Free Play Fetch: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Dog Mysteries Book 3) by Mary Hiker Page A

and pushed the heavy wooden door of the café open and stepped out into the fresh morning air. As I heard the slight breeze rustle the few leaves left on the trees, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that my immediate family consisted of only myself and my loving dog, Chevy.  My golden retriever and I were a small family, but at least we were a peaceful one.  We hardly ever argued.
     
     

Chapter 2
     
    Joy filled my heart as it always did when I pulled onto the gravel road that led into the mini animal sanctuary.  My headlights lit up the front of new foster dog center as I turned in to park. It wouldn’t be long until the grounds were filled with dogs; we already had a good start by saving two beagles our first week.
      My golden retriever, Chevy bounded out of the truck and over to the play area, to join the other the two dogs in a game of chase, while I cleaned out the doggie sleeping rooms. As far as animal rescue goes, this was a small place with an even smaller staff, but we had some great volunteers who planned to give countless hours to help the animals. Our goal was to foster dogs for a larger animal rescue group in the city, and let a few other animals stay here when needed, like the cow and her new calf. 
    I mainly trained the dogs and coordinated the schedule for volunteers, but today we were short staffed so I helped out with the morning feeding and cleaning. The chores were quickly finished, and I was ready to head back home for some much needed sleep when my cell phone rang.
    “Avery, we’re having some problems out at a search mission.  I’m hoping you can come out and give me some help,” a familiar voice said.
    It was my friend, Deputy Don Donaldson. I could hear the frustration in his voice.
    Don and his trained black Labrador, Ace, were members of our local volunteer Search and Rescue team.  Don wouldn’t have called me unless he was in a real bind, since I normally didn’t go out on search missions anymore.  My role with search and rescue was to help train the SAR dogs and their handlers.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    “We’ve been searching all night for a seventy-year-old male who’s been missing since last night.  He’s diabetic so it’s a life-threatening situation and the dogs are all getting stuck at the same spot.” Don blew out a long, tired breath.  “I’m at a loss.”
    “Where are you?”
    “We’re out on Old Harnett Road, near the Pisgah County line. You’ll see the emergency vehicles out in front of the house.”  His voice was tense, as if he was grinding his teeth as he talked.
    Every muscle in my body was crying for some rest, but I knew my answer before I said it.
    “I’ll swing by.”
     

Chapter 3
     
    Twenty minutes later, I arrived on the search scene and parked my truck along the side of the country road about a hundred yards from the victim’s house.  Chevy was already napping in his crate in the back of my covered truck, so I left him with a bowl of fresh water and a dog treat. I grabbed my hip pack and walked briskly down the road toward the residence, I passed a parked County Emergency Management truck, some law enforcement cars and a couple fire trucks. The sun was just coming up, and I noticed there weren’t many homes in this area.  The lost man could have walked in most any direction and not have been noticed.
    A makeshift command post was set up in the neighbor’s garage, with key search command staff hovering over maps and laptop computers as they accessed the situation and planned where to assign the ground search teams for the next few hours. Both the victim’s and the neighbor’s front yards were illuminated with bright floodlights, courtesy of the local volunteer fire department. 
    I was relieved that the Incident Command team kept the command post away from the lost person’s actual residence.  It’s a lot easier for the search dogs to catch a victim’s scent trail near the home without having a bunch of random people