“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever redo the grounds around my rented-out house. And from you?”
“No news, either. I’ve been swamped, although I’ve thought about you a lot. Kendra—”
“I’ve been thinking about you, too, Jeff,” I said, heading him off since his tone had sounded suddenly serious. “Let’s get together for dinner some night. Next week, maybe.” No take-out Thai, although I didn’t say that. And I felt like I was handing him a dose of his own, earlier, back-away medicine.
“Am I being brushed off?” he said in an ominously cool tone.
“Of course not.” My tone? Oh, way too jolly.
“Yeah? Well, I’ll call you one of these days, Kendra.” And he was immediately off the other end.
Which left a gaping hole in my psyche. What was I doing?
Hell if I knew. But I wasn’t going to dig inside to find out. Instead, I called Tom Venson. Who fortunately sounded very happy to hear from me. We talked teasingly over the phone for a few minutes. Better to stroke our respective libidos long distance than in the same room. At least till I answered that same question I’d posed only moments before: What was I doing?
When I hung up from Tom, we’d planned another date. I was glad. And sorry.
I decided to pour myself a small glass of wine—for medicinal purposes. And maybe to help me access my subconscious, so I’d figure out which guy I wanted and how to let the other graciously off the hook.
Assuming that Jeff didn’t unhook me even faster than I made up my own mind.
“What am I doing, Lexie?” I repeated my question aloud to my sweet pup as she sat beside me on the floor while I poured my libation.
She didn’t bark me an answer.
SINCE I HAD a court appearance the next day, I got up damnably early and took Lexie on my pet-sitting rounds, including the extra three for Tracy. I dressed appropriately for a lawyer, although I left my heels in the car and replaced them temporarily with sneakers till I needed them. Same went for my suit jacket.
After Alexander’s illness and clinginess yesterday, I decided to give him some TLC and a treat today, so I picked him up and brought him right along with Lexie to Darryl’s delightful day resort. We were met at the door by the employee I liked least, Kiki, the blue-eyed bombshell of a would-be starlet. I’d always considered her animal friendly and people-skills deprived. Without even looking at me, she gushed out a greeting, then said, “Darryl’s not here yet,” in a tone that suggested her pleasure at being the bearer of bad tidings. Still, she quickly knelt and held out her arms for Alexander and Lexie.
No matter what my feelings for Kiki, I left knowing the pups would be in good hands.
Back in the Beamer, I called my law office and informed Mignon I was off to court before reporting to the office.
“See you later,” Mignon sang in her usual cheerful tune.
A couple of hours later, pleased after winning the motion I’d argued, I returned to my law office and was greeted with Mignon’s chirped hello.
“Hi,” I parroted with a smile of my own. “Is Borden in?”
He was, and I discussed the status of some cases with him. Then I got to work on my ideas for the next and undoubtedly last settlement attempt scheduled for the McGregors and Cousin Tallulah. We’d try again first thing next week, and after that the matter would be decided in court.
Later, I called Darryl to ensure he’d eventually gotten to his resort that A.M. He had. As always, he was busy, but said he was keeping a close eye on Lexie and Alexander. “Come by after you do your pet-sitting stops,” he said. “I have some paperwork, so I’ll be here late today. I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee and we’ll catch up on everything.”
Which was absolutely wonderful with me.
And so, at the end of my law-practice day, I started on my second round of cosseting clients—feeding them all, walking and roughhousing with adorable dogs, changing cat litter, and talking to cute kitties.
My next-to-last stop was at one of the three homes that had been Tracy’s clients’ to care for two moderate-size mixed-breed dogs who’d been littermates and were now best buddies. They were full of energy and previously greeted me enthusiastically.
Only, when I opened the door, they weren’t there.
My heart plummeted as if I’d filled it with every ounce of blood within my body. “Spike? Frank?” I shrieked, tearing down the center hall of the small house. Surely they hadn’t been pet-napped on my watch the way the Dorgan pets had been. “Spike? Frank? Where are you?” My hand immediately plunged to the bottom of the big bag I habitually slung over my shoulder, searching for my cell phone. Would I need to call 911?
I hurried toward the kitchen, hoping they’d stopped for a drink of water before coming to see me.
No dogs—but as I dashed through the door, I saw a movement of a human-size form from the corner of my eye. “Hey!” I shouted as I stopped short.
Simultaneous with the tremendous crash on the counter beside me, something was dropped tightly over my head, and I was dragged down to the hard tile floor.
Chapter Twenty
I SHRIEKED NONSENSICAL syllables of fear as I lifted my arm outside the obstacle that now covered me, waved it wildly, and pushed the button of the can clutched in my fingers.
Which caused my assailant to yell as well. Was the tone high enough to signify female, or did rage and pain instigate the shrillness? Who knew?
But I heard a bull-like charge beyond me through the kitchen, followed by the slamming open of the door to the yard plus foot-steps on the short wooden back porch. Still clutching the pepper spray I’d dug from my purse while groping for my cell phone, I struggled to free my body from its uncomfortable bonds.
When I finally uncovered my face, I found that the thing cast over me was a floral bedsheet, much too cheery for the dire use to which it had been put. I hastened to the outer doorway and scanned the unfenced yard, but whoever had attacked me had already escaped. The homes here were close together and no neighbor stood outside observing my attacker’s flight.
In my shaking hand, I still held the can that had saved my bacon. I went back inside and approached the area where I’d been attacked.
On the floor was a big, broken piece of baseball bat.
SOMEHOW, I AGAIN found my cell phone in my purse.
I dialed 911.
When I was eventually off hold and had someone to talk to, I explained what had happened and asked for Ned Noralles, assuming he was available. I didn’t give a damn that this was neither his jurisdiction nor his assigned area of detection.
This might not have been an accomplished homicide, but it sure had been an attempted one.
I sagged against the counter, but only for a minute. My initial dilemma still remained.
Where were the pets of the house?
Only then did I realize that what I’d thought was the buzzing in my frazzled brain was the sound of distant, muffled dogs in distress.
My legs were about the consistency of hair gel, but I let them slurp along the floor in the direction from which I thought the barks and yelps emanated. “Spike? Frank?” I was sure I sounded as frantic as they did.
Out of the kitchen, partway back along the hall, and into a room that appeared to be a study, I followed the sounds as they grew louder.
“Spike? Frank?” I continuously called, until I narrowed my muzzy brain on a door that seemed the source of the dog noise. I opened it, and the middle-size, wonderful mutts spilled out, still barking but now leaping gleefully all over me.
I sank onto the floor and let them stomp, snort, nuzzle, and lick until human help finally arrived.
NED NORALLES WASN’T the first cop to come to this house, but he joined those who’d arrived before. He shook his head in dismay when he saw me seated on a chair in the comfortably eclectic living room, giving my story to yet another cop while the dogs sprawled on the sofa at my sides.
“You’re in trouble again, Kendra?” he asked in a much quieter tone than he usually jabbed at me.
“Guess so, if being attacked with a baseball bat is any indication.” I described the scary scenario, complete with the counter taking the brunt of the swing of the bat at the same time I was enfolded in a sheet. And how I’d grabbed the pepper spray, wildy wise in retrospect, simply because something was clearly wrong in this house when Spike and Frank didn’t barrel to the door to greet me.
“Could you tell if it was a man or woman?” Ned demanded.
“I’ve answered that at least half a dozen times,” I said, nodding to the suited detective who’d preceded Ned here. His cadre of interrogating uniformed cops still milled around.
“And the answer?”
“No.”
“Was the person tall or short? Fat or thin? Do you have any description at all?”
“Very sketchy,” I said.
“Could it have been someone you knew?”
“Possibly.”
“Who knew you’d be here?”
Uh-oh. Other members of the club, of course, but the top of the list for that answer was Tracy. But if she had it in for me, why attack me here, when she would again be the obvious suspect?
The same someone who’d framed her for Nya’s murder could have been attempting it again.
With me as the targeted murder victim.
“Kendra?” A deeply familiar masculine voice suddenly shouted into the room, followed by an equally familiar male body.
Jeff.
“What are you doing here, Hubbard?” Ned growled. These two had a long-standing testosterone battle going and seldom started out a conversation civilly.
“I heard that Kendra had been attacked. Are you okay?”
I was suddenly standing and enfolded in strong and comforting arms.
“How did you hear that?” I heard Ned grumble from somewhere over Jeff’s broad shoulder, the one on which I now leaned.
Jeff didn’t answer. I didn’t expect him to, and I suspect Ned didn’t, either. My assumption was that his security company monitored police bands. I’d given my name when I called 911, and it was possibly broadcast with the order for cops to come here.
How he’d heard didn’t matter, only that he
had
heard. And he had come.
OKAY, I TOLD myself a long time later, when the cops had finally completed their interrogation and on-site investigation and informed me I could depart. If Tom Venson had known what happened to me, he’d have come, too. But there was no reason for a veterinarian to monitor police bands. And I hadn’t called him.
But the truth was, he wasn’t there when I’d needed comforting, even if it was through no intentional avoidance of me in an hour-plus of awful need.
Jeff was.
“You’re coming home with Odin and me,” that same P.I. declared as soon as we’d exited the door. “Is Lexie at Darryl’s?”
“Yes,” I said. “I mean about Lexie. So’s Alexander, a pit bull who’s a client of mine. I called Darryl a while back to explain why I’m so late, and he’s hanging out there to hear what happened. That’s where I’m heading now.”
The wide residential street was usually well lighted from street lamps, and this night the vans and other vehicles that had carried cops here to conduct the investigation also helped to illuminate the area.
My Beamer remained parked in the driveway, and I strode purposefully toward it, glad Jeff was at my side even though I pretended to ignore him.
I’d considered taking Spike and Frank along that night but decided against it. The cops assured me there’d be a stakeout on this street tonight, under the assumption that the attacker could also have been planning a pet-napping, and a little thing like attempted murder might have been a mere hiccup, not a reason to drop the plan altogether. Plus, I’d called the dogs’ owners. They were driving back home that night from Palm Springs, would be home in a matter of hours. Even so, I gave the pups extra hugs. Poor guys acted as if they needed lots of TLC, and I’d lavished it on them.
When we reached the Beamer, Jeff said, “I’m parked down the street. Had a hard time finding a space. Pull out and wait for me. I’ll follow you to Darryl’s.”
“No need,” I said. “Lexie and I will just take Alexander to his place, then go home.”
“I’ll follow you, then, till you get there. Once you’re safely behind your gate, I’ll go pick up Odin and our dinner. I’m not up for Thai tonight. How’s chicken?”
I
was
feeling a little chicken, I admitted to myself—though not to Jeff. “No need to bother. Lexie and I have food we can fix for ourselves.”
“We’re not going to argue about this,” he said. His sexy blue eyes were as intense as I’d ever seen them. Or maybe it was just the way the streetlights hit him. “I’m spending the night at your place, Kendra, like it or not. On the couch, if that’s the way you want it, but Odin and I will be there.”