Karen Rose - Have You Seen Her?

Then she heard another sound, one that made her nearly sob with relief.

A soft growl, this one canine. The dogs .

Then a furor of barking, snarling.

Cursing. Vicious cursing. A sharp cry of pain. Human.

More cursing followed by a canine yelp, then nothing.

"Sonofabitch," he snarled.

Then everything happened at once.

There was knocking at her front door and Mrs. Kassel-baum's urgent voice asking if she was all right, did she need any help. There was the feel of the knife at her throat, pressing harder, then pulling back. And instinctively she rolled just as the knife came plunging into the mattress where she'd lain a split second before.

She heard another curse, then the sound of ripping fabric. Then the sound of him gathering his things and his footsteps as he ran, leaving the light behind.

Blinking from the bright light, Jenna lay still for a moment, unable to move. She put her hand to her throat and brought it away, sticky with her own blood.

She stared at her hand, at the blood. Disbelieving. She was bleeding. He'd cut her.

Then she heard the sound of her front door opening and another startled cry of pain. Mrs. Kasselbaum. Oh, God .

Got to get to her. Got to call for help . Jenna ripped the tape from her mouth, gulped a breath. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, flinching when her feet hit something hard and furry.

The dog. Which one?

He'd killed the dog. Which one?

Oh, God.

She grabbed the phone and punched 911 while she ran to the front of her apartment, stumbling, falling, crawling. She tried to pull herself up on one of the dining-room chairs, but it wobbled and fell, sending her sprawling again. She'd pushed herself back on her knees and crawled another few feet when the 911 voice answered. Jenna didn't wait for the woman to finish her question, just babbled. "Help. Please. A man… just came in."

"Is he still there, ma' am?"

Hearing the calm voice helped her breathe. Think. Speak. "No. No, he's gone." She shuddered, crawling closer to her open front door where another furry body lay just inside.

"Are you hurt, ma'am?"

Jenna felt a hysterical laugh fight its way up her throat. "I'm bleeding. He cut me. There's another woman hurt. My neighbor." She crawled past the dog and into the hall where another neighbor had appeared, a cordless phone to his ear. He was calling 911, too.

So she could hang up. She pushed herself to her knees next to Mrs. Kasselbaum's inert form. "Mrs. Kasselbaum." The tears were coming now as she realized she didn't even know the old woman's first name. She grasped a thin, scrawny shoulder and shook. "Mrs. Kasselbaum, please."

The other neighbor knelt down beside her and pulled her hand from the old woman. "Don't touch her," he said, panic in his own voice. "Wait for the paramedics. They're on their way." His name was Stan. His wife was Terri and they had a new baby named Bella. She knew all of this yet didn't know the first name of the old woman who might be dead because she cared too much.

Sobbing now, Jenna fell back against Mrs. Kasselbaum's closed door, reached for her own phone, and called the only other number in her brain.

"Steven, please, come."

Monday, October 10,1:43 A.M.

Steven rushed up the steps of her apartment unit, flashing his badge as the paramedics were carrying a gurney down. He looked down at the gray face of Mrs. Kasselbaum, still in her hair curlers, then up at the paramedic's face. He shrugged. '"Fifty-fifty," he said. "She's eighty-two."

"Where are you taking her?" Steven asked, knowing Jenna would want to know.

"Wake. Gotta go.'" They pushed past him and out the front door of the apartment building where a frightened, confused crowd of neighbors had gathered next to the flashing lights of the ambulance.

Steven took the rest of the stairs three at a time and stopped short at Jenna's threshold.

Two uniformed police stood back near her dining-room table where a chair lay on its side. The remnants of her dinner still sat on the table and Steven recognized one of his own plates. He looked down at his feet to where one of the dogs lay still. Then over to her sliding-glass door where a fist-sized circle had been cut neatly in the glass.

Jenna was lying on the sofa, a paramedic kneeling on the floor next to her. Her face was white in stark contrast to the black of her hair. She had a bandage at her throat.

Unholy rage started deep and boiled over. Sonofabitch. Coming into her home. Hurting her .

He swallowed hard, staring at her face, at the bandage on her throat. Someone had hurt her.

But she was alive. And she'd called him .

He crossed over the threshold only to be stopped by the uniforms. He flashed his badge.

One of the uniforms frowned his confusion. "Not your jurisdiction, Special Agent Thatcher," he said politely.

Steven clamped a lid on his temper. " She's my jurisdiction," he said through clenched teeth. " She's mine ."

The uniforms looked at one another, then stepped back without another word.

He dropped to his knees next to the paramedic. "Jenna."

Her eyes opened and in them he saw shock and tears and guilt. Her lips trembled and she blinked, sending tears down her white face. "I'm so sorry, Steven. I should have listened to you."

The paramedic looked at him sharply. "She's in shock, but she'll be okay."

From behind him one of the uniforms said, "She's said that a couple of times. That she's sorry and should have listened to you. What does she mean?"

Steven reached for her hand, ignored the suspicion in their innuendo. "She's been having trouble from some kids at the school where she teaches. A couple days ago, they cut the brakes on her car. I was afraid for her to be alone. Al Pullman, Investigative Division, has all the details."

"She's also asked about Jim and Jean-Luc," the paramedic added, packing up his things. "We assumed they were the dogs."

Steven looked over at the dog lying by the front door, then at the uniforms standing behind him. "Yeah. Are they alive?"

"Barely," Uniform One said. "I'd suspect poison for that one. The one in the back tangled with her attacker. He's cut up pretty bad, but breathing."

Steven's mind flashed back to the clearing, to Pal and old Bud Clary. To what seemed like a day a hundred years ago. "I'll call a vet, but don't touch them. We'll want Forensics to check them for evidence." He'd no sooner punched Kent's number into his cell phone when the man himself appeared in Jenna's doorway with a woman Steven recognized as Kent's "lady-vet" at his side.

"Pullman called me," Kent said, "after Nancy called him, after you called her. Nancy told him you'd want me to check the scene and the dogs. Wendy was with me and offered to come along."

Steven chose not to comment on the fact that Wendy the "lady-vet" just happened to be with him in the middle of the night. "Thanks, Kent. Wendy, the dog in the back was stabbed."

She nodded. "Understood. I have a digital camera in my bag. We'll get pictures before I stitch him up."

Jenna struggled to sit up, pushing aside the well-meaning hands of the paramedic. "Jim's there by the door. Jean-Luc's in the back. Please help them. They saved my life."

Steven swallowed. And for that the dogs got beefsteak for the rest of their days. If they lived.

Wendy smiled at Jenna. "You worry about yourself. I'll worry about your boys."

Steven turned his attention back to Jenna, noticing the smears of blood on her worn Duke T-shirt. "Any other wounds?" he asked the paramedic.

The paramedic shook his head and snapped his case closed. "Only her throat. The blood on her shirt appears to be her own."

"We found bloody handprints on the carpet where she crawled from the bedroom," said Uniform Two.