Part 2
Cal did not touch the camera. “Tell me why.”
“It recorded a Voss truck coming out of the watershed tract. Fresh load, a boundary blaze still on one trunk, the gate standing open.” Lena paused while pain tightened her face. “Dana knew they were using that road. I’ve brought her two complaints, and both times she told me not to open an incident.”
“That still doesn’t explain why I should remove evidence from an injured deputy.”
“It explains why I don’t want it handed to her.”
Cal glanced at the red light. Its angle had shifted when the limb fell, but the housing appeared intact. If he unclipped it now, the camera would disappear into his pack before anyone else had seen it. That was exactly why he left it where it was.
He keyed his radio instead. “Sheriff Keene, Mercer. For the record, Deputy Ortiz’s body-worn camera is present, attached to her vest, and appears to be operating. It stays with the patient through transfer. Confirm.”
Rain hissed through the pause. Dana’s answer came flat and immediate. “Confirmed.”
Lena released his sleeve. “I asked you to protect it.”
“Now everybody on this channel knows it exists.”
“Including whoever let Voss through that gate.”
“Yes.”
She looked away from him, jaw working. Under the blanket, White Paw gave a hoarse little protest and climbed over his brother. Lena steadied him with one hand while the other remained wrapped around Rook’s wet ruff.
Cal checked her toes again, more to keep his hands occupied than because anything had changed. “Start at the shelter.”
The lightning strike had killed the shelter’s aging backup heater before dawn. Animal control was already moving larger dogs to an overflow kennel, and the veterinary foster on Route 16 had agreed to take the three orphaned puppies. Lena was the only patrol unit close enough to make the transfer before the creek crossed the lower road.
Dana had sent her. Dana had also ordered her to wait for an escort at the flooded junction.
“The truck passed while I was sitting there,” Lena said. “Same red cab from the photographs Mr. Bell gave me last week. It came down from a tract Voss wasn’t authorized to touch, and one trunk still had our red boundary blaze on the bark. I switched on the camera before I turned. I thought I could get the plate, see which gate it used, and be back at the junction in a few minutes.”
“So you turned off your assigned route with three cold puppies in the car and didn’t tell dispatch.”
“If I’d told dispatch, Dana would have called me back.”
“That was the idea.”
Lena shut her eyes. Cal regretted the words but not enough to take them back. A minute later she said, “I know what I did.”
It was the first thing she had said that frightened him more than the injury. The Lena he had helped raise defended every mistake until she could repair it privately. Admission meant the pain had stripped her of the energy to hide.
The two firefighters following Cal reached them less than two minutes later. One knelt at Lena’s head while the captain marked the safest approach and relayed the equipment request. The extraction team arrived about twenty minutes after Cal’s find, hauling cribbing and a compact lifting bag while a paramedic followed with a litter. Cal gave a short report and moved where they told him. Rook had completed his work; Cal led him upslope and clipped his leash around a stout tulip poplar well away from the cutting tools.
Dana came behind the team carrying an insulated animal-services carrier against her chest. Her sheriff’s jacket was open, her silver hair soaked dark at the temples. She did not look at the camera first. She knelt in the mud and put two fingers against Lena’s cheek.
“You are a miserable sight,” she said.
Lena’s eyes filled so abruptly that she turned her face into the blanket. “Good to see you too.”
“I’m glad enough to see you that I may wait until tomorrow to fire you.”
Dana opened the warmed carrier while the animal-services technician beside her lined it with dry fleece. They moved the puppies one at a time. Blue was last. He objected weakly when Lena let go, which made Dana’s mouth soften.
“They’re going straight to Dr. Han,” she said. “You can call when they get you settled at the hospital.”
“All three?”
“All three. You kept them alive. Now let somebody else do it.”
For the first time since Cal found her, Lena’s shoulders loosened. She allowed her arms to fall open.
The firefighters built support beneath the limb before lifting it by inches. The paramedic warned Lena before every change, controlled her pain, and kept one hand at her shoulder while the team freed the boot and brought the litter alongside. Cal stayed near Rook. In the ambulance service, crowding a procedure had earned him a shoulder to the chest more than once; there was no useful place for him beside the machinery now.
Once Lena was secured, Dana walked with the litter as far as the old road. At the turn, she looked back at Cal.
“He all right?”
Rook stood with most of his weight off his right rear leg. His sides moved faster than they should have, but his eyes remained clear.
“He will be when I get him home.”
“You had the right to tell me no.”
“I know. Rook didn’t.”
Dana looked down at the dog. Then her gaze settled on the camera at Lena’s chest. It lasted less than a second, but Lena saw it. Cal saw Lena see it.
The ambulance took Lena to the regional trauma center once crews cleared the north access. In the trauma bay, a county evidence technician removed the body camera in front of a nurse, sealed it in a numbered bag, and left a signed custody receipt with Lena’s property before taking it from the room.
Imaging showed a complicated break near the ankle but no major vascular damage. Surgeons repaired it that afternoon. The puppies were gradually warmed at the veterinary clinic; Blue needed fluids and close observation, but by evening he was taking formula from a syringe.
Cal waited through the surgery in a vinyl chair beneath a television with the sound off. Afterward, he drove home long enough to give Rook his medication, arrange for a neighbor to watch him, shower, and return before Lena was fully awake. He did not enter her room until a nurse said she had asked whether he was still there.
Night had flattened the hospital window into a black mirror. Lena lay with her repaired leg elevated in a foam cradle, her face puffy from fluids and lack of sleep. Cal set a paper cup of ice chips on the tray and took the chair farthest from the bed.
“How’s Rook?” she asked.
“Sore. He ate. Mrs. Alvarez is with him.”
“You shouldn’t have taken him out.”
“No.”
Her brows drew together. “That’s it?”
“You were missing. He knew your scent and the ground. I decided the risk was worth it. He didn’t get a vote.”
“You decided for him. He’s the one paying for it.”
Cal leaned back and looked at the postoperative splint around her lower leg. “Neither did the puppies.”
Lena’s face closed. For several minutes the monitor and the ventilation system carried the conversation for them. Cal did not apologize to make the silence easier.
At last she said, “Dana told me you were the nearest qualified handler.” “I was.” “So you came when she called.” “Yes.” Lena turned her head on the pillow. “Why can you always come for the part with blood on it, Cal? Why couldn’t you come to dinner on Tuesdays?”
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