Page 41 of So Savage

“Do you have an address for this James Cooper?”

“Not yet.I’m going to work on that right now.”

“Good luck, Special Agent.”

“You too, detective.”

Faith skipped the breakroom when she reached the station.She didn’t need caffeine anymore.She was circling the conclusion to this case, and the excitement of being able to provide justice to the victims was more than enough to keep her awake.

She opened Marcus’s computer again and plugged in James Cooper’s name.There were nineteen matches, but thanks to Dr.Hayes’ description, she was able to find the specific James Cooper she needed.

And along with that, a quite impressive history.Cooper had been arrested for aggravated assault five years prior when he was a civilian K9 instructor contracted with the Army.It seemed that a certain young Private First Class Kevin Walsh had complained that James wouldn’t let him do anything with his K9 because he believed the private would injure the dog.James had responded by shoving Walsh into a wall.

Among the members of the inquest that eventually led to James’s firing by the military was Staff Sergeant Thomas Reeves.

That was his connection to the two men.She already had the connection to Delgado.

Now she needed to find him.His ID was listed as expired, and a few minutes of digging showed that his lease had expired three months ago.A call to the owners confirmed that he had moved out at that time and hadn’t been seen since.

She spent another hour trying everyone who might have known him at one time, but she couldn’t find any more recent information.It looked like he had faded off of the grid.

Okay.So, where would someone like James go if he was off the grid?He liked dogs.He'd once had a civilian training business.

Actually, that might be her answer.She looked up the business and discovered that it had once owned property.The property was still listed as belonging to James.Sometimes in cases like this, it took a while for records to update, but there was at least a chance that James was still there.

She got to her feet and motioned for Turk to follow.Turk was just about to close his eyes and fall asleep and didn’t appreciate the interruption.He let her know by growling irritably.

"You can sleep in the car," she told him."Come on."

He sighed and got to his feet to follow his annoying human.

***

The training facility was located northeast of the city proper, about halfway between Duluth and the National Guard base.The gate to the property was locked with a rusted padlock so corroded that it was difficult to tell where the actual lock ended and the rust began.A couple of whacks with the battering ram in Marcus’s truck was enough to break it.

Turk trotted ahead of Faith, nose to the ground, sniffing for clues.“Keep close, Turk,” Faith warned.Normally she would let him have free rein, but this killer had shown no concern over the K9s his victims had.The last thing she needed was Turk knocked out of the fight, especially if James used the second compound that had nearly killed the Dobermann.

It was clear immediately that the property had been left to rot.The chain link fence was as corroded as the lock and in some places, the links had begun to fail.The obstacles constructed on the course were either rusted to almost unrecognizability or—if they were plastic—warped to the same state.The field was covered in ice, so Faith couldn’t see if anything still grew there or if the turf had devolved into a choking mass of weeds.

The main building was located on the other side of the property from the gate Faith entered.Like the rest of the facility, it was in shambles.Every window Faith could see had shattered.Mold and lichens filled the pits and crevices of the concrete structure.Looking through some of the windows, Faith could see that parts of the roof had caved in.Snow drifting in through the windows and the open roof had mixed with dust and rust to form a sickly brown powder that reminded Faith somewhat of radioactive fallout.

Actually, that’s what this place felt like to her.It was like she was returning to a war zone after ten years and crawling through the wreckage of a past life.That was true, in a way.She wondered if James felt the same way as he looked around at what once had been a successful business.

She could almost feel sympathy for him.He had fallen to the opposite extreme that Daniel Ross had fallen to, and he had failed because of that, but she had a much easier time being angry with someone who abused dogs than with someone who cared so much for them that he didn’t want them in harms’ way at all.

She walked around the building, handgun ready, eyes scanning for clues and threats.Turk stayed a few yards ahead of her, paws padding silently over the snow, nose to the ground but eyes up and alert.

The silence was the most sobering part of the experience.Faith was used to a constant low hum of noise.In Philadelphia, there was always something going on.Even at four in the morning, you could hear the distant thrum of traffic on the interstate.If by some miracle, you happened to come across a few minutes with no traffic, you could hear the whine of electricity through the power lines.Televisions from neighboring apartments whispered through the walls, water hummed in the pipes—all noises that the city dweller tuned out instinctively but were present, nonetheless.

Not here.Here there was only the muffled crunch of snow under Faith’s boots and the soft pant of Turk’s breathing.This was almost certainly because the cold had driven the animals into hibernation and they were far enough from the main roads that cars would pass rarely if at all, but a part of Faith’s mind couldn’t stop from associating the silence of this place with the death she had witnessed in Duluth, death that the owner of this property might have caused.

They reached the front of the building.Like the windows, the glass here had been shattered.Jagged spears still hung from the top and protruded from the bottom like deadly 2D stalactites and stalagmites.Faith pulled her flashlight and switched it on to shine into the building.From where she stood, she could see nothing, but there was a lot of the building she couldn’t see.

She briefly considered calling for backup.She didn’t want to pull anyone away from the search for Delgado, but this killer worked by lying in wait and striking silently from a distance.She could be walking into a trap.

But she had to stop him.These were the risks that came with the job, and Faith knew all too well how dangerous caution could be to the innocents they were sworn to protect.

She took a deep breath and steadied herself.“Okay, Turk.Wait for me to clear the glass, then follow me in.”

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