Not to be left out, Dakota, a five-year-old German shepherd, ducked under her hand and pushed it with his head, moving it away from the Labrador. He took the lion’s share of her hand for himself.
Ashley laughed. “Certainly make your wishes well known, don’t you, boy?” she asked.
In response, the German shepherd continued nuzzling her. Not to be outdone, the Labrador circled around to her other side. He was definitely lobbying for a space beside her.
Time to go, she thought, rising to her feet.
“Okay, guys, I’m serious now. You heard me. Back up.” The German shepherd responded to her sharp tone while the Labrador, as if convinced that she was only being blustery for form’s sake, not only didn’t back up out of her way, but licked her fingertips.
“Sorry, not going to work this time, Rusty. If I’m ever going to work my way out of the Animal Control Division and into some kind of investigative department, I can’t show up late. Can you just hear the excuse if they ask me why I didn’t come in when I was supposed to?
“‘Why are you late, Officer St. James?’ ‘Because my dogs wouldn’t let me leave my house.’” She pressed her lips together, attempting to look as if she was frowning—as if she could ever be mad at her pets. “Not exactly something someone working in Animal Control should really admit to, is it?” she asked her dogs.
The German shepherd barked as if he agreed with her. At least, that was the way she wanted to interpret his bark. For once, Rusty abstained from the debate.
Ashley grinned. “I know why you’re doing it, you know. You’re trying to keep me home because you’re just afraid I’m going to bring home another stray.” She ran a hand over each of the dogs. They constituted her only family, as well as her best friends. “Even if I did, that doesn’t mean I’d stop caring about you two. You’re my whole world. Now take those cute little butts and get them out of my way,” Ashley instructed.
One more glance at her watch told her that she was really going to have to hustle to get to the police station on time.
“See you guys tonight,” she called over her shoulder as she went out the front door. “And don’t give the mail carrier a heart attack if he comes up to the front door to leave a package,” she warned. “The poor guy’s just doing his job.”
Leaving, Ashley paused to lock the front door. Not that she really had to. For its size, Aurora was deemed to be one of the safer cities in the country, but even if it wasn’t, she was confident that the sound of Dakota barking up a storm would be more than enough to convince any would-be burglar that it would be a lot smarter to break into another house instead of this one.
Still, it was a habit she’d developed years ago, making sure that whatever was hers—though at the time her possessions had been less than meager—remained hers.
Back then, the only thing she’d had of any worth, really, was the watch she still wore. The old Timex was the only link she had to her past—the only thing she had to prove she even had a past. The woman who’d run the home that she’d continuously been sent back to from the time she was four had told her that they’d thought the watch belonged to her father, but that they weren’t certain. The only thing they’d known was that when they’d found her, she was playing with it.
She’d been discovered sitting on the ground, near the charred remains of a vehicle that had gone off the road, killing the other two occupants of the car, presumably before the car burst into flames. The only reason she had survived was that she’d been thrown clear of the vehicle, sustaining a head injury that had knocked her out for the worst of the fire.
Another couple had called the police to report the accident. The responding officers had taken her to social services. She actually thought she had a vague recollection of a tall officer picking her up and carrying her to the squad car. She recalled the scent of something that smelled like mint.
Since she’d obviously survived the fire untouched, someone at social services had thought it might be clever to call her Ashley—Ash for short. She had no real surname because no ID of any kind had been found on either of the two victims in the car, both of whom had been burned beyond recognition. Consequently, social services had whimsically bestowed a surname on her. She’d been discovered on the last day of March, so she’d become Ashley March.
The moment she’d turned eighteen—or what someone at social services believed might be her eighteenth birthday—she’d left the system, and her surname, behind. Having grown accustomed to her first name, she’d christened herself Ashley St. James, James from the name engraved on the back of the oversize watch she was never without.
Squaring her shoulders, Ashley hurried to her used car, ready to face her day.
* * *
There were days when she did nothing but drive up and down the peaceful streets of Aurora, searching for strays, birds that had fallen out of nests and couldn’t fly and the occasional unlucky animal that had discovered it didn’t pay to cross the road when a car was coming.
This morning, however, right after she’d consumed her first cup of tea, her superior, Lieutenant Rener, summoned her into his office.
Wondering if she was about to be given a lecture on the virtues of arriving on time—she had made it by the skin of her teeth, but it was close and the lieutenant was a stickler for discipline—Ashley crossed the threshold with a warm, friendly smile on her face. She’d learned a long time ago to mask every thought, every feeling she had with a smile.
“Officer St. James reporting, sir,” she announced the moment she stepped into the lieutenant’s rather small office.
Lieutenant Rener barely looked in her direction, acknowledging her presence with a curt nod. He held out an address for her. When she took it, he told her, “Someone called in a disturbance.”
That seemed like it should be more under the jurisdiction of the police department that dealt with people, not animals. But for the time being, Ashley held her peace, confident that if an explanation for rerouting this to animal services was in the offing, she would hear it soon enough.
“A woman called to complain about a barking dog,” Rener told her.
She glanced at the address. It was for an apartment complex nearby. They were garden apartments, if she recalled correctly. Garden or not, it was still people living on top of each other, she thought, suppressing a shiver. She’d had all she could stand of close quarters during her foster family days—which was why every penny she’d earned had gone toward buying a house. She’d lived on ketchup soup and mustard sandwiches until she could finally afford to put down a down payment on a place of her own. Her house was tiny—a forty-five-year-old house with three small bedrooms and a postage-stamp-size backyard. It was clear that the place needed work. But it was all hers.
“How long has it been barking?” she asked her supervisor.
“According to the woman who called in with the complaint, all morning.” He looked up from the report he was going over. “Go see what you can find out. If the owner’s there and the dog’s been abused or looks like he’s been badly neglected, put the fear of God into them. Tell the owner if you have to come out again, the dog comes back with you,” he told her as if she was a rookie and didn’t know the drill by heart. “Can’t have the good citizens of Aurora listening to nonstop barking.”
Ashley couldn’t tell if the lieutenant was being sarcastic, droll or was actually on the level with his comment.
“Yes, sir,” she said, beginning to ease out of the office. “Anything else?”
She said it for form’s sake. She really didn’t expect the man to say anything more. But he did and it was equally as unnecessary