Shadow Of The Past Trilogy ∞ THE DISPLACED

11 ∞ evidence

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Day Two ∞ Late Saturday afternoon

HE WAS ALONE AGAIN. He was satisfied that he'd done what he could for Mickmi so far; she was now soaking in a hot bubble bath. He'd identified a frozen dinner from the stockpile Mom had prepared before she left to stay with Aunt Gloria, and he'd put Zorro in the kennel.

Now he could sit on the porch and mellow out a bit while he waited for the oven to preheat and for the police to come. He needed that.

An opportunity to think.

So much had happened today on top of everything else, it was making his head buzz. He'd received a couple of answers, but then even more questions had cropped up. Twice today Mickmi had claimed to have 'met this creature before'. First, it was Zorro, then the dead cougar. But there was no way that she could have encountered either of them when he brought her home; she'd been totally out of it and in no condition to go anywhere on her own.

Yet how could he explain the claw marks on her skin? And the blood on the door frame?

He sat forward, elbows on knees, head in hands, closing his eyes.

With the size of those claw marks, she should've been bleeding. And by now they would've been healing with a layer of scab.

But she didn't have any claw marks when I brought her home. They weren't there. Sis would testify to it.

Instead she had fading bruises that looked like claw marks, that flared up when she had a seizure of some sort. As if she'd been branded somehow.

That doesn't make sense.

Maybe the claw marks had faded before he found her, and they were just flaring up again when the doctor came yesterday—flaring up the same way they did today.

Maybe.

He wasn't convinced. He sighed and got up to load the frozen beef lasagna into the oven. Then he set the timer to forty minutes, as per Mom's marker pen instructions.

Thanks, Mom. Today was not a day he'd want to attempt cooking anything from scratch.

He returned to the front porch and was about to sit down again when a police car emerged from the trees. It was time. He went down the steps and waited for the car to pull up in front of him.

Sgt Eldon greeted Danny as he got out of the car and looked around. "So your dog got killed."

"Yes, sir. By that cougar. I buried him in the back."

Grunting, he eyed Danny's truck with a furrowed brow. "Well, you wouldn't know if the cougar did it, would you? It may've been the other cat. I asked Animal Control to come by when they're finished." He grabbed his notepad and pen from the dashboard and asked for Danny's telephone number.

"So you live here with...?"

"My mother and sister."

"And you heard noises when?"

"Early Friday morning. Around four. Our other dog was barking very aggressively."

"You didn't hear the cat?"