STEALTHY SECRETS

  SIT, STAY, SLEEP COZY MYSTERIES

  BOOK 14

  PATTI BENNING

  SUMMER PRESCOTT BOOKS PUBLISHING

  Copyright 2025 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

  SIGN UP FOR THE SPBP NEWSLETTER

  Do you love Cozy Mysteries, Freebies, Contests and always being in the know?

  You'll love the Summer Prescott Books Newsletter!

  Click below for the best and most up to date info. Join the fun!

  Sign Up

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Also by Patti Benning

  Author’s Note

  Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sadie Barton didn’t believe in ghosts, but if she was going to find one anywhere, this stretch of dense, quiet forest just outside of the small town of Greencreek, Georgia, would be the place. The trees were old and crowded close together, and the road wasn’t much more than a two-track, rutted on either side with weeds growing in the center. Driveways were few and far between, most of them blocked with rusted gates or chains and No Trespassing signs warning would-be intruders away.

  It was the sort of place that gave her a vague feeling of I shouldn’t be here alone, but she pushed the feeling aside. She was on a mission, an important one. A lifesaving one.

  She had a ghost dog to catch.

  Her GPS dinged and she slowed, looking for the turn in through the trees. Even going slow, she almost missed it. The mailbox was faded, the numbers on it rusting off, and the driveway was narrow enough that branches scraped against the sides of her SUV as she drove up it.

  She had never been here before and wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t the cute little brick house with a tidy flower garden and laundry drying on a line out front. The grass was neatly mown, and the trees that dotted the yard were surrounded by rich brown mulch.

  There were two vehicles parked in front of the garage, but she saw three people outside; an older woman with long gray hair who was sitting on a porch swing next to a younger woman with light brown hair. Over by the garage, carefully raking fresh mulch in one of the flower beds, was a blond man who looked to be about Sadie’s age. He turned around as she pulled up behind the other two vehicles, then went back to his work without a word.

  As she got out of the SUV, the younger of the two women on the porch waved at her. She waved back and walked over to greet them.

  “You must be Sadie,” the younger of the two women said, shaking her hand. “I’m Esme Lewis, and this is my mother, Dorothy.”

  She gestured to the older woman, who nodded at Sadie but didn’t move to shake her hand. Her eyes were a pale, watery blue, and her expression was grim and serious. Esme gave her mother a weak smile, then turned back to Sadie.

  “We really appreciate you coming out here. This dog has been bothering my mother for a long time. Shall we go inside? She has some pictures of it to show you.”

  “Sure,” Sadie said. “Has the dog ever been aggressive towards anyone?”

  Esme held the door as Dorothy and then Sadie went inside, then followed them in, letting the screen slam shut behind her.

  “No, I don’t think so.” She glanced at her mother. “Mom, has the dog ever tried to bite anyone?”

  Dorothy shook her head. “He’s never hurt me. He just watches from the woods. Esme thought I was imagining him at first. That’s why I started taking the pictures.”

  “Mom…”

  “You thought I was going crazy, don’t pretend otherwise.”

  “Can you really blame me?” Esme muttered with a sigh. She led Sadie over to a faded floral couch. “Make yourself at home. Can I get you anything? Tea?”

  “I have water in my car,” Sadie said. “Thanks, though.”

  Esme waited until her mother was seated in an armchair, then fetched a stack of photos from on top of a dusty piano. She sat down on the couch next to Sadie and handed them over.

  “She’s been taking these on and off for, oh, the past eight months or so.”

  She glanced at her mother, who didn’t provide any feedback. Sadie began to flip through the pictures. It was hard to see what was in most of them—a white blur between two trees, something white by a bush that could have been a piece of paper blown there by the wind, but there were a few that clearly showed a white German Shepherd. In two of the photos, the dog was trotting or loping away from whoever was holding the camera, but in one, the dog was standing framed between branches, his head lowered and ears perked as he watched the person who was taking a photo of him. Dorothy, Sadie thought.

  “He’s a beautiful dog,” she said. “No one’s had any luck getting close to him?”

  “No,” Esme said. “Wesley’s tried, he’s my mom’s gardener. He’s more than that, really; he takes care of almost everything around the house and property. He’s seen it too, and I know he’s tried luring it in with treats, but the dog’s a smart one. I think he’s avoiding people on purpose.”

  “You won’t catch him,” Dorothy said. “I’m telling you, that dog is a spirit sent to haunt me.”

  “Mom,” Esme gave an exasperated sigh and turned back to Sadie. “Please, you’ll have to forgive her. She’s been having a tough time since my father passed.”

  Dorothy scoffed and said, “She never believes me. Do what you need to try to catch the thing, and when you come back empty-handed, maybe then she’ll finally admit I’m right. How does this work, anyway? Do you have traps?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said, handing the pictures back to Esme as she sat up straighter to address Dorothy. “I have a large, live trap that I’ll set up in the woods, hopefully near a game trail or somewhere I can see the dog’s prints, and I’ll bait it with some nice smelly wet dog food. Then I’ll come back twice a day to check on it, morning and evening. I’ll ask everyone else to leave the trap alone as much as possible. The more traffic there is in the area, the more likely we’ll scare the dog off for good. I also have some game cameras…”

  “No.” Dorothy’s voice left no room for argument. “No cameras.”

  Esme gave Sadie an apologetic grimace but didn’t try to talk her mother out of it.

  “Okay,” Sadie said slowly, leaning back in her seat a little. “We’ll make do with just the trap for now.”

  The cameras really would make things easier, she had borrowed them from Sam after dinner last night, but if the older woman wasn’t comfortable with it, then Sadie didn’t think it was her job to push. Maybe she would bring it up again later if she didn’t have any luck catching the dog after a few days.

  “Do you need our help at all?” Esme asked.

  “I should be able to manage,” Sadie said. The trap was big but lightweight. “I’ll start by setting it up inside the tree line behind the house, and we’ll go from there. I’ll move it every couple of days if we don’t have any luck.”

  When she went back outside, Dorothy still looked unconvinced, and Esme was muttering to her, clearly annoyed. Sadie guessed the two didn’t get along very well, but it wasn’t any of her business. She was just here to catch the dog.

  She opened the back of her SUV and began the careful process of removing the large live trap without scratching her vehicle. When another pair of hands appeared on the metal grating, she jumped, then realized it was just the man who had been working on the flower bed earlier.

  “Looked like you could use some help,” he said.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry, they told me your name, but…”

  “Name’s Wesley. You want help carrying it to the woods? I can tell you where I’ve seen the dog the most often.”

  “Sure,” she said, mostly because she wanted to take the opportunity to grill him about the dog too. She paused to grab the can of dog food, then the two of them walked toward the tree line together. “How often do you see him around?”

  “Every day sometimes, not for weeks other times. I’ve tried tossing treats, heck, even tried to trap him in the garage once, but that dog can sense your intentions from a mile away. I’ve got a feeling this trap isn’t going to work.”

  “That’s what Dorothy said. I’m taking it you don’t think the dog is a ghost?”

  He snorted. “It’s not a ghost. Ghosts don’t leave messes you step in while you’re weed whacking the edge of the yard. I’ve been trying to convince her it’s a real dog, but she’s got it in her head and darn near has a heart attack every time she sees it.”

  “Well, I can’t promise anything, but hopefully we’ll get the dog out of your hair within the next couple of days.”

  He showed her to a small clearing just out of sight of the house, maybe twenty yards past the tree line. It hadn’t rained in a couple of days, but she saw an old paw print in the dry dirt, which was a good sign. She set the trap up not far from print, opened the can of dog food, put it at the very back, then set the trap and backed away.

  “Like I told them, I’ll be out here twice a day to check it. It shouldn’t be checked too often or the dog will stop coming around, but if you happen to see that the dog is in the trap, give me a call.”

  He didn’t have his phone on him, so she just told him to call the motel, and anyone there would let her know. She paused when she returned to the house to let the two women know where the trap was, arranged her visit for the morning, then left feeling hopeful that the dog would be safe and sound in a matter of days… and Dorothy would be able to stop seeing ghosts behind every tree.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was mid-evening by the time she got back to the motel, and she knew there was no point in checking the trap again until tomorrow, but it was hard to wait. She knew it was a long shot, but it would be great to catch the dog this first night. Once she had him safely back at the motel, she could begin looking for his owner. She had already checked the local groups for any posts about missing pets that might be a match, but now that she knew what the dog looked like, she could check again more thoroughly.

  It was a Monday, a slow day, so she had time to do just that between her chores in the kennel, walking the boarding dogs, and helping Penny do the motel’s laundry. She didn’t have any more luck than the first time she looked; the only white dog that was missing was a Shih Tzu mix in Burns, the next town over, but that dog had been found safe and sound that morning, and there was no way it could be mistaken for a white German Shepherd, anyway.

  Maybe they would get lucky and the dog was microchipped, but that would have to wait until he was safe and sound in one of her kennels. For now, it was a waiting game; a game she had never been very good at.

  Thankfully, she had something to distract her this evening. Sam Walker, her boyfriend, next-door neighbor, and tenant, was coming over with his two red coonhounds, Rose and Briar. After being too busy for months, they had finally started the dogs on search and rescue training. Well, in Briar’s case, it was more like search and arrest.

  They weren’t going to be certified as search and rescue dogs; instead, they would work through the local sheriff’s department, which would hire their services for a nominal fee. The fee was mostly symbolic, so they could be written up as contractors and be covered by the sheriff department’s insurance. The fact that Sadie was a professional dog trainer helped make sure everything was above board.

  At the dogs’ ages, roughly six or seven, they wouldn’t normally have been accepted for a program like this, but they needed something to do, and the local law enforcement needed their noses. The tiny sheriff’s department couldn’t afford to pay for a real single, or dual-purpose police dog trained through one of the normal Police K9 programs. Luckily for them, Sadie was providing her training services free of charge.

  When Sam came over that evening, they put Rose in the kennel next to Jasper, Sadie’s foxhound, and took Briar out back for training first. The dogs would have different roles to fit their personalities; Rose’s job would be to find missing people; hikers or kids or even pets that had gotten lost in the endless wilderness that surrounded the town. She was a sweetheart who loved everyone, exactly the sort of dog you would want to see if you were scared and alone.

  Briar was a big, confident dog who had only been neutered for a few months, and he had the attitude to match. He wasn’t aggressive, but he was serious and alert and would be a much better candidate to help the sheriff track criminals who thought they could flee from the authorities. Sheriff Islington had even offered to get the right clearance for her to use legally obtained samples to teach him to sniff out drugs, but Sam didn’t want either of the dogs to be used for something that carried so many risks. Briar’s job would be risky enough as it was, but with a civilian handling him, he wouldn’t be likely to be up close and personal with the criminals he would be tracking.

  Both dogs were still in the early stages of training. Right now, she was just rewarding them for finding her and Sam. They took turns hiding while the other held the dog’s leash and let them use their nose to track the hiding person down. The reward at the end was a treat and lots of praise, then they did it again until the dogs were tired and happy and the humans had too many bug bites to want to continue.

  The coonhounds were picking up on the game quickly, and it was a game for them. They both loved using their noses, not only because it was fun and gave them something to do, but also because it was what they were bred for. They had spent their younger years hunting raccoons with their previous owner, but now they were being given another purpose, and they were both taking to it like fish to water.

  Sadie called a stop to the night’s session once it began to get dark out, and she and Sam sat out back with Briar and Rose on long leashes and Jasper sniffing through the tall grass along the trees off leash, sipping ice-cold bottles of water and sitting in some camp chairs Sadie had set up behind the motel. It was a peaceful evening, the clear sky already showing a sprinkle of stars above them.

  It was still light enough that she could see Sam when he raised his hands to sign, What time are you going to check the trap tomorrow?

  “I’m leaving as soon as I get up. I should be there by seven-thirty,” she said. “It’ll throw the boarding dogs’ schedule off a little, but I don’t want him to have to sit in that trap longer than he has to. At least it’s in the shade; I’d have to get someone to check it once an hour otherwise.”

  Let me know if you get him, he said. Even if it’s early enough that I’m probably still sleeping. I don’t mind being woken up for happy news.

  “I will,” she promised.

  Whose property will you be on, again?

  “The land belongs to an older woman named Dorothy Lewis,” she said.

  Sam’s brow furrowed. The name’s familiar, he signed. If it’s the right Lewis, then her husband was murdered a few years back.

  Sadie sat forward in her seat, raising her eyebrows. “Dorothy’s daughter, Esme, mentioned that her father had passed, but she didn’t give any details. I had no idea he was murdered. Did they catch whoever killed him?”

  I don’t know, but I don’t think so. It was big news around town for a week, then died down real fast. I do think it’s the right family — the name Dorothy rings a bell. I remember seeing her handing flyers out in town, trying to find justice for her husband. Then one day she just went quiet. This was about five years ago, give or take.

  “Poor woman,” Sadie said, feeling her initial impression of Dorothy shift. She seemed unfriendly and cranky, but after what she’d gone through, Sadie couldn’t blame her.

  Do you want company tomorrow morning?” he signed. I could set my alarm early, pick you up, drive you out there, help you get the dog back to the vet.

  She considered his offer, but she knew he had a hard day of work tomorrow. He did lawncare, which meant a lot of physical labor. She didn’t want him to lose out on sleep, especially when she doubted she would get lucky enough as to have caught the dog after just one night, not after how wary Wesley and Dorothy said it was.

  “Thanks for offering,” she said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek, “but I’ll be fine. I’ll text you as soon as I get back.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sadie had woken up at seven in the morning every single day for the past year. She used to think that at some point, her body would get used to the routine and she would wake up feeling chipper and energized, but every single day her alarm pulled her from sleep like it was pulling her out of quicksand. Her eagerness to check the trap helped a little, but she still felt like a zombie as she pulled on her clothes, scrubs out of habit, but she was too tired to change into something more appropriate for going out into the woods, and made her coffee. She poured it into a thermos with a splash of milk and a too-big spoonful of sugar, then shuffled downstairs with Jasper by her side.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6