Free The Strategist by John Hardy Bell Page A

their heads when they weren’t working.
    When Dale made it to the porch, he could see inside the house. It felt cool and empty, like no one had lived there for a long time. The alarm bells went off in his head again, twice as loud as before. And this time he knew he was going to act.
    As Trinket stood next to him, still yipping, her eyes seemed to be focused on something inside. Dale stepped into the doorway, hesitated briefly, then stuck his head inside the foyer. For a moment, he could see nothing in the darkness. Then the natural light from outside began to filter its way in and he could make out objects: pictures on the foyer wall, an armchair, and end table with a lamp on top of it. Then he saw something else about ten feet away from the door. His eyes did a double-take, then a triple-take, yet he still couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. As he took another step inside, he finally turned on the flashlight. Sudd enly the horror was very real.
    The Dalmatian was lying on its side directly in front of the staircase, completely motionless. Were it not for the pool of blood, Dale woul d have assumed it was asleep.
    He stumbled backward as he put his hand over his mouth to stifle a scream. All he wanted to do was run, but he knew he couldn’t.
    With the flashlight turned on, Dale could now see a lot more of what had apparently happened inside the house. There was broken glass all over the floor. A potted plant had been smashed near the dog. The couch was turned over as was the dining room table and china cabinet. It was like a tornado tore through the living room and left nothing standing in its wake, not even the Dalmatian that he had seen so many times before.
    He knew there were two dogs, but he couldn’t see the other one. “Where is it?” he silently mouthed to himself. The same place as its owner, he suspected.
    Dale ran back onto the porch to dry heave, then scooped up Trinket and hobbled home to call the police. As he ran, he thought about the strange car, and his failure to act when he should have, and how his wife always talked him into walking her stupid dog – just like she always talked him into so many things. Mostly, he thought about that two room cabin in southern Colorado.
    Right now it never felt so far away.

 
    CHAPTER 11
     
     
    D espite a major bout of jet lag and a night of sleep that could best be described as inconsistent, Camille was out of bed, showered, and dressed by 6:15. The two hour time deficit and drastic change in scenery had done little to alter a morning routine that had been a constant since her days in the academy. Old habits, she was coming to discover, die very hard.
    She smiled as she walked past her father’s closed bedroom door and down the stairs. When Camille was a child, he was usually gone long before she woke up. Even on days when he didn’t have to work, she was often awakened by his heavy footsteps padding down the staircase one to two hours before the sun made its first appearance. Now, six years retired from the daily grind of making his doughnut run in time for morning roll call, Paul Grisham had apparently found another way to enjoy the hard-earned fruits of his labor aside from regular trips to t he driving range. He slept in.
    You certainly earned it, big guy .
    Before she went to bed, Camille set the coffee maker to start brewing at six, the same as she had every morning in D.C. for the past eight years. By the time she came downstairs, the smell of fresh coffee had wafted into practically every corner of the house. As she sat at the kitchen table, skimming the business section of the previous day’s newspaper and sipping on a cup of Seattle’s Best , she realized that this could have been the start of any other morning. But it wasn’t like any other morning. There would be no briefing from the Bureau chief, no psych profile to review, no bagel and cream cheese breakfast with Agent Sheridan. There was only a cup of coffee, an outdated newspaper, and