4338.218 · August 6, 2018 AD
Bolt Engaged, Cage Empty
Monday morning, basement rotation. A junior constable rounds the corner into the K9 facility expecting to find the same German Shepherd he fed yesterday — Karl Jenkins' dog, still waiting in kennel four for an owner who hasn't come home. The bolt is engaged. The red light is steady. The water bowl hasn't been touched and the canvas pad hasn't been slept on. Everything about the kennel says it's been locked all night. Everything except the fact that it's empty.
Evans starts his Monday the same way he's started every morning this week — basement rotation, facility checks, logbook in hand. The garage is normal. The lab and lockup doors glow green. The first three kennels are locked and empty. The fourth kennel is locked and empty too, except twelve hours ago it contained a thirty-five-kilogram German Shepherd who'd already lost one home this week.
Briscoe doesn't hurry. He examines the bolt mechanism, the mesh, the frame joints, the drainage grates. Everything intact. Nothing forced, nothing tampered with. The facility log's last entry is Constable Derwent at nineteen-thirty-five — fed, exercised, returned, bolt confirmed. Between that entry and Evans rounding the corner at six, nothing.
Then the surveillance footage. Fourteen cameras, twelve hours. At 01:20, a woman steps through the basement stairwell door with the directional certainty of someone who's walked this route before. Silver hair. Dark clothing. Her face angled precisely enough to deny the camera a full identification. She kneels at kennel four and puts her hands through the mesh and touches the dog's muzzle, and Jargus — the dog who's spent four days waiting for the only person who matters — closes his eyes. Then five seconds of visual interference, and the kennel is empty and the bolt is still engaged and the woman stands up without looking for the dog she was touching three seconds ago.
The access card she used to enter the building belongs to Karl Jenkins.
