CHAPTER 23:
LILY DIGS UP TROUBLE
Mad Creek
Late October, 2017
Lily pulled into the parking lot at Hold My Paw and parked her van with a slam on the brake and a rebound jerk of the vehicle. Lance always told her to slow down, but Lily didn't see a reason in the world to listen to him. So what if she was a bit heavy on the gas pedal? There was always more to do in a day than hours to do it! Speed was essential.
It was raining steadily, so she ran from the van to the shelter's front door and burst inside.
"Hey, Lily!" Simon popped up from his seat at the front desk.
"Hi, Simon!" Lily shook herself, loosening the raindrops from the thick black hair on her head, her rust-colored blouse, khaki skirt, and slip-on tennis shoes. "It's raining out there. My goodness, we sure need it, but I've almost forgotten what it feels like!"
"I love the rain," Simon said perkily. "But we brought all the dogs in from the play yard. In case the rain got worse. Or there was lightning. Most of them are napping in the common room."
"I'm sure that's wise. Is Rav here, sweetie?"
"Oh, no. He and Sammy took six dogs down to a fair in Mariposa to do an adoption booth. Maybe they'll find good homes! They took Bozeman and Bailey and Cyclops and Redman and Sweetie and Tinkerbell."
"Aw, that's nice." Lily's heart softened at the thought. She didn't know those dogs, but she was still sure they needed good homes.
"Yeah! I bet Sweetie finds a home today. She looked so cute with sparkly pink bows in her hair! Lola put them in. She's really good with that girly stuff."
"Is she?" Lily smiled. It was hard to picture big tough Lola, a bulldog, putting in bows on a little dog. But her flash of fondness faded when she remembered why she'd come. "Fifflesticks. That is a bother. I need to talk to Rav."
Simon's face fell. "I'm sorry. But since you're here, do you want to play with some dogs? It's lots of fun."
Lily sighed. "No, I don't have time. Thank you, though."
The last thing Lily needed was to get attached to another dog. And she needed to talk to Rav right away.
While Lily had fully supported the shelter initially, even taking sides against Lance, she was starting to worry. The problem was, the quickened were too soft-hearted. She didn't mind that they volunteered for Rav for free. For goodness sake, it's not like there was a lot of money to be made rescuing dogs and Rav was hoarding it all for himself. And at least the new quickened were getting something resembling job experience, something to keep them occupied and out of trouble. No more fires had been started, thank heavens.
Of course, Lance thought Rav was taking advantage. But that was just his nature. No one took him too seriously when it came to Rav.
Now, however, there was a genuine problem. Lily should have foreseen it, but she didn't. So many of the quickened were adopting dogs and taking them "home." Which meant the cabins and couches and spare rooms where the quickened lived, already crowded, were now getting ridiculous! And those real-dogs also ate. They ate a lot. And the town was already stretched so thin, trying to feed the quickened, with more arriving in town all the time.
Rav's shelter wasn't supposed to be a burden on the town, because he paid for the dogs' feed himself. But once a dog went home with someone, food was the new owner's responsibility. The quickened never thought it through. They never thought "I'm already being fed by the town. Should I really add another mouth?" Of course they didn't! They thought with their hearts, bless them.
She and Lance and the other old guard in town had tried to hide the rocky finances from the rest of the pack. There was no use upsetting everyone and scaring people. As far as most of the quick knew, the town was an endless well of resources and their lives were carefree. They didn't understand about money. Lonnie, Lily's oldest, started up a finances class last year, hoping to make the quickened more aware of money. But the quickened didn't have much chance to practice any of it since they didn't have jobs and thus no money to put in a bank or pay taxes on.
Lily hated the idea of a ban against adopting dogs. That seemed so cruel! But the fact was, the town couldn't afford to feed and house all these dogs. And Lily needed to address the issue with Rav. He needed to be much more strict about who was allowed to take dogs home. Or maybe he could help with food costs? Maybe they could foster instead of adopt? She was open to anything, really.
"Is it something I could help you with?" Simon asked, using a very professional tone of voice.
Lily smiled. "Thank you for asking, Simon. That's nice. But maybe I could just wait around for a bit?"
"Sure!"
Lily looked around. "How about in Rav's office?"
"Okay! He keeps it locked, but there are keys in the drawer!"
"Oh, perfect." Lily smiled.
* * *
Lily wandered around Rav's office, looking at stuff. It was shameful how little she knew about Rav Miller, the human from Arizona who looked tough, was as hot as a chargrilled steak—not that Lily had noticed—and rescued dogs. Anyone who rescued dogs earned a gold star in Lily Beaufort's book. In the old days, Lily would have been all over a stranger like that moving into town. She would have had his life story and sniffed out every inch of his place within a week. But she'd been so busy in the past few months, she hadn't had time. Besides, she knew Lance was on Rav's case.
But had Lily been wise to accept Rav so easily? She wondered as she half sat on his desk, tapping her foot with impatience.
Welp. She was here now. She might as well use her time productively!
Lily got up and looked over the stacks of papers on Rav's desks. There were newsletters and magazines about dogs and dog rescue, letters from shelter followers and prospective adopters, a stack of bills, and pet supply catalogs. Boring!
She tried the top left desk drawer. Pens, paper, stapler, other junk, and tootsie rolls—she took a piece and put it in her mouth. Yum! She looked in the top right hand drawer.
Under a few magazines was a thick manila folder. Still chewing the candy, Lily pulled the folder out, plopped it on the desk, and began leafing through the papers inside.
There was a blueprint of a very large flat-roofed building. A few tiny stenciled-in trees gave the drawing scale. Wow, that building was huge! A legend in the right corner said "PV:MC Facility. Phase 1. 1,600,000 ft."
Over a million square feet? Holy dog, that was big! Lily blinked at the images, wondering what that building was for and where it was located. She turned the pages.
She gasped and nearly choked, coughing hard around the tootsie roll.
There on a paper, plain as day, it said:
Mad Creek, est pop
Humans: 720
Quickened: 5,250
Quickened? Rav knew about the quickened? She was staring at the proof! And not only did Rav know, but he was keeping track of how many were in town? Why? Why would he do that?
With a growing sense of dread and fear, Lily scanned the rest of the folder quickly. She pulled out a drawing, her gut so tight she felt like she might throw up.
It was a sketch of what looked like a parade. There was a street lined with stubbed in crowds, and down the street came a group of… of what looked like cartoony dogs. Only they were walking on two legs, some waving to the crowd. One dog in the foreground had a collar around his neck and a pretty girl with pigtails was leading him. Over the street was a sign that read MAD CREEK DOG DAYS.
Dogs? On two legs? Surely he couldn't mean….
But there was no denying what it looked like.
It was a good thing Rav's desk chair was right there, because Lily sat abruptly, all the strength going out of her legs. She had to put her head between her knees and breathe deeply for a moment. Her hands looked white on her knees and they trembled. She felt like she'd just discovered a nest of poisonous vipers in her couch cushions. This was in her town.
Rav knew. He'd told Lance he didn't know, but he'd lied. And he had plans. Oh God. Plans!
She had to see Lance right this very minute! Lily grabbed the folder and ran out of Rav's office.
When Lily pulled up outside the sheriff's office and bounded out of the car, she nearly ran into Minnie who was scurrying down the sidewalk.
"Oh, Lily! Sorry. I didn't see you." Minnie's deep musical voice sounded rough, and Lily's ears perked up.
"Hi, Minnie! You sound upset, but I can't chat right now. I've learned something awful, and I’ve got to talk to Lance!" Lily clutched the manila folder to her chest.
"I was just going to see Lance myself!" Minnie said. "But I can wait if you need to talk to him first. Only there are some property buyer hijinks he needs to know about."
Lily gasped. "It doesn't involve Rav Miller, by any chance?"
Minnie nodded her head vigorously. "It sure does! How did you know?"
Lily grabbed Minnie's wrist and pulled the much larger lady into the police station.
* * *
Lance was at his desk talking to Roman when he heard voices in the reception area. A moment later, his mother and Minnie marched into his office. Leesa, the receptionist, trailed after them.
"What is it? What's happened?" Lance's hackles were immediately up. He knew his pack well enough to see their distress.
"Oh, Lance! You were right about Rav Miller. Only it's much, much worse than you thought!" Lily cried.
Lance shot a glance at Roman. Roman returned a steely glare, his jaw tight and his eyes already angry.
"Sit down, Mother, Minnie."
Lily and Minnie sat down in the visitor chairs in front of Lance's desk. Leesa hovered in the doorway, but Lance didn't trust the kindhearted quick not to gossip.
"Leesa, can you shut the door and stand guard outside to make sure no one overhears us?"
"Oh, yes, Lance!" Leesa said with a sense of importance. She left, closing the door behind her.
"Now tell us what's going on," Lance demanded. He leaned forward, hands on his desk. Beside him, Roman folded his arms over his chest as if bracing himself.
Lily put a folder on Lance's desk. "I went to talk to Rav at the shelter, only he wasn't there! So I may have snooped around his office a wee bit."
Lance knew all about his mother's proclivity for snooping. But in this case, he wasn't about to reprimand her. "What'd you find?"
"Just look!"
Roman crowded close to Lance, and they both looked over the papers in the folder. Lance saw a blueprint of a huge facility, tallies of the quickened versus human population in Mad Creek, and a sketch of a "Mad Creek Dog Days" parade. Lance's blood turned to icy rage in his veins, and he had a hard time catching his breath.
Lily was right. This was far worse than anything he could ever have imagined. Rav had lied to him. Clearly, he knew all about the quickened and had for a long time.
Was that why he'd come to Mad Creek? Obviously, Rav had an agenda. A nefarious agenda. What terrified Lance the most was that Rav couldn't be working alone. If he was planning something this big—facilities, parades—there had to be others out there, strangers out of town who knew as well. Had Rav been sent in as the cuckoo in their midst? The inside man to plant the seeds of doom? And how on earth could Lance stop it?
"What's that building?" Roman pointed to the blueprint.
Lance peered at the legend on the paper, but couldn't make sense of it. PV:MC Facility. Phase 1. 1,600,000 ft. PV-MC? Perversion Vector? Prison Vessel? Primate Viewing? Why would Rav need over a million-and-a-half square feet for anything?
"I don't know," Lance said tightly. "I hope to God it's not a holding facility of some kind. Test laboratories. A zoo for… for us. We should ask Jason Kunik. He was involved in genetics experimentation. Maybe he can make sense of those letters." Dear God, I hope not.
He got such a rush of rage and fear for his pack, he wanted to rip Rav apart with his bare hands.
"I can't tell you what it is," Minnie piped in, "but I can tell you where it's going. That's why I came to talk to you, Lance."
"Go on, Minnie. Anything you can tell us will help."
She nodded, her large face serious. "The last few weeks Rav's been calling me asking about large properties for sale. Well, I just assumed he was thinking about expanding the shelter already. He's been growing so fast. Heck, I didn't know!"
"It's all right, Minnie. Just tell us what happened."
"Well, practically every place I showed him he was, like, 'Bigger, bigger, bigger. I need something bigger.' So I showed him that hundred acres that's been for sale up there on Piney Top forever, you know the one. It was supposed to be a housing development only we managed to kibosh that whole thing with town ordinances. Oh, gosh, it's been so long ago! That was 1998 now, wasn't it?"
Lance felt a waft of impatience. "So you showed Rav the property?"
"Uh-huh. I told Rav about it and he was real interested. Then yesterday Rav brought a stranger into my office. This guy was from out of town, and he certainly wasn't quick."
It was Lance's worst fears, realized already.
"What was his name?"
"He told me to call him Dan. I believe his last name was Wilson or Wilbur or Winston— something like that. Sorry, but I only heard it the once when Rav first introduced us."
"It doesn't matter, Minnie. Please go on."
Minnie bit her lip, like she was trying very hard to remember. "He dressed real fine, like he had money up the backside. You know, expensive slacks. Button-down shirt. Like a business man. So I says, 'okay,' and I put them in my car and took 'em up to see that place. They looked it over. That lot is way overgrown, but it is nice and flat up there and there's a good view. They walked around for a long time, gesturing and talking. I tried to hear, but every time I moved close, Rav would move away from me. But my ears are real good and I did catch a few things."
Lance nodded, intent on hearing it all.
"There was talk about a landing pad, and trucks, and storage basements, and water and power, and well, I just don't see why most of those things would be necessary for a dog shelter. It weighed on my mind all last night. I figured I'd better tell you about it."
"Thank you, Minnie."
Lance clenched his fist so tight around a pencil that it suddenly snapped in half. When he opened his hand to drop it, there were drops of bright red. His canine nails had partially descended, digging into his palm. Lance was suddenly aware of his dog, who was close to the surface and ready to attack a perceived threat. Lance took shuddering breaths, in and out, in and out, while Lily fussed over his wounds. She grabbed a tissue to blot at them.
"Oh, Lance. Please calm down! You're not going to be any good to anyone if you drop dead of a heart attack like your father!"
"I'm fine, Mother!" Lance snapped. But it wasn't true. His dog was raging, wanted to lunge and bite and protect his pack. The border collie genes wound deep around his organs, and his dog was responding as though wolves were attacking his flock.
And that, Lance thought, was precisely what was going on.
Roman put a large hand on the back of Lance's neck in a comforting gesture and squeezed.
"Whatever's going on," Roman said quietly. "We'll stop it, Lance. Nothing's happened yet. Right, Minnie? They haven't bought that property yet?"
Minnie shook her head adamantly. "No, they sure haven't. And if an offer comes in, hopefully there's some way I can dissuade them. But I can't stop them from going directly to the landowner. He's not a quick, and he lives in San Jose. He's likely to jump on any offer to sell that place. He has no reason not to."
"Then we'll give him a reason," Roman said threateningly.
"That's not the main problem." Lance voice revealed more despair than he liked. "Rav knows about the quickened. And apparently he's got outside interests that also know. That's the problem."
He tapped the Dog Days drawing on this desk. "They want to come in here and make this whole place a freak show. Lock us up. Put us on display. I'll do anything in this world to stop that from happening. But the big question right now is, how many outsiders know about this? What if there's a whole corporation behind Rav? Or even a branch of the government. Maybe that whole bad boy routine is a ruse to throw us off the scent. For all we know, he's goddamn FBI."
His blood pressure was rising. He suddenly scratched at his arms, his skin prickling with the itch to grow hair.
Lily's worried voice came faintly. "Lance, please, honey, you have got to calm down. I'm gonna call Tim."
"No," Lance said quickly. "I'm fine." He sat down heavily in his chair and buried his head in his hands for a minute, trying to get a handle on his instincts.
Roman stood close, leaning into Lance's arm to offer the comfort of pack. Lance could feel his heat and strength. When Roman spoke, his voice was absolutely confident. "We'll find out who knows, and we'll deal with it. All of it. All right? We'll deal with it, Lance. You have my vow."
Lance knew Roman meant it, to his dying breath. But he also knew the words were hollow. What were they going to do? Go out and assassinate people? That wasn't who they were. And Lance wasn't sure the town wouldn't be destroyed just as fast if that was who they became. They couldn't fight the world, especially not when most of the quickened were not warriors. They were loving and trusting by nature. Even that stand they'd taken against the drug dealers a few years ago—that had been the pack against a handful of bad men with guns. This was potentially way, way bigger.
But what option did they have other than to fight? To beg Rav? To try to reason with him? As much as Lance doubted the success of those tactics, they had to try.
He sat up and shook himself all over, getting himself back in sheriff mode. "Right. Where is Rav now?" he asked Lily.
"Simon said Rav and Sammy took dogs to Mariposa for an adoption booth. I assume they'll be back by tonight."
Lance stood up. "Roman, you and Charlie go park on 83. When you see Rav and Sammy drive into town, escort them to Lily's house. Got that?"
"Yes, sir," Roman said. "Consider it done."