Play Fetch: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Dog Mysteries Book 3) Read Free

him.”
    She had a slight frown on her face as she slowly stepped into the room. 
    “Do you understand?” I asked.
    “Aren’t you looking for my Papa?” she asked, her eyes narrowed in confusion as she looked me in the eye.
    The deputy that stood behind her, nodded.
    “Yes.” I said.
    “That’s not Papa’s pants,” the girl said, and tilted her head to the side.
    I froze and held my breath.  A million thoughts raced through my mind as I stared blankly at the deputy.  I gathered myself together and turned back to the little girl. 
    “Is this Papa’s bed?” I asked her calmly.
    “Nope,” she said.
    Her mom stuttered from hallway, “He, he, he sleeps in here, Anna.”
    “Just sometimes, Mama,” the girl answered innocently.
    I gave a hard look at the mother and Don gave her a death stare. The female deputy promptly gripped the woman’s arm and warned her to keep quiet.
    “Do you know whose pants these are, Anna?” I asked.
    “My cousin, Austin’s.  He slept over.”
    Don’s face was crimson and he whispered angrily, “That’s just great. We’ve had the dogs searching for the wrong person all freaking night.” 
    The mother quietly slipped out of view down the hallway and Don paced back and forth.
    “Where does Papa sleep most of the time?” I asked, forcing my voice to be bright and cheery.
      The young girl walked back down the hallway to the basement door.  “In here,” she said as her hand turned the knob.
    The door creaked softly as she opened it, and I followed Anna down the stairs with Don and a deputy right behind me.  The basement was set up like a small basic apartment with a single bed, a small table, a TV, and a recliner.  It was not nearly as tidy as the bedroom we just left. 
    “Is Papa the only one that sleeps in this bed?” I asked the girl.
    “Yes,” she replied, not realizing the importance of our conversation.
    A gleam of morning light caught the corner of my eye, and I followed the source to a crack in a door at the far corner of the basement.  The house sat on a sloped piece of land and the ground at the back of the building was lower than the front.  The landscape allowed for a door at the lower level in the rear of the home. The old man could easily have walked out that door and straight to the back yard.
    “Where do you think your Papa went?” I asked.
    “To get fire wood down the path,” she said, looking me right in the eye.
    “Can you point out to me where the path is?” I kept my voice calm.
    Anna’s sandy hair bounced as she ran out the basement level door into the corner of the back yard and pointed toward a four-foot wide path that lead into the woods.
    “Anna, you are so brave to help your Papa, and it was so good to meet you,” I said.
    Don disappeared back up the stairs to get his dog as I prepared a good scent article for Ace.  I hurriedly slipped on a fresh pair of latex gloves and cut a good sized portion of cloth from the used pillow case, placing it in a fresh zip-lock bag.
    I burst out the basement level door and found Don and Ace waiting for me in the back yard.  His black Labrador was whining and ready to go back to work.  Don grabbed the zip-lock bag out of my gloved hand and opened the bag in front of Ace’s nose, giving him a whiff of the assigned scent. The dog bobbed his nose near the bag a couple times and immediately went into action. 
    As the search dog left the back yard and worked the old man’s scent trail down the path, I looked back toward the house and noticed the young girl’s face pressed against the dining room window as she watched our every move.  I gave her a little wave as we set off to find her grandfather, hoping it wasn’t too late.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    A spider web hung between the tree branches and across the trail. I slapped it out of my face as Ace took a right-hand turn into a small clearing. I tried to brush the remaining sticky web off my navy sweatshirt, but it was no use.
    “He’s in a