We both watched as Edwina pranced out the door and over to the bare ground under the small tree where she liked to do her business.
“Better you than me,” Rachel said, and headed for her car.“Call me.”
I assured her I would, and then I scooped Edwina up and put her in the car so Rachel wouldn’t run over her—or she wouldn’t get spooked by the car coming at her and take off out of the parking lot and down the street.That done, I locked up the office and drove the two of us to the nearest pet store, where I bought food and snacks and another couple of bowls so Edwina could have a set at the office and a set at home.
“Welcome home,” I told her when I put her down in the foyer of the penthouse.“I know you’ve been here before.”Last night, and yesterday morning after Griselda Grimshaw’s murder.“You might remember.Or maybe you were too distraught at the death of your human.But this is your permanent home now.Griselda’s gone, and Araminta doesn’t want you.And I’m not giving you to the pound.So it’s going to be you and me.Here.And at the office.I’ll take good care of you, I promise.”
Or the best care I knew how, anyway.She was my first dog.She’d just have to deal with any mistakes I made.
I looked around.“I’m sorry there’s no yard.”Maybe I needed to rethink this penthouse business.I liked living here.It was a nice change from the house in Hillwood, which had so much space I didn’t need, now that there was just me.And besides, it had been nice to take over David’s love nest, snubbing my nose at him, even if he was dead and probably didn’t have any idea what I was doing.But if Edwina needed a yard…
“We’ll take a walk after I feed you,” I said.“Get some exercise.It’ll be good for both of us.”
Edwina wagged her little stub of a tail and headed for the living room.In the doorway, she turned and looked at me over her shoulder.
I lifted the bag of dog food and bowls more securely and followed.
Fourteen
The Gulch,where the penthouse is located, isn’t more than half a dozen blocks from the Arena.Diana rang my doorbell at ten-thirty, and I headed downstairs and got into her car.“Is that it?”
There was a bag in the backseat.Your standard duffel, with a shoulder strap and a zipper.
She nodded, her jaw set.
“A hundred thousand dollars doesn’t take up a lot of space, does it?”
She glanced at me.“It’s newspaper.”
Right.“But that’s what a hundred thousand dollars in cash would look like, if it was stuffed into a bag.Right?”
Diana shrugged.“If we don’t know, I don’t think whoever’s picking it up will.”
She had a point.“Did Mendoza give it to you?”
“A uniformed officer dropped it off, with Jaime’s compliments.And the suggestion that I should leave you home tonight.”
“I hate him,” I said.
Diana smirked.“Sure you do.Anyway, it was too late.I had already agreed to take you with me.”
“You could have changed your mind.”
She shrugged.“I wanted the company.This is weird.And a little scary.”
Itwasweird.And a little scary.“Are you worried that Steven’s actually in danger?”
“Not so much,” Diana admitted, as we took the turn from Twelfth Avenue onto Charlotte, into downtown proper.“There’s no reason to think he’s in danger.Right?He was with the girl willingly.”
He had been.At least as far as I’d been able to tell.
“Did Mendoza happen to mention that I got a phone call from Steven in the middle of the night?”
“No,” Diana said, with a sharp glance at me.“How come you didn’t mention it yourself?”
“When I saw you this morning, I didn’t know about it.”
She looked confused, and I added, “It came in on the office phone.I didn’t get it until I got to the office this morning.After I left your house.”
