Greyson (The K9 Files) - Dale Mayer Page 0,27

and miss something. “I’ll call in a minute,” she said.

He chuckled. “You make a great sidekick.”

“Not exactly what I was going for in life,” she said drily.

He nodded and smiled. “You could do much better.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “So far you and the dog have teamed up to save my son’s life and mine. And speaking of which”—she spied the dog as she laid on the grass beside them—“I never got the rope.” She quickly went to the garage and picked up a bundle she remembered being there, although it was more of a braided cord. While here, she placed a quick call to 9-1-1, then returned to the scenario outside. “This is all I have,” she said quietly and set the rope next to him.

He looked up from taking photographs of the guy’s phone screen. Then he connected the two phones with a cord.

She frowned and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Transferring contact information,” he said, just above a whisper, as he reached out for the braided cord and quickly created a loop at one end. Walking over to the dog, he sat down, and, with the loop up over his shoulder, he reached out and gently scratched the dog on the back of the neck. In a smooth move that she’d never seen before, he lowered the loop down his arm and very quickly around the dog’s neck. With Kona now on a rough leash, she seemed to understand and behaved more like a War Dog, Jessica presumed.

When Greyson stood and commanded the dog to come, the dog walked toward them. When he told her to heel, she went around his back and sat on his right side. Greyson reached down and gave several rewarding scratches and reinforcement to Kona.

Jessica shook her head. “I’m really glad you got her,” she said. In the distance she heard sirens, and she groaned. “Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you. I also called the cops.”

He nodded. Walking back to where the phones were, he gave a small sound of satisfaction and quickly disconnected them, putting the guy’s phone back in his pocket, then sat down on the veranda step beside the stalker as Greyson sent those contacts to Badger to cull through.

Once her attacker came to, lying between Greyson and Kona, he knew he was caught. When he heard the sirens, he panicked. “I’ll give you money to let me go,” he hissed, then he stayed silent.

“I’m sure you would,” she snapped, “but you’ve been stalking me and my son, making our lives miserable for a long time now.”

He shrugged. “The money was good.”

“Yeah? Who’s paying you? That’s what I want to know,” she said.

He gave her a half a smile. And, from the position he was in, facedown on the wooden veranda, it was a pretty strong caricature of a real smile.

When the cops pulled up out front, she headed to the front door. Before long, two policemen were out on the rear veranda with them. They looked at the scenario. One pushed his hat back and said, “Well, well, well. We’ve had rumors of somebody skulking around this area.”

“Well, now the rumors are a whole lot more than that,” Greyson said. “We caught him trying to attack Jessica on her veranda here, while holding her son.” Greyson motioned to Kona, who sat at his feet. “Kona here stopped him.”

“We have to get statements from you two,” he said, “but first I’ll get this guy into the car.” He helped him to his feet, then led him around the side of the house.

The second cop brought out his notepad and started asking questions as he jotted down notes.

There wasn’t a whole lot they could say, and she noticed that Greyson kept his words very simple. He didn’t say anything about the dog being here on its own, so she followed his lead, saying that she had felt like she was being watched several times. She had talked to her mother and her sister about it but hadn’t called the police because she didn’t know what to tell them.

“Well, this is the best-case scenario,” the cop said. “You’ve caught your stalker. So we’ll take him down to the station and charge him. I will need you to come in and sign statements tomorrow though.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “I can come in the morning, if that’s okay.”

“That sounds good,” he said, and he headed around the house to the front yard.

She turned to look at Greyson, relief washing through