A sudden high-pitched yowl erupted, followed by the slam of a crate door. A cacophony of shrill barks ripped through the shelter as two cats tore down the center aisle, tails flared and backs arched. Another slam. Four dogs barreled in their wake, teeth bared and jaws snapping in pursuit. Children wailed and parents shrieked as the animals flew past. Zach burrowed into my shoulder. Delia didn’t object when I reached for her hand and hurried her down the aisle toward the lounge as the last of the volunteers rushed out to wrangle the loose animals.
Vero waved me along faster, scooping Zach from my arms. “Hurry, the room’s empty, but I don’t know for how long.” She checked to make sure no one was looking, then shoved me inside, the sounds of shrieking cats and howling dogs muffling as the door fell closed. I made a beeline for the row of lockers, searching the namesuntil I found Patricia’s. If there had been a lock, it was gone now. Which meant Aaron was right, the police had already searched it.
The metal door clanged open, rustling the yellow police tape stretched across the opening. The inside of her locker door was covered with animal photos—mostly of Pirate and Molly. A business card was stuck in the corner: Detective Nicholas Anthony, Fairfax County Police Department. He was probably the detective assigned to Patricia Mickler’s case.
Careful not to disturb the police tape, I rummaged through the contents of her locker, pulling back a sweatshirt from its hanger. The navy fabric was layered in black and white dog hair, obscuring the Tysons Fitness Club logo on the front. The shelf above it contained a rolling sticky brush, a receipt for dog food, and one for a couple of coffees from Starbucks. Unless the police had discovered something I hadn’t, there was nothing here to suggest where Patricia had gone.
I shut the locker, scanning the lounge for anything Vero or I might have missed. Brightly colored thumbtacks dotted the bulletin board by the door. Team photos and work schedules. Patricia was on the Tuesday/Thursday team along with Aaron and a handful of others. She sat close beside him in the photo, wearing the same gym sweatshirt I’d seen in her locker, with Pirate and Molly perched on their laps. I leaned closer to the photo, my gaze narrowing on her hand. Her ring finger was naked, her diamond-encrusted wedding band noticeably absent.
A commotion rose from the kennels. I cracked open the door and peered out. A few yards away, Vero was distracting two volunteers in shelter uniforms. Her eyebrows rose, her expression urgent as I slipped out of the lounge.
“Mrs. Hall? Mrs. Hall?” A voice called over the barking dogs.“Theresa!” Louder this time. I turned. Aaron was rushing down the aisle toward me, looking flustered, and I realized with a start he was talking to me. “You haven’t by any chance seen a set of keys, have you? I must have dropped them in all the commotion.”
I shook my head, my hands reaching instinctively to a phantom itch in my hair. I never should have written Theresa’s name and address on that form. The police had already been here, I reassured myself. They’d already searched Patricia’s locker and questioned everyone. And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d made a terrible mistake coming here. “Sorry, I haven’t found any keys.”
My skin prickled with regret as an orange tabby darted between us, and Aaron took off after it.
CHAPTER 23
I shot bolt upright in bed, eyes wide and blinking, roused from sleep by a sudden loud buzz. This was it. They were coming to arrest me. I started, clutching my blankets to my chest as my cell phone vibrated across the nightstand. Sylvia’s number glowed in the dark. I fell back against my pillow, waiting for my heart to slow. Not the police. Just my agent.
I reached blindly for my phone and checked the time, unsure if it was quarter to six in the morning or at night. I’d stayed awake for most of the last three nights, working through the list of Harris’s victims, determined to figure out who’d killed him, and I’d still only managed to narrow the list from seventeen possible suspects to nine. Exhausted and no closer to solving the crime, I’d quit and fallen into bed an hour before dawn.
“Hello?” I grumbled into the phone.
“I hope you sound tired because you’ve been writing all day.” Night then. I rubbed my eyes. “Are you sitting down?”
“Not exactly.”
“I read your manuscript.” I threw an arm over my face and braced for the worst. “I sent it to your editor last night. She’s prepared to make you an offer.”
I sat up slowly, my mind groping for a scrap of sense. “An offer? But I’m already under contract for the book.”
“Not anymore.”
I clapped a hand over my eyes. This was worse than I’d thought. The offer was probably a re-payment plan. Not only had I lost my contract, but I’d have to return the advance. And Sylvia’s commission. And then she would probably drop me as a client. I didn’t even want to think about what Steven would say when he found out. “Sylvia, I’m sorry. Isn’t there anything we can—”
“I told her I was buying you out of your contract.”
I shook my head, certain I’d misheard. “You did what?”
“I told her I knew this book was going to be a huge breakout hit, and they weren’t paying you enough for it. I told her I would personally pay back your advance, and I wanted your rights back.”
I flipped on the lamp in case I was still sleeping. My watering eyes narrowed against the light. “What did she say?”
“She read your draft. And she agrees with me. She thinks you’re on to something big with this one.”
“She does?”
“It’s a fabulous setup—the timid wife hiring someone to kill her horrible husband, the plucky heroine and the hot young lawyer… They have great chemistry on the page, by the way. I mean, it’s sizzling, Finn. Your best work yet. I’m dying to see who the killer is.”
A dark chuckle slipped past my lips. “Me, too.”
“Your editor’s offering a preempt if you promise not to take it anywhere else. She’ll increase your offer to two books, raise your advance, and give you an extension to finish the draft.”
“Raise my advance? To how much?”
“Seventy-five thousand per book.” I’m pretty sure my jaw was somewhere in my lap. My editor was going to pay me one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. For the story of Harris Mickler’s murder. In which I’d described every detail of the crime. Which was currently under investigation, and which I was secretly a party to. “Finn? Are you there?”
