The Tesla Legacy

Chapter 31

Francis gave up on the damn voice mail system. He was going to have to track the guy down and drag him upstairs even if it made him look like a fool and cost the company money. Plus, he’d have to deal with the guy’s snotty attitude. Mathison? What a name!

He hurried down the gray stairs to the sub-basement. The sooner he got this over, the sooner he could go on break. He wanted to call the bakery about the cake he’d ordered to celebrate his first six months on the job. He was officially out of the probationary period and was starting to save money for his own place. Things were looking up.

He flicked on the overhead fluorescents as soon as he stepped into the hall. This level gave him the creeps, and he was glad that he didn’t have to come down here often. Nothing worth guarding.

A yellow dog slammed out of a door at the end of the corridor, and Francis jumped. The dog streaked toward him, barking. He turned toward the door, but the dog passed him and pushed him back a step.

Francis put his hand on the butt of his nightstick, but he didn’t want to hurt the dog. What the hell was it doing down here anyway?

“Easy, boy!” he called out, wondering if it was a boy. “Good dog!”

The dog stopped barking and stared up at him. It bumped him with its nose and looked back the way it had come. It whined and took a few steps down the hall.

The IT guy hadn’t had a dog with him, so where had this pooch come from, and what did it want?

The dog whined again and bumped his hand, leaving a sticky trail. Francis pulled his hand away, prepared to wipe off dog spit, then stopped. The dog hadn’t drooled on him. Its muzzle was stained with blood.

He knelt next to the dog. Only now did he realize how upset the animal was. It was shaking like a leaf, and its eyes were practically popping out of its head. Gently, he felt the dog’s head, body, and legs. The dog didn’t shy away or yelp. It wasn’t wounded.

Which meant that the blood was from someone else.

He pulled out his nightstick. He wished he’d been issued a gun, but he wasn’t allowed to carry one. The hotel felt that armed security guards spooked the guests. Well, the guests weren’t half as spooked as he was right now.

The dog licked his hand, then grabbed the end of his sleeve between its teeth and tugged, dragging him a step down the hall.

“Easy now,” he said softly. “I’ll come with you.”

First, he called it in, reporting his location and a dog covered in blood that wasn’t his own. Anderson, the prick, treated it as a joke, but said he’d be right down. With Anderson, that meant any time in the next hour or so.

He wanted to wait right here for Anderson, even if it took an hour, but he looked again at the blood on the dog’s fur. It was still wet. Someone or something was hurt down here, and they might be dying. Maybe it was the IT guy. Maybe he cut himself. Even a snot like Mathison deserved to have someone look for him.

He took a deep breath and followed the dog. Nobody was dying on his watch. He strained his ears, but couldn’t hear a single sound. Not good.

The dog led him down a hall to another one, then stopped in front of a closed door with a broken window. He looked into the dark room. Various sheet-draped shapes stood in straight lines. He didn’t see anyone inside, but someone had to have broken out the window. The IT guy wouldn’t have done that. The dog probably couldn’t have, not without cutting itself. Sweat trickled down his back. He thought about calling Anderson again, but didn’t want to be mocked if it turned out to be nothing.

As if it knew that he wasn’t going to open the door on his own, the dog took the doorknob in his mouth and turned it, which was a pretty neat trick. It must have special training. The dog pushed the door open and held it. It whined deep in its throat. It clearly wanted him to go into the room.

He wasn’t sure whether he should do what the dog wanted, but he’d come this far. He stepped through the door, searching for movement and holding on to his nightstick. Broken glass crunched under his feet, although someone had put down a sheet to cover it up.

As soon as he was in the room, the dog let go of the doorknob. It made a beeline straight for the center of the room, barking.

Francis flicked on the lights. He kept his weapon up and cautiously followed, ready to dive behind the long rows of furniture if he saw any sign of danger. Not that there could be any danger in this basement. The only one who’d come past him to go down here was the IT guy, and he was a skinny little runt. The dog, he reminded himself. How did the dog get down here?

The dog had reached the center of the room and was putting up quite a racket, barking and whining. Anyone in here had to know something was up. But nothing else moved.

When he reached the dog, he saw why. A man lay on the floor, pinned under a heavy wooden wardrobe. His eyes were closed, and his head rested in a pool of blood. The wardrobe had fallen on him, and he must have cracked his head on the bloody edge of the desk when he went down. None of which explained what he was doing here in the first place.

Francis took a panicked look around the room. Empty. If someone else had been here, like that IT guy, they were gone now.

He knelt next to the man, careful not to touch the blood. The dog had stepped in it and left bloody paw prints all around, and he stayed away from those, too.

A wardrobe next to the one that had fallen gaped open. One of the doors had been knocked off its hinges. Long scratches in the wood told him that the dog had done it. Had someone stuffed the dog in the wardrobe, then dropped a second wardrobe on its master?

The dog whined and looked at the man on the floor. It clearly expected Francis to do something.

He touched the man’s neck, searching for a pulse. A thready and irregular beat pushed against his fingertips. It felt as if it could stop at any time. But at least the guy was alive.

“Can you hear me?” Francis said. He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.

He put both hands under the wardrobe and lifted with his legs. He got it up off the guy and back onto its four legs. That should at least make it easier for the man to breathe.

He pulled out his phone and called 911. He gave specific directions to the hotel, the basement, and the victim. He even had the operator repeat it all back.

Then he called Anderson and told him to get down here right away, and see if he could bring a doctor with him.

He looked at the man on the floor in front of him. Francis was no doctor, but he could tell this guy was badly hurt, maybe dying. The dog knew it, too. It had lain down next to its master’s body as if to keep him warm, and it kept licking his cheek and whining.

He tried to remember what the teacher had said in first-aid class. For a head injury, keep the victim still. Not a problem. This guy wasn’t moving. Don’t move them because they might have a broken neck. OK, he wasn’t going to move him either. Apply pressure to stop bleeding unless you think they might have a skull fracture. He couldn’t tell, but the guy might. Best not to touch him. So he settled for taking off his shirt and spreading it over the guy to keep him warm. He thought about using one of the sheets, but they looked filthy. He felt stupid standing around in his T-shirt, and he wished he could remember more treatment options for a head injury, but that was all he could come up with.

“Sorry, doggie,” he said. “There’s nothing else I can do.”

The dog looked over at him. Its brown eyes were wide with panic. He petted its head a couple of times. “Help is coming, doggie. Your buddy will be fine.”

Francis didn’t believe it.