Читать книгу Cruel - Jacob Stone - Страница 9

Chapter 1

The toy poodle–pit bull mix was lying on her stomach, her paws covering a short, stubby snout. Lori Fletcher’s heart melted when she saw her.

“Her name is Sally,” Brian said. Rail-thin and gangly, the teenager wore a stained T-shirt, torn jeans, and what Lori hoped was only mud-encrusted tennis sneakers. He was a volunteer at the animal shelter and was showing her the dogs available for adoption. Just a kid, she thought, barely seventeen, if that. A few times she caught him sneaking peeks at her. She found him adorable, almost as much as the poodle–pit bull mix in the cage. He carried a loose-leaf binder that provided information about each dog, and he cleared his throat so his voice wouldn’t crack as he read the sparse notes that had been provided about Sally, telling Lori the dog displayed a gentle temperament, would be good with children, and appeared to be only six months old. “Do you want me to open the cage so you can say hello to her?”

Lori wasn’t there to adopt a soft, cuddly sweetheart like this mix, but against her better judgment she nodded. Brian unlatched the cage and opened the metal door, and the dog stood up and began slowly wagging her tail. Ever so cautiously the pooch edged toward the opening so she could stick her stubby nose out of the cage. The next thing Lori knew, she had the dog squirming in her arms as she hugged the poodle–pit bull mix to her chest, and the dog likewise struggled to lick her face. Lori broke out laughing. It had been an unusually stressful few weeks, and she needed something like this more than she could’ve imagined. She was smitten.

“Love at first sight,” Brian said, a note of jealousy in his voice. He showed a smart-alecky grin. “Or maybe it’s love at first lick.”

The dog was far more toy poodle than pit bull. While she had a pit bull’s square-shaped snout and blocky body, she was a small thing weighing less than twenty pounds with a poodle’s soft downy fur. But she wasn’t what Lori had in mind. The reason she needed a dog was to protect her from him. Except she didn’t know who he was.

A fear she couldn’t quite understand had been worming its way into her consciousness for weeks, and then four days ago she awoke with a profound thought screaming in her brain: he is going to do terrible things to you. She tried to dismiss this as simply a manifestation of her growing anxiety, except the certainty that he existed seemed so real that it left her shaken. It made no sense. She knew that, and for several days she tried to convince herself she’d only had a bad dream, and that was the only reason for the unease gnawing at her. Logically, that was what it had to be, except she couldn’t remember anything about the dream, and the fear that a killer was waiting for her in the shadows became overwhelming. Maybe she was suffering from a nervous breakdown. Maybe the explanation was as simple as that, but when she woke up this morning sobbing in terror that he was soon going to do depraved and horrible things to her, she believed it as much as she ever believed anything. She decided she had two choices: check herself in for psychiatric evaluation or get a dog to protect her. As much as Sally tugged at her heartstrings, the little fluff ball wouldn’t be able to protect her from a gust of wind. So she steeled herself and handed the dog back to Brian.

“I should look at other dogs before making a decision,” she said.

The teenager’s eyes widened with surprise, as he must’ve been sure Lori had found her match, but he placed the dog back in the cage, and as the door latched shut, the poodle–pit bull mix let out a heartbroken whine. This struck Lori like a dagger. She almost relented, but that ever-pervasive thought echoed in her head. He’s out there, and he’ll be coming for you soon.

Brian continued the tour. Most of the dogs up for adoption were pit bulls. There was one Chihuahua and a beagle and pug mix, but just about every other dog seemed to be pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Lori knew they had a reputation for ferocity, but that was probably only if they had been badly mistreated or trained that way, and the ones she saw all looked like loveable sweethearts, just like Sally. None of them would be able to protect her from her boogeyman…if he in fact existed.

When Brian brought her to a cage holding a large, angry-looking beast, Lori knew she’d found her protector. The animal had a thick, squat body, a large head, and a coal-black coat mottled with reddish-brown streaks. The dog gave her a sinister, dead-eyed stare. As she moved closer to the cage, a threatening noise between a snarl and a growl rumbled out of the beast’s throat. If it was meant to scare Lori off, it didn’t work. In fact, it had the opposite effect. The ferocity made her feel safe. She asked Brian if she could meet the dog.

“Really?” he asked, his voice rising an octave.

“He looks to me like he could use a good home.”

Brian consulted the loose-leaf binder, flipping through the pages until he found the one matching the cage number. His eyes scrunched up as he looked from the page to the dog and back to the page. “It says here his name’s Lucy,” he said.

Lori could see that the dog was male, and one that hadn’t been neutered. “That’s an odd name for him.”

“Very odd,” Brian agreed. He read more of the notes associated with the animal. “The veterinarian who examined him thinks he’s part Rottweiler and part Doberman. A hundred and twenty pounds. He’s had all his shots.” The teenager smirked. “If you adopt him, you should change his name to Lucky.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s only got three days left to be adopted before being put down. Are you sure you want me to take him out of his cage?”

The teenager seemed nervous to put his fingers anywhere near Lucy. Lori smiled sweetly at him and told him she’d do it. She had grown up with two Rhodesian ridgebacks, and large dogs didn’t intimidate her. She also knew the secret to a dog’s heart. Lucy made more snarling, growling noises and bared his fangs as she unlatched the cage and opened it. But the dog stayed where he was and didn’t move until Lori reached into her pocket and took out a bacon-flavored treat. The dog moved quickly then, snatching the treat away, somehow leaving her fingers intact. When Lori offered another treat, this one held in the palm of her hand, the dog was more careful about taking it. He even consented to let her scratch him behind the ear and thump him on the side.

As Lori stood beside the animal, she felt safe for the first time in days. She smiled at him. I’ll save your life and you’ll save mine. The dog cocked his head and gave her a quizzical look in return.

“I found my dog,” she told Brian. “Can I take him home with me?”