by Josh Lanyon
Pepper was more smitten than me. She wagged her tail, rolled over, and banged down to collect more tummy rubs. Shameless.
I considered doing the same but stopped myself in time.
“Pleased to see you again, Caleb.” Another one of the many undiscovered actors/models who dwelled among us mere mortals, Caleb was pleasing to the eye and quite sweet. Today he wore a skinny black tank top and abbreviated red running shorts. “You wouldn’t happen to need a dog?”
“Can’t.” His grin blinded me. “I got a job today.”
“What’s that got to do with it? We probably all have jobs.”
“Mine’s a location shoot in Canada.” He lifted his pretty hands helplessly. “As it is, I have to leave my dog at a friend’s place. Otherwise, for sure I’d take Pepper. For a while, anyway. She’s an awesome dog.”
“You got the part?” Dave asked. “You celebrating tonight?”
“Yeah, no thanks to you-know-who.”
Dave toed some sticky mess on the ground. “Sorry I couldn’t help more.”
Caleb turned to me. “Jeff blocked my car in deliberately last week. He knew I had a callback and I was really nervous. I had to take an Uber. It was a miracle I got there in time.”
“Guess it all worked out,” said Dave.
“You and Jeff get into it a lot?”
Caleb gave a growl. “Every single time I saw him.”
“How come, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“I’m about to pop a cork and get the party started. Come and ask your questions at my place.” Caleb shot me a sly glance. “Bring Pepper. You’re my hero if what they’re saying is true.”
Curious, I asked, “What are they saying?”
“That Jeffrey Dearborn, of the old-money Pasadena Dearborns, looked better wearing your butcher knife than all those fancy suits he—”
“Hey, now,” Dave warned.
Shar gasped.
“All right. I know.” Caleb sighed. “I’m speaking ill of the dead.”
“It wasn’t a butcher knife, anyway,” I corrected, stupidly.
“Whatever.” Caleb’s fingers drifted through Pepper’s sleek, seal-like coat. “He treated people horribly, and dogs worse, and I’m glad he’s dead.”
“No one should be glad anyone is dead.” Shar—all eighty pounds of her—stepped forward to do battle.
Dave put his hand on her shoulder. “Now, honey, Jeff just wasn’t good at making friends, is all. He wasn’t nice.”
Understatement.
“You’re all horrid.” Shar’s face darkened. “The man is dead.”
“Ding, dong,” Caleb sang out. “Dave, you come up later, if you want. I’m celebrating.”
His new job or Jeff’s demise? Maybe both, I thought.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” When addressing Shar, Caleb wore his million-kilowatt smile. I doubted it softened his next words. “You’re way too precious for my crowd. They’d consume you like a bonbon, and we can’t have that.”
He stretched, showing the tan strip of skin between his shirt and his shorts. When he turned, the back of his thong was visible above the elastic waistband.
Despite being a neighbor, despite my rules, he made my mouth water.
“You coming?” His eyes stayed on my mine a little too long.
“What time?” I wasn’t fooled. Caleb was simply one of those guys with charisma to burn. The heat melted my spine, but it wasn’t personal. He turned those same high-beams on everyone.
“I’m starting now.” One perfect brow lifted. “C’mon up.”
“Okay. Sure.” I didn’t look to see what Dave made of Caleb’s behavior. Champagne sounded good. In fact, I could guarantee it would be.
“I’m in 4B.” He pointed toward the stairs.
We said goodbye to Shar and Dave, he picked up his mail, and together we walked Pepper toward the stairs. She seemed bent on tripping us, and not in any romantic, 101 Dalmatians way.
“Let’s go by my place. I’ve got some chilled champagne in the fridge.”
“Really?” He glanced over. “Sure. Only for a minute, though.”
“Afraid I’m a serial killer?” His surprised expression made me regret my words immediately. “Was that too soon?”
“No, silly.” He booped my nose. “You’re funny.”
I hadn’t been booped in about twenty years, so shock held me silent.
“It’s just that I’ve got to take Mac out.” He swept the hair off his forehead with a jerk of his head. “He has a really small bladder.”
For a lot of reasons, I hoped Mac wasn’t his boyfriend. “So, you don’t really think I murdered Jeff?”
“Of course not. Wait.” He blinked at me guilelessly. “Did you?”
“Nah. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” God, they made them pretty in this town. I was nowhere good enough to live here. “I thought someone was hurting the dog.”
“Aw.” He folded his hands over his heart as we started up. “You are my hero.”
“Ask Stephani. She was with me. She heard it too. Someone was inside.”
“Of course there was. Jeff was an asshole anyway. My sister stopped coming over because he’d try to catch her in the hall. Kept offering her drinks. You know. She told him she doesn’t drink, but that was like waving a red flag at a bull. He wouldn’t quit hitting on her. I didn’t trust the bastard one little bit.”
“I’m so sorry.” Jeff hadn’t endeared himself to any of his neighbors, it seemed. “Just a minute.”
I went into my place and grabbed a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the refrigerator. I always kept a couple of bottles on hand for hot dates. Caleb wasn’t going to be one, but he deserved a celebration anyway. It wasn’t Cristal, but it was damn good.
“Oh boy.” Behind me, Caleb laughed at the state of my place. Signs of a mischievous dog were everywhere. “You don’t need a sign Pepper was here.”
“It’s just temporary.” I detangled Pepper again before handing the bottle to Caleb with a flourish. “For you. Congratulations.”
“Awesome. Thank you!”
“You’re entirely welcome.”
He held the bottle to his chest. “So what are your plans for Pepper?”
I shrugged. “Once I go back to work, I’m going to have to put Pepper in doggy day care until we can find someone to take her in.”
“Oh no. She’ll hate that.” He lowered his voice. “I think she’s intimidated by all the other dogs. They probably bullied her when she was little.”
“Really?” To my mind, that said more about him than her.
“I hate bullies.” We headed back to the hall. “You have no idea.”
Since we weren’t coming back for a while, I locked the deadbolt behind me.
“If you’re going to put her in day care, you’re gonna need her vaccination record. Do you have it?”
“No, I don’t,” I confessed.
“Do you know which vet Jeff used?”
“Er… I—”
“I’ll bet we can find out.” He stepped across the hall and banged on Carla’s door. “Carla, honey?”
A lock clicked. Then another, and another.
“It’s Caleb. I’m here with Lonnie.”
The door opened a crack, and she peeked out from behind the chain. “Hi, babe. Ooh, champagne. You got it?”
“Yes!” They air-kissed. “Wanna come up? I’m celebrating.”
“So happy for you! Sure, I’ll be up in a bit.”
“Thanks, hon.” He leaned against the doorframe. “Lonnie needs to know who Pepper’s regular vet is. Do you know?”
“How would I?” Her eyes widened. “Ask Dave. He might know.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Text Steph and tell her to come up when she gets back from work.” Caleb turned to me, somewhat chagrined. “The show is a series. My agent thinks it’s going to be a big deal, and…”
“Hey, you have a right to have fun. You have food? I’ll see what I can do for your
guests, if you want.”
“That’s so nice.” Again, he did that little clutch at his heart.
“You’ve reached a career milestone. You should have a wonderful celebration to remember this day forever.”
He told me about his new role in a paranormal prime-time drama for teens while we headed up the last flight of stairs together.
I remembered every one of my milestones. Looking at the extremely youthful Caleb, they all seemed so long ago. Maybe my plans needed refreshing?
Pepper coughed twice, then horked up a foamy mess of packing paper and yellow bile.
I sighed heavily.
Caleb didn’t seem fazed by dog sick. “Dogs can be gross, huh? That always happens at the worst possible time too.”
“I guess.” In stupefied fascination, I watched Pepper try to lick the stuff off her cone.
Caleb whipped his shirt off and wiped the plastic contraption down. “No, honey. Don’t do that.”
I eyed his torso with a kind of cosmic shock.
Caleb was stunning. A product of time spent in tanning booths and the gym.
And my dog had cleverly caused him to strip for me.
Pepper and I exchanged a look while he wiped up the floor. I gave her that I-have-my-eyes-on-you sign. Two fingers, pointing from my eyes to hers.
After Caleb cleaned Pepper’s mess, I followed him into his place.
“Let me just throw this away.” He tossed the shirt, washed his hands, and went to the cabinet to find champagne glasses. “Can you open the wine?”
“Of course.” I popped the cork. The bottle gave a perfectly satisfying sigh.
Pepper sat, tongue lolling.
I got the feeling she waited for me to say or do…something, but I didn’t know what.
“Good girl.” I tried scratching her behind the ear. “Aren’t you a good, good girl.”
She barked, ruff, as if to say, “Damn right I am.”
Chapter Six
Minimalist and gorgeous, Caleb’s apartment contained charcoal couches and black Ikea occasional tables against a backdrop of dove-gray walls. Even his dog was black, a Scottish terrier named Mac. Short, I learned, for “The Macallan.”
Artsy black-and-white photographs of Caleb’s face hung everywhere. His gorgeous blue eyes seduced bystanders to buy cologne, or underwear, or in one case, an expensive watch. If ever a man was born to grace GQ magazine covers and underwear ads, it was Caleb. The result was like Mac’s namesake: it went straight to my head.
Caleb’s friends, nearly all beautiful, tan twentysomethings, made me feel weak and old, but it wasn’t their fault. They were simply young. Oblivious. Frolicking around his apartment in varying stages of minimal dress, striking poses against the bland backdrop like colorful tropical birds.
Set apart from the rest of Caleb’s guests by my lack of perfection and beauty and youth, my flaws were all the more glaring because of my recent illness.
So I did what I always do in these situations, even though I had to do it with a skittish, too-curious dog circling a scant five-foot radius around my person—I looked in the refrigerator and pantry and made myself useful for as long as my energy held out.
It took a couple of elevator trips to my apartment and some asking around, but soon I had a pretty good spread of simple appetizers going. Despite the poached chicken I fed her, Pepper tried to eat everyone’s shoelaces. She dug through the trash and went after throw pillows and cabinet knobs.
Pepper didn’t like taking no for an answer, and despite her neat ploy with Caleb, I’d begun to fear she wasn’t that bright. Plus, Stephani’s words proved correct. She didn’t want anything to do with the other dogs. We were forced to stay in the kitchen to avoid any conflict of the canine variety.
At first, most of the guests refused food, but once the champagne started flowing, no one worried about their calorie intake. After a while, I watched my new neighbors—and several of their dogs—enjoy Caleb’s success, and told myself: this is what you came for.
Dead Jeff notwithstanding, I’d made an awesome choice moving here.
At around ten Stephani took Pepper outside, thank God. She gave me a yearning backward glance—that is, Pepper did, not Stephani. I assumed her look had more to do with the food than me. I didn’t feel relieved. In truth, Pepper had simply become an extension of me, even though she was needy and submissive and lay down for tummy rubs if you gave her so much as a sideways glance. Not at all like my imaginary Afghan, whom I expected to snub people—even me—most days.
While I moved around introducing myself, more than one of Caleb’s guests made sly references to Jeff’s death. The general consensus seemed to be that I must have done the murder, either because of Pepper’s barking, or because I had some vendetta against Jeff before I moved in.
Caleb’s guests acted flustered in my presence. Or titillated, which was far worse. Reality television made crime into a parlor game, and I was the new it boy, for bringing murder to the Fillmore Arms, which made me look at everyone else and wonder…
Because I knew I hadn’t done it.
A quick walk with Stephani finally tuckered Pepper out. We tied her leash to Caleb’s kitchen table base, where she snoozed contentedly near my feet. She woke up once or twice to look around, found me with that sleepy doggy gaze—as if to reassure herself I was still there—and put her head back down.
I found her behavior uncomfortable as hell.
What would I do if she started depending on me? I wasn’t planning to keep her. I didn’t do relationships. Not with people, and not with dogs, which was why I wanted a dog who treated me like staff, who behaved like a member of the aristocracy, whom I could leave in a pet spa without giving it a second thought, while I worked.
Pepper was not that dog.
Though my muscles screamed with exhaustion, I didn’t feel like going home.
Instead, I watched Caleb interact with his friends and tried to imagine which of them used my knife to kill Jeff. When that proved fruitless, I grabbed a six-pack and took Pepper onto the balcony to get some relief from the noise. One beer turned into two and then three. By then I discovered my recent illness made me a lightweight. Carla, who’d pulled her hair back enough that I might recognize her the next time we met, stepped out onto the balcony with me.
“Oh, hi. God, Caleb’s parties are always such a crush. I was gasping. I hoped nobody’d be out here.” She seemed the type to want to escape from parties, whereas I normally wasn’t. Except for tonight, when everything was too much for me.
“Sorry. I’ll leave you to it.” I started to go in, but she stopped me.
“No, don’t go. It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
She perused me a while. “You’re not like them.” She jerked her head in the direction of the party. “The shallow talkers. All they do is gossip.”
“I gossip. I just don’t know anyone yet. You’ll probably want to escape from me someday too.”
She gave a surprised grin. “I think I like you.”
“Well, you have my permission to tell me to fuck off, anytime.”
She nodded. “That takes the pressure off, thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
We sat for a while, isolated from the rest of the world. Music and chatter and traffic sounds floated past us into the night. Dogs barked in the distance. Eventually, she stood and looked out at the horizon.
“I want to thank you, but I don’t know how.”
“Thank me?” I asked.
“For Jeff.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t—”
“It was your knife.” She went to the sliding door. “If his death weighs on your conscience, don’t let it. Whoever killed Jeff saved the world a lot of heartache.”
“It wasn’t me, Carla.”
“I know.” She glanced back before she slipped inside.
She knew? What did she know?
Who had access to my knives while I was moving my boxes up?
Stephani coul
d have taken it, but I didn’t see her stabbing Jeff and then leaving Pepper alone and frantic.
Carla was a much more likely suspect because she had real reason to hate Jeff. But I’d think it would take strength and rage to stick my knife into another man’s chest with a single stroke. Carla had the rage, but she was small, almost skeletally thin.
Rick could have done it, although I hated the idea. Rick had the strength, and opportunity, and a background in law enforcement. He would know how to cover his tracks.
So while I’d been sighing over his bulging biceps, he could very well have been setting me up for a crime he committed.
I went to the railing and looked down at the building.
Odd. I hadn’t noticed how close the balconies were to each other. Caleb’s neighbor’s balcony was only a few feet away from his, and I wondered if that was the case with Jeff’s and mine. If so, it’d be entirely possible for someone to jump from one to the other if they had the nerve.
I glanced behind me to make sure no one was watching. There was barely any wind. Maybe the building blocked it?
I leaned over and checked, and sure enough, I could see my balcony and Jeff’s, and they had a similar setup.
I contemplated this fact for a full minute.
In my current state of inebriation, it seemed like a good idea to test my theory out.
I’d spent half my childhood playing on the catwalks over a stage while my mother performed below. I must have seemed pretty fearless even then, because one day Mom brought a Czech acrobat by our house. He taught me juggling, tumbling, gymnastics, and how to walk a tightrope.
While other eight-year-olds played video games, Mom dressed me in a French clown jumpsuit and had me balance on a wire with a pole, while she upstaged me in a giant champagne glass, singing “La Vie En Rose.”
As a bonus, I no longer had any fear of heights.
Any person familiar with parkour could make the jump from one balcony to the next.
Any second-story guy, anyone with some nerve, or like me, just enough liquid courage on board to make this seem like a good idea.
I could do it, although I was well out of practice. I stepped onto a patio chair to study the distance and the level of danger. Then I climbed onto the wooden railing to get a feel for its stability. Maybe I should have gotten a feel for my stability before I got up there, but once I was, that balance came back to me—just like making hors d’oeuvres.