The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,132

hate thinking about it, about an animal that can’t help itself. I hate it so much.”

“The good thing is that it prepared me to deal with a menacing brute like Scipio. Do you realize he actually tried to put his paw in my mouth when we were asleep? No. Do not get that look on your face. It was not cute.”

“Of course not,” Tean murmured. “To answer your question, I don’t think so. I mean, the kennel is clean and well maintained, no evidence of distress—clawing, chewing, trying to force the door. There’s no sign of urine or feces. I think he’s just had the dog sleep in here for a long time, and he probably keeps the door closed. That’s why the smell is so strong.”

Tean finished the sentence by closing the door, and Jem could breathe easier when it was just the cheesy-potato-chip funk again. They moved into the master bedroom, and they searched it, balancing speed against efficiency. The bathroom was a grim, older single man’s bathroom: shaving cream and a bag of disposable razors; a toothbrush with flattened bristles; a tube of Equate toothpaste; a bag of single-use flossers.

“I should buy him some lotion,” Jem said.

“I should buy him some bleach,” Tean said.

The basement was the last place they checked. It was small—a portion of the house must have been built on a slab—and it contained several shelves of canned food, an enormous plastic barrel full of water, and storage totes. They opened the totes to get a quick look, but it looked like the usual family memorabilia: photographs, schoolwork, a vacuum-packed wedding dress, soccer trophies awkwardly nested.

“I think those trophy girls are scissoring each other,” Jem said.

Tean snapped the tote’s lid back into place. Then he let out a sharp, frustrated breath. “I don’t understand. There’s nothing here.”

“Well, we don’t know that he killed her. We don’t know that they struggled.” Jem shrugged. “Even if we go with your theory, there’s not any reason to expect evidence here. You said she showed up, he drove her out to Sievers’s place, and Sievers killed her. I mean, it would have been nice to find a signed confession or an IOU to Sievers or blackmail pictures of Leroy dancing the can-can, but the reality is that she could have walked into the house, hung out five minutes, and left with her dad. That’s not going to leave any evidence.”

“Yes,” Tean said. “But where are the dog toys?”

“What?”

After digging around in his pocket for a moment, Tean produced the synthetic stuffing. “Where are the dog toys?”

Jem hesitated. “Maybe that was the last one.”

“You’ve seen my house. You’ve seen the toy basket. And I’m relatively level-headed when it comes to my dog—”

Jem made a slight catching noise.

“—so where are the rest of the toys?”

“I don’t know. Ok. It’s weird. I’ll give you that.”

“And something else. Something else is weird.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. There’s just something weird.”

“Ok. I got kind of, um, focused on other stuff when we went in the dog’s room. Let’s go look through the house again. Quick.”

They moved upstairs, and this time, they split up. Tean headed to the back of the house. Jem worked his way through the living room, tossing the cushions off the couch, replacing them, rifling the DVD cabinet in the entertainment center. He gave the wall of photographs a cursory look.

“Tean!”

Rapid footsteps. “Yes? What? Are you ok?”

“I need a drink of water.”

Tean pushed his glasses back into place and sounded like he was struggling to control his breathing. “Jem, I thought you were—”

“Humans.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t have any pictures of people. Not anywhere. Not in the whole house.”

For a moment, Tean’s face was blank. Then he nodded. “But there are people in those pictures.”

“No, there are people in the background. The pictures are of animals.”

“That’s what I couldn’t figure out,” Tean said, the words tumbling out with his excitement. “That’s what didn’t make any sense. He talked about his rescue operations. He talked about taking care of animals. But all he’s got is a kennel and a food and water bowl. He doesn’t have any dog toys. He doesn’t have a fenced yard. He doesn’t have any sign that other animals have been here, not even temporarily. If you’ve been to an animal hoarder’s house, they’re full of cages, bowls, perches, cat mansions. Where is all that stuff?”

“Maybe he’s not an animal hoarder,” Jem said.

Tean gestured at the photographs.

“Those could be old,” Jem said.

“Nobody has that many animals at one point in their life