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Dolores made a saluting gesture in his direction.“Aye, aye, sir,” she said with her usual raspy voice. The smell of cigarettes always hung heavy in the air whenever Dolores was around, and Alec frankly hated it. Not that he begrudged her a smoke, but he was a cigarette addict, too, and it had taken him a lot of effort to stop smoking. Being around other smokers, especially heavy smokers like Dolores, always made him crave a drag.

“And if anyone asks, tell them to take a break from crime,” he added.

“Sure, I will tell all the rapists, murderers and other scum of the earth to lay off for now, chief,” said Dolores. “Tell them that the long arm of the law is tired and cranky.”

“I’m not cranky, Dolores.” But he was tired, though.

He hadn’t realized before how much he’d come to lean on Chase, and with him gone, and some of the other officers on vacation, too, his workload had suddenly tripled.

“Say, chief!” said Dolores as he put his hand on the door handle.

“Yah?”

“Why don’t I simply tell them that crime doesn’t pay? Maybe they’ll see the light! Maybe they’ll even get back on the straight and narrow, huh?”

“Smartass,” he grunted, and Dolores’s raspy laugh escorted him out the door.

“Chief!”

“Yeah!” he said, turning back.

“You’re not thinking about taking the car, are you?”

“Actually I was. Why?”

She got up and pressed out her belly, then patted it, and blew out her cheeks.

“Very funny, Dolores,” he growled. “Why don’t you just come out and tell me I’m fat, huh?”

“You’re fat, chief.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, and made to leave.

“Hey, chief, just give that pedometer a try, will you? You may be a grumpy old bastard, but that doesn’t mean I want to get rid of you just yet! Think about your family! And me!”

He made a throwaway gesture with his hand and walked out. Dolores was right, though. He’d installed a pedometer app on his phone and hadn’t actually used it. He took his phone out of his pocket and fired up the app, then stared at it. It seemed pretty straightforward. You had your speed, your distance, your burned calories… He cast a longing glance to his squad car, then raisedhis eyes heavenward. Oh, what the hell….

So instead of taking his car, he decided to leg it. He was a little heavier around the midsection than he would have liked. And his doctor had told him to lose some weight or else… Or else what? Or else he’d drop dead, like Dolores seemed to think?

How far was it to the August place? Two miles? Three?

A knocking sound behind him had him look up. It was Dolores, tapping the glass and pushing out her belly and blowing up her cheeks again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He got the message. Loud and clear!

He gave her a wave, and then he was off. He’d show her what he was made of.

Half an hour later he was huffing and puffing, and sweating like a pig, and as he reached the house where the kid Nicky August and his parents lived, he had to bend over and take a breather. His ticker was beating a rapid drum, and he felt dizzy and faint.

Heck, maybe Dolores was right. Maybe he needed to work out a little more. And go easy on the fatty foods. If a crook tried to steal his wallet now, he wouldn’t even be able to give chase! And as he approached the door to the August house, he decided to wait until he was feeling more like a human being. Or at least didn’t look as if he was melting.

So he wandered to the house next door instead, and glanced up at the facade. The Buschmann place looked less inhabitable year by year. Soon a heavy wind would come and knock the whole place down. And good riddance, too. Who needed an eyesore like that in their town? Out of curiosity, he walked up to the house, then up the few steps to the front door, and looked in. Place was a mess. Why the town hadn’t ordered it to be torn down he didn’t know. If he lived next door to a house like this he’d have filed a complaint a long time ago. Place stank, too. Rot and mold, of course. And something else. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. He stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. Weird. Almost as if someone in there was smoking. Impossible, of course. Unless…

And he was about to apply his ham-sized fist to the door and give it a good knock, when suddenly the door was yanked open and a big, bearded guy appeared.

He was so surprised that for a moment he was speechless. Then he produced his badge and held it up.“Chief of Police Alec Lip. Have you by any chance seen two kids? They seem to have gone—”

And he would have said more, if an unexpected sharp pain hadn’t exploded near the back of his head, and the world suddenly turned dark.

Chapter 5

I woke up feeling woozy and slightly nauseous. As if I’d been sniffing from one of Uncle Alec’s cigarettes, back when he still used to smoke a lot. The smell of his cigarettes gave me the same feeling I had now, along with a slightly metallic taste in my mouth. I was in a cage, and for a moment I thought some horrible thing had happened that I couldn’t quite remember. For a moment I even thought I was at the pound!