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Once they settled, Rowdy handed her a small pair of binoculars. “I have a feeling Casper will turn out the light before he brings the dog out, just to keep from being seen. What does the father do?”

“Some kind of advertising. He has an office downtown and he works late. Casper is home alone a lot. We heard he dropped out of school. Mr. King is usually in the bottle by now. And his wife is doing everything she can to avoid them both. I think she’s a manager for some big tech company and on the road a lot. We very rarely see her. They have an older son, but he’s at college out east.”

“So, it sounds like Casper is basically unsupervised.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “But I kind of feel bad for him. He really has no one.”

He gave her a look. “No matter how lonely he is, if he stole the dog, he’s going to be in trouble.”

Annabelle sighed. Yes, he was right. Being neglected didn’t give him the right to do bad things. “I can’t see him doing it randomly. That’s what I don’t understand. He’s never shown any kind of interest in Cookie before.”

“Maybe someone paid him,” Rowdy said softly. “But he’s the only one who can confirm that.”

Annabelle nodded. “You think it’s Margaret. I can see her doing that. The woman has done everything she can to make Mrs. Dodd look bad or throw her off her game. I can see her trying to ruin the gala. I feel bad for Cora. The poor girl has to live with her.”

Rowdy stared at her for a long moment. “Cora is helping us out. I don’t think she wants her mother to get away with it either. She’s the one that showed me the camera.”

Annabelle nodded. She didn’t know Cora well, but it made sense. The girl had always seemed embarrassed of her mother’s behavior. Emma was friendly with Greta, sharing recipes and the like, and sometimes Cora would run things over for her.

“Any chance you saw any movement at the house today?”

Annabelle shook her head. “Nothing obvious. Sorry. I’m still in the midst of gala planning. I’m down to three days.”

“No worries,” Rowdy said.

Annabelle wished she’d seen something to tell him about. Then she would have been useful. She watched the back door of the King residence, hoping she would see something. “Do stakeouts usually work?”

He sighed beside her. “Sometimes. Other times you sit for hours and don’t see anything.”

“So, how did you get into this job? It’s a little non-traditional.”

Rowdy faced forward. “I was injured in Afghanistan. We were clearing a building and it got bombed while we were in it. I was several floors up when the building came down. My legs were crushed. The right worse than the left. They didn’t think I was going to walk again.”

Annabelle gasped, her heart going still in her chest. The thought of him being injured made her physically ill. “Oh my gosh, Rowdy. How long ago was this?”

She reached out, resting a hand on his arm.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. “About a year. A little over. I was in the hospital for about four months, then a rehab facility.”

She couldn’t believe what he’d been through. “Were you in the Army?”

One side of his mouth kicked up. “Navy. I was a SEAL for seven years.”

Annabelle blinked and stared. “No way,” she breathed. “So, you were in the middle of everything.”

He nodded, shifting on his cushion, and she understood his pain a little better. The limp was obvious, of course, but she was amazed he was even moving without a cane. So much became clear for her in that tiny snippet of conversation. The way he carried himself, the way he watched everything with his straight face, eyes giving nothing away.

“Lost and Found only hires veterans. Disabled veterans, specifically.”

His mouth twisted when he said the words.

“You don’t like the word disabled, do you?”

“Fuck, no,” he growled, and she could feel the pain and anger in the words. “I mean, you know going in that the life of an operator is not always a long one, but you do it. Somebody has to. But there is a price to pay.”

“How many of your friends were in that building with you?” she asked softly.

He didn’t answer her for a long minute. “I lost four men in that building. Three others were severely injured.”