Part 5
Dean listened to the rest without moving his foot. Rookie’s chin had settled across the leather, and the puppy twitched once in his sleep.
“Did they show anything?” Dean asked.
“No verified records. I’m checking the account and saving what’s there. Don’t engage.”
“I won’t.”
After the call, he looked at the team photograph on the shelf. Then he shut the kitchen light and carried Rookie to bed.
By morning, the accusations had reached his messages.
He was trying to teach a sit when the phone began vibrating on the counter. Rookie had almost completed the task. His hindquarters lowered, his attention slipped, and he lunged for Dean’s shoelace instead.
“That’s a different exercise.”
The puppy tugged, lost his footing on the mat, and rolled onto one side without releasing his prize.
Dean laughed despite himself. He freed the lace, waited for Rookie to stand, and tried again. Short lessons, Celia had said. Reward what you want. Quit before either participant lost patience.
The phone vibrated again.
Lydia’s message asked him not to read the comments. He read enough to understand why she’d asked, then put the phone facedown.
Some people wanted to know the lawful basis for his temporary care. Others had already declared him a fraud. A few claimed the entire discovery on the beach had been staged.
Lydia called, furious enough to dispense with greetings.
“Apparently you trained a stray puppy to arrive on cue before anyone knew he existed.”
“Morning, Lydia.”
“They’re calling you an attention seeker. You won’t even let people take pictures at lunch.”
“Don’t fight with them.”
“I could explain.”
“Bridget’s checking the facts. Let her.”
Lydia fell silent, then sighed. “I hate this.”
“So do I.”
His concern was less the insults than the possibility of a false claim disrupting Rookie’s placement. He called Simone and described what was happening.
“Public repetition doesn’t turn an accusation into evidence,” she said. “Your agreement remains in effect. Keep following it. Save direct threats and tell us about anyone contacting you to demand the puppy.”
Dean wrote that down.
“And don’t try to resolve the claim personally.”
“I haven’t.”
“Keep it that way.”
Bridget sent the same advice to the others: protect the families’ privacy, avoid arguments, preserve material that might matter.
Lydia suggested showing proof of Dean’s service. Then she mentioned the money he’d quietly sent to bereaved families.
“No,” he said.
“It would show—”
“Their circumstances aren’t public.”
She stopped. He didn’t explain further, and she didn’t ask him to.
Two days later, an envelope arrived with the annual invitation to a gathering of former teammates and their families. For four years, Dean had found reasons not to attend. This time, someone had added a handwritten note asking only that he come. He wouldn’t have to speak.
He put it beside the photograph.
Arthur stopped by that evening with a new latch for the back gate. The old one had suffered from salt air, and Arthur had declared it unfit for continued duty. Dean held a light while he installed the replacement.
Inside, Rookie tried to climb Arthur’s boot.
“Inspecting the contractor?” Arthur asked.
“He’s looking for defects.”
“Then he ought to start with your housekeeping. There’s a towel in the middle of the room.”
“It has an assigned location. He disagrees.”
Arthur saw the invitation on the counter.
“You going?”
Dean ran a thumb along the envelope. “They’ll talk about Owen.”
“I imagine so.”
“I don’t know what I’d say.”
“Let them talk.”
“And if I can’t stay?”
Arthur took his jacket from the chair. “You know where the door is.”
The next morning, Dean confirmed he would attend. Arthur agreed to check on Rookie at an arranged time. Dean prepared the secure indoor area, checked the water, put safe toys within reach, and tested the gate twice.
Before he left, he knelt.
“No freelance missions.”
Rookie sat for almost a second. Then he took Dean’s cuff between his teeth.
“We’ll count that as acknowledgment.”
The gathering occupied a modest community hall within driving distance of home. Photographs stood along a table beneath carefully displayed flags. Somebody had made coffee too early, and it smelled as though it had been waiting a while.
Dean nearly turned around in the entrance. Then a former teammate crossed the room and gripped his hand.
“Glad you made it, Hollis.”
Dean nodded and stepped inside.
He stayed near the back at first. People remembered missed birthdays, bad meals, improvised repairs, and the peculiar habits that had once irritated them and now made them laugh. One man recalled an afternoon spent diagnosing a vehicle that simply needed fuel. Another described a birthday cake delivered to the wrong installation.
Then somebody said Owen’s name.
Dean’s hand tightened around his untouched cup.
“The chili,” the speaker said. “Tell me somebody remembers that chili.”
Several people groaned before they laughed.
“Owen claimed it was a famous recipe.”
“Famous where? A hazardous-materials course?”
Dean could see the pot. He remembered Owen refusing to admit how much hot sauce he’d used while half the room searched for milk. Owen had laughed hardest when nobody could finish a bowl.
Dean smiled into his coffee.
More stories followed. Owen’s terrible singing. His postcards to Ruth from places with nothing worth photographing. His insistence that a backyard grill qualified him to cook anything indoors.
Dean stayed long enough for the coffee to cool and accepted a fresh cup.
His phone rang as people began folding empty chairs.
Arthur’s name appeared.
“Everything okay?”
“Dean, come home.”
He set the cup down. “What happened?”
“The back door was open when I got here.”
Dean was already crossing the hall.
“Where’s Rookie?”
“I’ve checked every room. He’s not here.”
Dean reached the parking lot. For an instant, he couldn’t make his fingers work around the truck key.
“Don’t move anything else,” he said. “I’m calling the police.”
By the time he arrived, officers were responding. The back entrance showed evidence of unauthorized access. Rookie’s enclosed area was empty. His bowl remained full, a toy lay beneath a chair, and the towel had been left near the door.
Arthur stood aside as Dean entered the kitchen.
“I called right away.”
“I know.”
The camera had captured an unfamiliar figure approaching while Dean was out. A van appeared along the street during the same period, but the view was insufficient for a dependable identification.
Dean supplied the earlier report number and explained Travis’s claim. He notified animal services about the missing puppy and sent the recordings through the established channel.
Simone called him directly.
“Please don’t go after Maddox. Don’t drive to Georgia.”
Dean stared at the towel.
“Dean?”
“I heard you.”
“We need to establish what happened. Let us work.”
He wanted to tell her that he could be moving while they established it. Instead, he gave her every piece of information he had.
Arthur offered to stay. Dean thanked him and asked for an hour alone.
After dark, he went outside. The porch boards were damp beneath his palms. He lowered himself, counted, and began again.
At first, the movements were clean. Then his arms shook. His breathing broke its rhythm, and the count became useless.
He stopped on his knees.
A memory came without warning: Owen beside him after a deployment, both holding bad coffee in paper cups. Owen had been looking across a parking lot when he said, almost offhand, “Get home, Dean. Then live there.”
Dean had laughed at the time.
He sat against the steps. After officers had documented the towel and released it back to him, he’d carried it outside without noticing. Now he held it between his hands. It smelled faintly of the shampoo Celia had recommended.
He pressed it to his face.
He cried until his throat hurt, frightened for an animal who had no way to understand what had happened, ashamed that his secure little house had failed, and unable to imagine walking into the kitchen tomorrow without looking down for Rookie.
When he could speak, he called Peter.
“Someone took him.”
The counselor listened while Dean described the door, the recording, the empty bed, and the push-ups he had tried to use to get through the evening.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“You reported it. You preserved evidence. You called me.”
Dean wiped his face with the heel of his hand. “He trusted me.”
“Dean, hurting yourself won’t protect him.”
The towel lay across his knees.
“I need him home.”
“I know.”
They stayed on the call until Dean went inside and poured himself water. He sat in the chair beside Rookie’s bed instead of returning to the porch.
Near midnight, a message arrived from an unknown number.
The photograph showed Rookie inside a transport crate. There was water beside him and a piece of fabric beneath his paws. Dean enlarged the image enough to see the pale patch under his chin.
Below it was a demand: “Drop the inquiry…”
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