Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery)

Maximum Security

For everyone whose family is made,
not born.

This is a work of fiction. All of
the characters, places and events portrayed in this book are either
products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously for
verisimilitude.

Maximum Security

Copyright 2013 by Carol Ann
Newsome

All rights reserved. This book, or
parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission
from the author.

Cover art by Carol Ann
Newsome

Published at Smashwords

Prologue

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Epilogue

Max’s Song

Author’s Notes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Madonna blared from maxed-out
speakers as Kitty stumbled from the house, away from the juvenile
puke fest going on inside. She was furious at herself for letting
Tom bring her when she knew it wasn’t her kind of party. Blinded by
the night and unsure of her direction, she checked her momentum and
blinked, adjusting to the darkness.

She spotted Joe across the road,
leaning against his Chevy pickup under a burned-out street light.
He had one foot propped behind him on the rusted fender and his
arms folded across his chest.

His real name was George, but only
his teachers called him that. Everyone called him Injun Joe, or
just Joe. She wondered if the tough crowd he hung with knew he’d
named himself after a Mark Twain villain. Probably not.

He was a little shorter than she
was, with skin that browned as soon as the sun came out and
straight black hair almost down to his shoulder blades. He wore
jeans and work boots in spite of the summer swelter. His shirt was
unbuttoned and a narrow strip of chest showed in a concession to
the heat. He remained motionless while smoke curled from his
cigarette, playing hide and seek with one high
cheekbone.

Joe watched her with those dark
eyes, his chin lifted, provoking her with a hint of a sneer. He
gave her a faint nod. Acknowledgment? Or just affirming his own
judgement of her personal drama?

Oh, Yeah?
Kitty abruptly
changed course and headed for the old truck.
Think you know
me?

“Give me one of those,” she
demanded, gesturing to his cigarette.

“You don’t smoke, Buttercup.” He
lazily placed the filter between his lips and drew. The end lit up,
illuminating his face, red pinpoints in his eyes giving him a
predatory look.

“Don’t call me that. And how would
you know?”

“I know a lot of things about you.
Buttercup.”

She ignored the provocation. “Like
what?” She challenged.

“Like you’re too smart for that
asshole you date, for one.”

“And?”

“What are you doing here,
Buttercup? Aren’t you afraid your grade point average is going to
drop?”

“I’m not some nerd. Give me one of
those,” she repeated.

“Aren’t you, now?” He kept his
eyes on hers as he pulled the pack of Marlboros from his shirt
pocket and shook one out.

Kitty took the cigarette and held
it up, waiting. “What are you doing out here, anyway? This isn’t
exactly your scene.”

“Just enjoying the show.” He lit a
match, cupping it in the still air as he held the flame for her.
His hand brushed hers. An electric sensation pulsed through her as
their fingers touched. Had he felt it? She stepped back and puffed,
nurturing the ember.

Kitty looked away and dragged on
her cigarette. She knew better than to take it into her lungs. She
blew out carefully to avoid coughing.

She looked sideways at him. “You
don’t talk much, do you?”

He shrugged. “You going to inhale
that thing?”

“Are you always this
rude?”

“Usually. Remind me not to share a
joint with you. I hate waste.”

“Do you want it back?” Kitty held
her cigarette out to him. He took it from her, gently tamped it out
on the side of his truck, put it back in the pack.

She crossed her arms. “I just
wanted something to do with my hands.”

“I can think of plenty you could
do with your hands, Buttercup.”

“Why do you call me
that?”

He grinned. “Because it bugs
you.”

“Gee, thanks,
George
.”

“Now that’s just mean.”

Kitty huffed. Light and noise
erupted from the house as the front door opened, drawing her
attention. Tom was silhouetted in the party din. He stormed into
the yard, bearing down on them.

“Get me out of here.”

“Trouble in paradise,
Buttercup?”

“Can we just go?”

“Where to?” The driver’s-side door
squealed as he opened it for her.

She climbed in and scooted past the
steering wheel. “Anywhere.”

“Not home?”

“No way.”

She looked through the rear window
as they pulled out. Tom was in the middle of the street, hands
fisted on hips, enraged. She leaned back against the bench seat,
smug.

She’d spent the last month as Tom’s
girl. Being Tom’s girl mostly meant being the adoring witness to
his awesomeness. It was boring. She could be one of a dozen
females, and any one of the others could slide neatly into her
place without Tom ever noticing or caring.

At least she hadn’t “done it” with
him. He’d pushed, he’d kept pushing. Whatever she was supposed to
feel when the most popular guy in school wanted you, she hadn’t
felt it. So she kept saying no. She took a moment to be
relieved.

Joe had been her only option for a
quick escape from the party. She now took a moment to wonder if
she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. At least he was
fully aware of her. She couldn’t explain how she knew this. She
felt amazingly . . . something. Amazingly . . . alive. The New Age
types said something about “being present in the present moment.”
She’d never known what that meant before now.

She lowered her lashes and observed
Joe from the corner of her eye as he tucked another cigarette
between his lips, the same one she’d started, and coaxed it back to
life from the old one. They rode in silence punctuated by the
whining and grinding of the truck’s gears. He headed out of town,
then turned off on a section line road.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going anywhere, Buttercup.
You ever been there?”

“I guess not.”

Should she be worried? She’d heard
about boys who drove girls out in the country and refused to drive
them back home unless they put out. The stories were vague. It
always happened to “this girl,” or “my friend told me about a
friend of hers.” Never any names, of the girl, of the
guy.

If it came to that, she’d be able
to spot the town lights over the tree line. A long walk might be
just what she needed to cool down. She discovered part of her was
still spoiling for a fight.

The boy beside her was silent as he
drove, right hand on the wheel, left elbow resting on the door
frame. He’d barely touched her, just the once, when he lit her
borrowed cigarette. He gave no hint to his intentions, no clue what
was going to happen next. She felt prickly all over, as each
moment, each mile took her further into the unknown. She didn’t
know if she liked the feeling, but she wasn’t bored.

The motor droned as she hung her
arm out the window and felt the air rushing through her fingers.
She wondered what he was thinking.

The fields gave way to woods that
crowded the road, rising over them and blocking out the sky. Joe
turned onto a lane that was barely more than a pair of tire tracks
in the high grass. He jammed his cigarette into the ashtray and put
both hands on the wheel. The truck humped and bucked over ruts and
fallen branches. Trees closed in around them, shutting out
everything except the bouncing headlights. Then the track
disappeared.

“End of the line, Buttercup.
Everybody out.” He grabbed a blanket from behind the seat and
hopped down.

“What is this place?”

“You’ll see. Come on.”

She got out of the truck, stumbled
on a tussock of grass. “I can’t see anything. You must have eyes
like a cat.”

“Scared?” He was a gray smudge
against the trees.

“You wish,” she lied.

He ghosted over to her.

“Here.” He took her hand in his
own firm, dry one, leading her down an invisible path. Gradually
her eyes adapted to the void and she began to see a faint movement
in the air ahead.

A clearing opened up around them,
full of flitting, flickering points of light dancing in the night
air. Thousands of fireflies filled the space. They blinked in the
grass, They hung from the branches, they flashed in the surrounding
air. The minute beacons spiraled from the ground up into the tree
tops, merging with the stars in an endless kaleidoscope.

“Oh!” She grabbed Joe’s arm. She
could feel him grinning beside her.

He spread the blanket on the
ground, pulling her down next to him as he sat. She bolted up,
startled. His arm came around her, warm and strong. She stiffened,
caught in her own indecision like a small forest creature trapped
in headlights. She should protest. Why wasn't she
protesting?

“Relax,” he whispered into her
ear. She turned to look at him. His face was deep shadows and
silver in the starlight. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t
want to. I just like to come here when I’m mad at the world. You
seemed plenty mad to me.”

“How did you find this
place?”

He shrugged. “Just driving around.
Sometimes I like to camp out. This is one of my spots.”

“This is amazing.”

“I like it. All those bugs are
supposed to be mating. The ones sitting still and blinking are the
females. The males are the ones flying around. Only some of them
are a different species, and they mimic the females to draw the
other males near so they can eat them.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s life. Firefly light is the
most efficient in the world. It’s called cold light because all of
the energy becomes light. In a light bulb, almost all of the energy
creates heat and only ten percent becomes light.”

She turned to him. “How do you know
all this?”

He shrugged again. “I like knowing
stuff.”

“You’ve got everyone
fooled.”

“I like finding out about things.
It’s school I can’t stand. Some species have eggs that glow when
they’re poked.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“Nope.” He grinned like a small
boy with a secret.

She looked up, taking in the
luminous display above her. She felt light, as if she might float
up among the tiny insects winking their love songs. “It’s like I’m
inside an atom.”