Page 30 of Burning Secrets

No breath.

Crew splashed up behind her. “Is it alive?”

“No.”

He moved past her, toward the cave, leaned in. “There are two more in here. They look weak, but at least one is alive.”

She stood up in time for him to haul out a pup, maybe twenty pounds, whining but lethargic. He passed it over to her. The animal burrowed into her.

He retrieved the next one, also lethargic. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Mama might have brought home the diseased fish.” She ran her hand over the pup’s fur. “They’ll die if we don’t get them into the vet.”

He had the other tucked in his arm. “Let’s go.”

She ventured out again across the river, Crew behind her, and then started off in a jog toward the truck, maybe a mile away, cross-country.

Crew kept up with her, which said something about his fitness, because she’d been training all summer—running, hauling equipment, climbing mountains, digging trenches.

Then again, who knew what he did in the lair of evil? She didn’t want to think about it. But even as she slowed, still fast-walking, his story about prison came back to her.

“So, are you working for the FBI?”

He looked at her, frowned. “Yes. But I’m not an agent, thanks to the felony. Paid informant. I don’t love the term, but it’s all I got.”

“I like Lumberjack Batman.”

He grinned. Shook his head.

“So if you get caught up in whatever they’re doing, do you get arrested? Go back to jail?”

His smile dimmed, and he pointed to a trail. “Not if Rio gets there first. But…I hope not.”

Felt like he should have more reassurances than that. But she said nothing as he picked up his pace again, his feet thumping along the deer trail.

She kept up, the pup moaning now and again.

They reached the truck, the sun high, and he took the pups as she got into the passenger side, then handed them to her. “Buckle in.” They lay, their heads on her lap, barely breathing.

He climbed in. “Where to?”

“There’s a vet office in town. Let’s start there. I’ll call Peyton and ask her to meet us.”

Cell signal didn’t hit until five miles down the road, but she got ahold of Peyton’s voicemail and left an update.

Twenty minutes later, they pulled into town, and she directed him past Main Street, a little way past town, south, to the vet she’d seen on her drive to Copper Mountain.

They pulled up into the gravel lot of the clinic. Crew got out and opened the passenger door, pulled out a puppy.

A woman with long black hair, wearing a thermal shirt and khakis, met them at the door. “Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for the vet,” Crew said.

“That’s me. My name is Anuk.”

It was a simple office with a waiting room and a hallway to the back. A bigger man appeared, large and blond. “What’s going on?”

JoJo lifted the puppy. “These are wolf pups. We think their parents were poisoned, and we think these guys ate the same fish. They’re the only ones in the litter left.”

---