Part 3
Garrett phoned Wyatt from the clinic corridor. It was three in the morning, and the former naval intelligence officer answered with a voice thick with sleep. Garrett gave him the tattoo, the chip identification, the place where he had found Valkyrie, and Dawson’s name.
When he said Liam’s, Wyatt stopped interrupting.
“She was headed for his folks,” Wyatt said at last.
“That’s what we were told. Find the transport record.” Garrett could see the puppy through the glass, curled on the waiting-room chair. “I need to know who signed her over.”
Wyatt warned that records from two years ago might not be easy to trace. He said he would start with the transfer paperwork and the people who had handled the route from Coronado to Wyoming. Garrett returned to Valkyrie’s room. The doctor allowed him a few minutes at the door; the puppy waited against his leg while the mother slept.
He sent Carter a message with the tattoo and chip information and asked that it be added to the case. The deputy replied that he would pass it on. Garrett left the phone faceup beside him, expecting a call from either man and wishing for a few hours in which the doctor had no reason to call at all.
In the gray light before morning, Garrett remembered Liam bent over a map, one hand resting on Valkyrie’s back while he described his parents’ place. He had been proud of the dog and relieved that her retirement would give her something easier than the life they had known together. Garrett kept that memory to himself. The animal on the pad had spent two years somewhere else, and he could do nothing for those two years now.
Wyatt called after dawn. The documented transfer had gone to a civilian carrier called Apex Hauling. Its paperwork said Valkyrie had been delivered to the Foster ranch, complete with a signature from the receiving end. What Wyatt could trace about the company led through empty business addresses and payments connected to an illegal breeding and dog-fighting operation on the coast. The signature, he said, was not enough to prove the dog ever arrived.
Wyatt spoke carefully as he separated the entries on a shipping record from the payments that followed. Garrett wanted one name he could put beside the chain, but the trail had passed through too many hands for that. The forged delivery was the hinge: the Fosters would have been told to expect a dog already marked as delivered, and no one in California would have been waiting for her return.
“They took her off the route,” Garrett said. He listened while Wyatt explained what the operation bought and sold: working breeds, discarded police dogs, animals with traits that brought a price. Valkyrie’s training made her valuable. The puppy under the chair at Garrett’s feet made the rest of that business painfully easy to imagine.
Wyatt had also checked what Dawson had told the deputies. Faced with the evidence at the clearing, Dawson had named a distributor called Nolan and a warehouse near the shipyards. Wyatt urged Garrett to send everything to investigators and wait. Garrett agreed the records had to go to them. He could also hear, beneath Wyatt’s warning, how little either of them trusted the word wait where caged animals were concerned.
“Dawson talked because he thought Nolan was somebody else’s problem,” Wyatt said. “It doesn’t tell us how many animals are there now.” Garrett knew that. He also knew a location was more useful to investigators than the string of shell-company names had been an hour earlier. Wyatt sent the records on while Garrett asked whether Nolan was likely to move the dogs if he heard about Dawson’s arrest.
“You know this could cost you,” Wyatt said.
“I know.” Garrett watched Dr. Brooks pass the glass doorway with a chart in her hand. “Call Jenkins and Miller. Tell them what Dawson gave up.”
By that evening, a map of the shipyard district lay across Garrett’s cabin kitchen island. Jenkins, Miller, and Wyatt had worked with him before; they had known Liam, too. Wyatt had come down to handle communications. Jenkins pointed to the warehouse Dawson had named—number 42—and the fenced yard behind it. Miller studied the entrances without saying much. The building had reinforced doors, cameras, and guards, according to the information they had.
Garrett told them what he had seen at the oak. He did not repeat the injuries for effect. Then he told them about the tattoo in Valkyrie’s ear and the delivery papers claiming she had reached Wyoming. He looked at the others as the two facts settled together. Jenkins asked how many dogs might be inside.
Nobody knew.
Miller turned the map until the back lot faced him. He was usually the first to turn uncertainty into a practical question; tonight he wanted to know whether animal control could reach that yard with its vehicles. Wyatt said he would give dispatch the gate location when it was time. Jenkins kept his finger on warehouse 42, where the evidence and the living animals had come together in one address.
“The authorities have the paperwork,” Wyatt said. “We need them coming to the right place at the right time.”
“And we need the animals out,” Garrett said. He looked at the yard on the map. “No one goes there for Nolan. We go for them.”
They set a time for two in the morning. Garrett called the clinic before they left. Valkyrie’s temperature was steady, Dr. Brooks said, and she had lifted her head when the puppy was brought close. It was a small report, but Garrett made Wyatt repeat it to the others. For a moment the kitchen was quiet enough to hear rainwater dripping from the eaves.
The pup had remained at the clinic with his mother. Garrett had offered to leave a shirt there so the little animal would have a familiar smell while he was gone, and Dr. Brooks had accepted it without asking where he was going. Before he left the cabin, Garrett looked at the place by the door where the pup would have waited for him and put the empty food dish out of his way.
At warehouse 42, the harbor air tasted of salt and diesel. The team reached a side entrance without being seen. Miller opened it, and the smell from inside arrived before the door had moved far enough for Garrett to see the cages.
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