Paw Patrol: Lost Hazel

Seven (Hanging On)

No One's POV

The crowd in front of Rylee was bigger than she had expected it to be.

She straightened her orange skirt, three different colored leashes dangling around on her left arm, two on her right. She didn't want to do this.

Mayor Goodway, instead of her usual blue and purple apparel, was wearing orange and blue, just like Rylee was.

"Uh, thank you everyone for coming," she said into the microphone. "I know it is completely new for Adventure Bay to have a Press Conference, but we have found that the disappearance of this amazing pup has effected everyone on the island, so we want to keep everyone informed on what we've found. Um... I'm gonna hand it over to Rylee now..."

Rylee walked the five pups up to the front of the podium, they all sat in a row, the same way they would when they were called to duty, leaving a gap between Rubble and Marshall.

"Ah, thank you, Mayor Goodway." She nervously cleared her throat. "I'm just gonna get down to the facts. At 8:02pm, I received a call from Captain Turbot, saying that he needed a new battery delivered to him so he could start his boat to get up to Seal Island to turn on the lighthouse. Indicating that he did not need any major help, I sent Zuma, our water rescue pup, by himself to deliver a new battery at 8:05pm."

She took a deep breath. "I feel that that was my biggest mistake: sending him alone. I explained to Zuma before he left that we would be in bed when he returned to the Lookout, and that if he wanted to come up and sleep in my room, he was more than welcomed to. At around 2:30am, Captain Turbot called me again, explaining that he found Zuma's hovercraft cap sided in the water on his way to the docks. We rushed over to the scene, only to find his collar and helmet. My police pup, Chase, claimed that he could smell perfume and a hot battery on the hovercraft, and it led to the beach. We lost the sent once past the boardwalk."

She wiped under her eye, breathing in. "Since the evidence indicated that there was path taken after passing the hovercraft, and the fact that we did not find body of our water rescue pup, we are naming the disappearance a kidnapping."

Low shouts and murmurs came from the crowd.

"Now, there is no need to be alarmed. We have dived 5 times this week to make sure we weren't jumping to conclusions, and we were correct. Zuma was kidnapped on the job. How it happened is unclear at this time, but we know that the kidnapper is female due to the scent of the perfume; we knew it was female perfume, because Chase is allergic to flowers; and his sneezing was pretty constant. We are trying to figure out the hot battery scent, but that is all we have so far. Right now we are asking for the townsfolk to help in the search for our pup. The scent has not been re... uh... smelled since the night of the disappearance, so we have no lead right now."

She took out a small silver pin shaped like an anchor. "The pups and I, as well as Katie and Mr. Porter, can be found wearing these anchor-pins, so if you have any information, you can take it to one of us. It will be completely private, we will not discuss it with anyone outside the group. So we're begging everyone in Adventure Bay to at least keep an eye open for the chocolate labrador that has contributed to this town so much. It'd mean a lot to us."

She cleared her throat and blinked back tears, only to have one escape and run down her cheek. "I'm taking questions now, if anyone has any. If you're not comfortable asking in public, you know where I live." She laughed along with everyone else. But nobody asked any questions. "If there are no questions, then this conference has come to a close."

Chase's POV

I kept getting the weird feeling that the pupnapper was here, and I had my suspicions. Especially about that Lindsi lady. She was smiling as she wrote down word-per-word what Rylee was saying.

She and Jerry are packing up now. Jerry had a guilty look on his face, Lindsi was just smiling away.

I started to growl quietly.

"What's the matter, Chase?" Rylee whispered into my ear.

"Jerry and Lindsi's the matter. Look at them."

She looked. Then she grabbed my blue leash and Rocky's green leash. "Come on. You pups stay here."

She walked us over to the two. Jerry just smiled. Lindsi rolled her eyes.

'I thought you had a dog to find." She snapped, shoving her notebook in her purse.

"Lindsi." Jerry started. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Jerry, would you mind if Chase and Rocky sniffed out your camera real quick? We're trying to figure out what kind of battery was at the scene." Rylee asked.

Lindsi glared at him. But he ignored her. "Go ahead, pups." He opened the case, and she let us off our leashes and we sniffed around the battery.

ACHOO!

Oh man.

Rocky looked at me, and he knew exactly what the scent on the camera was.

Sea water, Lavender, hot battery, and Zuma.