Free Nothing To Sniff At (Animal Instincts Book 5) by Chloe Kendrick Page A

that same theory. Troxel had admitted that someone had paid him to take the dog, which meant both sufficient funds to manage this and a big reason to avoid detection. Drugs fit the bill on all counts.
    The uniforms were there at the same time. They took my statement. Looking at the outside wall, the doorframe and the victim, they could tell that I’d been in the line of fire rather than a person of interest. I gave them the information about the car and why I was visiting Troxel. Even though this would mean that I wouldn’t be able to investigate the dognapping anymore, I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to lose my life over this case. Nor was I willing to cover for Officer Brate. Losing a dog for a few days seemed like nothing compared to a double homicide.
    The uniforms told me to go sit in my car, and I gladly obeyed, happy to be away from the corpse and the blood. I started the car and turned the heat on full blast. The hot air warmed me as I sat and tried not to think about what had just happened.
    I nearly screamed when Detective Sheila Green knocked on the window of my car. I hadn’t seen her pull up to the house. She was wearing a beige pant-suit, and she didn’t look happy. I couldn’t really blame her; I had just significantly added to her workload, and she had the questionable privilege of having me as a sidekick on this investigation.
    She opened the door and sat down on the seat next to me in the car. “You or him?” she asked. A sure sign of her perturbedness with me was always her use of as few words as possible. She sat and watched me with those silver eyes and I wondered what she was thinking. She was always a hard read for me; I wasn’t sure if that was because I was interested in her or because she had practiced giving no expression when she interviewed people.
    “Him?” I said, unsure of myself. “They knew where he was. No one knew where I was going to be.”
    “They could have followed you and stopped around the corner to prepare for the drive-by. Why would anyone want to kill him anyway?”
    “He knew who had hired him to swap dogs with Barkley. So he would be a danger to them and their operation.”
    Her eyes widened. “Operation? What exactly do you think you’re talking about here? You think this is a drug case?”
    “I had assumed that since they swiped Barkley that they wanted him out of the way, so they wouldn’t be caught with the drugs. It seemed like a safe assumption.” At that point, I broke down and told her the whole story from start to finish. I left out nothing. She waited until I was done to speak again.
    “Who else knows this?” she asked. She’d taken some notes during my explanation, but now she was staring at me as I spoke.
    “Brate, me and now you – plus I guess, the person who arranged for the dognapping, and Troxel.” I ran over the list of people I’d talked to, but none of them had received the full story from me. I doubted that Brate had told a soul, since he was worried about his job. However, after seeing a man shot down, I wasn’t particularly concerned about his job. He could look for a new job well into my old age, for all I cared.
    “So the person who had stolen the dog would be the only one who could have done this today. So either he or the person hired by him was responsible for this. It will likely clear Brate of the death of the person in the trunk of the car. That’s a good thing.”
    “Yeah, but what about the problem of Barkley?” I asked, wondering who would want to hire someone who couldn’t hold onto a dog. People managed to keep their dogs for years without issue.
    “It would depend. If it could be shown the perps wanted to take the dog, they might go easier on him. It is police property, but it’s not an expected thing. They’re more concerned when someone takes your weapon or your car.”
    I nodded. I knew that it was frowned upon to lose your weapon. I wondered how they would feel about a Beagle.
    “So what next?” I