Greyson (The K9 Files) - Dale Mayer Page 0,28

her. “That went better than I expected.”

“Sometimes,” he said with a gentle smile, “when you keep your words to a minimum, things go smoother.” He frowned, then cocked his head to the side.

“Now what?” She couldn’t hear anything. She watched as Greyson and Kona walked to the side of the house, listening intently. Finally he looked at her and said, “They haven’t driven away,” he said. He and the dog walked farther. Greyson added, “I’ll go out front.”

Jessica went inside, closed the glass doors, and locked them. Then darted to look out the front window. Sure enough, the cop car was still sitting in her front yard. As she stepped out the front door, Greyson and Kona came around the side, and she watched Kona’s coat immediately bristle, as a growl came from the back of her throat. Jessica came around the front porch to see one cop lying unconscious on the driveway and, on the other side, where Greyson was, lay the other cop. But the guy from her backyard was nowhere to be found.

She stared at Greyson in horror, as he knelt beside the first, then the second cop, checking both men’s condition.

Grim faced, he pulled out his phone and made calls. Kona wouldn’t calm down at all. The ridge on the back of her neck was up, and she paced back and forth, as far as the rope would let her.

“It’s almost like she knows where he’s gone,” she said.

“She could very well be a tracking dog,” he said. “I haven’t looked into her skills that much, but I won’t leave you alone with two unconscious cops and a stalker on the loose.”

“I think he’s well past a stalker now,” she said. “He’s assaulted and knocked out two cops and escaped. That should get him a much higher priority on the attention list.”

“Hopefully,” he said, nodding. “But we have to wait here for the next round of cops to come and the ambulance.”

She winced at that. “Meanwhile he’s getting away,” she said bitterly. “Which means he can come back to the house at any time.”

He hesitated but nodded. “Let’s hope the cops decide to post a guard for you.”

“It’s a small department,” she said, “and I know that they’re running into budget trouble. They’ve requested two more officers, but I don’t think they got them.”

He winced at that. “Right. So it looks like Kona and I will be on guard duty then.”

She stared at him in shock. “You’d do that?”

“Well, this guy will come back, just like you said, and that’s not something I can leave you to deal with in good conscience. Better if I could start tracking him now though.”

Just then they heard sirens. This time two cop cars came with the ambulance. Everybody immediately raced toward them, and, within minutes, both unconscious cops were examined, loaded up, and taken away in the ambulance.

Two very angry cops glared at the two of them. Greyson reached out, grabbed her hand, and tugged her closer, then whispered, “Let me explain.” He proceeded to give the police a very clear, albeit slightly skinny version of what had happened. When he said the second man headed out to the front to the driveway, and they didn’t hear the sound of the vehicle, he went out to check and found both cops like this. She nodded in agreement.

“So, you have no idea which direction the assailant went?”

She shook her head. “No, we don’t. The dog was pretty upset, but I don’t know that she was prepared to say which direction the guy went or not.”

He looked down at the dog and said, “Has it got any skill with tracking?”

“I’m more than willing to try it out,” Greyson said. “But I have no idea.”

“Forget it,” said one of the other cops. “We need to track him on foot, and I’ve already called in a K9 unit.”

“Good.”

The other men dispersed to canvass the neighborhood.

She frowned, looked at Greyson. “They left the cop car here too.”

“Forensics will likely come,” he said. He looked around and nodded. “It’s blocking your car from getting out, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, the one day I pull into the garage …” she said with a sad smile.

“Not a problem,” he said. He looked back at the house and said, “Go check on Danny, would you?”

She bolted into the front door. She had checked on him earlier, but, knowing that the damn stalker was loose again, she couldn’t let her guard down now for sure. She cried out in relief when