Free Suspect by Robert Crais Page B

that same smell if only a single drop were diluted in a full-sized swimming pool.
    Continuing around the room, she smelled the bits of leaves and grass the man carried inside after their walk, and followed the trails left by mice across the floor. She recognized the paths left by living roaches, and knew where the bodies of dead roaches and silverfish and beetles lay hidden.
    Her nose led her back to the green ball, where she thought of Pete. The chemical smell of this ball was familiar, but Pete’s smell was missing. Pete had not touched this ball, or held it, or thrown it, or carried it hidden from her in his pocket. This ball was not Pete’s ball, though it reminded her of him, as did other familiar smells.
    Maggie followed those smells into the bedroom again, and found the man’s gun. She smelled bullets and oil and gunpowder, but Pete’s scent was still absent. Pete was not here, and had never been here.
    Maggie smelled water in the bathroom, and returned for a drink, but now the big white water bowl was covered, so she padded back to the kitchen. She drank, then returned to the sleeping man.
    Maggie knew this was the man’s crate because his smell was part of this place. His smell was not a single smell, but many smells. Hair, ears, breath, underarms, hands, crotch, rectum, feet—each part of him had a different smell, and the scents of his many parts were as different and distinct to Maggie as the colors of a rainbow would be to the man. Together they made up this man’s smell, and were distinct from the scent of any other human. His smells were part of the walls, the floor, the paint, the rugs, the bed, the towels in his bathroom, the things in his closet, the gun, the furniture, his clothes and belt and watch and shoes. This was his place, but not her place, yet here she was.
    Maggie’s crate was her home.
    The people and places changed, but the crate remained the same. This place where the man brought her was strange and meaningless, but her crate was here, and she was here, so here was home.
    Maggie was bred to guard and protect, so this was what she did. She stood in the still room near the sleeping man, and looked and listened and smelled. She drew in the world through her ears and her nose, and found no threat. All was good. All was safe.
    She returned to her crate, but did not enter. She slipped beneath the table, instead. She turned three times until the space felt right, then lowered herself.
    The world was quiet, peaceful, and safe. She closed her eyes, and slept.
    Then Maggie began to dream.

8.
    —the rifle swung toward him, a tiny thing so far away, but different now. Its barrel was gleaming chrome, as long and thin and sharp as a needle. Its glowing tip found him, looking at him as he looked at it, and then the needle exploded toward him, horribly sharp, dangerously sharp, this terrible sharp point reaching for his eyes—
    Scott jerked awake as Stephanie’s fading voice echoed.
    Scotty, come back back back back.
    His heart pounded. His neck and chest were tacky with sweat. His body trembled.
    Two-sixteen A.M . He was on the couch. The lights were still on in the kitchen and his bedroom, and the lamp above his head at the end of the couch still burned.
    He took deep breaths, calming himself, and noticed the dog was not in her crate. Sometime while he slept, she had left the crate and crawled under the table. She was on her side, sleeping, but her paws twitched and moved as if she was running, and as she ran, she whimpered and whined.
    Scott thought, that dog is having a nightmare.
    Scott stood, cringing at the sharp pain in his side and the stiffness in his leg, and limped to her. He didn’t know if he should wake her.
    He eased himself to the floor.
    Still sleeping, she growled, and made a woofing sound like a bark, and then her entire body convulsed. She jolted awake, upright, snarling and snapping, but not at Scott. He lurched back anyway, but in that moment she realized where she was, and