Part 6
Dean’s thumb hovered above the reply field. He locked the screen, breathed once, then reopened it to preserve the message and send it to Simone. He included the number, the time, and the original image.
He did not answer the sender.
By Wednesday, Lydia’s kitchen table had become a reporting station. She had an official contact number, a current photograph, and a list of details she was permitted to share. Hundreds of people passed the missing-puppy notice along.
She left out Dean’s address. She didn’t publish the kennel’s location or encourage anyone to confront a suspected driver. The notice asked people to report observations to authorities and leave the investigating to them.
Lydia read it twice before posting.
Messages came quickly. A woman outside a supermarket was certain she’d found Rookie. Her photograph showed a mature Labrador.
Lydia studied the screen, then murmured, “We’ve at least agreed on the species.”
She sent a polite reply and moved to the next message.
Dean sat at his own table with dates and report numbers written in careful rows. He’d left the puppy bed exactly where Rookie had last dragged it. At night, he woke expecting the soft scrape of nails in the hall and lay still until he understood why he couldn’t hear them.
Bridget called that morning to tell him her first article had been published.
It laid out documented complaints about health certificates, supplier information, and commercial transports. It distinguished accounts still being checked from confirmed records. Some dogs with related identifiers were healthy and doing well; the article said that, too.
“What about the accusation?” Dean asked.
“I reported that no credible evidence supports it.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s my job.”
By afternoon, some hostile posts had disappeared. A few strangers sent apologies. Dean read one, closed the message, and checked for an update from Simone.
More useful were the records people began submitting. A retired veterinary technician asked how owners should preserve original documents. A Florida couple contacted the proper reporting office. Another owner supplied an invoice naming a transport company already under review.
Celia and Bridget spent hours separating meaningful material from mistaken connections. Some tattoos belonged to unrelated systems. One owner had mistaken a six for an eight. Several images were too blurred to read.
“Leave those out until we know,” Celia said. “Being careful protects innocent people, and it protects any case that deserves to be made.”
The following Saturday, Lydia reserved a small waterfront meeting room. There were chairs, coffee, and information about veterinary care and responsible pet ownership. It was not a protest. Anyone with records was directed toward the appropriate reporting channels.
Dean came reluctantly and stood near the back.
Vera arrived with the wooden box.
When she stood to speak, she rested it on a table and opened the lid. The little blue collar lay against the lining.
She talked about Leon’s slippers first. People smiled at the image of Archie hauling one across the floor, taking a rest, and starting again. Then she described the veterinary visits and the papers she hadn’t understood.
She didn’t linger over how Archie died.
“I’m not here to make anyone hurt,” she said. “I want the next family told the truth. What care a puppy has had. What care he still needs.”
She lifted the collar between two fingers.
“And whoever writes down the sale should remember somebody’s going to buckle this on a living dog.”
Dean looked at the empty space beside his boot.
Afterward, people brought Vera their own stories. Some had records. Others simply wanted to thank her. She listened without rushing anyone.
When Dean reached her, she asked whether there had been news.
“Not yet.”
She closed the box. “Then we keep at it.”
“I wish I could promise answers about Archie.”
“Just don’t forget him,” she said.
That evening in Georgia, Russell Dempsey sat behind his office desk while Travis worried at his watch strap.
Requests for records had multiplied. There were questions about dates, transport arrangements, and the relationship among Vellora’s facilities. Russell understood that inquiries were not findings. He also understood what a thorough review might do to contracts and licenses.
“You said this would settle down,” he told Travis.
“I’ve been working on it.”
Russell’s mouth tightened. “Apparently not well.”
Travis had once thought working for his father-in-law meant a dependable future. Instead, his choices had brought him to this office with a missing-puppy report and a threatening message being examined by investigators.
He had removed Rookie from Dean’s house without permission. Whatever pressure he felt, that decision belonged to him.
“Where’s the puppy?” Russell asked.
“The temporary holding building.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out what can lawfully be done before you make this worse.”
Travis left without promising anything.
At the holding building, Rookie had food, water, and a piece of soft material inside his enclosure. He showed no serious physical injury, but the place was unfamiliar. Each opening door brought him to his feet. He waited while footsteps passed, tail moving once or twice, then settled again.
The muted green collar he’d worn at Dean’s house had been removed. His uneven ears and pale chin marking remained.
Back in Marden, Dean opened a road map on his laptop. The route into Georgia required only a few hours. He closed it, opened it later, and finally called Simone.
“I could stay nearby. I wouldn’t approach the property.”
She let him finish.
“An unexpected visit could cause people to move animals before we can verify locations,” she said. “There are several agencies working within different authority. Please don’t complicate that.”
Dean pressed his palm against the table.
“I hate waiting.”
“I know. Stay reachable. That helps us.”
He closed the map while she was still on the line.
Arthur arrived that night with a pot of soup. Dean started to object, but Arthur walked past him toward the stove.
“You’re welcome to complain after you eat.”
Lydia brought an apple pie. Celia called to ask whether Dean had slept. Vera sent a card saying she was keeping hope for both of them.
Arthur surveyed the pie. “You couldn’t find room for more apples?”
“There are plenty,” Lydia said. “You lack appreciation for pastry.”
“Does appreciation come with whipped cream?”
Dean laughed, then glanced toward the bed.
Lydia didn’t pretend she hadn’t noticed. She cut him a slice and set a fork beside it. Dean thought of Vera’s nineteen mornings and took the plate.
Later, on the phone with Peter, he finally said what had sat beneath every discussion of Rookie.
“I couldn’t get Owen home.”
Peter waited.
“I obeyed the order. Everybody’s said I did the right thing. But I’m here.”
Dean looked at the team photograph.
“Do you think Owen wanted this as the price?” Peter asked.
Dean didn’t answer.
“Did he ever ask you to spend your life paying?”
He remembered the coffee cups, the parking lot, Owen’s easy voice. Then he remembered Owen mailing Ruth another postcard with an ugly building on the front because he thought it would make her laugh.
Dean stayed on the call.
The next afternoon, a delivery driver named Gavin Bell stopped for coffee at a gas station in eastern Georgia. At thirty-five, he had years of routes behind him and the sturdy shoulders of somebody who moved packages for a living.
A transport van stood nearby. On his way back from the store, Gavin noticed a small shepherd in a secured enclosure visible at the rear.
One ear was up. One wasn’t. There was something pale under the chin.
He slowed.
His wife had played a beach video repeatedly because she couldn’t stop laughing at the puppy in it. More recently, she’d shown him the missing-dog notice.
A man came around the van and bent toward the enclosure. The puppy put his forelegs out, dropped his chest, and raised his hindquarters.
Gavin stopped beside his own vehicle.
He didn’t challenge the man or reach for the puppy. He called the number from the notice and described exactly what he’d seen. He supplied the location, time, and license plate.
“I’m not saying I know it’s him,” he told the person taking the report. “I’m saying you might want to check.”
The observation was compared with existing information. The van matched a vehicle already connected to inquiries about Vellora’s animal transports…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇