The Canine Club, according to its website, is a differentkind of doggy park. Way different. For one thing, it’s private. Makes sense. If you live around here, you don’t want your pet sniffing around just any old doggy butt.
Like the Kennelworth dog spa, where they went for grooming, the Canine Club is upscale. Yearly dues are two thousand dollars. And that’s only if your dog passes the new member interview.
From what I gather, it’s like a private New York City nursery school, with pretty much the same criteria for applicants: good grooming, friendly disposition, plays well with others, up to date on shots. Growlers, biters, and whiners are rejected.
Off the record: Bulldogs, boxers, and Bernese mountain dogs are rejected as well because the club frowns on unnecessary slobbering. (I get it. I know what I’m like after a few martinis.) In a generous gesture of noblesse oblige, the Canine Club does allow rescue dogs and mongrels. But they must meet the same criteria.
And if your pedigreed pup makes it past the interview, there are more hoops to jump through: Your dog needs a recommendation letter from your vet, references from two other dog-owner members, and a clean, incident-free police record. So if your neighbors ever lodged a complaint that Daphne, your beloved shih tzu, dug up their rose garden, you and Daphne are history.
Luckily, Jane and Austen are full-fledged members in good standing. When we arrive at the main gate of the Canine Club park, we’re quickly checked in. I’m given abeeper so I’ll know when our forty-five-minute playtime is over. Only twenty dogs are allowed in at a time.
I look around. Did I say Disneyland? Make that the Taj Mahal.
When I unleash the dogs, Jane dashes over to an apple tree scratching post with low-hanging branches, and Austen jumps into the bone-shaped pool. Soon the two of them discover rubber tubes to run through, unlimited tennis balls to fetch, doggy toys and slides and squishy pillows as far as the eye can see.
At least one of the park planners must have had a sense of humor. “The ultimate installation,” according to their website: several bright-red hydrants scattered around to make the park “more fun and interactive.” Really? Is peeing supposed to be interactive? I guess all these years I’ve been doing it wrong.
Half an hour later, Jane and Austen begin to slow down. The park has planned for that as well—there are several close-to-the-ground padded doggy benches for them to rest on, all way more comfy than the wooden one I’ve been sitting on. But we adult dog owners have been given other perks, like state-of-the-art Wi-Fi. A free do-it-yourself photo booth. And at five o’clock, they open a dog-friendly people bar.
Coming here was a good idea. I feel more relaxed than I have in days. Several of us are sitting on these benches, smiling at each other and watching our dogs frolic. But one young man several benches down from me has barely looked up from the newspaper he’s holding. I try to figureout which of the twenty dogs is his, but I can’t. He hasn’t been watching any of them.
Then my beeper goes off. Our playtime is over. I fetch Jane and Austen, who seem happy but tired and pleased to be heading home.
As I load the dogs into Amber’s hatchback, I see the young man walking to his car. Still no dog.Oh, well,I think.Maybe they let people in the neighborhood come here even without pets. It’s lush and green and a great spot for reading. I bet he’s just trying to get a little distance from a nagging wife, a whiny toddler.
And yet… that doesn’t feel right.
Then something flashes through my mind. Something my beloved FBI colleague Coveleigh Ravenstock once said when he was stressing the importance of trusting your gut:The major difference between humans and animals is that when an animal senses something is not quite right in its universe, it never says to itself,Oh, it’s probably nothing.
CHAPTER 65
I THINK I’M BEING FOLLOWED.
This small stretch of service road is fairly empty at this time of day, but a car with a lone driver seems to be keeping a steady distance behind me. I don’t think it’s Carlos. It’s not the old gray car he drove to the Harrisons’ the first time I saw him. It’s a nondescript black car with tinted windows, so I can’t see the driver. Is it the man on the bench? I can’t say for sure.
I decide to assume the worst. The driver is wise enough to stay several car lengths back. I put on my directional to test him, pretending I’m turning left. He does the same. When I turn mine off, he waits a beat, then turns his off as well. We both keep driving.
Coincidence? Well, maybe. I think of some of the other coincidences I’ve been party to lately: Bumping into Carlos in Luis’s lobby. Ben asking me to search his closet—exactly what I’d planned to do behind his back—when he couldn’t find his passport.
A mile or so off this road is a neighborhood full of wonderful old cobblestoned streets and majestic Victorian houses. Gorgeous, but not a place you would drive through unless you lived there. So, without signaling this time, I make a sharp left onto Ludlow Lane. A moment later, the car behind me does the same.
Now what?
I turn right into someone’s driveway and brake quickly, barely missing their wraparound porch. I keep my foot on the brake as I wait to see if the car behind me will pass. It does. I watch as he slows down, turns left at the corner, and disappears. I wait five minutes. Then ten. Still no sign of him, so I decide it’s safe to pull out. Breathing a sigh of relief, I get back on the service road.
Suddenly, he’s behind me again.
I know the local police station is nearby. Surely that driver won’t have the balls to follow me into their parking lot—or will he? No time to wonder. I speed up and head there, preparing what I’m going to say to the police:Hi. Remember me from the Day of the Snake? Well, I’m not really a nanny. Actually, I’m an undercover FBI agent, andI thinkI’m being followed by a man whoI thinkis involved with a Mexican cartel thatI thinkmay be laundering money with a local businessman who thinks I work for him.
Yeah. That should go over well.
Plan B: Go to the police but make up some old-lady excuse for being there. I want to report a Peeping Tom? My neighbor is using his leaf blower too early on weekends? I’ll need to sound adamant, befuddled. I’ll insist that a police car follow me home to check things out. And when it does…
I glance in my rearview mirror. The black sedan is still there, a few car lengths back. I remember all the ways I can try to get away. I slow down and move to the right lane. He does too. Then I speed up. So does he. I quickly take the next exit without signaling, throwing him off, then just as quickly get back on the road. Somehow, there he is again. He must have pulled over and sat there, waiting. The dogs, bouncing around in the back, are starting to whine. I know the police station is less than a mile away, but I’m in a race against time and I’m going too fast, and, oh God, it looks like he’s getting close, closer, but it’s hard to tell because now he’s put on his brights and for a second I’m blinded and can’t see anything behind me except for the dogs jumping around, so I turn my head and—yes, he’s there! He’s practically on top of me, and now there’s no denying that in a second or two—
CHAPTER 66
VERY SLOWLY, I PULL into Hailey’s friend’s driveway. Hailey and Alison are taking turns tossing a basketball into a hoop mounted over the garage door. When Hailey sees me drive up, she frowns. I get it. She’s annoyed that I’m picking her up four hours early. She doesn’t hear me hyperventilating. She doesn’t know I’mthis closeto passing out. She walks over to me, ready to argue, then sees all the damage to the car and the bloody dog on my lap. She starts to scream.
