June examined the tape roll.
One section was missing.
The torn edge was fresh.
Clara stared.
“I haven't used that in months.”
June looked at her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Then Clara remembered.
The morning before Milo became sick, she had found her garage door slightly open.
She had assumed she had forgotten to close it.
She had also noticed muddy footprints.
She had cleaned them up.
She had never mentioned it.
Now her stomach tightened.
“Officer Reyes…”
“What?”
“I think someone was in my garage.”
June became still.
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Did you see them?”
“No.”
“Anything missing?”
Clara shook her head.
“Not that I noticed.”
June looked at the tape again.
Then at the containers.
“That's important.”
Clara swallowed.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Then why do I feel like I am?”
“Because you accused your neighbor before we knew what happened.”
Clara looked down.
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
“I thought…”
June waited.
Clara whispered:
“I thought Ethan hated animals.”
“Why?”
“Because he complains about them.”
“That's not the same thing.”
Clara knew that.
She just had never wanted to admit it.
That evening, the first laboratory result arrived.
The pale powder was not a conventional poison.
It was a mineral supplement commonly used in animal nutrition.
By itself, it was unlikely to have caused Milo's condition.
The meat was another story.
It contained high levels of bacteria associated with improper storage.
Milo had eaten contaminated food.
The question was where it came from.
And who had put it in the bucket.
The following morning, June discovered another dog had become ill.
A small spaniel named Poppy.
Poppy belonged to a woman named Elaine Foster.
Elaine had boarded the dog with a local pet sitter named Marissa Vane.
Marissa lived on the other side of the neighborhood.
When June spoke to Elaine, she learned something strange.
Poppy had become sick two days before Milo.
Elaine had contacted Marissa.
Marissa had told her:
“Your dog may have eaten something near the fence.”
June's pen stopped moving.
“What fence?”
“The fence behind her house.”
“Which house?”
Elaine gave the address.
June recognized it immediately.
Marissa's backyard shared a boundary with the same abandoned field that bordered Ethan's property.
Two sick dogs.
Two separate households.
One contaminated food source.
June began investigating the pet sitter.
Marissa Vane was not the only person using the field.
Several local families walked their dogs there.
And behind the field stood an old agricultural storage building that had been empty for years.
Or so everyone believed.
June drove there.
The building was locked.
But behind it she found something.
A discarded cardboard box.
Inside were empty packages from a regional pet-food supplier.
The expiration dates were still visible.
Several packages belonged to a batch that had been recalled.
June photographed them.
Then she noticed tire tracks.
Fresh.
A pickup truck had been there recently.
The tire pattern matched a truck seen on a security camera near Ethan's property.
A gray truck.
The same kind Clara had seen during Ethan's argument.
June contacted the sheriff's department.
By late afternoon, investigators identified the vehicle.