Courtney set the carrier down. Wheels had her face pressed up against the door almost immediately. All it earned her was a series of barks and growls. At least there were no teeth.
“It’s this dog!” Courtney threw her hands into the air. She sounded as if her entire world had come crashing down. “I tried to find it a good home, I really did, but no one wants it. He nips at everything.” She held out her left hand, which had two small bandages on it. “And the barking! Listen to him.”
She was right; the dog did bark a lot. It was a nonstop barrage that had Wheels slinking away—and Wheels liked everyone.
I crouched down so I could peer into the cage. Inside, a Chihuahua lunged at the carrier door, barking and snapping. He looked healthy enough at first glance, but he was most definitely agitated. I wondered what Courtney had done to set it off, then scrubbed the thought from my mind.
“And why did you bring him here?” I asked, rising.
“You deal with troublesome pets,” she said. “I thought that if anyone could find a home for the little demon, it’d be you.”
Alarm bells starting clanging in my head. There was absolutely no way Courtney would bring an animal to me for any reason. She’d believed we were rivals from the moment I started up Furever Pets. No matter how much I insisted we could coexist, she steadfastly refused to view me as anything more than competition.
“I can’t take him in right now,” I said with some mild regret. “I’m currently housing a cat with health issues, and his latest adoption fell through.” Understatement of the century. “I wish I could help, but I can’t.”
“But you have to!” Courtney all but stomped a foot and jutted out her lower lip. “I can’t do it. I’ve tried. If you don’t help the poor thing, well, I don’t know what will happen.”
My heart went out to the Chihuahua, but there was little I could do. I’ve housed more than one animal at a time, but Sheamus was a special case. Not to mention the fact that the Chihuahua made high-strung seem cool and collected. And with the murder and my stalker on top of that . . .
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really do wish I could do something.”
There was a flicker in Courtney’s eye, a defiance I’d come to know. It was there for a mere heartbeat, and then was gone again an instant later.
“I know we’ve had our differences,” she said, rivaling my own understatement with one of her own. “But I can’t believe you’d let Piranha go homeless because you can’t be bothered.”
“Piranha?” I asked, shooting a skeptical eye to the carrier.
“It suits him; you’ll see.”
“No, I won’t, Courtney. I can’t take him.” Despite my words, I could feel myself softening. Every animal deserved to have a happy home, even an ultra-temperamental Chihuahua. “You’ll have to home him yourself.”
The front door opened, and for a heart-stopping second, my brain registered the face of the man driving the brown sedan, before sense returned and I saw it was Manny.
He stopped just inside the door, a worried look on his face. “Liz. Courtney.”
“Hi, Manny.” Courtney’s voice turned sickening sweet. “I was just dropping off a dog for Liz. I’m thrilled she’ll be taking him in and helping the poor thing out.”
A series of barks and snarls emitted from the carrier, causing Manny’s eyebrows to rise in concern. Wheels poked her head into the room, and then sped away again, apparently having had enough of the noise.
“I never said—”
“Thanks again, Liz. I know you’ll do a good job. I’ve got to go.” Courtney spun on her heel and hurried out the door. A few seconds later, her van shot down the street like she was making a run for the border.
“Do I want to know?” Manny asked, closing the door behind him.
I picked up the carrier and held it at eye level. Piranha barked and hopped back and forth in tiny little lunges.
“I’m not sure I know what just happened.” I sighed. “But I guess I’ve got to figure out what to do with this guy.”
Manny followed me into the laundry room, which had become the de facto room for pets I’ve housed over the years. I set the carrier down in the middle of the floor and motioned for Manny to close the door.
“The van’s clean,” he said, watching me from across the room. He looked ready to bolt. With the way the dog was barking, I didn’t blame him. “Inside and out. I also bought you a new battery-powered vacuum to keep inside the van. It has a charger that you can plug into the nine-volt outlet.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. Animal hair got everywhere and was impossible to be completely rid of, but every little bit helped.
I left the carrier door closed and checked a shelf we’d recently installed that held all the spare food for my temporary visitors. I chose a dog food I thought would be good for the Chihuahua, and filled a bowl.
“I’ll take him into work with me tomorrow,” Manny said. “I have an opening in the morning and can run him through his tests then. I can have Ben come with me and he can bring the dog back here once I’m certain everything is clear.”
“That’ll be great,” I said. Already, I was mentally running down my list of people who’d had an interest in a dog recently. Surely one of them would be interested in a Chihuahua I knew nothing about. Normally, I liked to know an animal’s history, whether or not it came from an abusive home, or was someone’s prized pet. It helped in finding them the perfect furever home.
Unfortunately, I doubted Courtney would be willing to give me anything else to go on about little Piranha. I was on my own.
I turned the carrier so it faced the food—and was facing away from me, Manny, and the closed door—and then carefully popped open the cage.
Piranha shot out of it as if I’d lit a fuse. He barked rapidly, spun in a hopping circle, as if looking for something to destroy, before he settled on attacking the food. Manny and I crept out of the room as quietly as we could to let the dog eat.
“He seems tense,” Manny said.
“Very.”
“Maybe I’ll give him a look tonight, just to make sure there’s nothing that needs my immediate attention.”
I nodded with a frown. How in the world had a dog like Piranha ended up with Courtney Shaw of all people? She was all about kittens and puppies and cuddly animals. And while a Chihuahua could be cute, Piranha didn’t appear to be young. At first glance, I’d put him at seven to ten years old.
“I saw Ben while I was out.”
“Hmm?” I turned my attention to Manny.
“Ben. I saw him.”
“Is he on his way home?” I asked, confused by the abrupt change in subject.
“I doubt it. He was with a young woman who looked to be five years his junior.”
Which would put her at around eighteen, which seemed awfully young. I still wasn’t sure how that merited Manny’s tone, which had turned somewhat odd.
“Okay?” I crossed my arms, expecting the worst.
“I saw them going into a house.”
I blinked at him. What was he getting at?
“There was a ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard.”
My brain struggled to connect the dots. I knew what he was trying to say, yet I didn’t want to believe it. “Was he helping her look for a place?”
“That’s not what it looked like to me,” Manny said. “They went in arm in arm, and with a Realtor. I think he’s looking to move out. Honestly, I think it’s about time.”
Ben’s moving out? “Who is this woman?” I asked. “Have you met her?”
“No, I haven’t.” Manny shrugged as if meeting the woman our son might be moving in with didn’t matter. “But she had that look about her. Pretty, maybe a little self-involved. You know the type?”
“Yeah, like a lot of Ben’s girlfriends. How long have they been dating? Is she even out of high school?”
Manny shrugged. “Not long, I don’t think. And do you really think Ben would date a high schooler?”
No, I d
idn’t, but he also didn’t always make the best choices when it came to women.
I wandered into the dining room and plopped down into a chair. “They’ve likely just met and they’re moving in together already?”
Manny sat down across from me. “It’s Ben.” As if that explained everything.
“How’s he going to pay for a house? Was it a nice place?” I couldn’t imagine his bedroom upstairs being empty. I knew the time was coming that he would eventually need to go, but even now, twenty-three years after he was born, I wasn’t ready for it.
“He asked for more time at the office,” Manny said, referencing his veterinarian practice. “I’m looking for some way to plug him in, but since he’s not fully licensed yet, I can’t just make him a partner.”
Everything was happening so fast, my head was spinning. “He’s growing up,” I said.
“He did that a long time ago, Liz.” Manny stood and kissed the top of my head. “I’m going to go check on our latest resident. You going to be okay?”
I nodded, too stunned to speak. Ben was thinking of moving out. Amelia was looking at a career as a private investigator. A lot had happened over the last year. I wasn’t so sure I could handle it, especially not now, after Joe’s murder. I needed a mental break.
Manny headed for the laundry room where Piranha waited, leaving me to sort it all out on my own.
It’s just one more thing to deal with, I told myself. Besides, how much more could happen?
It was as if the fates decided to pile on.
The house phone rang. I rose to answer it.
“Hello?”
The line was silent.
“Denton household, Liz speaking.” I paused. “Is anyone there?”
I could hear breathing, but nothing else.
“If this is a joke—” The line went dead.
I held the phone to my ear. The chill in my spine returned and slithered throughout my body, causing me to tremble.
The caller might not have said anything, but I knew who was on the other line, just like I’d known that Courtney was up to no good when she’d brought me Piranha.
The man in the brown sedan. He knew where I lived, knew my face.
And, apparently, he knew my phone number.
7
Sleep that night came in spurts. I kept hearing sounds outside, but when I’d look, nothing would be there. When my eyes finally did close, I’d see a brown sedan and would be awake again almost immediately.
And then there was Piranha.
I’m not one to dislike any animal, but the Chihuahua was working on my last nerve. He was locked safely away in the laundry room, where he couldn’t hurt one of the cats or break anything, but his bark carried up the stairs and pierced my ears like a needle.
It took some time, but eventually, the sounds and paranoia couldn’t keep exhaustion at bay. When I did finally drift off for good, the sky was already lightening. Two meager hours later, I was dragging myself out of bed, and into the shower.
By the time I was done with my morning routine, everyone was gone, and the house was silent, other than a handful of sneezes from Sheamus. Manny, true to his word, had taken Piranha with him to the vet. Ben must have gone with them because he wasn’t in his room. I hoped Manny would get a chance to ask him about his house hunting, because Ben had come home too late last night for me to do so.
“Amelia?” I called. It was punctuated with a yawn that forced me to lean against the wall lest I fall down. Once it passed, I knocked on her bedroom door.
There was no answer.
Like Ben, Amelia had come in late, just before I’d gone to bed. She’d gone straight to her room, barely paying the barking Chihuahua a glance on her way up the stairs. I’d tried to ask her about the investigation, but she’d merely shrugged, and closed her door.
I knocked again, raised my voice. “Amelia? You up?”
When she didn’t answer, I opened the door a crack.
Her bed was empty. Not only that, but it didn’t look as if she’d slept in it at all. The comforter was rumpled like Amelia had sat cross-legged on it as she was wont to do, but it wasn’t bunched at the foot of the bed as it usually was when she slept.
I closed her bedroom door with a frown. Amelia was never up this early. And since she never made her bed, I was positive she hadn’t actually slept in it.
But if that was the case, where had she gone? And when?
All those sounds that kept waking me up last night came back to mind. Could it have been Amelia sneaking out? Or did she fall asleep at her desk in her room, and I was worrying myself over nothing?
The brown sedan. If Amelia had left in the dead of night, and if my stalker was lurking around somewhere out there, could he have taken her?
Panic tried to flare, but I swallowed it back. Amelia was a grown woman. If someone were to try to abduct her, she’d have more than a few words to say about it. She also had a set of lungs on her that would wake the dead. I seriously doubted anyone could shove her into a car she didn’t want to get into without her blowing out their eardrums and waking the neighborhood.
I forced myself to go downstairs and eat breakfast and scan the news on my phone like it was any other day. Manny had already fed Wheels and Sheamus. Both cats were napping in the living room, next to one another, content as could be.
I was only mildly jealous.
I finished up my cereal, rinsed out the bowl, and was heading to my laptop to see what I could do about Piranha when there was a knock at the door.
I shot a quick glance at the clock. I rarely had visitors, and when I did, they usually called ahead of time. Unless it’s Courtney, I thought as I veered off toward the door. I opened it with a yawn that turned into a near scream when I saw who was standing on my stoop.
The man was a head taller than me, and was built like a runner. His limbs were long, and he stood with feet spread apart, as if he was ready to break into a jog at any moment. Dark eyes scanned me as I staggered back, away from the door, my shock overcoming my sense of decency.
In the driveway, a brown sedan sat next to my van.
“Excuse me for intruding,” the man said in a cultured, somewhat nervous voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You!” I pointed at him, then realized I was doing it, so I jammed my hand behind my back.
The man lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
I stood there, torn between asking him what he wanted and making a break for my phone. This was the man who’d followed me all day yesterday. This was the man I thought might be Joe Danvers’s killer.
And now, here he was, standing on my doorstep, apologizing.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” he said, “I would like to talk.” He held up his hands, showing me they were empty. His fingers were long and looked strong. “I know how all of this must look, but I promise I’m not here to hurt you.”
That’s what a killer would say! I stomped down on the stray thought and did my best to regain some semblance of composure. “Who are you? And why are you here?”
The man straightened, met my eye. Surprisingly, there was a hint of fear in his gaze, like he was afraid I might slam the door in his face or call the police on him.
And there was something else buried deep in his eyes, something I didn’t expect to see.
Immense sadness.
“My name is Erik Deavers,” he said. “Joseph Danvers was my father.”
My mouth fell open, but no sound came out. Now that he mentioned it, I could see the resemblance. They had the same wide nose, the same square jaw. If I’d spent more time with Joe, then perhaps I would have seen it before now.
After a few moments, I managed to close my mouth and come up with something to say, though looking back, I wish I would have said something far more intelligent.
“Joe didn’t have a son.”
Erik’s smile was sad. “He never knew about me.” He motioned toward the door. “Please, may I come in? I would like to expl
ain. And, well, I have questions of my own.”
I nodded and Erik stepped through the doorway, and into my house. He closed the door, and then his entire face lit up. “What an adorable kitty.” He crouched down as Wheels rolled right up to him. “I’ve never had a cat of my own. Always too busy, you know?”
Despite how our paths first crossed, Erik earned a few points in my book for how he treated Wheels. “She seems to like you.”
He scratched her behind the ears, and ran a hand down her back, before he rose. “Well, I like her.” Some of the pleasure went out of his eyes. “Where should we sit?”
I led him into the living room, making sure not to turn my back on him completely, just in case his kindness was all an act. He took the couch, while I sat down in a chair across from him. He sat upright, with good posture, and folded his hands in his lap.
He has manners. I was sure there were plenty of killers with good manners, but it was hard to see him as such when he wasn’t threatening me. Could I have been wrong about him?
There was only one way to find out.
“Why were you following me?”
He looked embarrassed when he answered. “I truly am sorry about that. I wasn’t sure what to do, who to go to. I . . .” He shook his head as if dismissing whatever he’d been about to say. “It’s probably better if I explain from the beginning.”
I sat back and motioned for him to go on.
It took him a minute to gather his thoughts. I waited patiently, not wanting to rush him. Besides, it gave me a chance to study him, to search for deception in his expression or posture. He appeared to be in his thirties, and as I noted when I’d caught a glimpse of him yesterday, he looked well-groomed.
“As I said, Joseph Danvers was my father,” he said. “I didn’t know this until recently. Well, that’s not true. I knew his name, but didn’t know the man himself. We’d never met, but that wasn’t for a lack of trying.”
“He didn’t want to see you?”
Erik’s smile was heartbreakingly sad. “As I said, he didn’t know about me.”
It took a moment for what he said to click with other parts of Joe’s story. When it did, I couldn’t help but shout my next words.
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