AN: Almost there! Just the epilogue after this which I'll post next.
Sunshine whined, the grief holding out for so long before she needed to lay down.
"Both of them?"
Maggie lowered her head in a sign of respect and comfort. "I'm very sorry for your loss, ma'am."
"My dear pups. I had many litters in my time. No one thinks I remember each other, but I do." She whined again, letting the deep breaths create a cloud of dust from the dirt beneath her. "Max was a fearless little thing. We have a pond with this big, aggressive goose and he would bark away, trying to chase him off. And Aristotle. He had to get into everything. The basement. The barn. So curious about the world."
"Sunshine," Jake gently spoke. He wasn't sure what he could say or do. He had been there. He was still there. There was never anything to be done to keep the pain away. "Is there any you can tell us that can help?"
"Anyone you know who would want to hurt them?" Maggie added.
"I d-"
"What is going on here!?" a voice yelled out in the distance.
Everyone looked to the front of the house where the investigators were talking to an elderly husband and wife. A younger man, short and stocky, stomping out of the house was the cause of the commotion. A few more terse words were exchanged between Gibbs and the newcomer, but the volume was too low to hear anything else. Jake couldn't see a trace of either Candice or Austin.
The entrance of the man cause Sunshine's ears to flatten against her head.
"I wonder..." she trailed off. "That's their son, Scott. Paula and Tom have been fighting with him about money. It's always a problem; has been since he was a teen. Lately, though..."
"How bad?" Jake inquired, sensing where this was going.
"Bad. Hostile even. He knows he can't do much without losing his inheritance. And Paula and Tom, they love being breeders. They love what they do."
Maggie looked at Jake. "Motive," she told him.
"He would have records of his parents' clients," Jake added.
"So, that's means. It's worth looking into."
The dull lull within the group of humans got louder and Scott started backing away, shouting at the investigators.
Tony held his hands up to calm the stressed man, the other two agents had their hands to their guns at the potential threat and Gibbs was poised in a tense way that either meant he was going to run the suspect down or calmly let the man knock himself out for even having the idea of fleeing.
"Easy..." Tony soothed.
"No! No! I did nothing wrong!"
McGeek picked up with trying to ease the man. "We're not accusing you of anything."
"Mags! Jake!" Just as they heard the call from their fearless leader, Scott ran, heading accross the fields and towards the woods in an assumed attempt to escape.
The two dogs looked at each other.
Jake and Maggie talked about this same conundrum several times and they only talked about it at night. It was a fear that could only be shared between canines and never, ever be talked about during the light of day.
The simple truth was that a dog caught biting a human was an instant death sentence for them. It never mattered if it was justified.
To bite was to die.
But humans are slow and this man killed two of their own.
In silent agreement, they took off to chase the suspect.
'Can't bite, can't bite,' Jake repeated in his head and, as he got closer to the fleeing man, he tried to figure out the best way to grab a pant leg without taking in flesh.
It was a second too late before he realized the German Shepherd he felt running behind him was, in fact, not Maggie.
Sunshine not only caught up to him, she ran past him with a speed that could only be powered by determination.
Scott was just about to clear the field and make a run into the woods when Sunshine caught up to him.
She wasn't thinking about the dangers of biting a human.
The barking and the scream that followed when she chomped down on his shoulder was going to follow Jake for awhile.
"Sunshine!" Jake yelled as he came up to them. "He's down! Get off! Get off!"
Just like a switch, she stopped her attack. Once she was certain the moans of pain meant he wasn't moving anytime soon, she sat down. She was docile and excepting of her fate.
"Bitch. Stupid bitch," Scott groaned.
Jake just stood there in shock. He wasn't sure what to do.
Sunshine looked directly at him. "No one thinks I remember my pups," she told him. "I remember every playful yip and growl. No one should take that away."
The rest of the humans ran past Jake, causing him to back up and away until he ran literally ran into Maggie.
"Jake," Maggie acknowledged, looking up and down to make sure he wasn't injured.
"Stupid bitch," Scott kept on whimpering, tears streaming down his face in pain. "Did nothin' wrong. Stupid bitch kept at me. Just stupid dog. Bitch couldn't leave a stupid dog."
He was talking about Petty Officer Hannah Parker, Jake realized. A woman who fought and risked her life for her country had fought and died to protect the dog she loved.
'Humanity.' Jake thought. 'Indeed.'
