Chapter 1 - The Dog at the Fence
Thirty-six hours earlier, Daniel Ruiz was finishing a report in his patrol car when the dispatch call came through.
Possible animal trapped inside abandoned property.
No confirmed owner.
No visible human occupants.
The caller had refused to provide a name.
Daniel checked the address and frowned.
The house stood on Calder Street, a narrow road filled with old buildings waiting for demolition. Several years earlier, the city had purchased half the block for redevelopment. Work had stopped after a dispute between contractors, leaving the houses empty behind temporary fences.
Officer Mallory Chen answered the call from two streets away.
“I’m close,” she said over the radio. “I’ll meet you there.”
Daniel arrived first.
The abandoned house was larger than he expected, with cracked gray walls and a front porch leaning slightly toward the street. Snow from the previous week remained beneath the hedges. Most of the windows had been boarded, though one near the back appeared broken.
A woman in a red coat stood outside the temporary fence.
She looked relieved when Daniel approached.
“Did you make the call?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I heard a dog crying about an hour ago. I thought someone else must have called.”
“What did you see?”
“A brown dog. Thin. She kept running around the fence like she was looking for a way inside.”
The woman pointed toward a gap beneath the metal barrier.
“She squeezed through there.”
“Did she have a collar?”
“I couldn’t see one.”
Mallory arrived and joined them.
“Any sign of people?” she asked.
“None,” Daniel said.
The woman lowered her voice.
“This house is supposed to be empty, but there have been vehicles here at night. Always black vans. No company names.”
Daniel wrote down her information.
“What’s your name?”
“Ruth Bennett. I live across the street.”
Ruth looked toward the house.
“That dog was not wandering. She knew exactly where she wanted to go.”
Daniel and Mallory entered through the gap in the fence.
Fresh paw prints crossed the snow and led toward the side of the building. The dog had circled the house several times before reaching a damaged basement window.
“She went through here,” Mallory said.
Daniel aimed his flashlight inside.
The opening led into a storage area. A piece of broken wood had been pushed inward. On the dirt below it were several clear paw prints.
The officers entered through a side door after confirming the lock had already been broken.
The interior smelled of dust, wet wood and old plaster.
“Police,” Daniel called. “Anyone inside?”
Nothing answered.
They moved from room to room. The ground floor contained no furniture, only scraps of construction material and empty shelves. Someone had recently swept a path through the dust, however, leading from the kitchen to the basement stairs.
Mallory pointed to a shoe mark.
“That is new.”
Daniel crouched.
“Large work boot. Maybe two people. One print is deeper than the other.”
They descended carefully.
The basement was colder than the rest of the house. Pipes ran across the ceiling, and sections of insulation hung from the walls. The paw prints continued past a locked metal door.
Daniel tried the handle.
“Utility room.”
A faint scraping sound came from behind it.
Mallory immediately moved closer.
“Animal control is twenty minutes away.”
Daniel listened.
The sound came again.
Then silence.
“We’re not waiting.”
The lock on the metal door was old. Daniel forced it open using a pry tool from his patrol vehicle.
Inside, the utility room appeared empty.
There were damaged shelves, an old workbench and an unplugged chest freezer pushed against the far wall. A heavy chain had been wrapped around the freezer lid and secured with a padlock.
The paw prints ended directly in front of it.
Mallory stared at the chain.
“That was not left here by accident.”
Daniel touched the freezer’s outer surface.
Cold from the room, but not powered.
A faint scratching sound came from within.
He requested emergency veterinary support over the radio, then retrieved a bolt cutter.
As he positioned the blades around the chain, Mallory noticed a dark object beneath the shelves.
It was a small security camera.
The camera’s indicator light was blinking.
“Daniel,” she said. “We are being recorded.”
He looked toward it.
“Is it transmitting?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel cut through the first section of chain.
The noise from inside the freezer stopped.
He cut through the second section.
A soft breath came from beneath the lid.
“Something’s alive in there,” Daniel said.
He removed the chain and slowly opened the freezer.
Two frightened brown eyes looked back at him.
The mother dog was curled inside, exhausted and shivering. Her body covered a dark sweatshirt. She did not attempt to escape.
Instead, she pressed herself harder against the fabric.
Mallory knelt beside Daniel.
“She’s protecting something.”
The dog watched their hands.
Daniel removed one glove and allowed her to smell his fingers. She remained tense, but her breathing slowed.
“We’re not taking them from you,” he whispered.
He carefully lifted the edge of the sweatshirt.
Two newborn puppies moved beneath it.
Mallory’s face tightened.
“How did they get in here?”
The mother dog gently pulled the fabric back over them.
Daniel looked at the cut chain on the floor.
“She didn’t.”
The camera light continued blinking.
Mallory found a small cable running from it through a hole in the wall. The camera had been attached recently and connected to a hidden wireless transmitter.
Daniel used his phone to access the device after finding an identification code printed beneath it.
Several video files appeared.
The most recent recording showed the utility room from the previous night.
A shadowed man stood beside the freezer.
He checked the camera, looked toward the door and waited.
The mother dog entered several minutes later.
Daniel replayed the footage.
“She followed their scent here.”
Mallory looked toward the hallway.
May you like
“Someone planned this.”
Then the first floorboard creaked outside.
