Page 51 of So Smitten

“We are,” Faith confirmed, “but I hope to God we won’t have to use our weapons.”

***

CK9, not surprisingly, was closed. Permanently. Boards shuttered the windows, and a simple paper sign hung on the door informing prospective customers bluntly that CK9 had permanently ceased operations. The paper was tattered, and the words faded, but still legible. The date listed was for fifty-seven days ago, shortly after Lucy was taken and then killed. Eric Ciccolo had found another avenue of employment.

Faith knelt down and jimmied the lock, a skill she had used a few times before on a case. Once the three of them were inside, they looked for any sign of Ciccolo.

There was some dust, but far less than there should have been. Even more telling was the computer plugged into the desk, still running. Ciccolo might have closed his business, but he still used the property.

For what, though?

Turk put his nose to the ground, sniffing for clues. Michael and Faith walked through the emptied offices and training rooms, noting the posters of Eric with different dogs and talking with different officers.

“This guy really loved his dogs,” Michael said, pointing at a poster of Eric, bursting with pride and grinning from ear to ear, handing a dog its certificate ribbon. The dog itself—not Lucy, but another Shepherd—looked at Eric with a love bordering on devotion, and Faith felt a twinge as she recalled her fear when Turk was taken from her.

They walked back to the kennels, and there they finally found the disrepair they expected to find in the entire building. The room was caked with dust, so thick that Turk’s paws left visible tracks as he moved ahead of them. He whined softly and mournfully as he walked through the empty cages, their hinges rusted and, in some cases, destroyed, the doors hanging lopsidedly. The room smelled stale and musty, and Faith suspected the three of them were the first living things to enter in some time.

Ciccolo had avoided this place. He had been so distraught by Lucy’s death that he had shut down his business and avoided reminding himself of her. At least as much as possible.

But he had kept the building. There must be a reason.

Faith’s phone buzzed. Garvey.

“Hey, he’s not here,” Garvey said. “I can’t break in without a warrant, and that will take at least the rest of the day. Should I get one?”

No sooner had he asked that than Turk started barking excitedly. “Hold that thought,” Faith said.

She hung up and followed the sound of Turk’s cries. They led her and Michael to a small room adjacent to the kennels. Once inside, Faith knew for sure that they were on the right trail.

The room appeared to be a small storage closet used for training supplies. There were leashes, collars and a few bodysuits that handlers would wear for dogs to practice bringing suspects down. There were other miscellaneous supplies—food and water bowls, vests, et cetera—but the objects that attracted Turk’s attention were none of those things.

The particular collars Turk was barking at were stacked in the middle of the room. There were seventeen in all.

Each band had an electrode attached to it. The electrodes seemed to be from different sources that Faith couldn’t identify. Some were bulky things with wires sticking out everywhere and loops of magnets and carbon brushes visible inside. Others were far slimmer and seemed like little more than standard electric collar shock units.

Next to the collars was a pile of remotes. There were a few modified tv remotes and a few video game controllers. One was a large RC controller for RC cars.

This was Ciccolo’s armory.

Faith’s phone buzzed again. Garvey sounded testy when Faith answered.

"Hey, do me a favor. Don't tell me to hold on, then hang up on me and not call back. That makes me think you're in danger, and I should call units to come to your location."

“You should call one unit to come to my location,” Faith said, “to pick up the evidence I just found. You should also tell all of the units currently out in the field to be on the lookout for Eric Ciccolo.”

Garvey paused a split second. “What did you find?”

Faith looked at the pile of collars and remotes. “Murder weapons.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Eric parked across the street from the small, dirty bungalow set in the hillside overlooking the western portion of Atlanta. At one point, this bungalow had been the office of a firing range. The range was still used occasionally by amateur shooters and hunters, but the office had long since closed.

At the moment, the bungalow was the hideout for one Francisco Jimenez, known to his fellow low-lifes as Gaucho. He had been here since the raid on the warehouse a few days ago and was probably trying to figure out how he was going to stay away from some no doubt very angry employers who were running out of available targets for their frustration.

In a way, it would be poetic justice if Gaucho were killed by the very employers who paid him to kill, but Eric didn’t want that for him. He wanted to be the one to watch Gaucho die. He was the last of the dog-murderers who needed to be brought to justice.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The entire Georgia Syndicate needed to fall, but Eric knew his limits. He was one man, and while he had a skill set that allowed him to make the small difference he had made so far, he was under no illusions that he could somehow destroy an entire crime family.

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