Chapter 3 - SOMEONE CAME FOR TITANTitan survived the night.
That should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Because Wesley Crane knew where he was.
Dr. Hannah Lee wanted Titan kept another twenty-four hours for observation. The venom had caused extensive swelling but, miraculously, no major tissue death. She expected a full recovery if infection didn’t set in.
I should have gone home.
Instead, I slept in a plastic chair outside his kennel.
At 6:43 the following morning, Titan woke me with a growl.
Not barking.
Not whining.
Growling.
I opened my eyes.
The hallway was dark except for the emergency lighting.
“Titan?”
His head was up.
His gaze fixed on the door leading to the supply corridor.
I stood.
The clinic didn’t open to the public until eight.
“Hannah?”
No answer.
Titan growled again.
Someone moved behind the frosted glass.
I reached for my sidearm.
The handle turned.
A man stepped inside wearing blue medical scrubs and a surgical mask.
He stopped when he saw me.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
His eyes flicked toward Titan.
Then toward my weapon.
“Wrong room.”
He backed away.
“Stop.”
He ran.
I chased him through the corridor.
He crashed through the rear emergency exit.
By the time I reached the alley, a motorcycle was roaring away.
I caught only the plate.
Or rather, the absence of one.
When I returned, Titan was trying to stand despite his injured paw.
“Easy.”
He stared toward the door.
Then I noticed something on the floor.
A syringe.
It hadn’t been there before.
Hannah picked it up with forceps twenty minutes later.
“There’s enough potassium chloride in this,” she said quietly, “to kill a dog Titan’s size within minutes.”
I felt my blood turn cold.
Crane wasn’t sending warnings anymore.
He was cleaning up evidence.
And apparently, Titan counted as evidence.
Captain Ellis arrived personally.
“So this changes things,” he said.
“It should.”
“We’re moving Titan.”
“Where?”
“Your place isn’t secure enough.”
“I know.”
“We have a training facility outside Franklin. Restricted access.”
“No.”
Ellis stared at me.
“No?”
“If someone inside law enforcement is feeding Crane information, moving Titan to a police facility tells Crane exactly where he is.”
“That’s speculation.”
“He knew the veterinary hospital.”
“That happened publicly.”
“He knew which room.”
Ellis didn’t answer.
Lena entered behind him.
“Mark may be right.”
She carried another folder.
I had begun to hate folders.
“We pulled city surveillance near Hawthorne Park,” she said. “The gray pickup entered twenty-seven minutes before Mark and Titan arrived.”
“So?”
“So Mark’s outreach assignment wasn’t public.”
Ellis frowned.
“The department posted the event.”
“After he arrived.”
Silence.
Lena continued.
“Someone knew exactly where Mark was going beforehand.”
Captain Ellis’s expression changed.
“You’re suggesting a leak.”
“I’m saying we should consider it.”
Ellis looked toward Titan.
“Fine. Where do you want him?”
Rachel Bennett answered that question for us.
“My family has a farm.”
We all turned.
She had arrived with Lucy carrying a new stuffed animal for Titan because Mr. Buttons was apparently now considered permanently assigned to police service.
Rachel stepped closer.
“Forty acres. Private road. No neighbors for half a mile.”
“No,” I said immediately.
“Why?”
“Because someone threatened your daughter.”
“And someone tried to kill the dog that saved her.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be involved.”
Her expression hardened.
“Officer Dawson, my daughter was six inches from a venomous snake that somebody may have deliberately released. I am already involved.”
She had a point.
I disliked it.
But she had one.
By noon, Titan was discharged.
We transported him in an unmarked SUV to the Bennett farm.
Lucy spent the entire ride sitting beside his crate.
Every few minutes she whispered, “Good boy.”
Titan pretended not to care.
His tail betrayed him.
The Bennett farm sat outside Leipers Fork, surrounded by woods and old horse fencing. Rachel’s husband, David, met us at the gate.
He was a broad-shouldered civil engineer with tired eyes and a handshake that suggested he wanted to thank me but didn’t know how.
Instead, he crouched beside Titan.
“You saved my kid.”
Titan sniffed him.
David swallowed.
“I owe you.”
For two quiet days, nothing happened.
Titan rested.
Lucy read books beside him.
Rachel’s social media posts slowly began changing public opinion.
Then the full park video emerged.
A teenager had recorded from another angle.
It showed everything.
Titan hitting Lucy.
The snake striking.
Titan intercepting it.
Me carrying him away.
The public mood reversed almost overnight.
Now Titan wasn’t a monster.
He was a hero.
News stations camped outside headquarters.
People mailed treats.
Children drew pictures.
Someone started a fundraiser for his veterinary bills that we had to shut down because the department covered them.
The mayor called.
Then the governor’s office.
But while the public celebrated, Lena and I investigated.
The other snake locations formed a pattern.
A school playground.
A community soccer field.
A family park.
All places heavily used by children.
Yet no child had been bitten.
Only Titan.
That bothered me.
Then Lena found something worse.
Each location had been visited by the same vehicle within forty-eight hours before the snake appeared.
Not the gray pickup.
A white county maintenance truck.
The plate belonged to the Department of Parks and Recreation.
It had been reported stolen two months earlier.
Except it hadn’t really been stolen.
The employee who filed the report was named Curtis Vane.
I knew Curtis.
He had been a sheriff’s deputy years ago.
He had also been the officer who led the failed raid on Black River Exotics.
The same raid during which Wesley Crane escaped.
“Where’s Vane now?” I asked.
Lena looked uncomfortable.
“He works contract security.”
“For who?”
“The city.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
She slid a photograph across the table.
Curtis Vane stood in a security uniform beside a familiar entrance sign.
HAWTHORNE MEMORIAL PARK.
He had been working twenty yards from us the day Titan tackled Lucy.
I remembered a man near the maintenance shed.
Dark jacket.
Baseball cap.
Watching us.
“Find him.”
“We tried.”
Lena’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then slowly looked at me.
“What?”
“His apartment’s empty.”
“Recently?”
“Very.”
“How recently?”
“Coffee still warm.”
Before I could answer, Titan began barking from the living room.
Not his normal alert.
His working bark.
I ran.
Titan stood at the front window, injured paw lifted, staring across the pasture.
A figure stood near the tree line.
Watching the house.
I drew my gun.
“Stay inside!”
The figure turned and ran.
I went after him.
Across the pasture.
Over the fence.
Into the trees.
Branches tore at my jacket.
Ahead of me, the man stumbled.
I gained ground.
Then he disappeared behind an abandoned barn.
I rounded the corner.
Nobody.
I searched the structure.
Empty.
But pinned to the wooden door with a hunting knife was a photograph.
It showed Lucy at school.
Taken that morning.
On the back were six words.
THE DOG WON’T SAVE HER TWICE.
And beneath them was a date.
October 31.
May you like
Halloween.
Four days away.
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