Ransom X

  *****

  Wagner heard the attacker coming through the trees, along with the shriek from Darci. She acted on reflex, taking long fluid strides over the uneven ground, and yet somehow launching herself gracefully into the pile, gun drawn, screaming. “Federal Agent, I’m armed.”

  This was all academy training, but nothing in her experience had prepared her for what was at the bottom of the scrum. The attacker hadn’t cared in the least that she was FBI or that she was armed. Her shoulder struck the attacker and her gun hand brushed against a sagging coat of warm soft fur, heaving the animal off of Darci and sending him skidding down the slope.

  The animal snapped its jaws at his attacker, drawing blood on the fleshy part below Wagner’s chin, inches from her throat. She could tell that its jaws had the power to send a lot more than the trickle of blood running down the ridge of her collarbone.

  Wagner pulled Darci off of her knees, “Are you bleeding?”

  Darci looked like she was about to cry, looking at the three deep marks across her midsection where the animal had raked its claws. Darci couldn’t answer, she was frozen and had gone sheet white. She held out her hand, covered in blood. It was like she wanted Wagner to verify something she couldn’t bring herself to believe.

  The flailing dog finally regained traction, skidding to a stop far below. It quickly began circling outward looking for a safe, fast way back up the ridge to its prey. Wagner judged the distance to the nearest building and began tugging on Darci to follow. Her legs moved like concrete stilts, stiff and heavy.

  Wagner heard a yelp, and then the sound of running. The dog had found its trail.

  They were halfway across the clearing, nearly to a small 8 by 10 enclosure when the dog broke from the dark underbrush. Forty yards were gobbled in half. According to the shadows created innocently from the lamppost light, the heads of the women were almost touching the bloodstained teeth of the dog.

  The snarling beast was ten yards away when Wagner pushed on the door. It didn’t budge and, much worse, the gun which was in her hand dropped from the effort. She knew it was too late to pick it up and take aim on the dog. Wagner had made a huge mistake by not simply waiting for the dog at the clearing’s edge, putting a bullet in the chest to slow its breathing then walking up and putting a second in the brain. It hardly deserved a bullet in the brain for protecting its home, but looking at the situation she was in now, she saw the error clearly.

  Her mind raced trying to make up for her body’s error. There was something strange about the rough-hewn door, something that didn’t fit the measure of its utility or perhaps some detail that would give her leverage – then she saw it. The hinges were visible on the outside of the door. Most hinges are on the inside so that nobody can simply remove the door and enter the house. It makes the usual swing of a door inward. This door swung outward, making her original push ineffective. She took a deep breath and pulled. It flapped open, banging against the exterior wall, bringing the other occupant of the room to his feet. This was the dog’s house; there were bars on the windows and the door swung outward because it was built to keep things inside, not discourage entrance from the outside. Wagner had hoped to pull the door shut once entering, but the surprise of finding another dog waiting on the inside had cut her enthusiasm for being locked inside the room. The two dogs growled and circled the women.

  Wagner couldn’t stop thinking about the defensive wound patterns that the ME would examine on her body post-mortem. What a strange image to take into forever land. There was a hint of a smile on Wagner’s lips, she hoped that it would linger, and that someone would have to guess what in this terrible situation had put it there.