Family Jewels: Rose Gardner Investigations #1

by Denise Grover Swank

“This is my dog, Muffy,” I said, then shook my head, feeling like an idiot. “But then I guess you can tell she’s a dog.”

  He grinned and his blue eyes twinkled. It was easy to see why so many women had suddenly become pet owners. “And I didn’t even need those four years of veterinary school to figure it out.”

  Heat bloomed in my cheeks.

  “So what seems to be the trouble with Muffy?”

  “Her back hip hurts, and she’s not putting much weight on it.”

  “Has she had this problem before?”

  “No,” I said. For a moment, I struggled with what I should tell him, but if he was going to help Muffy, he needed to know the truth. “Someone kicked her last night. Twice.”

  His lightheartedness instantly vanished. “Someone kicked your dog?”

  “I didn’t condone it,” I said with more defensiveness than I’d intended. “And the man who kicked her was dealt with.”

  “Put her on the floor and let me watch her walk.”

  I did as he instructed, feeling unsettled at his change in attitude. I set Muffy down, but she huddled next to my leg and refused to move.

  Dr. Romano stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled something out before he squatted down in front of her. She sniffed the small treat in his hand and then gingerly took it from him.

  “Is she usually shy around strangers?” he asked, still watching her as he scooted back several feet and held out another treat.

  “No, but she seems to sense when someone’s a threat.”

  He grinned up at me. “So she sees me as a threat?”

  “No. She’d be growling if she did.”

  He nodded. “Does she usually take treats?”

  “Yes, she eats anything and everything.” I paused. “But she also . . . passes gas. A lot of it.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched with the hint of a grin. “Well, let’s deal with first things first. Has she eaten since she was kicked?”

  I cringed. “No, but it happened late in the evening. She seemed okay—she even ran off to the house—so I took her to bed.”

  “She sleeps with you?”

  I nodded.

  “Did she cry in the middle of the night or make any sounds of distress? Was she restless?”

  “She didn’t make a peep, but she was still sleeping on my bed after I got up and showered. When I set her down on the floor, she didn’t put much weight on her leg. And she refused to go down the stairs. Once we realized she was in pain, Neely Kate made this appointment for me.”

  “And she didn’t eat this morning?”

  “No, there wasn’t time,” I said, sounding guilty.

  That earned another warm smile. “I’m not judging your pet ownership. I’m just trying to determine when she last ate.”

  “Last night. About seven, I think.”

  He put the treat on the floor, and Muffy stood motionless.

  “I’d really like to see her walk,” he said as he stood. “Let’s try something else.” He walked over to the door and opened it. “Go out into the hall and see if she’ll walk to you.”

  I did as he instructed, then squatted down and held my hands out to her. “Come here, Muff.”

  She made a beeline toward me with a skip-hop. When she reached me, she tried to put her front paws on my knees, but her back leg wouldn’t support her. Her whimpers made my eyes sting.

  “Don’t worry,” Dr. Romano said as he reached down and picked her up. “We’ll get her fixed up.”

  “What do you think’s wrong with her?”

  “I suspect she’s bruised,” he said, cradling Muffy to his chest, “but let me palpate the area. Then I’d like to take an x-ray just to make sure nothing’s broken.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Rose.”

  I stared up into his warm eyes.

  “Don’t look so worried. She’s going to be fine.”

  “I should have called last night.”

  “If she wasn’t in obvious distress last night, I would have told you to wait until the morning.” He set her down on the exam table. “Can you hold her up while I examine her?”

  I nodded and slipped my hand under her chest by her front legs. He spent several minutes feeling every part of her front legs, her back, her tummy, and her back hips, leaving the right side for last. She flinched and looked back at him with a low growl.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, horrified. “She usually never growls unless there’s danger.”

  “It’s normal,” he said, rubbing behind her ear. “She’s in pain. I suspect that’s why she wasn’t overly interested in the treats. It could be because she’s here—many dogs get nervous in our office—but if she’s a good eater, it’s probably because of her pain.”

  “Can you give her something for it?”

  “Let me take her x-rays; then I’ll make a diagnosis and we’ll figure out how to treat her.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hopefully we’ll be back in a few minutes.” He picked her up and carried her through a door at the back of the room, leaving me alone in the small exam room.

  I had just sat down on a metal chair when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my purse and checked the caller ID.

  It wasn’t a number I recognized, but I answered anyway. “Hello?”

  “Rose, this is Deputy Randy Miller. Joe said you were going to call me with some information about Rayna Dyer.”

  Of course he had.

  “I’m free now,” he continued, “so I wondered if I could come by your office to talk to you.”

  “You could if I were there. I’m at the vet with Muffy.”

  “Is she okay?” he asked with a worried tone. He was one of the few people who appreciated my little dog almost as much as I did.

  “Dr. Romano thinks she’ll be okay. He’s taking x-rays now.”

  “What happened?”

  Seeing no point in keeping it to myself, I said, “Raddy Dyer kicked her last night.”

  “What? Does Chief Deputy Simmons know Dyer was at your place?”

  “He knows Raddy showed up, but not the part about him kicking Muffy. And I don’t plan on telling him, or he might come back early from his trip.”

  “Why didn’t you call the sheriff’s department last night?”

  “Because he left, and I doubt he’ll be coming back. Not after the send-off I gave him.” No need to bring James’ name into it. “But he told me a few things I think you should know.”

  “You mean that a man ran out of Rayna’s house and drove away?”

  “Yeah,” I answered in surprise. “How’d you find out? Did you arrest Raddy?”

  “No. He called it in. Said he saw a man running out after ransacking her room, but none of the neighbors remember seeing another car or a man, while several of them sure remembered Raddy and the ruckus he made.”

  “So Raddy’s a suspect?”

  “Who said it was murder?”

  “Come on, Randy. If she got drunk and drowned in her hot tub, why would you be so interested in her husband’s whereabouts?”

  “Someone ripped her room apart, Rose. A crime was still committed. Do you know anything else that might help?”

  “Raddy told me she was dead when he got there. And yeah, he claimed there was someone in the house. He thinks the guy was looking for one of Raddy’s grandma’s necklaces. Rayna had a bunch of his family jewelry when they broke up, and while she swears she gave everything back to Raddy’s mother, Raddy claims one necklace is missing. Yesterday morning he asked Neely Kate and me to find it because he’d used it as a bet in a poker game.”

  “How much is the necklace worth?”

  “That’s the thing—I don’t know for sure. Raddy told us it’s real, but his mother and Rayna both claimed otherwise. But Rayna pawned one of the pieces, and it was real. Honestly, I don’t know. But the guy Raddy made the bet with believes it’s real, and he expects Raddy to pay up. It sounded like the other guys in the poker group think it’s real too.”

>   “Thanks, Rose,” he said. “This is helpful.”

  “So what are you gonna do?” I asked.

  “Re-question the neighbors. And try to find Raddy. He’s not in the clear, but if he’s not the killer, we’ll be interested in what he knows.”

  “So she was murdered. How?”

  “Dammit.” He groaned. “She was strangled.”

  I was glad I was sitting down because I suddenly felt lightheaded. Strongly suspecting that she’d been murdered and hearing how it had happened were two different things. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Neely Kate and I had talked to her less than twenty-four hours ago. “I hope you find whoever did this,” I said.

  “We’ve been trying, Rose, and now we have a credible reason to widen our search. But if Radcliffe Dyer contacts you, you need to encourage him to cooperate so we can find the real perpetrator.” He paused. “You know, even if we don’t arrest him for murder, we can arrest him for animal cruelty.”

  “I think he got the ever-loving crap scared out of him last night. I doubt he’ll be kicking another dog for a long while.” Then, before he could ask questions, I continued, “I hope you find the real murderer.”

  “Let me know if you think of anything else.”

  “Okay.” I looked up and saw Dr. Romano standing in the open doorway with Muffy in his arms. The distressed look in his eyes told me he’d overheard part of our conversation. “I have to go.” I hung up and dropped my phone into my purse.

  “Murderer?”

  I lifted my shoulders in a lazy shrug, then stood. “Just talking about a TV show. How’s Muffy?”

  He gave me a look that suggested he didn’t believe me but thankfully didn’t ask more questions. “Just as I suspected, no broken bones. There’s quite a bit of swelling, which fits with deep tissue damage. I’ll send you home with a non-steroid anti-inflammatory, and you’ll need to keep her in a crate for a few days to force her to let it rest. I suspect her romp last night after she was injured made matters worse. Do you have a crate?”

  I couldn’t hide my surprise. “No. I’ve never needed one before.”

  “I have one you can borrow.”

  “I’m sure I can get one.”

  He gave me that big grin again, the one that made his eyes twinkle. “It will give me an opportunity to see you again.”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that—or even how I wanted to answer. Obviously I sucked at this whole flirting thing.

  “Do you have someone to watch Muffy?” he asked as he handed her to me.

  I stared at him in confusion. “I usually bring Muffy to the office with me.”

  “What about tonight? Can Neely Kate watch her?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t have plans for tonight.”

  He shifted his weight. “I know this is unprofessional, and I’m sorry if it’s awkward—I’ll understand if you turn me down—but I can’t seem to help myself.” He grimaced, then plunged on. “Would you go out to dinner with me tonight? I’m about to go on call for five days, which means we’d have to wait until next week otherwise, and I find myself uncharacteristically impatient.”

  “Dinner?”

  He grinned. “Some people call it supper.”

  “I . . . uh . . .”

  “I can pick you up at your office,” he said. “You’re already beautiful, so there’s no need for you to go home and get ready.”

  I blushed again. I was about to turn him down, but then I remembered my humiliation with James. Maybe James’ rejection was a good thing. He and I would be a disaster, but it was the catalyst I needed to entertain the idea of being with someone else. Someone more dateable. “Uh . . . sure. Okay.”

  His mouth gaped. “Really?”

  “You expected me to say no?”

  “Honestly, I expected it to take a few more tries.”

  I laughed. “I can take back my yes.”

  A grin spread across his face. “No, I’m good. Does six work? I heard your office is open until six.”

  The fact that he knew when my office closed was a little disconcerting, but for all I knew, he was interested in having some landscaping done. “Okay. Six.”

  My stomach dropped to the floor with nerves. I was going on a date. I felt more nervous than excited. Was that normal? “Do you need directions to my office?”

  “Nope. I know where it is.”

  “You do?”

  He laughed. “At the risk of sounding like an episode of Law and Order: SVU, when two beautiful women blow into your office like a hurricane, bringing a wayward baby pig to boot, you tend to ask questions.”

  “So you asked about us.”

  “I didn’t have to ask many people to find out.”

  I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. But I didn’t have time to think about it because my head started to tingle and I was plunged into a vision. I was in an exam room with a woman who looked like she was close to fifty, but a toned and tucked kind of fifty. She was wearing a red dress with a plunging neckline and had a cat nestled beneath her generous breasts.

  “Dr. Romano, I know I dropped in without an appointment,” she said. “But my Tiffany needs your expert help,” she said, tugging down the neckline of her button-up dress to better showcase her cleavage.

  “I . . . uh . . .” I said in Dr. Romano’s voice, then took a step backward. “What’s wrong with Tiffany?”

  The woman set her cat down on the exam table. “She’s lonely. Sooo lonely.” Then she quickly unfastened several buttons to reveal a black bra covered in tiny crystals. “Can you help me?”

  “Mary!” I called out in panic.

  The door burst open, and Mary was inside the exam room in an instant, grabbing the woman’s arm and dragging her out of the room.

  “My cat!” the woman shouted.

  Mary gave her a look of disgust. “I have it on good authority that you adopted that cat from the shelter this morning. I’ll find that poor creature an actual home.”

  The vision faded, and I found myself staring into Dr. Romano’s face. “A woman’s gonna show you her crystal-covered bra.”

  “What?”

  How was I going to explain that? “I have to go.” I spun around and reached for the doorknob.

  “Wait. You can’t go yet. I need to get Muffy’s medication.”

  Oh crap. Of course he did.

  Thankfully, the door opened and Mary’s stern face appeared in the frame. “Dr. Romano, your next appointment is waiting.”

  “All right,” he said. “Becky’s in the back, getting Muffy’s anti-inflammatory. Can you make sure Rose gets the medication and a crate before she leaves?” When she hesitated, he added, “Her dog has a real injury, so please make sure she’s treated well.”

  The woman scowled, but her boss’s assurance seemed to relax her. “I’d say your next appointment is fifty-fifty.”

  Dr. Romano sighed. “Little did I know Henryetta, Arkansas, would turn out to be so dangerous.”

  He had no idea.

  Chapter 12

  By the time I got back to the office, I had worked myself up nearly to the point of a panic attack.

  Bruce Wayne was sitting at his desk—a rare occurrence these days—talking on the phone while he studied a yellow invoice in his hand. But Neely Kate’s face lit up as soon as we walked through the door.

  “Well?” she asked in excitement. “How’d it go?”

  Bruce Wayne hung up his phone and swiveled his chair to face me, taking in the crate I was carrying in my free hand while I cradled Muffy with the other. “What’s that for?”

  I knew Neely Kate was eager to hear about the romantic part of my visit, but I wasn’t eager to talk about it. Better to focus on Bruce Wayne’s question. “Muffy got hurt, so I took her to see the vet. Dr. Romano said Muffy doesn’t have any broken bones, so that’s good. But she has deep tissue damage, so she needs to rest and move as little as possible.”

  “You’re not gonna actually put her in that cage, are you?” he
asked, sounding slightly outraged.

  “Only when we leave her alone somewhere. She’s not moving around much, so I’m hoping she’ll just lie on her dog bed.” I set the crate down, and Neely Kate scooted the small dog bed out from under my desk. Moments later, Muffy was curled up on it.

  “So she’s going to be okay?” Neely Kate asked, perching on the edge of my desk.

  “She has to take an anti-inflammatory, but other than that, he says she just needs some rest.”

  “Okay,” she said, her face lighting up again. “Now get to the good stuff.”

  Bruce Wayne looked confused, but she waved him off and gave me her full attention.

  I sat in my chair, then spun to face her. “Did you know that women have been buying and adopting pets for the sole purpose of meeting Dr. Romano?”

  Bruce Wayne’s jaw dropped, and he studied me with renewed interest, ignoring his now-ringing phone for a few beats before he answered it.

  “And why does this surprise you?” Neely Kate asked. “Think of all the women who brought Mason baked goods back when he was in the running for most eligible bachelor.” Her eyes filled with horror as soon as she realized what she’d said. We had an unspoken rule between us—both of us tried to avoid saying the name of the other’s ex. “Oh, Rose. I’m sorry.”

  Shaking my head, I gave her a soft smile. “It’s okay. It happened. It’s true.”

  She cast a glance to Bruce Wayne to make sure he was engrossed in his call before she lowered her voice. “Do you still miss him?”

  “Mason?” I paused, trying to come up with the right words. “I think I still love him, but I’m used to him being gone.” I tilted my head. “Does that make any sense?”

  “I think it makes perfect sense.”

  I wondered if she felt the same way about Ronnie, but on the rare occasions when she did talk about him, she insisted that while she’d loved Ronnie, she hadn’t been in love with him. Maybe it was different for her.

  “Now tell me what happened,” she said. “That pink dress does wonderful things for your complexion, and he was sure to notice.”

  “You didn’t tell me that before I left,” I said with a frown.

  “That’s because I knew you’d change. What happened?”