Read Online SHIAM Conspiracy- Book 1 by Joseph Heck - Free Book Online Page B

card back. I don’t think I want to give
you any more rides, man.”
    Zak laughed. But he kept the kid’s card.

7
    Z ak could tell something was wrong as soon
as he stepped off the old service elevator that led into the
kitchen area of his loft. Ke’aira was not acting her usual
enthusiastic self by jumping up on him as soon as he entered, her
tongue working overtime in a wet greeting. Ke’aira did meet him at
the lift, but she was subdued, her big brown eyes flicking from
side to side in nervous caution. It was something he had never seen
in her before.
    “What is it, girl?” His concern for her made
him instantly forget the ache in his jaw from the punch he’d
received outside Underworld. His first reaction was to suspect
something was wrong inside the loft. He carefully scanned the
visible areas of his apartment, although with all the greenery
scattered about it was like trying to see through the dense
vegetation of a rain forest. There was nothing out of the ordinary
that he could see.
    Ke’aira answered with an anxious whine.
Elvish Wilderdogs had a reputation for not only their intelligence,
but also for their courage. Zak considered Ke’aira to be
exceptional on both counts. She rose up on her hind legs, resting
her paws on Zak’s shoulders. Measuring seventy-six centimeters at
her shoulders and weighing in at forty-eight kilograms, Ke’aira was
hardly a small dog. He accepted her weight against his body,
scratching behind her ears as she met his eye contact. He knew she
was trying to tell him something but failed to understand what it
was.
    With Zak returning home, she seemed to relax
a little and she began licking his face with some degree of
enthusiasm. She took time out to sniff around the bruise that
marked his swollen cheek. Then she began licking again, this time
more gently covering the swollen area, as though she was tending to
the wound.
    “Don’t worry, you should see the other guy,”
he said to her.
    Ke’aira dropped to the floor. Sniffing the
air, she turned in a tight circle and sat down. She lowered her
head for a moment before looking up at him with those wide-set
brown eyes of hers, drool sliding off the tip of her pink tongue as
she panted nervously. When she whined and she sniffed at the air
again, Zak knew for certain that there was something bothering
her...something that she sensed...but what?
    He considered the possibility that it was the
weather that was bothering her. But storms had never bothered her
before, no matter how severe. And this storm had been hanging
around for two days now. She hadn’t shown any sign of... Well
actually, now that he thought about it, Ke’aira had been acting
differently since just before the bad weather set in two days ago.
The dog was normally glued to his side whenever they were together,
so that behavior hadn’t set off any alarms for him. But there had
been a subtle uneasiness about her over the past few days. He
cursed himself for not noticing sooner.
    There was no excuse for him not to have
picked up on the change in Ke’aira’s behavior. He had been so
preoccupied with the Crandell account these past few days that he
had developed tunnel vision. When had he become so concerned about
business that he began overlooking the truly important things in
his life?
    Off on a tangent of momentary guilt, he
forgot about identifying the reason for Ke’aira’s uneasiness in
favor of making it up to her for his neglect. He was tired and his
muscles ached, but he was not about to pass on his obligation to
her. “So, how about you let me take a shower and then we’ll go for
a walk?”
    If Ke’aira had noticed any neglect lately, it
was instantly forgiven with those words. Her head lifted, her ears
perked and she began to prance around him, urging him to hurry.
Whatever was bothering her seemed to suddenly become unimportant
with the prospect of going for their evening walk.
    Rain or star-filled sky, they had walked
every night since the very first