CHAPTER 5 – The Secret Hidden Inside Rex
Darkness swallowed the room.
Children screamed.
Someone knocked over a chair.
Then...
BANG!
A gunshot shattered the silence.
Noah dropped to the floor as Detective Mara pulled him behind a desk.
"Stay down!"
Rex wasn't hiding.
The German Shepherd launched into the darkness, following Victor's scent instead of his footsteps.
A loud crash echoed through the hallway.
Another.
Then complete silence.
When the emergency lights flickered back on, Victor was gone.
So was the investigation file.
But Rex returned.
His mouth wasn't empty.
He dropped a small silver object onto the floor.
It was a military dog tag.
Detective Mara picked it up, her face draining of color.
"No... this isn't possible."
On the tag was a serial number she recognized from an old classified case.
Rex had belonged to Project Black Collar—a secret government K-9 program that trained dogs to identify criminals, memorize faces, and transport sensitive evidence during undercover missions.
But that wasn't the shocking part.
Attached to the dog tag was something barely larger than a grain of rice.
A hidden microchip.
Noah stared at it.
"Is... is that what Uncle Victor wanted?"
Mara nodded slowly.
"If your father hid this inside Rex's collar six months ago..."
She looked directly at Noah.
"...then whatever is on this chip was worth killing for."
Just then, her phone rang.
She answered.
Seconds later, every drop of color disappeared from her face.
"The evidence locker..."
she whispered.
"It's been emptied."
"By who?" Noah asked.
May you like
Mara swallowed hard.
"The police chief."
