Fire and Ice (11 page)

He didn’t expect Robyn to pray, too, but when he said, “Amen,” she said softly, “Lord, please keep the dogs safe and let us get them back. Especially Pat’s dogs. Thank You.”

She squeezed his hand and released it. He opened his eyes. Her smile was a bit wobbly, but she seemed calmer.

They stood, and Rick glanced out the window. Glade was getting out of his truck. Beyond his vehicle, an SUV turned in from the road.

Rick caught his breath. “Robyn?”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t that—”

“I don’t believe it.” She turned toward the kitchen door. “Mom! Come in here quick! Philip Sterns just drove in.”

“Either he’s got a lot of nerve, or he’s innocent.” Mom stood between Robyn and Rick, peering out the front window.

“Should we go out?” Robyn felt as though she was watching a crime drama through the glass.

“It looks like Trooper Glade is going to ask him a few questions,” Rick said.

Robyn looked up at him and scowled. “I don’t know about you two, but I want to hear what he says.”

Rick chuckled. “What do you say, Cheryl? Shall we join them?”

Mom was already pulling on her jacket. The three of them walked out to the driveway together.

“Mrs. Holland! Robyn!” Sterns’s mouth drooped as they approached. “The officer just told me what happened. I’m so sorry.”

Robyn decided to keep her mouth shut. If she voiced her thoughts right now, it wouldn’t be pretty, and it might compromise the trooper’s investigation. Mom, however, stepped forward with a regretful smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Sterns. At least the three dogs you spoke for weren’t taken.” “Oh? I’m glad to hear that. I assume you still want to do business? I came ready to pay for them and take them with me.” He took out his wallet.

Mom turned and said to Robyn, “You want to go ahead with this, don’t you?”

Robyn wished she could have more time to think about it. Since her roster of female dogs had not been depleted, she supposed it was all right—if Sterns wasn’t behind the theft.

“I … guess so.” She reached out and took the money, knowing that sealed the bargain. “I’ll get you a receipt.”

“I’ve got cages in the vehicle. Should I drive around back to the dog yard?” Sterns asked.

Trooper Glade said, “I’d rather you didn’t do that, sir. I’m not done looking at the evidence out there.”

Cheryl said, “Is it all right for my daughter to go into the female dogs’ enclosure and bring out the three dogs this gentleman is buying?”

“I suppose so,” Glade said. “While you do that, I’d like to ask Mr. Sterns a few more questions.”

“Of course. And if you’d like, you can talk inside. It’s quite chilly out here.” Mom arched her eyebrows and Sterns nodded.

“Thank you,” Glade said. “Perhaps that’s best.”

Sterns held out his key ring to Robyn. “The cages are in the back of my rental.”

“I’ll help you,” Rick said.

Robyn felt immense relief. Selling a dog always saddened her, but under the circumstances, she was afraid she might break down and cry. That or say something she’d regret later. “Thanks.”

Together they walked around the house, while Mom took Glade and Sterns inside.

“Are you okay?” Rick asked.

She puffed out a breath of cold air. “As well as can be expected, I guess.”

“I know what you mean.” He shook his head as she unfastened the door to the shed. “I don’t like it.”

Robyn reached inside and grabbed three leashes off the hook near the door. She handed him one. “Me either. Based on what little we know right now, I still think Sterns is behind this mess. But without proof, I couldn’t see a good reason to call off the deal.”

She clipped her leash to Coco’s collar then unhooked her tether line. Holding the end of the leash firmly, she knelt beside the dog she and Grandpa had raised from a pup and hugged her. “Bye, girl,” she whispered. “I hope he’s good to you.”

Coco whined and licked her face. Robyn felt tears welling in her eyes and knew there was no sense prolonging the moment. She rose and handed the end of the leash to Rick. “Can you take her, please? I’ll get Rosie.”

He waited while she repeated the procedure with the second dog. When she stood, he smiled mournfully. “Is it always this hard?”

“Sort of. But I usually don’t think I’m handing them over to a thief. We make sure they’ll have a good home.”

“And you’re not sure this time.”

She shrugged helplessly. “The setup Sterns described sounds terrific … assuming he’s telling us the truth. But if I refuse to let them go now …”

Rick nodded. “He could get really nasty, I suppose. But if you want to say no, I’ll stand behind you.”

Her mouth skewed into an involuntary grimace and she looked away. “I can’t ask you to take the heat for me. And you have patients to see this afternoon. You can’t stay around and guard Mom and me if we make him mad.”

“You could announce it while the state trooper’s here. I’d think that would deter Sterns from doing anything rash.”

She bit her bottom lip and considered that. “Thanks. I appreciate everything you’re doing today. Just having you here is a big help. But I think right now we should smooth things over. I don’t want to put Mom in a situation that’s worse than the one we’ve got right now. And besides—” She hesitated, but looking up into his caramel-colored eyes and seeing the sympathy he radiated, she knew she could tell him anything. “We really need the money.”

“I thought maybe. But I hate to see you do something you don’t want to do.” Rick sighed then pulled out a smile. “Okay, I’ll support your decision. Robyn, I care about you and your family. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

She tried to smile, but her lips trembled too much. A fresh memory of his awkward embrace on the trail sent a dart of yearning to her heart. The possibility that Rick liked her beyond their casual friendship delighted her, but she couldn’t spare the time to think about that now. Instead, she sniffed and got out a muffled, “Thanks.”

Rick’s smile twisted as though her pain had reached him, too. “You want to get the last dog, and we’ll take them out to Sterns’s vehicle?”

When all three dogs were loaded in the cages in the back of the rented SUV, they went inside. Mom sat on the edge of Grandpa’s recliner in the living room and smiled wanly when Robyn and Rick came in.

Robyn cocked her head and listened. The two men were talking in the kitchen.

“I gave them coffee and left them alone,” Mom said, rising. “I suppose I should get ready for work.”

Robyn went to the desk in the corner and found her receipt book. She hesitated only a moment then wrote out the document for Philip Sterns. She crossed the living room and stood in the doorway. “The dogs are loaded, Mr. Sterns.”

He turned around to smile at her, and she handed him the receipt. “Thank you. Officer Glade and I were just discussing the incident that took place here earlier. I want to tell you personally, I had nothing whatever to do with this. I hope you don’t think otherwise.”

Robyn found it hard to meet his gaze. “Right now we’re still in shock. We don’t know what to think.”

“I guess you can go, Mr. Sterns.” Glade closed his notebook and stood.

“I assure you, I’m happy to cooperate,” Sterns told him. “It’s a shame someone stole that beautiful dog, Tumble. If there’s anything else I can help you with, I’ll be happy to do it.”

Glade nodded and looked at Robyn. “I’m going out to look at the tracks now. Can I go out this door?” He glanced toward the back door that led into the dog lot.

“Yes. Would you like me to come out with you?”

“I’ll go take a look. Maybe you can step out after you’ve seen Mr. Sterns off and show me where each of the stolen dogs was kept.”

When the door closed behind him, Robyn faced Sterns. “Have you booked passage for the dogs to California?”

“Actually, they’re staying here in Alaska.”

Robyn couldn’t hide her surprise, and he smiled. “I’ve found some property outside Anchorage. I’ll board the dogs at a kennel near the city while I go back to California to wind up my affairs there. I’m returning in two weeks to close on the house I’m buying. Unless, of course, you and your grandfather have changed your minds about selling this place.”

“No, thank you. I hope the dogs will be happy with you and that you have good times together.”

“That’s gracious of you. Perhaps we’ll see you at some race or other.” He walked through the living room, said good-bye to Rick, and went out to his car.

Robyn drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“You holding up all right?” Rick asked.

“Kind of.”

Her mother entered the room from the hallway that led to their bedrooms. “At least that’s over,” Mom said. “What are we going to do about Pat Isherwood’s dogs?”

“After I show Trooper Glade what he needs to see, I’ll call Pat. I can’t put it off.”

“I suppose not. Well, I don’t have time to eat lunch. I need to get to the store.”

“I’m not sure I can eat anyway,” Robyn said. “Want me to make you a sandwich to take with you?”

“No, that’s all right.” Cheryl turned to Rick. “I’m so glad you were here when this happened, and when Mr. Sterns came. I admit I was a little frightened to see him again.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Rick said. “Robyn, do you mind if I go out to the kennels with you?”

“Not at all. Thanks.”

Glade came slowly along the path from the old woods road, studying the snowmobile’s trail as they walked across the yard.

Robyn smiled grimly as they met near the dog enclosures. “This is the female dogs’ enclosure. No dogs were taken from here, though the three Sterns just bought were all in here. When Mom told us about the theft, I looked around a little. Of course, we had to put away the teams we’d taken out. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I don’t think the thieves came into this enclosure.”

Glade nodded, still searching the ground. “It looks to me as if they stopped the snow machine over there.” He pointed to the other gate. “And I’d say there were two of them, though Mrs. Holland didn’t specify she saw two people. But she was looking at the back of the rig, with the trailer between her and the snow machine.”

“True,” Robyn said. “I’m sorry we messed up the footprints and all.”

“Well, you couldn’t leave your teams out, I suppose.”

“I didn’t go too close to the kennels where the six dogs were stolen on purpose. I thought you might want to look over the ground for evidence. I’ll take you in there now if you want.”

The dogs began to yip as she opened the gate. “Shush,” Robyn called, and for the most part, they did.

Rick and Glade followed her into the male dogs’ enclosure.

The dogs that hadn’t been out for exercise that morning jumped and whined as she passed them. Tumble’s absence struck her suddenly with the force of a meteorite. His tether line lay slack on the snow, and his kennel sat empty and silent. A painful lump rose in her throat. “Tumble was here.”

“He’s your best dog?” Glade asked.

She nodded. “He’s our primary stud dog. We sell the pups and collect stud fees. And he’s a terrific leader, too.”

“How much is he worth?”

She put her hand to her lips and blinked back tears. Would it come down to this—placing a number on Tumble’s life for the police and the insurance company? “I … let me think.” She named a figure and shrugged. “Maybe more. But that’s taking into account what he could earn for us and the prestige his record brings to the kennel.”

Glade wrote it down and studied the ground around Tumble’s doghouse. The thief’s footprints were indistinguishable from Robyn’s on the packed snow.

She showed him the next empty kennel. “This dog belonged to a client, and so did the one beside him. I have eight of Patrick Isherwood’s dogs here to train while he recovers from surgery.”

“How many of the stolen dogs were his?”

“Two.”

“The other four were yours?”

“Yes, sir.” Robyn eyed Rick while the trooper wrote it all down. Rick’s confident demeanor and sympathetic smile encouraged her a little, but the entire situation still ripped her insides to shreds.

When Glade had inspected all of the empty kennels, Rick said, “Officer, we still wonder about this Philip Sterns. The whole situation is off-kilter, with him wanting to buy dogs and getting angry over the male, then showing up today to buy the three females shortly after the others were stolen.”

“I agree,” Glade said, “but I don’t have enough evidence to arrest him. I did get the name of the kennel where he said he would board the dogs he bought, and you can be sure we’ll check into that.”

“You know about the microchips, right?” Robyn asked. “For identification.”

“My dog has one,” the trooper said.

“Well, so do all of these dogs. We put them in our puppies and any dogs we buy that don’t already have them. Patrick’s dogs have them, too.”

“That’s good to know.” He made a notation then glanced up. “Does Sterns know about them?”

“I …” She felt her face color. “He must. It’s common knowledge. But I don’t recall specifically discussing it with him. I should have, but I’ve been so upset about this—him wanting to buy Tumble, and now having six dogs stolen. I’m afraid I didn’t say anything to him about it.”