SECTION I

I hope this correspondence finds you well and you do not find my method of introduction too alarming.

CHAPTER ONE

A grotesque, blackened corpse froze in a terrified pose. Charcoal fingers splayed out in a defensive posture toward the screen, framed inside a scorched car window, as if pleading with the camera. White teeth shone through charred lips that pulled back. The black mouth partly open, like a scream cut dead. The background, the burned out interior of a sedan, fuzzed out of focus in the background.

Haddie grimaced at her monitor, her hand rising off the mouse as if she touched the corpse. “Ugh.”

She’d been scrolling through the newspaper’s online images, already gruesome enough. Horrifying pictures of discarded, mangled pets from an article on a dog-fighting ring. Dobermans left in hillside brush outside of Eugene, a pit-bull torn open on the side of a road, and one dog so badly mutilated and decomposed that she could only guess it had been a German Shepherd. She wanted to kill someone who did that to animals. From there, she’d mistakenly moved into another news article that involved a car fire.

Terry, her lanky friend, hunched over his laptop beside her. He’d squeezed in at the edge of her desk. A tech major at the same school she went to, he was the only one tech savvy enough to help her stop the dog fights. He hadn’t seen the car fire, but looked up as she scrolled back through the dogs.

“You’re obsessed — I mean — don’t get me wrong, we’re doing the right thing.” He had light brown skin like her, and straggly black hair that hung in his eyes.

Terry hadn’t been the first one to mention that to her, but Haddie considered herself passionate, not obsessive. Who couldn’t be, especially when it came to the brutality of dogfights? She clicked back one picture and saved another of the horrific pictures of a dog barely recognizable as a Doberman. Her target had bought the one-year-old six weeks ago, her and Terry had tracked it down. Its tan and black markings were distinct.

If anything, Terry was right in that the timing was bad. I don’t have the time. She had a paper due, finals were only four weeks away, and the internship took more of her life than she’d imagined. Terry had been a gem, working around his tech classes, but he breezed through those.

He looked up at her with a red straw between his lips. He loved those citrus-smelling drinks from a gallon-sized convenience store cups. Offering an apologetic smile, he turned back to his keyboard. “It’s just that you obsess until everything else in your life falls to the side. You’ve got a new job and you’re barely sleeping. You missed a class last night and you’ve got a paper due.”

Haddie sat up, tugging hair out from where it had stuck between the chair and the base of her back. She smoothed it out in her hands and absently twirled it into a black ball around her fist. “It’ll be over tonight, I’d imagine.”

They shared her desk, having moved some of her piles behind her monitor or stacking them on the floor with her yoga pants and sweatshirt from a few nights ago, maybe last week. After seeing the off-white laminate desktop again, she’d remembered assembling it with Dad, probably three years ago, before things had gotten weird with him. It stretched out six feet with drawers at each end that had collected random assortments of junk over the years. She’d gotten it specifically so she could have a big enough desk that she could keep organized. Somewhere, under the piles, lay a wire mesh inbox and a black organizational tray with little cubbies.

The white takeout box hung on the back corner. As part of the deal, she’d bought dinner with Dad’s card. Thai curry, not to hot.

Rock, her black Pitbull with a white giraffe on his chest, had found a space at her feet. His back pressed against one of the piles of Manila folders and binder clipped papers.

Terry flipped to a bulletin board where the same gruesome picture of a burnt body joined photos of a slightly charred gray Ford Fusion. He must have seen it on her screen. He grunted. “Back to spontaneous combustion.”

Haddie raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“This charred guy in the car the other night. On the news.” Terry gestured to the screen. “Supposedly no accelerant, so the board’s been all about spontaneous human combustion. The big argument is some troll going on about amino acids being the cause while the rest are going with tried and true alcohol or wick theory.”

“Gross.” Haddie focused back on her screen. The chat where she’d posted Rock’s photo as bait still had no response. Surely this scumbag didn’t go to bed early.

“Yaass.” Terry typed a comment. “Now we’re onto Armageddon, aliens, fallen angels, and government implants. This is awesome.”

“You are strange, Terry.”

“Exquisitely so.”

She’d met Terry when he’d been a freshman. Haddie had been swearing at a library monitor when he’d been passing by with an armload of books. After dropping a stack of tech tomes on the desk — each as thick as any of her legal books — he got her on track with an obstinate program and out from under the glare of the librarian. They’d hid it off. He could be as irreverent as she and didn’t seem intimidated by her height. Besides, he’d been willing to play a cleric at her local game. Presently, he was the group’s wizard.

He’d rescheduled a date with a med student to help Haddie tonight. She hadn’t wanted him to, but he thought she might get into trouble.

Rock’s chin slid onto Haddie’s thigh, his dark whiskers sprayed over her red jeans. Dark eyes mooned up and blinked.

Haddie rubbed behind his black ears. “Hey, Boy. Momma’s gonna kick his butt, don’t worry.”

Her phone chimed and she picked it up. Dad. Again. He’d gotten insistent the past few days. She’d sent a non-committal reply once and ignored the rest. She closed the screen. At the moment, she couldn’t deal with their issues. He wouldn’t explain, not everything, and she couldn’t wrap her head around what she did know. She flipped the phone over.

Her monitor flickered, a message appearing in the chat.

“He bit,” she said. Her heart raced as she poised fingers over the keyboard. Not too eager.

She’d set up a profile in the chat room where ‘Maxmillian’ had purchased two dogs so far; both had turned up dead from dogfighting. She had Rock posted as needing an adoption with a story that she had to move into an apartment that wouldn’t take dogs. Haddie knew she would live in the RAV4 before that happened.

“He’s a pure breed,” she wrote. “150 firm.”

Maxmillian took a few moments. Haddie turned to Terry, who had a finger wedged between his teeth but still managed a goofy smile.

Maximillian responded, “Agreed. Cash. When can we meet? Amazon Park by the dog walk.”

Now for the tough part. “Tomorrow morning. I’m out of work, so I can do anytime, you pick the time. I’m dead on empty though. You’ll have to send me $10. The rest in cash.”

Terry leaned back and watched her screen. He pressed his short hair back with both hands as if trying to force it into place and out of his eyes. He paused, both hands at the back of his neck and his eyes somewhat bulged as the skin pulled taut.

He bit his lip. “Still gotta warn you again, Haddie. As easily as I, or the police, can find this guy’s identity with these money apps, they can find yours.”

“He’ll be in jail.”

“This could be the mob or something.”

Haddie raised her eyebrows. “Drama much?” She shook her head. “Don’t worry. This is just some local scumbag. Wasn’t even on the police radar until we brought it to them.”

As much as she dismissed it with Terry, the thought had been disconcerting, but she couldn’t think of another way to get to these people. The dogfighting had to stop, and the police seemed disinterested. If their buyer flipped, perhaps the whole ring would go down.

Jisoo, her calico, called out from the kitchen.

Haddie leaned her head back. “Just ’cause I’m up, doesn’t mean you get fed.”

Maxmillian responded. “Venmo?”

Terry whooped. “You did it, Haddie.” He pointed a finger at her, thumb extended up. “Now, you can get back to learning how to be a lawyer — if you haven’t failed out from all this.” He gave her a friendly smirk; he’d bust her chops, but he was always there when she needed help.

Sending out her information, she waited for the confirmation before she agreed to a time late in the morning when they were to meet. She’d send the detective the information, and hopefully with all the other evidence she’d sent, the police would meet this creep. Her part was over — unless the police failed to close down the ring. Then, she’d have to think of something else.

Terry started closing down his laptop. “Fun time, Buckaroo.”

Her phone buzzed and she glanced, thinking it might be another Venmo alert. Another text. I’ll end up blocking Dad. Not Dad. Andrea, defense attorney and Haddie’s new boss, sent a single line, “New client. 8am.”

Haddie groaned, glancing at the time — 2:11 am, less than six hours from now. She typed a cheerful reply and placed the phone beside her keyboard.