3 Panthers Play for Keeps

by Clea Simon

  “Pru, I don’t like to get involved in personal matters. You know that.” Those eyebrows had begun bunching in distress. “And I know you tend to get involved with, well…” His voice trailed off. Maybe he had meant the other type of cougar.

  “I don’t care who she’s dating. Jim Creighton is his own man.” There, I’d said it. I almost believed it.

  “Jim, who? You mean Detective Creighton?” I’d spilled my guts for no reason. Doc Sharpe looked as puzzled as a Pekingese, and I felt the color flood my face. God, I was getting as bad as Pammy.

  “I—never mind. You were saying?” I waved my confusion away like an annoying fly.

  Yankees aren’t comfortable around emotions. Or women, most of them. Doc Sharpe was happy to recount his little vials and step back into the hall. “What I, uh, meant, Pru, is that, well, I feel I know you by now.”

  Not that well, clearly, I wanted to say, but I waited. He was having enough trouble getting this out.

  “I’m happy to discuss options for your charge. For Spot, that is.” He seemed to be having trouble with the keys. “And, of course, any legitimate questions about his care, and the fostering and care of any future service animals you may be chosen to—you may choose to work with.”

  He got the door locked to his satisfaction at last. As he looked up at me, I saw a deep sadness in his tired eyes. “You will have to learn to distance yourself, however, Pru. Part of this program, perhaps the hardest part, is training these beautiful creatures and then handing them over to others. That’s what you’re doing. That’s why you’re doing it. If you’re going to get so attached that you feel a false sense of competition with Spot’s foster parent, well, then, perhaps I was wrong, and this field isn’t right for you.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Not much can leave me at a loss for words, but Doc Sharpe had done it.

  “I’m not—“ It wasn’t that I didn’t try to explain. “I’m…” It’s that each time I started to stutter out a response, I realized I was about to get myself into more trouble. No, I’m not overly bonded with the dog. It’s just that another dog showed me something? Doc Sharpe already had enough weird ideas about me, I didn’t need to give him another.

  I was settling on something noncommittal that neither of us believed. But as I turned to make my escape, I heard another voice—a sheltie, I think—calling out in pain and fear. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” It was horrible—an almost-human cry of distress, more like a hoarse wail than a canine howl. The sound came from one of the examining rooms, but it was loud enough to reverberate through the hall. I could hear the voice as clearly as I’d heard Doc Sharpe. To the white-haired vet, it was probably just so much barking.

  Still, he paused, raising a hand to stop what he figured would be my continued protestations. And in that moment, I marveled again at the forbearance of the man. He thought he knew how odd I was. He didn’t know the half of it, but he not only put up with me, he tried to help me, steering work my way. And while he might not understand animals in the way I did, he did what he could. He tried.

  “Doc, want some help?” It was the least I could do, and when he nodded, distracted, I followed behind.

  Pammy, of course, was there already. Not that this was a good thing. She’d taken what looked like a mother and young son into the examining room, and was trying to calm down the shaking sheltie that she had placed on the cold steel examining table. Now that we were in the room, the source of some of the dog’s distress seemed obvious: his person, the boy, was near tears. And Pammy wasn’t helping. Between rolling her eyes and popping her gum, she’d also managed to insert herself between the boy and his mother—and, more to the point, the agitated dog, all the while holding the dog so that he couldn’t turn away from the flustered mother and toward his primary concern, the boy.

  It was a little thing, but it was the worst move possible. Shetlands are sheep dogs. They herd; it’s what they do. To a dog in pain, reasserting some kind of order on the universe was essential, and Doc Sharpe’s blonde catastrophe was making that impossible.

  “Why don’t you let me help you?” I kept my voice low and even as I moved in. No point in trying to train this one, no matter what Doc Sharpe might think. Resisting the urge to elbow her out of the way, I slid between her and the table, so she had to step back. Released, the little collie turned and I felt something like a warm pulse as he and his boy saw each other again. Before the dog could jump into his arms, however, I put my hands on his small, warm torso. It’s protocol for a reason: Doc Sharpe didn’t need to have an injured animal sliding off a table.

  But this time, I was the one who nearly hit the floor.

  “Pru, are you alright?” I blinked. Doc Sharpe was staring at me. The sheltie, luckily, was back in his boy’s arms, the pair being held by a mother in full-on tiger mode.

  “I’m sorry.” I shook my head to clear it. I was back against the counter, as if the dog had thrown me off. I had no idea how I’d gotten there. No idea. “It must have been static electricity.”

  It was the best I could come up with, that’s what it was. And although Mama Bear didn’t look at all convinced, Doc Sharpe nodded as if what I’d said made sense.

  “Why don’t you go lie down?” He had a practice to protect, after all. “In my office.”

  I nodded, trying to salvage a smile for the mother and her boy, and staggered out. The dog would be fine, I was sure of that. He had a cut on his paw, and something—a sliver of glass, it seemed—was still stuck deep in the pad. Doc Sharpe would excise it, clean it, and put some antibiotic salve on the wound before wrapping it. He’d apply some balm to the sheltie’s people, too, laying on the gruff charm that was as responsible as his actual expertise for his popularity.

  What got me was that he shouldn’t have had to do any of it. This was a minor injury. The equivalent of a canine splinter. Ordinarily, he could have greeted the people, and nominally overseen my diagnosis. Then he could have moved on to more urgent cases, leaving me to irrigate the wound and apply the dressing. Even Pammy could have done it, if it weren’t for her execrable bedside manner and complete disregard for the feelings of those around her.

  Feelings. That’s what had gotten me in trouble. And now they had made additional work for Doc Sharpe, not to mention adding to his suspicions of me. I couldn’t help it, and as I made my slow way down that hallway, I tried to piece together what I’d felt. What I’d seen. It didn’t make sense.

  “Pru?” The whine in her voice broke through my stupor. Pammy, pouting. “Is Doc Sharpe still in there with those people?”

  I nodded. At least her dimness was predictable.

  “Because we’re piled up ten-deep out front. And if you’re not going to take some of the work from him…” She had crossed her arms, but the way she was tapping her fingers let me know she was jonesing for a butt. Besides, she had a point. If I couldn’t help out the vet, I should be willing to handle the front desk.

  “Sorry, Pammy.” I shook my head. Doc Sharpe was right. I should lie down. His consulting room had a small couch. “I can’t.”

  “Are you sick?” Her voice ratcheted up half an octave. “You look awful!”

  “Yeah, well…” I couldn’t do it. I knew what she was waiting for. The barbed comeback that would reestablish our equilibrium. The snark that would send her flouncing down the hall. If I wouldn’t cover for her during her break, she at least wanted a good grudge.

  I wasn’t up to it, however. I had no fight in me. I had lost the focus. I had made it as far as Doc Sharpe’s door, and was reaching for the doorknob. His sofa and the oblivion of sleep seemed like heaven. If I could sleep, that is. But I was strangely exhausted, and I wanted to try. What I didn’t want was to think about what I’d just seen. What I had just heard.

  I had worked through my own fears, early on, about what this supposed gift meant. I had some theories, and I’d had Wallis’ unsentimental a
ttitude to pull me out of what could have been a major funk. The sensitivity had even given out on me once or twice, when I needed it, making me value it all the more when it came back. Unless, of course, it had never been a special sense. Unless it had never been more than my behaviorist training leaching somehow into the slow erosion of my sanity. Because it had been a long winter, and a cold one. I knew that, knew it with every sensible New England fiber in my being. But what I also knew was that—although that poor little sheltie couldn’t identify his nemesis—the animal that had scared him so much, that had caused him to panic so badly that he had run without any hesitation over shattered glass, was not possible.

  There was no way that Beauville was being stalked by a snow leopard.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I’m not the fainting sort. Far from it, but just then, the idea of lying down for a bit was very attractive. Trouble is, I’ve given in before. Got myself hospitalized, back when my sensitivity first manifested itself, when all those voices seemed to be coming out of nowhere. And while my stay in the bin was voluntary and I was able to leave under my own power three days later, it wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat. And so, just as I turned the knob to Doc Sharpe’s consulting room, it hit me that I had to leave. Other people’s problems might be solved for them while they reclined with an ice pack or a beer. Me? I’m on my own.

  County has a back door—fire regulations being what they are—and I took advantage of it, striding out as quickly and purposefully as I could, a don’t-mess-with-me look on my face. No human dared stand in my way, although I did hear a startled squawk from the bird room. Smaller animals are the most attuned to this kind of determination. They have to be to survive.

  My motivation wasn’t that different, I realized as I cut up the alley toward my car. Sure, it presented as ferocity, but that’s my own form of protective coloration. In reality, I was as shaken as I’ve ever been, save for that one time. And my instinct was to run to the one creature who had been able to reach me then: Wallis. She’d been pissed when I’d checked myself into the hospital, not to mention hungry by the time I’d gotten home. But she’d taken care of me, in her way, alternately cajoling and chiding me into something akin to acceptance. I owed her my life, although neither of us likes to speak of it. I was going home to her now. Lunch, and a consult with my cat. That’s what I needed to set me right.

  I pulled onto the highway, my mind racing. The thaw had left damp patches on the pavement, and now I was seeing them as leopard spots. The shadows, too. Trees casting dark blotches against the tawny ground. Taking a deep breath, I made myself lift my foot from the accelerator. Just because my breathing was fast didn’t mean my reaction time was. Not right now. Until I was sure, I needed to be careful.

  Sure of…What? I could tell my speed was inching back up, but for a moment there, I felt like normal. I was regarding this as a problem, as Wallis would. Well, if Wallis could drive and worried about things like her sanity. Because it really came down to two options. One, I was losing it. Perhaps temporarily through some combination of low-level alcohol poisoning, stress, and hunger. Perhaps not. Or two, there really was a snow leopard, a majestic beast more customarily found in the mountains of Central Asia, loose in the woods around Beauville.

  Suddenly, I started laughing out loud. If I was losing anything, it was my edge. Wallis would have a heyday with this. “You trusted a dog?” I could hear her voice, but I no longer doubted my sanity. Because it hit me: I believed what I had seen. I had seen—in that scared little sheltie’s eyes—the big paws and beautifully mottled coat. Even more, I believed what I had heard: snow leopards don’t roar. They chuff. They growl, and, yes, they wail. But there clearly had been some mix-up. I didn’t know how a New England dog would have a mental image of a Himalayan cat, but stranger things had happened. Maybe it had seen one on TV and freaked out when confronted by a bobcat. Maybe the little dog was delusional.

  Or, maybe, it was me. The funk returned as I raced down the road, trying not to see lurking beasts in every shade and pothole. Maybe that was why I reached for my phone when it rang. That, and the sneaking feeling that maybe I still had other problems that needed solving.

  “Laurel?” In this state, I needed to keep my eyes on the road. As I spoke, though, I tried to remember just how I had been planning on tackling the shrink.

  “You tell me.” It was Creighton, though his greeting had me momentarily speechless. “Pru, you there?”

  “Yeah, Jim.” I snuck a glance at the phone. Sure enough, he was calling from her phone. “But I’m sure you can understand my confusion.” My words dripped acid. I could hear it myself, and I knew my mood—my current vulnerability—wasn’t helping. Well, what did he expect? “I’m here, and you’re…”

  My mouth suddenly so dry I just couldn’t say it.

  “I’m at Laurel Kroft’s house.” He did. “And you were the last person she called.”

  “That’s impossible.” I shook my head, not that he could see me. “I’ve been trying to reach her, but I’ve just been getting her voice mail.”

  “And why were you calling her?” His voice was cool. His cop voice. Mine wasn’t. If he was waiting for me to erupt into jealous mode, he had another think coming.

  “Why do you think, Jim?” I pitched my voice low, working to keep it even. “Don’t you have a murder to investigate? You talked to us both. You could see it as well as I could. Laurel was pretending. Holding something back. She knows something about Mariela—or about the Haigens, that’s for sure. Maybe they were into something together.” Benazi. One thing I’d learned from him was that wealthy people like their toys. They also like to think they’re above the law. “Maybe it was some kind of a scam.”

  I was on a roll. “Or maybe it wasn’t the Haigens. Maybe she and this Mariela had something going.” I heard the intake of breath, a warning I’d gone too far. “Or maybe not.”

  “Or maybe you two were brewing up something, and now she’s lying low.” His voice was even, smooth, like a fishing line cast perfectly into the pool. “Or maybe you were working together, and you didn’t trust her.”

  “Me?” He had to be joking. I laughed. He didn’t join me. “Jim, you’re not serious. Are you?”

  “We know you called her, several times. We know you talked at least once—the call lasted close to a minute.”

  “What? No.” My exit was coming up, and I let myself drift to the right. “I never reached her.”

  “Why do you think I’m calling you from Ms. Kroft’s house, Pru?” I didn’t answer. I hadn’t thought. “I wanted to see who she had spoken to last. We have your messages, and it’s clear she called you back.”

  I had slowed down enough to check. “Maybe she left me a message. I have one.” I’d let the car stop on the shoulder. Things were complicated enough without an accident. “I didn’t speak to her, Jim.”

  “Your phone’s on.”

  No arguing with that. “I was at County.” Doc Sharpe could back me on that. Not that it would help his opinion of me. “I guess I didn’t hear. But, wait…” Something really strange was going on. “What is she saying? Why are you tracking her calls?”

  He didn’t say anything. In that silence, I heard enough. “She’s saying something about me, right? That there’s something going on with me…”

  I didn’t know what she had picked up. I flashed back over all my interactions with Spot, wondering what she had seen. What she had been able to deduce.

  Creighton, meanwhile, wasn’t helping. The silence was getting to me. “Jim, I swear, I don’t know anything. But I do know her.” That’s when it hit me: “More important, I know Spot. I’ve been working with him for weeks now, and he’s been living with her. He’s a good dog, and he’s not some little toy. If somebody threatened her…If something…”

  I flashed back to our walk. The shadow in the brush. Except that Laurel would have had no reason t
o take the dog out to the preservation land. Would she?

  “Jim, did Laurel go out to the woods?” My mind was racing. Could have been out of curiosity. Could have been for another reason, especially if she had had some idea of what had happened to Mariela. “Could she have taken Spot out to where Mariela was found?”

  Spot wouldn’t have willingly tracked whatever was out there. But I’d just spent several weeks training him to put aside his own preferences. Teaching him that his desires, even his instincts, were to be subjugated to the commands of his person. If Laurel had gone out there and sought to hunt down whatever had killed Mariela, he could have done it. Hell, at this point, I was kicking myself for not having thought of it.

  “She didn’t take the dog.” That stopped me. “The dog’s here, Pru.”

  This wasn’t making sense. “Creighton, I don’t know what you’re saying. You’re at Laurel’s house. Her dog is there, and she’s not, apparently. And you say she called me, which makes sense because I’ve been trying to reach her. None of that is odd. I mean, it’s the middle of the day. She could be off seeing clients. Or, hell, maybe she had a personal errand.” I paused, my original beef coming back to me. “Some of us do have private lives, Jim.”

  “And some of us have real jobs, Pru.” He’d heard my snark and lobbed it back. “In this case, Laurel was part of it. She had been holding something back, when the three of us spoke. She wanted to talk to me. In private. Only she never showed, and so I came here to find a dog stuck in his crate and crying like he’d just been whipped. And there’s no sign of Laurel. Only two messages, each saying there’s something important. Something that has to be dealt with. And both of them are from you.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “I knew I hated her.” I was fuming, pacing back and forth between the refrigerator and the door. “With that faux-country look and that frosted hair. Like that color comes from anything besides Clairol.”