“You’d better let her know. And when you talk to her, you can find out who her contact regarding the TRO is at the LAPD, which stations have copies, and where you can get one, too. Maybe also call her lawyer, in case there’s anything useful he can tell you.”
“Sure.” I attempted to sound all together despite how disjoined my rattled nerves still felt. “Soon as we hang up. Bye, Jeff.”
“You’re okay, Kendra?” he asked—which is what he should have done in the first place. Okay, so now I was peeved as well as unnerved. Maybe the peeved part was an especially good thing, since it had started to overshadow my anxiety.
“Of course. Bye.”
“You called me first because you needed some comfort,” he said softly. “And here I was acting like a P.I. instead of someone who loves you. I’m sorry. Kendra, I wish I’d been there with you.”
Me, too, I thought. His sudden attitude amendment had caused a rush of moisture to my eyes. He loved me? I’d thought I’d heard him say that a few months ago, but hadn’t followed it up once Amanda had interjected herself back into his life.
And me? How did I feel?
Who knew?
I stood straight, no longer relying on my Beamer to boost me up. No way was I going to give in to emotionalism right now. Any kind of emotionalism. Especially after being confronted by someone else’s stalker, a situation I’d handled just fine.
“I’ll let you talk to Leon next time,” I said in a tone I intended to sound joking.
“There’d better not be a next time,” he said angrily.
“I agree,” I replied. “At least I’ll be prepared from now on, while I’m caring for Amanda’s cats. I’ll know just what to do if Leon shows up again.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Run like heck into the house and call the cops,” I replied. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“For the first time since I learned she existed, after meeting Leon I feel a lot more empathy for your ex.”
I’M NOT A coward. No way. No how.
But I always insist on taking a reasoned approach. Which was why I didn’t follow Jeff’s irritating instructions and immediately contact Amanda on her cell. I still hadn’t decided how to play out that phone call. I considered it as the Beamer and I headed for our next pet-sitting stop.
Jeff had dangled the little tidbit that he loved me. And still I searched my own heart for a hint of how to respond.
I stared up at the darkening sky through my dirty windshield, hoping to see some stars I could startle by asking their advice.
Ha! In overpopulated-L.A.’s atmosphere? With all the lights glowing at ground level, I’d be lucky to see the beams from a low-flying helicopter.
No matter. I wasn’t the superstitious sort anyway. No astrological forecast would fix my fate.
I cared for Jeff. Probably could love him. But did I at this uncertain instant?
With Amanda still dangling between us like a black widow spider sliding insidiously along a particularly sticky strand of web?
Well, heck, maybe she really had just attempted to rely on Jeff because of her fear of Leon.
Sure.
Still, stopped at a traffic light in a commercial area on Burbank Boulevard, I pondered the possibilities of how I’d inform Amanda of Leon’s latest.
Should I act all matter-of-fact? “Hey, Amanda, just wanted to let you know the cats are cool today. Oh, and by the way, your stalker Leon showed up and suggested that I let him know how to find you.”
Or how about horrified? “Why didn’t you warn me that your stalker was likely to appear and menace me?”
Lawyerly? “I am not your attorney, so please put me in contact with Mr. Severin.” Wasn’t that the name Jeff mentioned? “I’ll let him know that Leon isn’t complying with the TRO and suggest that he counsel you accordingly.”
These options and others barraged my already frazzled psyche until, before I knew it, I’d already tended all my pet-sitting clients and aimed the Beamer back toward Jeff’s, where Lexie and Odin awaited me.
And still I hadn’t sought out Amanda.
“Okay, I admit it,” I said to Lexie and Odin after we returned from our late-night walk beneath the streetlights on Jeff’s blessedly flat avenue. Odin’s an Akita. They’re good guard dogs, so I’d only looked over my shoulder a scant dozen times as we strolled. “I’ve been procrastinating. Now, don’t look at me that way,” I instructed Lexie, who regarded me reproachfully with cocked head and accusatory eyes. “If Amanda had been anywhere near here, somewhere Leon could have located her, I’d have let her know immediately.”
Lexie’s tail wagged her understanding and exoneration.
“I’ll call her first thing in the morning. I promise.”
Only I didn’t have to. As soon as I’d exited the shower and stuck on my nightshirt, my cell phone rang.
The caller ID informed me it was Amanda.
Almost before I could utter a hello, she started shouting. “Leon was at my house? Are Cherise and Carnie all right? Why didn’t you call me?”
Not even a hint of, “Gee, Kendra, I hope he didn’t hurt you.” But what did I expect from her? Certainly no sympathy, let alone any compassionate concern.
And then reality slapped me nearly silly.
There were only two ways Amanda could have known Leon accosted me in her driveway. I didn’t imagine that the selfsame stalker had suddenly unearthed his prey’s unlisted cell phone number and called to describe his day to her.
That meant she’d been speaking with Jeff.
“Didn’t Jeff tell you?” I responded sweetly, settling my butt on the bed to prevent myself from slithering beneath it in sorrow. “He told me to wait until tomorrow morning, so the news wouldn’t interrupt your sleep tonight.”
I swallowed my outraged gasp as I heard a stifled conversation somewhere in the background, as if Amanda attempted to hide its contents from me. Or the identity of the other person, which suddenly seemed quite apparent.
Jeff? With Amanda? That SOB! Now I knew just why she’d conned me into caring for her cats—all the better to push his duplicity smack into my face.
In moments, Amanda’s voice resumed its scratching of my sore eardrums. “He said he didn’t—”
A pregnant pause, and then another voice assailed me. “Kendra, I’m with Amanda, as if you didn’t know by now, but whatever you’re thinking, it’s not that. I’m—”
“Who said I’m thinking anything, Jeff? You were right to let Amanda know immediately about Leon. Tell her I apologize for not informing her myself. At least Leon’s unlikely to figure out she’s followed you to Chicago. Oh, and by the way, Odin sends his love. He’s doing fine. Good night to Amanda. And you, too.”
I flipped my phone’s flaps back together decisively. Tears trying to torment my eyes? I insisted on their immediate evaporation.
Well, so much for love, and Amanda out of his life. They were trysting in the Windy City.
And the body of water she’d mentioned? It had to be Lake Michigan.
In my mind, I conjured a cyclone that struck their shared bed and blew away some mighty critical body parts. The growl I evoked in my head must have emanated from my mouth, since both dogs sat up at attention on the floor beside me.
And then my phone dared to intone “It’s My Life” again.
Yet again, it was Amanda.
“I’ll come home early, Kendra,” she said with no preface. “I’m worried about my cats.”
“They’re fine, and whatever I may feel toward you, I’ve already assured you I won’t take it out on them.”
“Not you. Leon. He’s threatened them since I got the restraining order. And since he knows I’m not around, he may harm them to get to me.”
I couldn’t discount that possibility. And even if Cherise and Carnie were not my favorite cats in the cosmos, I most certainly wouldn’t want Leon to harm them. Plus, as a lawyer, I had to consider the possibility of my own liability if
I failed to keep my charges safe.
Still, I had to add, “But if you come back and Leon learns about it, it’s you he’ll go after.”
“For my cats’ sake, I’ll take my chances,” Amanda said.
For that instant, as a fellow animal adorer, I almost stopped abhorring Amanda.
Until I heard Jeff’s muffled voice engaging in a similar sort of persuasion.
“How soon do you expect to be home?” I inquired coolly.
“I’ve checked about changing my reservations,” she said. “I’d like to leave right now, but I’ve promised my doctors to stay through Monday morning since they paid for a class for me here. I’ll be home late that afternoon.”
“Glad to hear it.” This was Thursday. If she was that worried, why wasn’t she ignoring her bosses and barreling back home?
“You’d better keep my cats safe until then, Kendra.”
“I will,” I assured her, hoping it was so.
WHEN JEFF CALLED back a half hour later, I stayed amazingly pleasant. “You were right,” I acknowledged, resting my back against his bed pillows, Odin and Lexie curled up at my side. Okay, so I hadn’t the heart to be a hound-dog disciplinarian. And their cuddly presences gave me a heck of a lot more peace of mind. “I should have called her in the first place. Good thing she joined you in Chicago so you could let her know what was happening on her home front.”
“It didn’t happen that way, Kendra. I never told her I was heading for Chicago, let alone where to find me here.”
“Sure,” I said.
“She called around to some of my longtime clients till she learned where I’d be traveling this time. In any event, she’s booked her own room, and I just sent her off to bed.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. But my bad old brain snapped imaginary digital photos of him sneaking there in the middle of the night.
“Kendra.” He drew out my name as if he was exasperated. He probably was exasperated. “We resolved this weeks ago. It’s you I care about now. Amanda simply doesn’t take no for an answer. And you know she claims she didn’t trust the other P.I. I sent her to, even though he’s an old pal.”
“I understand, Jeff. And I can also comprehend why Amanda doesn’t want to let go.” Hot damn! Didn’t I sound reasonable?
If only it weren’t mostly an act.
Well, hell. I’d known forever what a loser I was in selecting men for meaningful relationships. I’d nearly convinced myself that Jeff was different, especially after he’d asserted—or at least implied—to Amanda that he was ousting her from his existence once and for all. He’d done this before my very eyes.
My very gullible eyes.
“Anyway, don’t worry about it,” I added airily. “When you and she are both home, let’s all talk about the best way to ensure Leon is out of her life for good.”
Too bad I didn’t know how prophetic those words would prove to be.
Chapter Four
DID I FRET and fume over the following few days, waiting for Amanda and Jeff to hurry home?
Hardly.
The next morning, I handled my pet-sitting rounds efficiently, as always—enjoying every moment of romping with my mostly canine charges and ensuring they knew they’d had some intense human attention.
Heck, once I’d gotten my law license unsuspended a few months back, I’d considered whether to give up pet-sitting and concentrate on attorneying, including pet advocacy. But the truth was, I found visiting others’ babies a treat, not just a business. So here I still was, happily juggling both vocations.
Right now, though, I spied around a lot for the white sedan that had previously kept me stuck in the driveway—just in case. Fortunately, it wasn’t anywhere near Amanda’s.
“You haven’t seen that creep Leon, have you?” I asked Cherise and Carnie as they strutted into the kitchen to see me—blessedly without any rodent present this time.
If they’d any suspicion that Leon had been lurking, they didn’t deign to inform me.
I’d left Lexie locked in the car, but not for long, with Leon’s possible neighborhood presence and the threat he’d made to Amanda’s cats—which he could expand to canines. Feeling guilty for leaving her alone at all, I decided to treat her to a nice, safe day at my good friend Darryl’s Doggy Indulgence Day Resort.
Which might not have been a good thing, since Darryl’s immediate and gleeful appearance from behind the entrance desk suggested he’d been hoping to see me.
The resort was essentially one huge room with several areas to please the most finicky pup, plus Darryl’s office and a highly active kitchen.
I let Lexie off her leash, and she bounded to the doggy play portion—an area filled with an assortment of canines plus balls, flyable disks, and lots of other delightful doggy toys. Kiki, another movie star hopeful and my least favorite of Darryl’s staff, was leading a game of “find it and fetch” with some fuzzy rag bones.
Darryl, standing beside me, said, “I have an emergency pet-sitting referral for you, Kendra. Can you take it on for me?”
Tall, thin, and spectacularly softhearted, Darryl appeared almost studious in his wire-rimmed spectacles, yet a perpetual twinkle lit his huge, puppy-dog eyes. He’d been my buddy from when I’d been a well-paid litigator in the large law firm—and had handed me my new career as a pet-sitter to assist me in paying my bills when my law license was temporarily suspended.
Did I have time to take on a new client? Not really, especially since Rachel’s audition had extended into several days. But for Darryl—
“Sure,” I assured him.
He immediately swept me into the area that contained human furniture and introduced me to Stromboli, a shepherd mix, who was there with his owner, Dana Maroni. Dana was a petite human female who looked too little to handle rowdy and rambunctious Stromboli. Even so, a soft “Sit” from the slender brunette, who was clad in a long-sleeved shirt and short black skirt, immediately brought the big dog to his haunches—even in the midst of a half dozen other pups who didn’t elect to obey.
“I’m so glad to meet you, Kendra.” Dana held out a slender hand. Her grasp was as firm as any attorney’s. “Darryl said he was going to call you, so it’s really serendipitous that you came in. My dad’s ill up in Seattle, so I’m leaving town this morning unexpectedly and I simply can’t bring Stromboli.”
Said dog looked up lovingly at his mistress.
“He seems like a sweetheart,” I said.
“He is,” Dana assured me, and we went into the details of where Stromboli and she lived, and how I should care for her big canine baby while she cared for her ailing dad. I retrieved from the Beamer a standard contract for my pet-sitting company, Critter TLC, LLC, and she eagerly signed it.
“I’ll take Stromboli home now,” she told me. “You’ll visit him this evening, take him for a walk, and feed him?”
“Sure will,” I assured her. “Twice a day till you call and tell me you’re back. Or my assistant will, if that’s okay.”
“If you trust your assistant, that’s fine with me.”
A minute later, Darryl walked me to the door. “Once again, you’re a lifesaver, Kendra,” he said. “I owe you.”
I stood on tiptoe and slipped him a kiss on his long, smooth cheek. “Enough, Nestler,” I rejoined with pseudo crabbiness. “Or I’ll have to start singing my own chorus of who owes whom.”
“With your voice? Talk about off-key. No, forget it, Kendra. Especially if you expect me to say ‘whom.’”
I laughed and left, heading for my law office. Our suite sat in a long, low building that senior partner Borden Yurick had bought, a onetime restaurant in the Encino area of the San Fernando Valley.
Inside, I returned the effervescent greeting of Mignon, the young and exuberant receptionist. Then, head down, I headed for my office, where I quickly got to work. At lunchtime, I ducked out once more to go walk Widget, then hustled back to the office to end my law day by finishing the complaint I’d started drafting for Borden’s clien
ts, the Shermans.
As with many of Borden’s closest friends, including most of our firm’s attorneys, the Shermans were active senior citizens. Their case? They were resolved to recoup rent overpaid at a brand-new Santa Barbara vacation resort where the amenities were highly overstated.
The place was promoted as a dream retreat, a delightful assortment of rooms that had access to golf, tennis, and the beach, with gourmet meals included.
But the couple had brought back pictures proving the inn was miles inland from the beach, and the closest amenity, if you could call it that, was a public park full of noisy kids. Oh, and yes, it had tennis of the table kind, plus golf of the miniature version. Meals? Sure, if one didn’t mind grabbing fast food at the nearest Mickey D’s—vouchers included. And the clients’ complaints had thus far fallen on decidedly deaf ears and e-mail-immune eyes.
Before I sent the Shermans my draft complaint for comment and consent, I brought it to Borden. They were, after all, his clients. And the main condition for my junior partnership in his firm, with the right to have fun practicing law as I pleased, was that I also helped him with the cases he brought in.
Our sweet senior partner’s office was the largest, and farthest from the door, of the building. Its walls were covered in attractive oak paneling, and one held a bevy of bookshelves filled with—what else?—law books. His desk looked like a lawyerly antique, but his other furnishings, mostly a mishmash of chairs, were so oddly assorted that I’d concluded they’d been bought with the restaurant building.
Sitting behind his desk, he looked up behind his big bifocals as I rapped on his door. “Hi, Kendra,” he greeted in his high pitched but hearty voice. As usual, the lanky elder lawyer wore one of the floral inside-out-appearing Hawaiian-style shirts he favored. This one was beige, covered with big and pointed bird-of-paradise blossoms.
Borden had been a senior partner at Marden, Sergement, & Yurick, the high-powered L.A. firm where I’d worked before the ugly, and untrue, accusations about ethics violations had resulted in my resignation. About the same time, rumors had been rampant that Borden had had a mental breakdown.
Meow is for Murder Page 4