“He saved our lives. If he’s weird it’s the best weird ever. ”

We rolled down the lane to Road’s End. Turning the bend for the last hundred feet, I noted motion on my porch. Saw a wagging tail. Heard a triumphant bark.

Mix-up had returned.

He bolted for the car as we drove to the cabin. I bailed out the door while the car was in motion, thumping, patting, petting, all at once. I couldn’t stop laughing. I threw a stick, he ran and fetched. I ran in a circle and he darted between my legs, knocking me to the ground. I tumbled him over in the weeds and thumped his huge chest as he pedaled his feet at the sky.

Something struck me as strange. Mix-up’s coat was mat-free and as shiny as fresh silk, not expected of a furry beast lost amidst a forest’s brambles and burrs. I found no mud on his feet. No ticks in his fur.

Had he been bathed and brushed? Perplexed, I went to the kitchen and filled his food bowl. He finished half of the meal, then wandered outside.

The way he acted when recently fed.

I followed Mix-up outside to the porch, where Cherry was smoothing the fur on his broad back. A strange thought touched my head. I’d handed Cherry two dozen LOST DOG posters to disperse. But the only posters I’d ever seen were ones I’d distributed. The only calls I had received were from people who saw posters I’d put in place.

And why was Cherry always so optimistic about Mix-up’s return?

“Good doggie…” Cherry said, now scruffing Mix-up behind the ears, his favorite site for attention. But I had been with Cherry when Mix-up disappeared, my mind reasoned. We’d been on the run all day.

“He’s a good doggi-woggie …”

But… that six-second call from McCoy a half-hour ago. Was it really about going out to eat? Just saying How about we all head to a restaurant for supper some night this week? took about six seconds. And that was as stripped down as a telegraph message, without the standard pleasantries associated with Lee McCoy. And how did Cherry’s response - “Uh-huh. Not long, I expect” - fit with McCoy’s message?

My head tried a sample dialogue.

McCoy: “I’m sneaking the dog back to Road’s End. You’ll be at your place a while, right?”

Cherry: “Uh-huh. Not long, I expect.”

Was I over-analyzing? Had my Detective Meter gone to overload mode?

I watched Cherry smiling and patting Mix-up’s flank. His tail whisked at her face; his clean, fluffy tail. She scratched him between his cow-sized eyes. Patted his belly, which he loved. She rubbed Mix-up’s ears. My mutt looked ready to ascend toward canine Nirvana. When had Cherry found time to learn his special spots?

“Uh, Donna,” I said, swallowing hard and walking closer. “I’ve got a question …”

But if Cherry and McCoy had dognapped Mix-up, it was because they needed me on the case, doing what I did best, right? It just made sense: I was, after all, the hotshot hard-on from Mobile. In hindsight, I expect I’d have done the exact same thing if faced with the prospect of losing me.

“What, Carson?” Cherry said, turning the beautifully idiosyncratic eyes my way. Was that a shadow of guilt in the left one?

“I, uh - say, how about we head over to the skylift for another ride?” I took her hand and lit up my most sincere smile. “I just purely love that thing.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To the librarians in the Powell County and Wolfe County Public Libraries in eastern Kentucky, keepers of the lighthouses. To the exceptional folks at the Aaron Priest Literary Agency. To Julia Wisdom at HarperCollins UK for her overview and suggestions. To Anne O’Brien for sharp-eyed editing. And to the professional staff at Kentucky’s Natural Bridge State Resort Park, whose multi-faceted programs are instrumental to my knowledge and appreciation of the Red River Gorge.

About the Author

J.A. Kerley worked in advertising and teaching before becoming a full-time novelist. He lives in Newport, Kentucky, but also spends a good deal of time in Southern Alabama, the setting for his Carson Ryder series, starting with The Hundredth Man. He is married with two children.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

Also by J.A. Kerley

The Hundredth Man

The Death Collectors

The Broken Souls

Little Girls Lost

Blood Brother

In the Blood

Coming soon from HarperCollinsPublishers

The next thriller in the series featuring

Carson Ryder, the detective with a unique

perspective on serial killers

Enjoy an excerpt now

1

Three Weeks From Now

There’s something I got to give you, Harry, something important…

It was hotter than a potter’s kiln in Harry Nautilus’s attic. Sweat rolled down his face and into his eyes. He ducked under a joist, pushed past a broken kitchen chair he’d forgotten to repair, came face to face with a wall of cardboard cartons.

I got everything I need, Zing. Lay back and relax

The cartons were packed with outsized clothes. A year ago Nautilus had been ambushed by a blow to the head and nearly killed. During his convalescence he dropped thirty pounds he’d been trying to lose for ten years. A heavy-shouldered man of six-four, he was determined to stay at two hundred ten pounds. Still, he’d been unable to donate the duds to Goodwill, which he took as subconscious admission his former body was biding its time within. He shouldered aside the cartons and kept moving ahead.

I need you to get in my closet there, Harry. Grab out that brown box in the corner, would ya?

Nautilus palmed sweat from his brow. The roof angled low at back and he duckwalked the final few feet to a dark corner, reaching a small green box, metal, no larger than a shoebox. When he reached for the box, his hands faltered.

What the hell’s in here, Zing… a brick?

He closed his eyes and forced his fingers to close around the box. He backed out of the corner and retreated down the staircase, closing the attic door. He took the box to his office and set it on his desk while he patted his face dry with a bandana.

Above Nautilus’s desk, the wall was a montage of commendations, certificates and awards. Three medals of valor. Two awards for Officer of the Year, one as a patrolman, one as a detective. There were certificates of advanced training from the FBI. Recognitions from neighborhood associations. Letters from schoolkids thanking him for visiting class. There was a picture of a young and uniformed Nautilus laughing as his eight-year-old niece tried on his street-cop hat. Centering the wall was an eight-by-ten photo of Nautilus standing beside Carson Ryder, his partner and friend of many years. They were jointly holding a framed certificate.

What do you want me to do now, Zing?

The picture was from a few years back when the pair shared Officer of the Year status. Harry Nautilus was in a dark suit ironed hard as masonite, his wide black face somber behind the bulldozer-blade mustache, eyes stern and official. Ryder’s white linen sport jacket was rumpled and his tie hung askew, his belt buckle an inch off center in the jeans. His dark hair looked like someone had wounded his comb. Still, he was standing straight with his usual semi-smirk replaced by a serious and suitably dutiful face. However, as Carson’s left hand held the framed commendation, the right one had snuck up to put rabbit ears behind Nautilus’s head.