He thought he was stopping for a stray dog in the snow-until he saw what she was hiding beneath her body

her place by the hearth. She did not growl. She put herself between the crate and the door, body low but steady.

Cal touched her head once as he passed. “Stay behind me.”

When he opened the door, Dale Crowley stood on the porch with two men behind him.

Crowley was thick through the middle, red-faced from cold or drinking or both, with a greasy ball cap continue reading …