Page 46 of Silent Threat
Annie tried not to glare at the horn blowers. She focused on her animals instead and stayed calm, knowing being calm helped more than yelling at the beeping idiots that passed.
“Hey, you know what’s more amazing than a talking llama?” Mike asked from the back.
“No idea.”
“A spelling bee.”
Annie shook her head, but she was smiling.
Then they finally turned down her quiet street, and things went smoothly from there. When they were about two hundred feet from her house, she could see the problem. Her gate stood open.
She led her animals through, Mike behind her. The remaining two llamas were in the far corner of the yard. Dorothy the pig lay in a patch of mud nearby. Thankfully, she’d never been a runner. Annie and Mike set the escapist llamas and the donkey free, and then she walked back to the gate, Mike following once again.
The gate had a good, heavy latch that could not be opened by accident. She pointed it out to Mike. “I didn’t leave it open. I’m pretty obsessive about the animals not getting out. I rarely open the gate anyway, only when I’m mowing the lawn outside the fence. I haven’t mowed since last week.”
“Don’t touch the latch,” Mike said. He could have asked,Are you sure?But he didn’t, and Annie appreciated that.
He added, “I’ll be back in a sec.” And he walked back in the direction they came from, only to return in the cruiser a few minutes later.
He got out, popped the trunk, and came back carrying a little kit. “Harper mentioned your problems yesterday. Let’s see if I can lift a print or two from the metal.”
She watched as he carefully dusted for fingerprints.
“Two good ones.” He gave a pleased grunt when he finished. “You need to come down to the station for fingerprinting when you get a chance, so we can rule your prints out.”
“No problem. I can definitely do that.”
He put his kit back into the cruiser, but he didn’t get behind the wheel. He looked toward her garage and house. “Let me walk around before I go. I want to make sure nothing else is off. I’d feel better.”
She let him through the gate, then latched it behind him.
He looked into the garage first, but found nothing out of place. Then he walked through the house, a low whistle escaping him when he reached her bathroom. “Looks as bad as it did on TV.”
“You caught the morning show?”
“Saw it on YouTube.”
She groaned.
“Hey. You could become a celebrity.”
“Not on the top of my wish list,” she said as they cleared the house.
He cocked his head, his eyes sparkling. “So you know what happens when you get stuck between two llamas?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“You get llamanated.” Mike grinned.
She couldn’t help smiling back at him. The joke was so bad, it was almost good.
“You want a ride back to your car?” he asked when they finished checking out the house and found nothing out of place.
“I’ll get it later. I need to feed the babies.”
Thank God nobody had gotten into her garage. The tiny skunk kittens still needed milk. If they got out and got lost, they would starve.
Annie gave them all extra scratches and snuggles and even extra milk. She was grateful that they were safe, and that no cars had hit one of the llamas or Esmeralda today.
