by Ally Roberts
My hand encountered something wet and soggy in my pocket as I tugged the phone out. Carmen’s business card.
Cuddling. That was how she was making her money. Big money, according to her.
Maybe that could be a side gig for me, too. Maybe I could tolerate hugging total strangers if there was a massive paycheck involved. Because I was completely failing at my most recent attempt at a new side gig.
I pulled my phone out but instead of calling Jonah, I opened my web browser. I typed the name of Carmen’s business and watched as the search results loaded. Her business was at the top of the list, but I was surprised by the number of similar businesses that came up too. None were located on the island, but there were a few in Savannah and even a listing in Beaufort.
I was also a little shocked to see that Holler, the review site Gunther had been on, had a listing for Comfort Cuddles. People were leaving reviews of their cuddle sessions? Their cuddlers?
I tapped on the link and the page finally loaded.
And I gasped.
There was one review for Comfort Cuddles.
Posted today.
It was a one-star.
From the user Not Rude Just Honest.
THIRTY TWO
I yanked on the dogs’ leashes and raced across the street, not even looking for traffic.
I was rewarded with a sharp blast from a car horn that nearly gave me a heart attack. A blue sedan came to a screeching halt just a foot away from me and an angry man leaned out the window.
“Use the crosswalk!” he yelled.
I just nodded, not even really processing what he was saying or the fact that I’d almost just been flattened by a car.
All I could think about was getting to The Perfect Catch as fast as possible.
Maggie was at the hostess station. She greeted me with a frown. “You almost just got killed,” she informed me.
I nodded, gasping for breath. The dogs’ leashes were slack in my hands and Maggie grabbed them from me. I barely noticed as she walked them over to the portable sign to the left of the restaurant door and gently looped their leads around the post.
Brenda appeared next to the hostess stand, her eyes enormous. “What on earth is going on?”
Try as I might, I couldn’t get the words out. “Jonah…money…” I rasped.
Maggie was back and they both looked at each other.
“Um, I have a table that I need to check on,” Brenda said. She hurried back into the restaurant.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asked.
I shook my head.
She bit her lip. “I’m going to go and get Jonah.” She took off into the restaurant before I could stop her.
I bent over, resting my hands on my thighs, trying to catch my breath. I knew I didn’t have much time. I would have to act fast.
“Wendy?” a voice said, a voice that was coming from the entrance to the restaurant.
A voice I recognized.
I looked up.
Rudy was holding a to-go bag. He noticed me staring at it and his cheeks reddened. “I…uh…I decided to eat here instead of getting it to go. They had all-you-can-eat corn fritters for dine-in customers today.” He wiggled the bag. “These are my leftovers.”
I just stared.
He glanced at the dogs, taking a step back as he did so. “Alright, then, I guess I’ll get going…”
I finally found my voice. “Leftovers?”
He nodded. “The fries weren’t great—a little too light on the salt—and my fish was slightly soggy, but I figured I paid for it so I might as well take it home. If nothing else, Dempsey can have a snack.”
My heart rate was beginning to slow and I finally felt like I could speak in more than single-word sentences.
“You’re pretty critical, huh?” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Of the food here.”
“Oh.” Rudy shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not trying to be rude or anything, Just honest. You know?”
I did know.
“You’re the one.”
His forehead creased. “What?”
“You heard me.” I said this quietly, but with conviction. “You’re the one. The one who stole Jonah’s money.”
THIRTY THREE
Rudy stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish seeking oxygen.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.
He turned to go but I stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “You stole it,” I said, my voice loud and firm. “You want to open your own restaurant and you stole the money to try to put Jonah out of business.”
Rudy’s expression darkened. “You are crazy.”
“And you wrote a bad review,” I told him. “You are purposely doing things to damage his business.”
He let out a nervous little laugh. “I leave a lot of critical reviews.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “I noticed. But this is different.”
It was. It had come to me as soon as I saw the review on Cuddle Comforts, that Rudy was the one responsible for the missing money.
It all made sense. The user name, first and foremost, and the fact that his first name was hidden in it in plain sight. But there were other details that I immediately remembered. The fact that he was looking to open up his own business. The fact he liked to cook and had even taken part in one of Jonah’s cooking classes.
“You were there that day,” I said, voicing my hypothesis out loud. “The day of one of the cooking classes was the same day the money went missing. You would have had access to the back rooms. And that was the same day that Jonah fired Carmen. He left you back there, didn’t he? And you were snooping around, looking for who knows what, and you found the money. You probably didn’t know about it, probably hadn’t planned to take it, but the opportunity presented itself and so you did.”
He didn’t admit it, but he wasn’t denying it, either.
“Well?” I demanded, feeling a little outraged by his lack of response.
A small smile appeared. “Of course I knew about the money,” he said quietly. “I’m his accountant.”
This was news to me. “You are?”
“Part-time, of course.” He scowled. “And only when he needs help with his taxes. But there’s nothing that links me to the crime,” he continued. “Nothing.”
I gaped at him. He’d literally just confessed
“You have nothing, Wendy.” His smile broadened, but there was nothing warm about it. “And I have everything.”
His words sent a chill down my spine. “What do you mean?”
His eyes glittered. “I have everything. Including the ability to destroy you on review sites. Your little dog walking business?”
My heart jumped into my throat.
Rudy barked out a harsh laugh. “Say goodbye to The Woof Pack. Because when I get through with you, you won’t have a client who’ll touch you with a ten-foot pole.”
THIRTY FOUR
His words chilled me to the bone.
But I didn’t stop to think. Instead, I reacted.
I turned to look at the sign where the dogs were tied.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Trixie! Duke! Come!”
Trixie hesitated, looking to Duke for further instructions, it seemed.
Duke showed no such hesitation.
He launched himself toward me and the leash came free of the pole Maggie had looped it around. Trixie followed suit, her ears flattened as she rocketed after Duke.
I pointed to Rudy. “Get him!”
Rudy shrieked as both dogs leapt at him. They danced on their hind legs, fighting to plant kisses on his face. Rudy dropped the bag he was holding and its contents spilled onto the sidewalk, pieces of fried fish and a handful of golden fries.
Trixie took one look at the food and gobbled it up, wolfing down the fish in a single bite. Duke was still trained on Rudy, his tail wagging with delight as he pawed Rudy’s chest.
“Hel
p,” Rudy gasped.
He was slowly sinking to the ground, clutching his chest, trying to get the dog off him. But Duke wasn’t having it. Rudy dropped to the ground, right next to what remained of the French fries. Trixie apparently thought he was going to fight her for the leftovers so she planted her paws on him, pinning him to the ground. He whimpered like a wounded puppy but I could tell he was too paralyzed by fear to move.
“What’s going on?” a voice barked.
I whipped around.
Jonah was rushing out of the restaurant, waving a dishtowel in the air. Maggie and Brenda were hot on his heels.
“Get off him!” he roared, charging toward Trixie.
“Wait!” I stepped between Jonah and the dogs. And Rudy, of course. “Call the police!”
A frown flickered across his face. “What? Why?”
“Just call them,” I insisted. I nodded at Rudy. Trixie was still planted on his chest and her tongue was scraping the last bit of salt and grease off the sidewalk.
“Wendy,” he began.
“He’s the one who did it,” I told him. “Stole your money.”
Jonah’s face contorted with both surprise and confusion. “Rudy?”
I nodded.
“But…”
“Trust me,” I said. “He did it. He confessed. Now call the police before he has a heart attack. He’s afraid of dogs.”
Rudy whimpered again, perhaps his way of affirming my statement.
Still, Jonah hesitated.
“Go,” I ordered.
But he didn’t have to. Because Maggie and Brenda had both pulled their own phones out and were busy calling the Sweetwater police themselves.
I glanced down at Rudy, watching as he writhed under Trixie’s weight. She had shifted her attention from the sidewalk to his face, and was busy lapping her tongue against his cheeks and mouth.
“You might not like the food here.” I smiled at Rudy’s terrified expression and then shifted my attention to my dog. “But she sure does.”
THIRTY FIVE
“Sounds like you had a pretty eventful week.”
Asher was in my living room, picking up Duke.
“I guess you could say that.” I smiled. “How did you hear about it?”
Asher gave me a wry grin from his spot on the couch and butterflies ignited in my stomach. It felt all kinds of wrong and right to see him sitting so casually in my house, with Duke and Trixie both sitting at his feet.
He looked like he belonged there.
“How do you think I heard about it?” he asked. He reached for the glass of sweet tea I’d poured for him. “I don’t think anyone is talking about anything else but how you saved Jonah’s restaurant from financial ruin.”
It had been just over twenty-four hours since I’d confronted Rudy. Detective Simcoe had pulled up to the marina less than five minutes later, already reaching for his handcuffs as he stepped out of the vehicle. I guess Maggie or Brenda had given him a pretty good idea of what had gone down because the first thing he said to Rudy was, “How could you? How could you do something like that to this place? This is the best restaurant on the island!”
Rudy had simpered and moaned, and I wasn’t sure if it was in response to Simcoe’s harsh words or the fact that my dog was still licking his face.
“You did good work, Wendy.”
I felt the heat creep into my cheeks. “I didn’t really do anything,” I murmured.
But he heard me. “What?” His tone was incredulous. “Yes you did. You solved the case. And you got Jonah’s money back.”
“It was just dumb luck,” I told him.
He sipped his tea. “I doubt that.”
Okay, so maybe not dumb luck. But, still. There were a lot of components that had just sort of fallen into my lap. If I hadn’t seen Rudy leave Carmen’s apartment, my line of questioning with her wouldn’t have revealed her cuddling business. And if I hadn’t seen Trixie eating her business card, I never would have known the name of her company. Which meant I never would have looked it up online…and never would have seen the review on Holler, which led me to the realization that Rudy Sanders was behind the theft.
But Asher was right about one thing. Jonah had gotten his money back. Rudy gave up the location in exchange for getting the dogs off of him. After taking him to the station to book him, Simcoe had driven to Rudy’s place and retrieved the box of cash. He’d hidden it inside the crisper drawer in his refrigerator.
And because the money had been recovered, I’d gotten paid. Jonah had shown up on my doorstep late last night, holding a wad of cash.
“Here,” he said, thrusting it at me.
I started to respond but he waved it in my face. “It’s a thousand bucks. If you need more, just say the word.”
My mouth dropped open. “That’s way too much.”
“No, it’s not,” he said. “You saved my restaurant. I wish I could pay you more. But I can’t. So I hope this is enough.”
I’d accepted the money with shaking hands. A thousand dollars might not seem like a lot to anyone else, but to me, it felt life changing. It was money I could set aside as an emergency fund, or money I could use to pay off some of my debt. And it was definitely money I could use to splurge on some extra bowls of clam chowder.
“You’re good at it, you know.”
Asher’s voice brought me back to the present.
“What?”
“You’re good at it,” he repeated. “Investigating things.”
I was sitting in the chair across from where he was seated, and I threw my head back against the headrest. “I’m really not.”
“Why do you always counter any compliment I try to give you?”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.” He shook his head. “Every single time.”
I picked up my own glass of tea and took a sip. Maybe he was right. Maybe I did do that.
Because maybe I just always felt that nothing I did was ever good…or at least good enough.
Asher leaned forward a little. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at me. “You’re a good dog walker. You’re a good investigator.”
I nodded and tried to swallow the lump that was beginning to form in my throat.
“And I think you’d be good at something else, too.”
I looked at him.
He smiled. “I have a proposition for you.”
“A…a proposition?”
He chuckled. “Don’t look at me like that. A business proposition.”
I didn’t bother trying to hide my confusion. “I’m not following.”
Asher looked down at his hands. “The condo project I told you about? It’s going to be taking up a lot of my time. Meaning, I’ll be gone from the island for big chunks of time.”
I felt a stab of disappointment. I liked seeing him on a daily basis, liked knowing that by walking Duke twice a day, I was bound to see him at least one of those times.
“So you need me to watch Duke?” I asked. “Like keep him overnight the way I did this week?”
He hesitated.
“Or no…?”
“No, I do,” he said, nodding. “But I’m going to need help with something else, too.”
I waited.
“I’m going to need help running the condos here on the days I’m gone,” he said.
“You…you want me to help with that?”
“You’re good at everything you try,” he reminded me. “I have no doubt you could handle it. And I would pay you well.”
My mind was reeling.
“There’s just one problem,” he said.
I jerked my head up.
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I don’t like to mix business with pleasure,” he finally said. “I don’t like blurring the lines of those relationships.”
My heart was threatening to claw its way out of my chest. “I’m not following…”
He didn’t mince words. “I want a personal relationship with you, Wendy,” he said blun
tly. “I want to explore that possibility. Because I like you. I like you a lot.”
I couldn’t find a single word to speak out loud.
“But…” Asher ran his hand through his hair. “But I also need someone to run things here when I’m gone.” He expelled a breath. “And you’re the only person I trust to do it. The only person I think is good enough.”
I held on to my glass of sweet tea as if it were a life preserver thrown to me in a stormy sea. His words had turned my brain to mush.
“I guess what I’m saying is that I’m willing to blur those lines if you are.” His smile turned my knees to jelly. “So, what do you say?”
I stared into my tea, watching the ice cubes float in the amber liquid.
I took a long drink.
I looked at Asher and mumbled, “Mmhmm.”
He tilted his head to the side, smiling. “What does that mean?”
That was a very good question.
THE END
Thanks for reading WAGS TO RICHES. I really hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please take a few moments to review it on Amazon. It really helps other people find the book and I would really appreciate it!
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