I sat for about five minutes, feeling antsy about this delay. I had to get back to HotRescues. I was about to stand and excuse myself when he finally moved his gaze toward me.
“Sorry, but I was on the phone before and had to follow up with a few things. The good news is that neither Naya nor I are under restrictions from traveling—yet. We do have to give all details to our lawyer and the people who’ve been questioning us—when and where and how long and why. Will the next trip be the same as last time?”
“As far as I know.” I knew I was smiling. “Then you are definitely available?”
“For now,” he said. “The trip this weekend should be fine, as long as I continue to keep them informed about every aspect of it. Later on . . . I just don’t know.”
“Well, your boss hopes you’ll be able to help set up an ongoing system of rescue flights.” I told him what Dante had said. “He doesn’t want you doing them all and taking too much time away from HotPets Bling, of course. You’ll need to find out more from him, and I’ll be putting him in touch with the person in charge of Airborne Adoptions.”
“Sounds great!” I hadn’t seen Tom smile much lately, but he did now.
“Can I ask a favor?” I looked at him, then scanned the pictures on the wall again. “I’m really impressed with the Bling. I know you don’t manufacture it all here, but is this where Chris and the others design the collars?”
“Yes, and they do put together prototypes for our manufacturing facility—it’s not in China but actually nearby, in the City of Industry. It’s good for us to be able to observe any time we want.”
“Great idea! Maybe I could visit someday.”
“Absolutely. Right now, go ahead and make plans for the next rescue by plane. Naya and I will look forward to it.”
As long as no one like Teresa got on the plane with them—or died afterward, I thought. But I didn’t need to say it.
The sudden pang of sadness that twisted Tom’s face for a moment let me know that he’d thought it, too.
Chapter 15
It was now late afternoon. I’d already called Mike Relfer of Airborne Adoptions to let him know what was happening—without mentioning Dante yet. I requested that he get a relay team of pilots prepared to bring a lot of small dogs from Missouri to L.A. again, once more incorporating the Faylers’ help for the last leg.
I’d also called Juliet Ansiger to tell her I was nearly positive we were on for a new rescue next weekend. She promised to have another dozen dogs available.
Apparently she, like Teresa, retained some skepticism about how we’d do. There were at least another dozen who’d need to be rehomed. But I didn’t argue with her. The important thing was saving as many as we could, as quickly as we could.
Would I be able to do this yet again?
I’d certainly try, since from the way Juliet described the sanctuary now housing the remaining teacup dogs, they were treated well enough but hadn’t much human interaction.
Dogs need people. People need dogs. And I do all I can to help fulfill both of those needs.
I’d keep in touch with Mike and Juliet, and with the Faylers and Dante. But for now, I had some time available to do my real job—run HotRescues.
And at this moment, that meant getting a lot of adoptions completed.
I went through the applications again in the order Nina had stacked them. I felt ready to process about nine of them, including seven involving the teacups we currently had available.
With more coming in, those had to be handled first. I looked through them once more, then began calling the applicants, scheduling them to come in, starting with a couple later that afternoon, and the rest the following day, except for some who could only make it on the weekend.
“Busy time,” I told Zoey as I hung up after leaving a message for one of the prospective adopters. “Isn’t that great?” Zoey looked up at me with her soft brown eyes and wagged her tail, as if answering me. I glanced at the time. The first adopter would arrive in half an hour. That gave Zoey and me time for a quick shelter walk-through.
I ran into Pete first thing, since he was cleaning one of the kennels nearest the entrance. I waved at both him and Shazam, a Doberman who had resided here for too long. But, miraculously, one of the non-teacup applications was for him, and it looked good.
Shazam, named after a comic book character who was a wizard, was about to have a magical new home!
“We’ve got some teacup adopters coming in this afternoon,” I called to Pete. “Shazam’s new family will be here tomorrow.”
Pete gave a thumbs-up and smiled. “Things are really hopping around here, Lauren. All good.”
“All good,” I echoed, and Zoey and I continued on.
We had to hurry toward the end, since there were a lot of volunteers around that day despite it being a weekday, and many had stopped me to chat with them. All wanted information about how the teacup rescue and rehoming was going.
Eventually, Zoey and I were back in the welcome area just in time for our first adopter of the day to join us.
I’d met Marshall Droven briefly during our party. He was in his early twenties, lived alone in an apartment that permitted pets, and had fallen for Onyx, a black Pomeranian.
Marshall was of moderate height and thick build and wore a vest over his T-shirt. If I’d thought about it when I’d first seen him, I’d have figured him for a guy who’d want a Lab or shepherd, not a tiny dog. But I’d learned in my many years of running a shelter that it’s not always possible to predict people’s tastes in their soon-to-be best friends.
“Hi,” I said after he introduced himself. “Let’s chat for a little while, and then we’ll go get Onyx.” We sat down at the table below the window in the welcome room.
I introduced him to Nina, who returned from a walk around the shelter just as Marshall and I were getting started. And then we went through his application again so I could ask a few questions.
“What do you sell on the Internet?” I asked, since he’d filled out the line for his profession with “online commerce.” I would actually have figured him for still being in school, but he might have chosen not to go to college. Or maybe he was working his way through school.
He smiled, showing gleaming white teeth. “Whatever will make me some money.” He went on to explain how he frequented garage sales, estate sales, and thrift shops to find treasures he could post on eBay and other sites.
We asked about careers on the HotRescues application because we preferred not adopting to people who’d leave their new pets—especially puppies or kittens—alone for large amounts of time each day. Marshall’s responses to this and other questions made sense, so we soon headed into the kennel area and the building where our small dogs were housed.
“Great place,” he said as we walked past enclosures where some dogs were playing with volunteers, and others barked as we went by.
“It sure is.” I grinned.
I introduced him to Pete, who joined us as we went around the corner and entered the building housing the small dogs.
I took Onyx out of the enclosure he shared with two other teacups and handed him to Marshall. He smiled at the little dog, looked into his eyes, and tucked him under his arm. “You’re coming with me, guy.”
I thought about how cute, black little Onyx had looked with a HotPets Bling collar at the party, although all those collars were on loan and had been returned to Dante and his HotPets crew. I wondered if I should have some at HotRescues to give away or sell with the teacup dogs.
I mentioned the collars to Marshall. “Have you seen those ads with little dogs wearing them?”
“Of course I have,” he said with a laugh. “That’s why I fell in love with the idea not only of owning a dog, but a small one. Onyx and I will stop at a HotPets on the way home to buy one. Thanks so much, Lauren.”
“You’re welcome. And please keep in touch. Send us some pictures as you and Onyx get better acquainted, okay?”
“I will.�
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Marshall left a short while later with Onyx, plus a collar and leash and some food to start with, all, of course, from HotPets.
I felt the same bittersweet pang I always got when one of our wards left to go to a new home. I hadn’t had much opportunity to get to know Onyx, but I wished him the absolute best life possible.
• • •
Our next adopter came just over an hour later. Janice Crift had put in the winning application for Sapphire, who wasn’t blue like the gem she was named after but rather a brown Chihuahua.
Janice looked younger than the age she had put on the application, which was twenty-one. She had smooth skin, a ready smile, and long brown hair that looked similar in shade to Sapphire’s.
She’d been greeted by Nina, who came to my office to get me. Zoey accompanied me back to the welcome area.
“Hi,” I said to Janice, who was already seated at the table. I’d brought her application with me and sat down across from her.
“Hi, Lauren. I’m really glad to be here. Can’t wait to get Sapphire.”
I smiled. “Just a few details to go over first.” I started discussing her application with her.
Like Marshall, she lived in an apartment that accepted pets. She had brought a copy of her lease to prove it.
She, too, worked at home—doing medical transcriptions. I’d have thought someone her age would want to be out and about in the workforce, but when I asked her about how she enjoyed her job, she said she loved it—and she’d love it even more with the company of Sapphire.
Once again, everything seemed to be in order. “Let’s go get Sapphire,” I told her, and she did a celebratory fist pump.
It was later in the day now and quieter in the halls. The dogs and cats were being fed by Pete and the volunteers who helped him, but most of the volunteers had already left.
“He’s really cute, too,” Janice said when we neared the kennel that held Ruff, a shaggy bearded collie mix, before turning the corner and heading toward the building for small dogs. Ruff hadn’t been here long, and I doubted he’d take very long to rehome. He was sweet and had an energetic but loving personality. “Could I visit him?”
“Are you interested in adopting him instead of Sapphire?” That could happen, but if someone appeared to waffle between dogs, I always made them wait and consider which would be a better fit.
“Oh, no,” she said hastily. “I’d love to adopt all of them, and he’s particularly appealing. But Sapphire’s the one I want.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Yet when we were in the small-dog building and I’d taken Sapphire out of her enclosure, Janet crooned over her, hugging the small brown Chihuahua against her cheek, tearing up a little when she received doggy kisses on her chin.
I let her walk Sapphire through the HotRescues grounds toward the office, and she didn’t spare a glance toward Ruff’s kennel as we passed. I, on the other hand, tossed Ruff a sad but warm smile and thought, It’ll be your day soon, boy. He stood and wagged his tail, as if he’d heard me.
I soon had another of those bittersweet moments as Sapphire headed to her new home with Janice.
As I had with the last adoption, I asked Janice to keep in touch, send pictures, and let us know how things went.
Then they left, and I returned to my office. I had lots of things to do there.
And being emotional wasn’t among them.
Chapter 16
A light blinked on my office phone, showing I had a message waiting. Zoey was there, lying under my desk. “Why didn’t you answer for me?” I asked, and laughed when she stood and walked up to me with her head down, as though she thought I’d really scolded her. “You’re a good girl,” I assured her. “I know you’d have done it if you could.”
The message was from Naya Fayler. “Tom and I want to chat with you about this weekend’s plane flight,” she said, and the cheerful tone of her voice sounded false.
Did they have to pull out? I hoped not, for the sake of the next planeful of dogs—and for the Faylers. There could be other reasons if they weren’t able to fly, but the most likely one would be that the cops told them not to.
No use speculating. I returned the call.
Naya answered on the first ring. “Hi, Lauren. Before you ask, we’re still on for this weekend—at least so far. The detectives who’ve been questioning us know what we’re planning and haven’t said not to go, but they also have insisted that we give them every iota of information we have about times, locations, flight paths, whatever.” Her laugh was mirthless. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they made us carry some kind of transponder that would let them know where we are at every moment.”
“But it’s a good thing, isn’t it, that they haven’t told you to stay?” Or arrested you, I thought. That appeared to be what they were hoping to do, with all the grief they’d been giving the Faylers.
On the other hand, since they hadn’t, they must not have had the kind of evidence they needed to try to convict one or both of them. That’s what I’d learned from TV shows and from my past nosiness in murder cases.
“Yes,” she said, “it is. But I also wanted to let you know that Tom and I have been checking with some of our friends who are also pilots in case this isn’t the last flight of this kind you’d like us to do. Dante knows about it, too. He’s been working with Tom a lot on expanding what we’re doing for Airborne Adoptions, and they’ve both talked to the guy in charge, Mike Relfer.” So I wouldn’t need to introduce Dante to him after all. “We haven’t gotten anyone to say for certain that they’re in, but we’ll keep you both informed.” She paused. “I really love doing this. I just hope we can continue. And—” Her next pause was a little longer. Had our connection died?
“Naya?” I asked. “Are you still there?”
“Yes.” The word came out as a sob. “Lauren?”
“What, Naya?” I asked softly.
“I honestly didn’t like that Teresa.” She spoke more forcefully now. “She kept making all those really odd insinuations. I had no idea what she was talking about. But that wouldn’t have given me a reason to kill her. Tom, either. And we didn’t. But the police—” She stopped talking.
“The police don’t believe you,” I finished. I did—or at least I wanted to.
What I also wanted was to save all those dogs in Missouri, and find them wonderful new homes. I wanted to protect Dante’s operations from further disruption by the ongoing interrogation of the head of his new, potentially highly profitable HotPets Bling subsidiary, Tom—and his wife, Naya.
And that, unfortunately, meant that I also really wanted to help solve Teresa’s murder . . . as long as the killers really weren’t Tom and Naya. But I wouldn’t feel certain of that till I learned who the real murderer was.
I soon hung up with Naya. I wanted to talk with Dante. But first I began a computer file as I’d done before when I tried to solve murders. I started it by listing all the people I thought could be the killer, in the order of who I thought was most likely to have done it to the least probable.
Number one, despite our earlier conversation, was Teresa’s boyfriend, Mark. Next came that couple from Missouri who’d been here for the party when the dogs were first released from quarantine, Stu and Rhoda Krieg. I’d heard that the police had talked with them, but despite the animosity I saw between Teresa and them at our party, they apparently weren’t suspected any more than the Faylers—or if they were, they, too, apparently remained free.
I felt sure Antonio would notify me of any arrests in Teresa’s murder, even if he couldn’t discuss details.
I then added Teresa’s local cousin, Elsa. I’d no good reason to suspect her, but she knew Teresa better than most of the people on my list.
That included Naya and Tom. Also Juliet Ansiger, although she was way near the bottom. She hadn’t sounded upset with Teresa, and as far as I knew, she’d remained in Missouri.
My list wasn’t especially long, and I really didn’t know much about any of my sus
pects, except, perhaps, the Faylers.
I had to fix that—or at least determine ways to talk to some of them.
Was Mark Black still in town? I didn’t know.
What was Elsa’s last name, and how could I get in touch with her? I didn’t know that, either.
This situation felt really odd to me. Not that I enjoyed getting immersed in murder investigations, but in all the others I’d helped to crack, I’d known more of the players, or at least had known where to find them.
I tried Googling Mark Black. There were certainly a lot of men with that name. Some in Los Angeles. Maybe, with some time and ingenuity, I’d figure out which was the right one from Missouri and learn his phone number.
And Elsa? Without her last name, I’d really no way of finding her.
What could I do?
“What do you think, Zoey?” I asked. She barked.
I looked at the time. It was past seven o’clock. I knew we should go home soon so I could feed her.
But her bark also reminded me that she probably had to go out. And the best place to take her was one of the areas within our shelter where our residents were allowed to run around.
At this hour, I was also likely to see Brooke or whoever was staying overnight on security detail—assuming she was already here.
And I really hoped it would, in fact, be Brooke who’d be here. And that she would have Antonio with her.
“Just a second, Zoey,” I said, and phoned Brooke, leaning down to pat my dog and urge her to patience.
“Hi, Lauren,” Brooke said almost immediately. “Is anything wrong?”
“Not here,” I said. “Who’s staying here tonight?”
“Me,” she said, and I felt my breath rush out in relief.
“Are you here yet?” I asked.
“I’m about five minutes away. Are you still there?”
“I sure am. I need to talk to you—and Antonio. Will he be joining you?”
“What’s going on, Lauren?” She sounded more amused than irritated. As our security director, she knew the kinds of things I might be asking her, either about our animals’ safety or . . . something else.
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