* * *
As it turned out, Spooks did love it. We got to the shelter shortly after it opened, and inquired about taking the adorably cute puppers for a walk. The shelter was thrilled that we’d come back to bond with Spooks, and made sure we had a leash and a portable water bowl for our walk along the beach. I pocketed two water bottles into my purse, and we set off. Along the way, Gilley asked if I’d take a video of him walking his soon-tobe pup, and I happily accepted his phone to shoot the video.
As I got ready to film, however, I made the same mistake I always did, and opened up his photo app instead of the camera, and I was shocked to discover a photo taken of me inside Sunny’s SUV, holding her head in my lap and giving Gilley (and the camera) a panicked stare.
“Why did you take this?” I asked Gilley. The photo felt like a betrayal of Sunny’s privacy, and I couldn’t figure out why Gilley would take it.
He’d been leading Spooks away, and he had a hard time bringing him back to me to look at the camera, because the dog was much more interested in moving on to scents he hadn’t yet fully investigated. Still, Gilley managed it and got close enough to squint at the screen as I held it up for him.
“Huh,” he said when he saw the photo. “I don’t remember taking that.”
“It’s in your photos,” I said, nearly wincing at the accusatory tone that came out of my mouth.
Gilley’s gaze flicked to me, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Cat, I didn’t intentionally take that photo. I must’ve swiped left instead of up when I was trying to call nine-one-one. I was shaken up, seeing Sunny like that, and I must’ve accidentally taken the photo.”
“Oh,” I said, turning the photo back to me. “Sorry, Gil. I didn’t mean to accuse you.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “I understand.”
Spooks had stopped tugging and sat down next to us to pant loudly. Gilley looked down at him and then asked me, “Hey, can you fish out one of the water bottles? I think he’s thirsty.”
“Sure,” I said, lowering the phone to root around in my purse.
After I handed over the water to Gilley, he took the collapsible water bowl out of his back pocket and bent to offer Spooks a drink. “I’ll delete the photo in a minute,” he said, almost as an afterthought.
I felt guilty that I’d made him feel bad, so I merely shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Whatever.”
While Gilley was squatting down to give Spooks his fill, I turned the phone back to face me because they looked very cute together that way and I wanted to take a photo of it, but I again tapped the stupid photo icon and had to look once again at the image of Sunny’s prone body, her pale face, and my panicked expression.
“Gil?” I said as I stared at the screen.
“Yeah?” he said, distracted by his growing adoration for his new best friend.
I squatted down next to him and once again showed him the screen. “What’s missing?”
Gil pulled his gaze away from Spooks and looked from me to his phone, then back again. “What?”
I wiggled the phone. “What’s missing?”
“What do you mean, what’s missing?”
I pointed to the screen. “There,” I said. “See that?”
“See what? The middle console?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see anything unusual or out of place,” Gilley said.
“Exactly,” I told him.
He sighed. “Can you just tell me what I’m supposed to not be seeing?”
I picked up the now empty water bottle at his feet and wiggled it. Then I watched Gilley’s eyes widen. He looked again at the photo on the screen, then back to me. “How do you swallow an entire bottle of pills without any water?” he said.
“Exactly.”
“Could there have been one in the driver’s side door?” he said next.
“You got in on that side. Do you remember seeing one?”
Gilley closed his eyes to concentrate. “No,” he said as he was imagining the scene. “I looked all around there for a key fob and there was nothing there.”
I nodded. I remembered looking at the door when I pulled Sunny into the passenger seat and onto my lap. I hadn’t seen it there either.
“Was it on the floor of the passenger seat?” Gilley asked. The photo allowed us to see both the driver’s side floor mat and the passenger’s floor mat, but parts of the mats were obscured from view.
I shook my head. “I remember looking down at the floor,” I told him. “I was looking to see if she’d dropped any of the pills there, hoping she hadn’t ingested the whole bottle. The floor mat was clean.”
Gilley’s gaze met mine. “So how did she get down an entire bottle of Ambien without water?”
“She could’ve simply forced the pills down,” I said.
Gilley’s expression was unconvinced. “Do you remember that the doctor said she was severely dehydrated?”
I let out a small gasp. “I do remember that.”
“So, how do you swallow pills when you’re dehydrated? It’s hard enough when you’re not thirsty. And Ambien comes in a tablet, not a capsule, so that’d make it even harder.”
Gilley and I stared at each other until Spooks gave a small woof. He was impatient to get back to the walk.
I handed Gilley his phone, pocketed the empty water bottle, and we made our way down the beach trail in silence, each lost in thought.
“Should we tell Shepherd?” Gilley finally asked.
“Should we?” I replied.
Gilley bit his lip. “I don’t know. On the one hand, you know how suspicious he is, and how likely he is to make something out of nothing, but on the other hand, how do you explain Sunny’s consumption of an entire bottle of Ambien without any water?”
I continued to walk in silence next to Gil, thinking all that over, before I finally stopped and said, “She could’ve taken the pills when she came back to the house, Gilley.”
“You mean when Tiffany thought she heard her while she was on the treadmill?”
“Yes. I mean, it sort of fits, doesn’t it? Tiffany hears someone in the house, it takes her a minute to work up the courage to investigate, and when she does, no one’s there. If Sunny had come back for the pills and enough water to choke them all down, then it would’ve taken only a few moments, right?”
Gilley handed me Spooks’s leash and, after tapping at his watch for a moment, used his now free hands to pantomime opening a pill bottle, pouring out the pills into his palm, which he then slapped against his mouth, then filling an imaginary glass with water and swallowing the pretend mouthful with a loud gulp. Eyeing his watch again, he said, “Seventeen seconds.”
“Even if it was thirty, that’d be quick,” I said.
“So, not so unusual that there was no water in the car,” Gilley said.
I nodded. “And it explains what Tiffany heard. Sunny did very likely come back to the house to take the pills.”
I let out a sigh of relief, but it was somewhat forced. Thinking about Sunny willingly ingesting an entire bottle of Ambien wasn’t something to be relieved over. It was something to be very, very concerned by.
We walked Spooks for another thirty minutes or so, with not a lot of conversation between us. I could tell that the facts of Sunny’s overdose were troubling both of us tremendously.
When we got back to the car, with a very happy and somewhat tuckered-out pup, Gilley said, “Maybe you should call Shepherd and ask him how Sunny’s doing?”
I nodded. “I was just thinking that.”
I called Shepherd using the car’s Bluetooth so that Gilley could listen in.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said when he picked up the call, his voice a little gravelly from lack of sleep.
“Hi, there,” I said, smiling at the warm tone. “Gilley’s with me in the car. We want to know how Sunny’s doing.”
Shepherd blew out a breath. “It’s not good,” he said.
My grip tightened on the steering wheel, and Gilley looked
at me in alarm. “What’s happened?” I asked.
“Her psych eval was troubling,” Shepherd said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the shrink thinks she should spend some time in a mental health support unit.”
My eyes widened. “At the hospital?”
“No. Darius is having her committed to the EHPC. And before you ask, that’s the East Hampton Psychiatric Center.”
“Oh, my,” I said. “For how long?”
Shepherd’s voice became flat, almost void of emotion, which, I’d come to learn over the past year, meant he was struggling to keep his emotions in check. “We don’t know. Until they can be assured she’s no longer presenting a danger to herself or others.”
I put a hand to my mouth. I’d never dreamed that Sunny was in any state to actually be committed. “So, she did attempt to harm herself?”
“Yeah. Darius told me she confessed to him this morning, and the hospital shrink confirmed it.”
“She was aware of what she was doing, then,” I said, trying to make sense of it all.
“They think so,” Shepherd said, and there was a slight crack in his voice, and I knew his effort to flatten out his emotions wasn’t working.
“I’m so, so sorry, Shep.” I didn’t know what else to say.
There was a pause, and then Shepherd said, “She’s in good hands at least. And she’s safe. And awake, but she’s still a little groggy.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Not yet. Darius is with her. He said the shrink doesn’t want her upset, and he’s worried that confessing to me about what she’d done last night might trigger her in the wrong way.”
I wanted to cry. I knew how close Sunny and her brother were, and this had to be killing him.
“What can we do for you?” Gilley asked.
Shepherd sighed in a way that revealed just how exhausted he was. “Nothing, Gil, but thanks. I’m just trying to focus on this case, which, thankfully, I now have a break on.”
“You have a lead in Yelena’s murder case?” I asked.
“I do. In fact, you guys, I gotta run. The judge is about to sign my arrest warrant, and the suspect is a flight risk, so I want to nab him before he has a chance to sneak off.”
I wanted to ask him for details, but I knew that he’d likely not share much with me until after he’d made the arrest. Plus, asking him would only delay him further. “Of course,” I said. “We’ll chat later, okay?”
After we’d disconnected, I turned to Gilley. “That was fast.”
“You know how Shepherd loves to make a quick arrest,” Gilley said, with a crooked smile.
I made a face at him, but it was all too true. My boyfriend was known to flash the handcuffs first and ask questions later. “Hopefully, we’ll learn all about it tonight.”
Gilley twisted in his seat to look back at Spooks. “He’s super adorable, isn’t he?”
I eyed the pup, now fully spread out on my back seat, sleeping away, and grinned. “He is, Gilley. I’m so glad you two found each other.”
When we got back to the shelter, Gilley was reluctantly about to hand over the leash to the staff worker when she grinned broadly at him and said, “Why don’t you go ahead and keep that?”
Gilley’s brow furrowed for a moment, but I understood exactly what she meant. Leaning over, I gave Gilley a fierce hug. “Congratulations, Papa!”
“What?” Gilley said, still confused.
“It’s a dog!” I said, pointing to Spooks.
Gilley’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. “I can keep him?”
The staff member nodded and clapped her hands. “Your application has been approved!”
Gilley sank to the floor and hugged Spooks, who kissed him all over and seemed to know the moment was special.
Chapter 8
Abit later Gilley, one excited pooch, and I were in the car, heading toward Spooks’s new home. We’d left the shelter with a “new pawent” gift bundle that included a soft plush squeaky toy, a day’s worth of dog food, a tag for a collar with Spooks’s name and Gilley’s cell phone number, and a certificate of adoption, which Gilley swore he was going to frame and hang above the mantel.
At Gilley’s insistence, we stopped at a large warehouse-like store called the Pet Palace, where Gilley began shopping like he was in one of those Grab and Go game shows.
By the time we got home, it was well after lunch, and Spooks was alert and busy sniffing every corner in Chez Kitty, while Gilley and I hauled in the huge bundle of things he’d purchased for his new little buddy.
“Does he really need four separate beds?” I asked, lugging two plush, oversized doggy lounge beds, while Gilley jammed two more that were even bigger through the door behind me.
“Yes!” Gilley’s muffled voice replied.
“Where do I put these?” I asked, dropping both in front of me.
“One next to the couch and one next to the kitchen counter,” Gil instructed.
I set the beds where he’d instructed, while Gilley waddled to the back of the cottage with the other two beds. I then went about filling up Spooks’s water dish and placed it against the wall near a side table, where it wouldn’t get knocked over. I then moved over to the bags we’d already brought in from the car, and put those up on one of the kitchen chairs, where Gilley could sort through them at his leisure. I didn’t think he even knew the full extent of what he’d bought, but I wasn’t going to criticize. The poor pup probably hadn’t been spoiled the whole time he was at the shelter—if he ever was spoiled at all.
“Sebastian,” I said, pulling out another chair to plop myself down on.
“Yes, my lady?” my AI butler replied.
“Please take note that we have a new permanent resident in-house. His name is Spooks, and he’ll probably set off all the motion sensors when Gilley and I are out of the residences.”
“I’ve made a note, my lady. Your lunch has been delivered and is viewable on the front steps of Chez Cat.”
I leaned sideways to look out the window toward my house, where I could clearly see the to-go order I’d placed while Gilley was being checked out at the pet supply store.
“Excellent, Sebastian. Thank you.”
At that moment, Gilley came out with a satisfied look on his face. “He’s all set up,” he said, stopping short when he saw that Spooks had hopped up on the couch and was staring at Gilley with heavy-lidded eyes but a wagging tail.
“Spooks,” Gilley said, placing his hands on his hips before pointing to the dog bed next to the couch. “Not on the furniture. You need to sleep on your brand-new bed.”
The dog’s gaze drifted to the dog bed, then back up to Gilley, and his short tail thumped even harder.
I held in a snicker and got up to head to the front door. “I’ll bring our lunch in while you lay down the law with our newest family member.”
After retrieving the bags from the front porch, I came back inside to find Gilley sprawled out on the dog bed and Spooks still firmly ensconced on the couch.
Pausing in the doorway, I said, “Yep. That’s about how I thought that would go.”
Gilley hopped to his feet. “I was just showing him how comfortable it is.”
I glanced meaningfully at Spooks, who eyed me in return and, I swear to God, flashed me a big ole doggy smile. “He seems convinced.”
Gilley made a face. “He’ll get there. It’s a new space. He’s still getting the lay of the land.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
After making my way over to the counter, I pulled out our twin Caesar salads and set us up at the table before looking back over to Gilley, who was again lying on the doggy bed, pretending to sigh contentedly and make some snoring sounds.
Spooks was also making some snoring sounds, but his were real.
“Yo, Gilley,” I said softly. “Come to the table like a good boy.”
Gilley scowled and struggled to get up from the dog bed. Upon arriving at the table,
he pulled out his chair, and in a commanding voice, I said, “Sit!”
“Ha ha,” he said woodenly.
I giggled. It was too easy.
We chatted for a bit about Spooks. Gilley was anxious to begin training his new four-legged companion, and he waxed on for a good ten minutes about the vast and varied dog collars, hats, and sweaters he’d found on Etsy, and I had a feeling Spooks would be decked out in rhinestones, glitter, leather, and feathers before too long.
At last, Gil seemed to have worn himself out from talking excitedly about Spooks’s wardrobe, and I took the opportunity to say, “We should probably get some work done this afternoon.”
“Work? Work on what?” Gil asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe prep some notes for Leslie Cohen. I’m scheduled to meet with her on Monday, right?”
“Uh,” Gil said, moving his eyes side to side, like he was looking for an escape. “She canceled.”
“She did?” I asked, surprised. “Did something come up?”
“Don’t know,” Gilley said.
“When is she rescheduled for?”
Gilley avoided my gaze. “She’s not.”
“What do you mean, she’s not?”
“She feels she’s gotten all she can out of your weekly meetings,” he said, so softly I had to lean in to hear him.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
Leslie was a mess. She’d graduated from Georgetown Law, only to discover she hated the thought of being a lawyer and had no idea what direction to head in next. She’d been sponging off her parents for the past two years, doing little other than socializing with friends and shopping online. She’d come to me only when her mother had insisted on it—having heard of me from one of two articles written about my practice—and had threatened to cut her daughter off financially unless Leslie met with me and redirected herself toward getting a job and making her way in the world like a responsible adult.
We’d had only three sessions together.
“Unfortunately, Cat, I am serious. The email arrived late last night, and it pretty much said exactly that.”
I pressed my lips together. “I bet she comes back when her mom finds out she’s no longer coming to see me.”
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