“Give them what they want,” I said with a detached coolness.
The police officers who'd responded to my report were two men I wasn't very familiar with, which was somewhat of a relief. I didn't want to face Dempsey or Wiggles or especially Milano.
They asked Colt if he would come to the station to answer a few questions.
Again, he gave me a bewildered look. “Should I go? My lawyer told me not to talk to anyone.”
My stomach flip-flopped. He hadn't yet figured out that I'd been the one who called the police; I'd done so on my trip to the washroom.
“Call your lawyer on the way over,” I said.
“Okay.” He pulled his vehicle keys from his pocket and slid them to me across the table. “Would you be a pal and babysit my girls for as long as this takes?”
I wrapped my sweaty fingers around the keys, which were still warm from his pocket.
“Sure,” I said, my voice croaking.
The police started taking him away. Colt kept pulling back, fussing about paying for the meal, and worried about giving me instructions for what to feed the dogs.
I nodded and clenched my jaw through all of it.
“Everything's going to be okay,” I kept saying.
Melody and the rest of the staff at the restaurant watched from behind the bar counter with wide eyes.
I had to keep reminding myself to breathe. I felt as though I'd been holding my breath since seeing the spots on Colt's shirt at the park.
After, once I'd paid for the uneaten meals and let myself into Colt's truck to get the dogs, I finally let go.
I put my face in my hands and cried.
Chapter 26
“Listen, I'm not happy about this situation, either.”
Jeffrey flattened his ears back against his head and hissed at me. I was on my tip-toes, trying to pry him out of the space he'd wedged himself into, which was the negligible area between the top of the refrigerator and the bottom of the upper cabinets. The more I tried to get him out, the further back he wedged his little gray body.
“They're nice dogs,” I said. “Very well behaved. I'm sure they wouldn't eat you.”
I turned and looked at Echo and Juno, whose names I had learned from the tags on their collars. The two huskies were sitting on the kitchen floor and watching the top of the fridge with a patience and focus that would make any vigilant private investigator jealous.
“They're probably just curious,” I said to Jeffrey. “Curious about what kind of squeak sound you'd make if they got hold of you. Get it? Because they think you're a squeakie toy.”
Jeffrey took a break from hissing at me to make a moaning sound straight out of a horror movie about exorcisms.
“Are you sure you want to stay up there? I could move you to the bedroom, or you could go skulk around in the basement for a while.”
More otherworldly moaning.
“Okay, buddy. I hear you. It's been a long day. Maybe you can make a getaway if I distract Echo and Juno by taking them for a walk.”
At the sound of me saying the word walk, both dogs let out happy whimpers.
That sealed the deal. I was taking the huskies for a walk, heading straight out again not ten minutes after getting home.
As I turned away from the fridge, I saw stars floating in my vision.
Dehydration, I realized. I'd been feeling shaky for hours, ever since I'd spotted the stains on Colt's shirt. That had been midafternoon, and now it was—I checked the time on the stove and then looked out the window, because I couldn't believe it—7:15 pm, twilight.
I poured a glass of water, downed it, and then another. The dogs were on high alert, watching every move I made. One of them walked over to the front door, whimpered, and gave me a heartbreaking look, complete with the saddest blue eyes. And here I thought Jeffrey was the master of the guilt trip. My cat had nothing on this fluffy dog with the heart-shaped white face.
I rummaged in the cupboard for something I could eat while walking. We were out of granola bars, but we did have crackers. I grabbed a three-quarters-full sleeve, tucked it under my armpit, and started putting the leashes back on the dogs.
Unfortunately for me, Echo and Juno knew a rookie when they saw one. When it came to dogs, I was a rookie. Echo moved toward me in what appeared to be an affectionate nuzzle, but then she deftly nosed the closed end of the sleeve of crackers. The plastic sleeve pushed through my armpit and fell. The other dog, Juno, snapped the bag from midair and then shook it like she was snapping a weasel's neck. Crushed bits of whole-wheat crackers sprayed everywhere.
But I didn't have to worry about sweeping up the crumbled mess, because the dogs lapped up every last crumb within seconds. And then they sat on their fluffy butts and quietly gazed up at me with the sweetest expressions, as if to say, more? Please?
“I would be mad if you weren't so cute,” I said. “Let's go for that walk, straight to the store to get you some dog food. Assuming you haven't been too spoiled by Jeffrey's tasty cat kibbles.”
Juno and Echo licked their lips. They'd been distracted by the cat food just long enough for Jeffrey to get himself on top of the fridge.
Juno kept glancing over at the dark space above the refrigerator, which had two shining eyes and moaned like an old ghost.
I shook my finger at the dogs. “No. I will not leave you alone in a room with Jeffrey on ground level,” I said. “Not after I saw what you did to those crackers. Jeffrey is not a squeaky toy.”
I finished getting their leashes on and scrawled a quick note for Jessica. She wasn't home yet, as she was working a late shift at the Olive Grove.
I wrote: I'm out walking two dogs. If you hear a moaning sound from the fridge, it's not broken. Jeffrey's hiding on top. If he comes out, please tell him I'm sorry.
With the dog leashes firmly in hand, I stepped outside with the girls.
I noticed there was a light on inside Logan's side of the duplex. My hopes rose and then sunk just as quickly. He wasn't home. He'd just left the light on inside his kitchen before leaving that morning. I hadn't seen him the night before, either, as he'd come home and gone straight to bed by the time Kyle drove me back after the movie.
I checked my phone again. My handsome lawyer boyfriend hadn't updated me since his last message, two hours ago, when he'd warned me he might be working late yet again on a last-minute brief.
He didn't know about my meeting with Colt earlier that day. I hadn't burdened him yet with the whole situation. Mostly because every time I tried to type out how terrible it had felt for me to turn in an old friend, the waterworks had started up anew. No wonder I was so dehydrated.
The dogs, however, knew nothing about what was going on. As far as they were concerned, their master was at an extra-long meditation class, getting in touch with his pacifistic feelings. The huskies tugged on the leash for me to walk faster, so I walked.
With each block, I felt my head becoming more clear. It wasn't that I had a better perspective on everything that had happened. It was more that it all seemed so distant and unimportant. Right now, there was a breeze, and so many smells in the air.
Whatever Colt Canuso did or didn't do, it was between him, the police, and his lawyers now.
I would carry on with my life.
I pushed away my worries and focused only on the dogs, who were enjoying the moment.
Dusk was approaching, and streetlamps were switching on overhead. I had to stop and check the street signs a few times so I didn't wind up lost. I wasn't far from the house where I'd lived for nearly a year, yet I didn't know this neighborhood very well.
I should get out and walk more, I thought.
The people I encountered kept smiling at me and waving hello to the dogs. A few people stopped to pet the girls and ask what breed they were.
People in Misty Falls are always friendly, but they'd never been as friendly as they were that night, when I was walking two adorable husky sisters.
I should get a dog, I thought. Or two.
<
br /> My happy thoughts were shattered by a truck skidding to a stop on the street next to me. The driver's side door opened, and a petite woman with long, black hair pulled up in a ponytail jumped out.
“There you are,” she said angrily, and she started cursing me out. With every name in the book.
Oh, no.
Trigger Canuso.
I hadn't seen her since she was a young girl, but I recognized her by the twist of her crooked chin and nose. Trigger was Colt's baby sister, named after the palomino horse made famous in Western films starring Roy Rogers.
Trigger had been born with hemifacial microsomia, a genetic condition that caused tissue on one side of her face to develop more slowly. It gave her the appearance of scowling angrily, even when she wasn't.
However, based on the word choice she was now using to describe me, the scowl on her face was absolutely real.
The dogs greeted her with happy tail wags.
“Trigger, calm down,” I said.
She screeched back, “Why should I calm down?!”
Trigger had an excellent point. Her brother had been taken in for questioning on a homicide case. By now, he would have figured out I'd been the one to call in the report about the blood spots on his clothes. Then he must have told his sister. And now she was here to do grievous bodily harm to me.
Or not.
She was a tiny thing, barely five feet tall. She was, as the casino security guard had described her brother, a little dog who barks a lot.
“You're right,” I said. “Why be calm? This whole deal truly is messed up. All I can say is, I'm really sorry.”
“Why'd you send the cops after Colt? You know he wouldn't hurt nobody!”
“They just need to rule him out,” I said. “They have to be careful.”
The dogs stood between us, their tails wagging more slowly now as they looked from one of us to the other. They probably didn't know what to think. Trigger was their friend, but she was yelling. I was their new friend, since I'd given them crackers. Who were they more loyal to?
I could relate to the dogs, because I didn't know whose side I was on, either. Especially now that I saw the girl, and memories of her as a child came back to me. Trigger had been a pint-sized brat when I'd been in high school. She'd followed her big brother around town on the weekends like a puppy. I'd always enjoyed seeing her. She'd shaken me down to buy her a chocolate bar or a burger more than once.
Inside me, I had a rush of conflicting feelings. She was still the grubby-faced child I'd taken under my wing. She was in her twenties now, but she was still so small, and the memory of her as a kid persisted in my mind. I wanted to walk up to her and hug her, but I knew better. You don't hug a rattlesnake.
Instead, I said, “Trigger, I'm sorry.”
She spat on the ground. “Don't you dare say my name like you know me! You don't know me! You don't know my family!”
Juno whimpered, which made Echo whimper as well.
We both looked down at the dogs.
“They haven't had dinner yet,” I said. “They worked up an appetite chasing my cat onto the refrigerator.” I held out the leashes. “You did come here to get the dogs, right?”
“Yeah,” she said.
She took the leashes from my hand, still glaring at me. The huskies began licking her free hand, and I saw the rage drain out of her.
“This is so messed up,” she said, dropping in a few swear words as she patted the dogs.
“Your brother needs your support,” I said. “No matter what.”
“He's on his way home right now,” she said. “The cops didn't hold him, because they know he didn't do nothin'.”
“Good,” I said, though I knew that releasing Colt didn't mean the police thought he was innocent. It just meant they didn't have the evidence yet to feel confident in arresting him. Even with a rush, it would take time for the crime lab to test the blood on Colt's clothes against Michael Sweet's DNA.
“Those cops need to go after the wife,” Trigger said. “She's the one who's going to be getting all that money. Plus she's crazy. Cuckoo. Totally nuts.”
“Samantha?”
“Haven't you heard? She lost her mind.” Trigger let out a cruel laugh.
I hadn't heard about Samantha losing her mind, but I wasn't surprised to hear she was behaving erratically. She'd been dazed and sluggish the last time I'd seen her, as though heavily medicated.
“Some people behave strangely when they're grieving,” I said. “It's different for every person, every situation. For some, confronting death makes them over-steer toward embracing life, seizing the day.”
Trigger crossed her arms and told the dogs to sit. They didn't sit but continued to nuzzle her arms and lick her exposed skin, including her chin. Trigger was so short, the dogs barely had to jump to lick her face.
Ignoring the huskies as best she could, Trigger said, “That realtor lady is crazy. She doesn't even think her husband is dead.”
“What are you talking about? She saw his body.” She had his blood all over her hands. “Are you saying she's blocked the memory?”
“Yeah. Because she's crazy.”
I rubbed my chin. It was possible for Samantha to disbelieve her husband was dead. “She could be in a disassociative state,” I said. “I'm no psychiatrist, but I've been reading up on some of these things.”
“Not that,” Trigger said with a cold laugh. “She thinks the guy who got stabbed is actually someone who looks like her husband. A look-alike. A body double.”
“That's crazy.”
“I know! She's going to take the money from the insurance, and then, after it's all spent, she thinks Michael's going to come back.”
“How do you know this?”
“You're not the only one in this town who knows how to get information.”
“Come on, Trigger. We're on the same side. I don't want Colt to get caught up in this if he didn't do it.”
She raised her voice. “He didn't do it! I told you, stupid!” And then she cursed me out some more.
I held my hands up. “Listen, I'll ask around, okay? I'll try to figure out what's going on with Samantha and this so-called body double.”
“Don't you be comin' around the casino,” she said.
“Don't worry. I promise I won't try to see Colt unless he wants to see me.”
“No,” she said coldly. “Never. Not ever.”
“Are you banning me from the premises?”
She tugged the dogs toward her truck. The engine was still idling, and she'd left the driver's side door open. The dome light inside the cab of the truck gave it a warm, golden glow.
It was only now that I realized twilight was gone and night had truly fallen. All was dark around me. Darkness.
“You're dead,” Trigger said as she backed away. “If I ever see you on my land, in my casino, you're dead.” She switched the leashes to her left hand, pointed her right hand at me like a gun, and made a click sound as she mimed pulling a trigger.
Chapter 27
WEDNESDAY
Just when it seems like the sun will never come up again, it does.
Tuesday hadn't been so great. I'd turned an old friend in to the police, and then, because no good deed goes unpunished, I'd been reamed out by his sister. She'd tried to make me feel like dirt, and she'd been successful.
But Wednesday was a new day. Or so I told myself.
I woke up late, which wasn't the best start. I thought of that great Irish expression: Lose an hour in the morning, and you’ll be looking for it all day.
I had a dozen pressing matters to deal with, yet I couldn't focus on my work. There was a heaviness in my chest that I couldn't chase away with coffee. Not even coffee plus Jessica's icing-covered cinnamon buns could lift my mood. I couldn't focus on anything except how lousy I felt.
My body ached, and the hard chair at the kitchen table where I usually worked felt harder than ever.
I moved over to the sofa, and the aches in my body moved t
o different regions.
I was two minutes into working on an insurance case when Jeffrey walked across my paperwork on the cushion next to me and then the keys of my laptop. I tossed his mouse toy across the room but he wasn't taking the bait. He walked across the keyboard again, making the screen do something I'd never seen it do before. I couldn't figure out what magical key combination he'd pushed with his paws. I had to reboot the computer to get the display back to normal.
As soon as my display was fixed, he returned to do his magical trick again.
“Jeffrey Blue, you're doing an amazing impression of a barnacle. Why are you so clingy? You've got both kinds of food, and I refilled your water dish on the tub while you were watching, so you know it's fresh. What's going on?”
I pushed the laptop toward my knees. He walked onto the available section of my lap and flopped down dramatically. He rolled his head back and gazed at me with slow-blinking affectionate green eyes.
“Is this about the doggies?”
His ears twitched in the feline equivalent of a frown.
“Those doggies aren't coming back here,” I said. “It was just a one-time deal, I swear.”
He opened his mouth and gave me a silent meow—the most heart-tugging of cat sounds.
“Let's say it is Michael's blood in those spatters on Colt's shirt. Let's say he does go to prison.” I grimaced at the words, which left a bad taste in my mouth. “Just because he asked me to take care of his dogs yesterday doesn't mean I have to. I didn't even agree to be their godmother. Technically, we don't have a verbal contract, let alone a formal written one, like the type Logan would draw up.”
Jeffrey rolled onto his back, exposing his tummy. I knew better than to take the bait and stick my hand in the fluffiest of feline traps.
“You're right,” I said. “Logan hasn't been much help lately. He's always working at the office whenever I could use his help.”
Jeffrey started purring.
“It certainly is a good thing I have you, and Auntie Jessica. Plus your grampa's been supportive through all of this, in his own way. He sent me a text message this morning with three stars and a frog. I don't know what it means, but at least he's checking in on me.”
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