more, it barked. She could have sworn it was starting to sound exasperated.
Darcy stared at the wolfdog. “You’re…trying to tell me something, aren’t you?”
The animal’s ears pricked up. It bounced like a Labrador that had just been shown a ball, tail wagging furiously.
“Maybe you’re trained to track people.” Darcy picked up the harness, offering it to the dog. “Can you find your boss, big guy? Find Fenrir?”
The wolfdog promptly parked its furry butt on the ground.
“Guess that only works in movies,” Darcy muttered. “So what are you trying to tell me?”
The wolfdog’s gaze moved downward. It was very definitely staring at the harness.
Darcy turning the harness over, running the thick elastic straps through her fingers. If Fenrir had left, why hadn’t he taken it with him? Or his dog?
Then again, maybe he couldn’t put the harness back on. Not by himself, at least. It would take a contortionist to fasten some of these buckles. They’d be right under his shoulder blades.
The more she stared at the harness, the less sense it made. Why was there a weird D-ring set into the back? Why was Thunder Mountain Hotshots written down the sides, where the words would be hidden under the wearer’s arms? And what was it for? There weren’t any holsters or clips for equipment.
She pulled the elastic between her hands. It stretched an astonishingly long way, as though it had been designed to adapt to fit anything from a large dog to a small pony. It was clearly custom-made, and no doubt expensive.
Yet the positioning of the straps was all wrong. If she hadn’t seen it stretched across Fenrir’s wide torso, she wouldn’t have thought it was meant to be worn by a human being.
“Hey, big guy,” she said slowly. “Hold still a second, okay?”
She draped the harness over the wolfdog’s back. The animal’s tail picked up speed, but the rest of it stayed motionless. It sat meekly as she fumbled with the straps, as though this was something it did every day.
Darcy snapped the last buckle together, and stood back to survey her handiwork. The wolfdog straightened, paws together like a soldier under inspection.
The broad yellow straps lay smoothly against the wolfdog’s back and sides. The metal ID tag winked at her, square in the middle of that furry chest. The whole harness fit perfectly, like it had been tailor-made for the animal.
Which…raised a lot more questions than it answered.
“Okay.” Darcy frowned down at the wolfdog. “There has to be a perfectly logical explanation for all this. Think, Darcy, think.”
“Woof,” the wolfdog agreed.
Fenrir had been wearing the harness when she’d found him. Only the harness. He’d mumbled about ‘his wolf’, but hadn’t seemed too bothered about the fact that it was missing. In fact, he’d seemed more worried about it coming back.
Now Fenrir had vanished into thin air, and the wolfdog had appeared out of nowhere. And the harness fit the wolfdog, yet Fenrir had been wearing the harness, even though it definitely didn’t fit him…
None of it made any sense. The pieces didn’t fit together. Yet she couldn’t shake a weird feeling that they did fit together, and she was just looking at the picture upside-down…
The doorbell rang, breaking her chain of thought. The wolfdog stiffened. It sprang up, nose raised, every muscle quivering. Then, in a burst of joyous barking, it raced down the hallway to scrabble at the front door.
Darcy spent a moment seriously considering whether to run out the back and keep going. Then she sighed, swiped her hair back from her face, and went to answer the door.
The wolfdog’s tail thumped against her legs as she cautiously opened the door a crack. From the animal’s obvious excitement, she expected to find Fenrir on the other side. Possibly still without pants, though hopefully with an explanation.
The people on the porch were not Fenrir. They were also, thankfully, fully dressed. All three wore sturdy work boots and thick, practical winter jackets. A big, boxy yellow vehicle stood behind them, parked on the drive. Now-familiar black letters on the side read: Thunder Mountain Hotshots.
The man at the front of the group had startling golden eyes, which did a tediously familiar double-take as they tracked down from where he’d clearly expected her head to be. Still, at least he didn’t look like he was about to ruffle her hair and ask her to fetch her mom.
“Hi.” The leader gave her a smile that was a lot warmer and more genuine than any of Lupa’s had been. “I’m Rory,