Part 2
Nolan slid a hand beneath Cedar’s belly and eased him down.
“The clinic gets first say.”
He shut the passenger door and went around to the driver’s side. Within a block, the red light had vanished behind houses and snow.
Cedar didn’t sleep. Wrapped in the towel beside him, he raised his head at every turn that carried them away from the ridge. Nolan kept the truck slow enough to feel the road beneath the tires. The wipers were barely keeping pace.
“You’re a very small passenger to have this many objections.”
Cedar huffed and put his chin on the seat.
Through the windshield, Alderwick appeared in disconnected pieces: a lit pharmacy window, snow sliding from an awning, a church lawn where only the upper half of the manger shelter remained visible.
The church brought his mother to mind. She had spent her final years downstate in a little house with a kitchen window she refused to cover, even in winter. Keep a lamp burning, she used to tell him. Somebody may need to see where the house is.
He had found those words on the back of her shopping list after her funeral. The paper was still inside her Bible at his cabin.
Cedar sneezed, then stared accusingly at the dashboard.
Nolan smiled before he could prevent it.
The clinic’s side entrance glowed beneath an emergency fixture. A sheet of paper inside the door instructed visitors to knock; the outside bell had frozen. Nolan tucked Cedar back inside his jacket and knocked with his elbow.
Claire Voss opened the door carrying a battery lantern.
“Bring him straight through.”
She was thirty-nine, with a narrow face and light hair secured badly enough that several strands had escaped. Her fleece vest had a smear of something near the pocket. Nolan trusted the smear more than he would have trusted a spotless uniform at this hour.
In the exam room, she spread a warmed towel over the table before he put Cedar down.
“How long was he out?”
“I don’t know. He was outside Velora. Maybe twenty minutes since I found him. Small amounts of chicken and water. Weak, cold, argumentative.”
Claire touched Cedar’s chest. “Argumentative is something to work with.”
The puppy tried to stand, slid on the towel, and caught Nolan’s sleeve with his white toes.
“I didn’t choose the furniture,” Nolan told him.
Claire checked his gums and temperature, listened to his heart and lungs, and felt carefully along his body. Her examination moved in an unhurried sequence. She spoke before each new touch, not because the puppy understood the words, but because he could follow her voice.
“Underfed. Dehydrated. Exposure, but we caught that before it became severe. His pads will need attention. I’m not finding an obvious fracture.”
She administered warmed fluids beneath the skin and a little glucose paste, then offered recovery food on a spoon. Cedar licked it, paused, and attempted to haul the spoon beneath the towel.
Nolan sighed.
Claire looked at him.
“He has a storage policy.”
“For spoons?”
“We’re still discovering the terms.”
Cedar got the handle under his chest and closed his eyes.
Claire’s mouth softened. “Bev said you called him Cedar.”
“Working name.”
“Those tend to stick.”
He occupied himself with folding the wet edge of the towel.
The scanner passed over Cedar’s shoulders without a response. Claire moved it down his back, then along the side of his neck. It beeped close to the ribbon.
Cedar flinched. She stopped until he settled, then confirmed the number and entered it at the computer.
Nolan stayed beside the table, his fingers resting where Cedar could see them.
Claire frowned at the screen.
“What?”
“His chip is registered. But it says the dog is named Otto. Male shepherd, four months old.”
“He’s younger.”
“Eleven weeks, roughly.” She clicked another field. “And supposedly placed with a veteran’s family in Bexley six weeks ago.”
Nolan looked from the puppy to the monitor. Bexley was hundreds of miles away.
“Who registered him?”
Claire turned the screen toward him. “Veylan. The working-dog charity.”
Nolan laid the numbered tag on the counter.
“Everett Dace runs it,” he said.
“You know him?”
“He wanted me in a fundraising video. Retired SEAL, dog beside me, something patriotic behind us. He’d already written what I was supposed to say.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That recovery doesn’t come with a script.”
Claire glanced at him. “I can imagine that conversation.”
“Apparently everybody here can.”
“You sit facing the door in the same café every week. You’re not as elusive as you think.”
Cedar pulled the towel toward the exit, interrupting them.
Claire used small scissors to remove the ribbon. Caught in its knot was a splinter of plastic packaging. She examined it under the light, then dropped it into a clean sample bag.
Part of a medication lot number remained legible. So did a fragment identifying a sedative product.
Nolan watched her seal the bag.
“That belong around his neck?”
“No. Whether it means what you’re thinking is another question.”
“And what am I thinking?”
“That somebody has hurt him. I need a trail I can defend, Nolan.”
The radio at the front desk crackled. A woman’s voice came through, clear despite the static, reporting that snow bands had intensified above town. The ridge road was becoming impassable. Anyone stranded should make a safe light visible and stay sheltered.
“Tessa Grant,” Claire said. “She’s been on Zelva since lunchtime.”
Nolan listened as the broadcaster listed hospital routes and warming centers. Then her cadence changed.
Two callers had reported what sounded like animals in distress near the lower ridge trailhead. Dispatch had the information. Nobody should go investigating alone.
Cedar pushed upright so abruptly that the towel slipped off his back.
His head turned toward the radio. Both ears strained, including the one that couldn’t quite stay up. Then he faced the back of the building and whimpered.
Claire looked at Nolan.
“Could be her voice,” she said.
“Could be.”
The puppy tried to step off the table. Nolan caught him and held him against his sweater. Cedar reached down, found a bootlace, and pulled.
“The alley out back leads toward the ridge,” Claire said.
Nolan checked the rear window. Beyond the fenced yard, snow erased everything except the nearest posts. His phone vibrated with another blizzard warning.
Behind him, Claire’s computer chimed.
“Nolan. Come look.”
She had opened the transfer attachment. The puppy in the photograph was similar in color but had a dark muzzle and brown feet. Claire enlarged the image, then placed Cedar’s chip number beside it.
“Same registration,” she said. “Different puppy.”
“A mistake?”
“That’s the kindest explanation.”
Cedar nudged the metal tag toward Nolan. It scraped the counter, a small, unpleasant sound.
The overhead lights dimmed, recovered, and dimmed again.
Nolan took out his phone. “Is Martin Keene working tonight?”
“Probably.”
“I’d rather start with him.”
“You don’t trust the sheriff’s office?”
“I trust Martin to ask his questions before calling Dace.”
Claire didn’t argue. While he called, she photographed the chip record and copied the attachments to an external drive.
An engine moved past the building. Slowly.
Cedar became rigid in Nolan’s arms, following the sound beyond the wall until it faded. Nolan handed him to Claire and went to the front window. Fresh tire marks curved through the clinic lot, passing the side door without stopping.
When he returned, Claire was turning the lock on the rear entrance.
“Records are backed up,” she said.
He nodded toward the padded crate she had prepared. Together they settled Cedar inside, beneath dry blankets.
The radio broke through again. Tessa reported an unconfirmed red signal light near the disused service road above the trailhead. Emergency personnel had been notified.
Cedar stood with his white toes against the crate door.
The lights went out…
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