“What’s with all the jaywalking delays?” I grumbled. I had an investigation to conduct here.

“Aw,” said Emma, sitting up and looking at the poor animal shivering in the van’s headlights.

“Somebody tried to burn him,” she exclaimed as we got out of the van. She gathered the medium-sized brown dog in her arms.

“Are you sure you want to pick him up like that?” asked Joe. “He’s, like, really muddy.”

Emma shot him a reproachful glance.

“Judging from the shape of the burn marks,” said Willy, petting the dog’s head, “I’d say an alien firearm did this. He’s a lucky pup to have escaped with only some singed fur.”

“He doesn’t have a collar,” Dana observed.

“Which is just one more reason why we’re taking him with us,” said Emma. “We’ll check with the animal shelter to see if anybody’s missing a dog, and, if not, we’ll adopt him. And, for now, his name will be Lucky, just like Willy said.”

I thought about this for a moment. Unlike the rest of them, Lucky wouldn’t just disappear when I needed to be alone. So if Emma adopted him and then Emma wasn’t around for a bit, the dog would be my responsibility. I felt like a parent having an awkward moment at PetSmart.

“Um, I think we better leave him here. I mean, he was probably going someplace -” I broke off. Emma looked like she was deciding exactly how to conduct my public execution.

“Right,” I said. “Bring him into the van already.” I’d figure this out later. He was a pretty sweet-looking dog, at least under the burned fur and inch-thick mud.

Hey, I may be an alien, but I still have a heart.

Chapter 17

WE TRAVELED ABOUT a quarter mile down an unpainted, heavily potholed strip of asphalt that saw more traffic from combines and livestock trailers than passenger vehicles. I knew we’d hit the boondocks when we saw something far stranger than a farm animal emerge about twenty feet in front of the van.