Detective on the Hunt

by Marilyn Pappano

  He turned into the Walmart parking lot without fully acknowledging that had been his destination, because that meant admitting his defeat. He shut off the engine and faced her with his usual scowl. He tried one last time to find the most important word in his vocabulary at the moment—No, times ten—but it had disappeared as thoroughly as if he’d never known it.

  Grinding his jaw, he growled out the words he did find. “Cleaning carpets is your job. And she has to have a crate. And you can’t give her a silly name that makes her sound like a poodle. I won’t stand outside and yell for Chou-Chou or Bitsy-Poo or anything like that. She’s a pit. She deserves respect.”

  JJ’s eyes widened as his words sank in. So did his. Hell, he was surrendering. Agreeing to take the dog so she and the pup would both be comfortable until it was time to leave. Offering to feed her, play with her and house-train her. Offering to let JJ into his house to do any necessary disaster recovery.

  “I owe you for this,” she said.

  “Yeah?” he asked grudgingly. “What am I gonna get?”

  “Anything you want.” This time her smile was warm and wicked and full of promise. Even though she immediately slid to the ground, dog still in her arms, and closed the door, the heat lingered. So did the promise. And the wickedness.

  Damn, he’d missed wickedness.

  They took the dog inside with them—who was going to complain about a cop in uniform doing a good deed for a pathetic-looking pup?—and headed to the pet aisles with a shopping cart while Quint wondered when he had officially lost his mind. He’d only ever had one indoor dog, when Linny had moved in with him and brought her elderly spaniel with her. Brutus—the most brutal thing he ever did was pee on his own foot when he got excited—had been sweet and creaky and had absolutely devastated Linny when he passed.

  But you’re not taking this dog to raise. You won’t have her long. You won’t get attached, you won’t miss her when she’s gone and you won’t even know when she passes.

  And he had gotten something out of the deal. I owe you...anything you want. Damn, he could think of some things. Sweet things, hot things, intimate things, naughty things, things that might make him blush. Things that might make her blush.

  He’d been without things for so very long, and he felt so very lonely.

  But how much lonelier would he feel when both pesky females were gone?

  You won’t have her long, the voice in his head repeated. You won’t get attached. You won’t miss her when she’s gone.

  He wasn’t sure he believed the voice.

  “Look—jail cells for puppies.” She pointed at a collapsible wire cage. “And collars and beds and automatic feeders and toys and outfits. Wow!”

  “No outfits,” he added to his earlier list.

  With a guilty look on her face, her hand froze an inch above the hanger holding a pink ballerina-looking thing, utterly ridiculous, especially the glittery headband that came with it.

  “You have better taste than that, don’t you, chica?” he asked the dog, who lifted her head from JJ’s chest. He held up the garment, let the dog sniff it and was rewarded with a small growl and a show of teeth. Good girl.

  “Chica,” JJ repeated thoughtfully. “Would you be embarrassed to go out and yell for Chica?”

  He returned the hanger to the rack and reached instead for a black nylon leash and a matching collar. “I have a cousin named Chica. Short for Chiquita.” He shrugged. Everyone had weird names in their family trees. “The only time I was embarrassed yelling her name was when she had me in a headlock and wouldn’t let go until I yelled, ‘Chica rules.’”

  JJ laughed. He kept to himself the fact that he’d been fifteen and had reached his full height the last time Chica had bested him, though thinking about it almost made him smile. He could have taken her, he’d always insisted. He just hadn’t wanted to risk hurting her. Chica, now forty-one, rounder and lazier and still not above putting one of her teenage sons in a headlock, didn’t agree.

  He’d had a life of good times with good people, he acknowledged as he lifted down the boxed kennel JJ pointed out. He’d shoved that out of his mind for too long. He needed to remind himself until it became second nature again: no matter how much life took from him, he would always have his memories.

  Glancing at JJ, holding two doggie beds and debating between hot-pink fuzz and a subdued navy blue fabric that was less of a hair magnet, he extended that thought.

  And he could always make new ones.

  * * *

  It wasn’t far from Walmart to Quint’s house. JJ carried Chica and the bagged smaller items onto the porch and waited while he unlocked the door, then she hesitated.

  This was a big deal, his inviting her inside. This was his personal space, his private space, and she appreciated that. Like she appreciated his taking in the dog, and the help he’d given with Maura, and, hell, everything about him. She was anxious to see where he lived. Anxious to see the colors he preferred, the styles of furniture, the mementos he kept on display.

  She was anxious to see signs of her. The mystery woman. His love. His sorrow.

  The door opened into a small foyer that, in turn, opened into the living/dining room. Large windows let in sunlight, and a rock fireplace centered the wall on the left. Stairs, stained dark with white balusters, made a straight shot to the second floor on the right side, and a doorway opened into a hall on the right that extended to the back of the house.

  As soon as JJ dried her boots on the rug, then stepped from the tile onto the hardwood floor, Chica leaped from her arms, her claws scrabbling as she began a careful check of the room. JJ said a silent plea to the animal to not scratch, pee or worse while Quint deposited his load—the kennel in its box, the dog bed and a bag of puppy kibble—on the dining table.

  He didn’t watch Chica explore, or JJ, either, but took off his jacket, laid down his keys and mumbled, “I’ll be back.”

  Inviting her in was a big deal for him, too.

  After he’d disappeared upstairs, JJ took off her own coat and drew in a deep breath of cinnamon-scented air while slowly taking in every detail of the room. The furniture was overstuffed and easy-to-clean leather: a couch, a love seat and two chairs. The wood floor was on the dark side, as was the trim, gleaming against the pale green walls. A chandelier of colored bits of glass hung over the dining table, casting rainbow prisms around the room. They glinted off the polished surfaces and reflected off the glass in picture frames, and for a moment, one of them held Chica mesmerized.

  For much longer than a moment, JJ was mesmerized, too, by the face that appeared in most of the photos. The woman was beautiful, her skin as delicate as porcelain, her hair black and long and straight. It was impossible to tell in the casual shots, but JJ figured gray eyes would go perfectly with the face, and she was otherwise perfect. She was cool and serene, very happy with her life, and just looking at her made JJ’s heart hurt.

  “Her name was Belinda.”

  JJ didn’t startle. Somewhere inside, she’d registered the sound of Quint’s footsteps on the stairs. She’d just been too sorrowful to turn around. He had loved this woman very much, and he’d lost her, and that made her unbearably sad.

  “Your wife?” She had asked him at lunch the first day if he was married. Somehow, she’d taken his negative response to mean he never had been, but at his age, being madly in love with Belinda, marriage would have been the traditional route. Compared to the younger people she knew, he and she were both very traditional.

  “We talked about it.” He came down the last few steps from where he’d stopped and crossed over to the dining table. He wore dry trousers and had left a clean jacket hanging on the banister. “We were just happy enough where we were that we never did anything to change it.”

  Listening to a blade slicing through tape, JJ studied the photos a moment longer. She was jealous, in a good way, of people
who found that kind of connection with another human being. She never wished them ill; she just wanted to experience it herself. She knew it didn’t come easily, knew it required giving and taking and bending and standing strong and that some people never found it, no matter how hard they searched.

  She wanted to be one of the lucky ones.

  But deep love also meant deep pain. Unless a couple died together, one would always leave and the other would always be left behind. If they were incredibly lucky, they would share decades before that happened. If they weren’t...

  Quint had been spectacularly lucky in finding Belinda when he did. And spectacularly unlucky in losing her when he did. He would spend far more years mourning her than he’d had with her. That was so sad.

  “Can you hold the box here?”

  Giving herself a shake and forcing a more upbeat expression onto her face, she joined him at the table. She grabbed hold of the box, and he pulled the wire panels and the plastic bottom tray from its tight confines. The page of instructions fell to the floor. By the time she picked it up and smoothed it out, he’d unfolded the bottom panel and assembled two of the remaining five.

  Chica watched from a distance, showing no curiosity whatsoever. Had she already experienced life inside a cell? Would she like her new quarters or hate them? Please don’t be difficult, she warned the pup. He’s doing us a huge favor.

  Within ten minutes, the crate was put together and slid against the wall beneath the stairs, giving a good view of all parts of the space. It sat on an old blanket Quint had gotten from somewhere through the dining room door, to protect the wood floor, and the blue bed was tucked inside while the gate was propped open.

  Chica sniffed the perimeter of the kennel, made sure JJ and Quint were too far away to try something stupid like closing the door on her, then walked inside, smelling everything so thoroughly and quickly that JJ felt light-headed just watching.

  “Get used to it, Chica,” Quint said as he stuffed the packing back into the box. “You live in this house, you don’t get to roam free when you’re alone.”

  The dog trotted back out and over to the couch where JJ had laid her coat and the hoodie. She clamped her teeth on the dangling sleeve of the hoodie, pulled it to the floor and dragged it into the kennel. After arranging it on the bed in as prissy a manner as JJ had ever seen, she plopped down on top of it with a sigh.

  JJ sighed, too. It made Quint look at her, his blue eyes knowing. “You thought she was going to be difficult.”

  “Of course not,” she lied. “Look at that sweet face. How could you expect anything but sterling behavior from her?”

  He snorted, picked up the dog food and headed for the dining room door. This time JJ followed him.

  The feeling of the other room was farmhouse cozy. She’d expected the kitchen to be the same, and it was, just decades newer and cozier. The soapstone countertops were dark and finely veined. Cream-colored cabinets with glass fronts up top, a big deep sink and windows stretching entirely the width of the sink wall were the highlights, with dark-fronted appliances and an island-centered six-burner gas cooktop close behind. A black table and four chairs sat in a nook to the right, with more storage space framing the windows there.

  “Wow. Belinda liked to cook, huh?”

  Quint pulled a large storage container from a cabinet before slanting her a look. “No, actually, I do. Did.” He shrugged. “Do.”

  The rattle of dog nuggets emptying into the plastic bin brought Chica in to investigate. He poured a small serving into a bowl and barely managed to set it on the floor before she dived in, face in the bowl, butt in the air, tail quivering.

  “I chose all the cooking stuff,” he went on as he filled another bowl with water, “and Linny put it together so it looked good. The windows were her idea. All she ever did in here was dishes, so she wanted a nice view while she did them.”

  Ugh. JJ hated doing dishes. And she had no decorating skills to speak of. Her idea of redoing a room was slapping a coat of white paint on it and calling it done.

  No, that wasn’t even true. She would call her mother or Elle and be happy with whatever they suggested.

  It wasn’t a competition, a relatively sane portion of her brain pointed out. She and Belinda were different people. Belinda was beautiful and utterly feminine, and JJ was cute, maybe pretty, but the closest she got to beautiful was when the guys had had a few beers. In every one of her pictures, Belinda had this calm, cool, serene air about her. JJ could be calm. And cool. And chaos walking. To get anywhere near serene, though, she would have to be comatose.

  But that was okay. Belinda had her attributes, and JJ had hers. Belinda surely had had a failing or two, and JJ had...well, more than a few. The world needed women like Belinda, and it needed women like JJ, too.

  She didn’t want to replace Belinda. That wasn’t even possible. She just wanted a little bit of what Belinda and Quint had shared.

  The man in question was looking at her curiously now. Apparently, he’d said something, and she’d been too lost in balancing insecurities and confidence to hear it. “What?”

  “If you want to get her collar and leash, we can take her out before we leave.”

  She blinked, then remembered. Collar, leash, in the shopping bag with two sets of food and water dishes, three toys and a box of treats.

  She brought the bag in from the living room and emptied it onto the island. After cutting the tags from the collar and leash, she knelt to secure both to the dog, who was now pushing her empty dish around the floor, looking for just one more bite.

  “She’s still hungry,” she commented.

  “If we give her too much, she’ll throw up. Cleaning puke is your job, too.” He peeled the stickers from the dishes, stacked them next to the sink with the used one, put the treats in a cabinet and stored the shopping bag in a drawer.

  As JJ stood up, she suspiciously asked, “Do you have a housekeeper?”

  “I live alone. What do I need with a housekeeper?”

  She thought of her condo, and her idea of what constituted good housekeeping, and shook her head. She didn’t need to worry about measuring up to Belinda.

  She couldn’t measure up to Quint, either.

  Chapter 7

  After a quick lunch at the Chinese buffet, Quint headed in the direction of Maura’s house. The dread that had twisted him in knots yesterday was gone, both because he’d faced Maura and because he’d confided the incident to JJ. There was no way Maura could conceivably tempt him now, a glance at JJ confirmed, and judging by her behavior yesterday, no way she would want to. He was safe in that regard.

  His mouth quirked at the idea that he’d confided anything in JJ. She’d teased out a dozen words and filled in all the rest herself. It was in her job description—figuring out things people didn’t want to tell—and she was good at it. He appreciated it, because he certainly felt better about that winter afternoon now.

  “Do you think she’ll let us in?” he asked as he turned onto Willow Street.

  “Who knows? Maybe I could pick the lock.”

  “Can you?”

  “Yeah. One of my confidential informants taught me how.” She grinned. “Would you let me?”

  “No.”

  “Hmm. I might have another idea or two.”

  “What exactly are you hoping for?” They’d discussed it after dinner last night, and he fully understood her reluctance to call the lawyer and tell him his client was fine, just a brat, don’t worry. If she was being taken advantage of, if she was being scammed out of her inheritance, if anything the least bit sinister was going on, JJ felt an obligation to ferret it out.

  So did Quint.

  But how much time could either of them or their departments spare to help someone who obviously didn’t want it?

  After a long silence—at least, for her—she sighed. “I’m hoping that sh
e’s grown up in the past twenty-four hours, has come to her senses and started acting reasonably. Since that’s not likely, I’d settle for her convincing me that nothing untoward is going on. Or for a believable explanation for her behavior the last few months. An offer to go home with me and make things right with her godparents would delight me.” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m easy to please.”

  Good to know.

  The only tracks in the driveway at Maura’s house were theirs from the day before. Most of the snow had melted to slush, but it was pristine enough slush to know. He parked near the garage, where a few stubborn icicles clung to the eaves overhead.

  “Is there a side door into the garage?” JJ slid out without waiting for an answer and headed for the south side of the house. He caught up as she cupped her hands to her face and peered inside the window there.

  “Her car’s here. So’s a motorcycle.” She whistled long and low, something Quint couldn’t do if his life depended on it. “Nice bike. Looks new.”

  He stepped closer behind her, closer than he should have. In fact, he should have nudged her to the right and made room for himself, but no, he leaned over her, blocking out the light with his own hands to see the bike in the unlit garage.

  The smell of dirt on the window filled his nose, then was joined by a sweet fragrance, not floral, not spicy, just clean. It came from JJ’s hair and her skin, along with the heat radiating from her body. It teased him with its simplicity: fresh air, rain, spring breezes, nature at its best. It was soothing and calming and appealing, and he wanted very much for it to become familiar.

  “What do you think?” she asked, her shoulder bumping against his chest.

  You smell incredibly good.

  Scowling, he forced his attention to the bike. “It’s not the one Zander was riding last time I stopped him.” He swallowed hard, trying to forget the scent. “We were halfway to Bristow and the highway patrol and the sheriff’s office had joined the chase by the time he finally pulled over. He spent three days in jail and goes to trial next month.”