Page 4 of Operation: Return

Pulling off the freeway onto Welker Ave. he headed into Mead. A blue car quickly exited after him, screeching their tires to make the turn. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. The highway could get mighty boring, but he couldn’t imagine being so distracted that he almost missed an exit.

The car pulled into the nearest gas station right behind Cole. A few men gathered beside a huge, dark pickup truck as Cole got out of his car. He usually preferred a truck too, but with picking up Trace and hopefully Erica, he’d opted for a vehicle with room. The men narrowed their eyes at him and he tipped his hat but glared right back. Kindness didn’t come naturally to him anymore, especially when people disrespected him and assumed he was trouble from the start.

He went inside and got a snack, a drink, and prepaid for his gas. After he finished filling the tank, he went to replace the cap when he heard a soft growl come from the edge of the building. He craned his neck to see better and a dog stood there, more bones than meat, cowering away from a teen with a stick.

Eric, Wayside’s dog handler and trainer, would know what to do in this situation, but Cole didn’t. He’d know how to get the kid to leave the dog alone without scaring the poor animal. Cole capped the gas tank, closed the hatch and casually made his way back toward the building, staying along the front so the kid didn’t see him coming.

As soon as he rounded the corner, the kid jumped back and held up the stick. “He was coming at me. I was defending myself.”

The dog cowered close to the building, still slightly growling but with his tail between his legs. “Well, obviously he’s letting you go. You should probably do that.” Cole tried not to growl. Maybe the kid really thought the dog might bite him, but by his stance Cole figured the dog was just trying to survive.

He dug a bag of jerky from his back pocket and glanced at the ingredients. There was a lot of salt in the meat to give a dog who looked like it hadn’t had a good drink in a while, but he needed something to lure the pup into his car. Erica was already unlikely to listen to him, so a starving dog along for the ride wasn’t likely to change matters. Though, the later he was, might make a difference.

He held out the jerky for the dog and lowered to a squat, holding it out as far from him as possible. The poor dog probably hadn’t had any good human interaction in a while. A car parked behind him and he glanced over his shoulder just as the pup gingerly took the jerky from his fingers and slunk back a few feet to eat it.

The car was the same one that had pulled in behind him. What was it doing parked there? Maybe they’d planned to stop to eat and didn’t want to block a pump, but there was no restaurant or even pizza slices inside. He turned his focus back to the dog. He was having some trouble with the jerky without anything to drink. But if he went back inside, would the dog be gone when he returned?

“I need you to trust me, boy.” He left one more piece of meat on the sidewalk then headed back inside. He got a bowl of instant mac, another bottle of water, and a small bag of dog food. If the poor dog ate too much at a time, he’d probably be sick. That was the last thing he wanted in the car.

He paid then rushed back outside just as the dog finished the last of the second piece of jerky. He eyed Cole suspiciously.

Cole snorted. “Don’t think I haven’t seen that look before. Here.” He dumped the mac into the nearby trash and filled the plastic bowl with half the water in one bottle, then set it between them.

The dog came closer and sniffed, then stuck his nose in the bowl and blew until bubbles overflowed the dish a little. Cole laughed and held out his hand, palm down, just like Eric had taught him to do with new dogs.

Bubbles sniffed his hand and tentatively nosed his palm then went back to the water and lapped it up like his life depended on it. When he was finished, Cole opened the dog food bag and took out a few kibbles. He’d already given the dog more than it looked like he’d had in a long time, and he needed to get a move on. The longer he stood there, the later it got. If it was dark by the time he reached Erica’s, she might not let him in.

He held out one piece in the palm of his hand and let Bubbles sniff it. The dog ate it then followed the scent to the car. He didn’t want to get in at first, but with a little temptation the dog jumped in the back seat and settled on the floor.

Cole got back in on his side and took a deep breath. He had no leash, no papers, nothing for the dog and no knowledge of the city ordinances where he was going. But he’d saved a dog and saving things was what Wayside Ranch was all about.

Two men sat in the car he’d noted before and they turned on their car the same time he did, then followed him out of the parking lot and back toward the highway. Had he been helping trafficking victims so long that normal behavior at a rest stop now seemed strange? He couldn’t shake the weird feeling. Why did it seem like they’d followed him?

He watched in the rearview as they fell back and held in place about a quarter mile behind him. He’d go past the exit for Boulder where Trace was, and head further south then get off the freeway. The car sped up and came close again when he neared Boulder, but fell back when he passed the exit.

As much as he wanted to ignore the car, he’d been trained too long to pay attention to things that looked normal but were off. The reason trafficking was so prevalent was because it was so easily hidden in society.

He watched the car and exited toward Rock Point without bothering to signal. If they wanted to find him, he wasn’t going to make it easy on them, and there were no cars directly behind, so he wasn’t going to anger anyone else with his lack of signal. Not that he would’ve let that stop him.

He glanced down at the directions on his phone and slowed to go through town. In the distance, a blue car followed.

* * *

Shadows creptacross the lawn as Erica hung up the phone for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes. She’d called the camp first and they’d understood her predicament but couldn’t offer additional help. She’d thanked them, then moved on to weightier tasks, like finding a new job.

Being evening, most places she’d called were not open. At least if she were hired somewhere with earlier hours, she wouldn’t have to deal with asking for a different shift to meet Pete at the bus stop. He wasn’t old enough to walk alone yet and she didn’t know anyone well enough to ask them for help.

“Mom, there’s a man walking up the sidewalk holding a dog. It looks really sick.”

Erica froze. She hadn’t realized Pete had come back in the house. Had he heard her leaving messages with companies about working for them?

“Does he look like one of our neighbors?” Dread pooled in her stomach. On the best of days she didn’t want to deal with a stranger coming up the walk, but at night? That was more than her intuition could stand.

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.” Pete huddled next to the large living room window and lifted the blinds. “That poor dog. Maybe he’s looking to see if the dog is ours? If he asks, can we keep it?”

Another no. She hated saying no. “I’m sorry, Pete. You know we can’t have dogs here.” Which was only true because she couldn’t have yet another mouth to feed. She inched back to her bedroom and got her gun from the top of the closet underneath the unused cowgirl hat that had moved with her countless times, yet she hadn’t put it on in years.

Taylor’s father had given her the little gun for her own protection after they’d learned Taylor was never coming home to do the job himself.