitted, “because I don’t know what doctor she went to.”
“Well, there have to be photographs, and there has to be a doctor’s report about how bad the injury was,” he said. “I’d like to see all that. In fact, I would like to see the wound now.”
“I don’t think you’ll be seeing that at all,” she snapped. “My sister will not show me, so she certainly won’t show you.”
“Who’s looking after the bandage and draining the wound and taking care of all the medical stuff?” he asked, hopping to his feet.
She tilted her head, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“The wound’s supposed to be bad,” he said, “as in she was hospitalized or got stitches, as in somebody needs to be caring for it. Does she have a home care nurse? Does she go to the doctor? What is she doing?”
She stopped, stared, and then said, “I don’t live with her, so I’m not exactly sure,” she said cautiously. “But I don’t remember hearing anything about it.”
“So let me ask you point-blank,” he said. “Does she even have a bite?”
She stared, hating that he was bringing out her worst fears. The one she’d flung at the neighbor. “Well …” Then she froze. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen it.”
“What are the chances that your sister’s just a liar, hating the dog, and delighted that it’ll get put to sleep but needed to force it to be put to sleep, so created this whole mess as a fabrication?”
“It’s possible,” she said, “but I would hate to think so.”
“Well, you might hate to think so,” he said, “but I don’t want to see an innocent dog go to its death because of a selfish vindictive woman with no boundaries.”
And Addie knew that she’d taken a trip down a rabbit hole that wouldn’t have an easy ending.
He reached down, gently stroked the top of Bernie’s head, and said, “I’ll be back, sweetie.”
The dog barked at him once.
He nodded. “Let me see if I can get some legal paperwork done fast.”
Tucker quickly took several photos of Bernie, and, as he stood here, leaning against the cage, he sent off messages to Badger and his sister. The ones to Badger were all about paperwork. We need legal backing, and we need help. It could be that the entire thing was faked. Need a copy of the doctor’s file.
Interesting came Badger’s response. We’re on it, but, given the time frame, do what you can from there.
As Tucker put away his phone, he stepped out and closed the gate, looked back at the dog, who stared at him with that fixed look in her eyes. “I’ll be back, Bernie,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of here.”
He watched as Addie walked ahead of him. “I don’t know about that,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “It’s just a shitty situation.”
“With shitty people involved apparently.”
She swallowed, knowing that she’d given such a horrible impression about her family, but, at the same time, she no longer knew what to believe. “If my sister did fabricate all this,” she said, “can we save the dog’s life?”
“If we can prove it was all fake, yes,” he said, “but, in the meantime, we have almost no time to do anything.”
“What about a stay order?”
“We could, but it depends on the manager here. He didn’t seem too cooperative.”
Out at the front reception desk, Wendy looked up, smiled at her, and said, “Oh, I see you two met each other.”
“Yes,” she said.
At that, he stepped forward and said, “I need a copy of the doctor’s report.”