Paw Prints | A Connor McDonough Fanfiction

The Second Chapter

 Connor's POV   

“Connor! Toby! Thomas! Everyone! There is a huge emergency!” My heart jumped at Riley’s deafening voice. This was the first time in a long time that I’ve seen Riley this panic-stricken.

     “Tank is missing!”

       What? Tank? As in, our dog Tank?

     “Tank is… what? Are you kidding me?” I was so shocked that I couldn’t even let out any emotions. Tank means so much to us. This can’t be happening right now, I thought, especially since we have a mall show tomorrow.

     “Well,” Toby took a deep breath. “We could always check the security room. Someone might have dognapped him and just happened to stand directly in front of the CCTV cameras outside.”

       We all nodded and hurriedly made our way downstairs into the basement where all of our TVs and equipment were. I turned the main computer on and clicked play on the most recent video. It was just a video of an old lady picking her nose. Uh, delete!

      After about four or five videos, we finally got to the right one. On the video, a girl in a black uniform was just caressing Tank’s fur for five whole minutes. After that, she picked him up and walked away.

     “Yes! We’ve finally got a lead on this case!” Toby shouted with his fist in the air.

     “Do you guys know any places where people wear black uniforms?” Riley asked.

     There was a long silence in the room. We were all in deep thought, until –

     “Ah…ha!” Thomas’ finger was in the air. It was as if I could see a light bulb hovering above his head.

     “I know a certain restaurant whereat the employees wear black uniforms. And that place happens to be one of our favorite places! Any guesses?” None of us even bothered thinking because we knew that Thomas was going to tell us anyway. After a few seconds, he shouted, “Chipotle guys! Chipotle!”

     There was a round of ooohs and aaahs in the room.

     “So,” I started. “What are we waiting for? To Chipotle we go!”

-

I parked the car and we all got out. We hastily made our way to the entrance. As we got inside, the whole of Chipotle had their eyes laid on us. We walked to the place where people get their orders and Riley took out a picture of Tank from his pocket. “Has any of you seen this dog?” All of the employees looked at us in an I-think-these-guys-are-drunk sort of way.

     “Uh, no?” a female employee said, raising an eyebrow. She didn’t seem familiar. She’s probably new.

     “You see, this little guy,” Riley pointed at the picture, “was dognapped today and we suspect that someone here is the culprit.”

     “And how can you be so sure that someone from Chipotle is the culprit? I think you’re insane.” She motioned for the guard to take us away when suddenly a door behind the counter swung open and Barry came out and asked us what was going on. Barry, by the way, is one of our close friends from Chipotle who knows us so much that we don’t even have to tell him our orders.

     “Uh, we were just wondering if you knew anyone here who dognaps in their free time?” Thomas asked. Riley, Toby, and I snorted at the absurdity of his question.

     Barry paused and then laughed. “What are you guys going on about now?”

     “You see, Tank got lost. We were ju-“

     “Tank? He got… lost?” Barry asked, shocked. I can understand why. He’s a dog-lover after all.

     “Yes. Anyway, we sort of know who dognapped him. We’ve got a video,” Toby butted in.

     “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go see this video.” Since it was Barry’s break, he eagerly followed us out, grabbing his backpack.

-

We arrived back at home and went inside. We ran downstairs and immediately turned our computers on. We showed Barry the video, and he didn’t seem too sure of who the girl was.

     “So Barry, who do you think it is?” Toby asked, eager to find out.

     “I’m not sure, but I do have a guess.” All of our eyes darted at Barry as we waited for him to spill the beans.

     “There’s this girl who used to work at Chipotle with us. She resigned just a while ago.” There was a long pause after Barry spoke.

     “Sho guysh, any conclusionsh?” Thomas asked, crunching on some potato chips.

     Hmmms echoed all around the room.

     “Do you know where this girl lives?” I asked.

     “No…” Barry was in deep thought. “Ah! Wait! Her address could be in the employee book! I wrote mine down when I got hired.” He took out a brown leather book from his bag, opened it, and started flipping through its pages. “Celeste… Celeste… Celeste… Aha! Celeste Kingsley. Found it!”

     “Celeste… What a nice name,” Toby said.

     “Well,” the rest of us said in unison. “Where does she live?”

     “Emerald Street. Isn’t that just a few blocks from here?”

     “Oh my glob. Yes!” we all shouted exuberantly.

     We turned the computers off, grabbed our valuables, and made our way outside the house.

     This is the moment of truth.