Chapter 3 - What Tank Remembered
Damon Cade had not spoken to Adrian Cade in four years.
Joe learned this at two seventeen in the morning while sitting on the shelter floor beside Tank.
Damon stood against the opposite wall.
“My brother disappeared after our father died.”
“You thought he was dead?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Damon looked toward the photograph.
“I thought he wanted to be.”
Adrian had walked away from the Cade family businesses, trusts and properties.
No explanation.
No forwarding address.
Nothing.
Yet the photograph in Joe's locker had been taken only eleven days earlier.
Trent had known him.
Worse, financial documents indicated money had been disappearing from the shelter through a chain of shell charities.
Joe felt sick.
“These donations were supposed to pay for veterinary care.”
“I know.”
“There are animals here we couldn't treat because Trent kept saying there wasn't money.”
Damon watched her.
Most people would have been thinking about the thousands of dollars.
Joe was thinking about animals she remembered by name.
That was when he understood why Tank had trusted her.
Joe's compassion wasn't selective.
The following Tuesday, Tank behaved strangely.
He refused to enter the grooming room.
Instead he pulled Joe toward the loading dock.
“Tank?”
The dog sniffed along the concrete.
Then stopped beside an old storage cabinet.
Joe crouched.
Something had been pushed underneath it.
A leather key case.
Damon recognized it immediately.
“Adrian's.”
Inside was a small brass key.
No label.
Just the number 317.
Joe looked at Damon.
“Three seventeen what?”
Damon turned the key between his fingers.
“I don't know.”
Behind them, Tank suddenly growled.
Not loudly.
A warning.
Joe turned.
Kayla stood in the doorway.
May you like
Her face was pale.
“I think,” she whispered, “I know what it opens.”
