Double Dog Dare

by E J Cochrane

  “I wasn’t sure I’d see you tonight,” she said as Nadia followed her dog into Maddie’s home.

  “Why not? I’m the one with the bad eye.” She pointed to her bruised and swollen face and attempted a wink.

  “I thought maybe you were mad at me.” Maddie closed the door and leaned wearily against it.

  “Why would I be mad at you?”

  “For this.” She pointed to Nadia’s bruise but didn’t make eye contact.

  “Ray did this, not you.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. I got involved so I could keep you out of trouble, remember? And I’ve witnessed the aftermath of one of your investigations. I knew the risks.”

  She shrugged her nonchalant acceptance of being punched, as if a black eye was just something to be expected, like bad hair days for Maddie. But Maddie couldn’t so easily shake her guilt. Still not making eye contact, she took Nadia’s hand and moved toward the kitchen, her progress impeded somewhat by the vigorous canine wrestling match taking place directly in her path.

  “I was about to make dinner. Can you eat?”

  “I’ve never had trouble in the past.”

  “I meant because of that.” She gestured at Nadia’s injury again. “Did he hurt your jaw too?”

  “I’m not sure. We may have to test it out.” Nadia pulled her close. Her good eye scanned Maddie’s face, settling on her lips.

  She leaned toward her. “I don’t want to hurt you.” She caressed the tender area around Nadia’s eye.

  “Unless you have some incredibly kinky moves in your arsenal, I think my face will be safe in your hands.”

  “We’ll hold off on the kink until you heal.” She blushed as soon as the words left her mouth, and (in a pathetic attempt to circumvent some of her embarrassment), she changed the subject immediately. “I talked to Leigh, and we’re down to a handful of suspects who know both Leigh and Terry.” For the millionth time Maddie contemplated which of her current suspects was the most likely to have committed murder: Ray, Kat, Esther, or Leigh?

  “A handful is better than a thousand, but I didn’t have to get punched in the face for that insight.”

  “I promise I will make this up to you.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Anything you want,” she answered, then wondered if she’d just given Nadia too much leeway.

  “You know, we’ve never really had a chance to be a regular, boring couple without someone’s murder in the background. Maybe, if you set your investigation aside, just for a night, we could try that.”

  She searched Nadia’s face for some clue she was trying to maneuver her away from the investigation completely, but Nadia looked shyly hopeful rather than demanding, like she didn’t want to ask for too much. Considering what she’d been through that day, how could Maddie deny her completely reasonable request for one night free from the tumult of crime solving?

  “I think boring, regular couples like to have dinner together.”

  “And discuss mundane topics like work and the news.”

  “They might even take the dogs for a walk and go to bed early.”

  “Why haven’t we tried this before?” Nadia said.

  “We must be slow learners.” Maddie closed the meager distance between them, confirming their agreement with a soft, lingering kiss that threatened to nullify their dinner plans.

  Nadia backed her up against the kitchen counter, and her hands moved beneath Maddie’s sweater, her fingers grazing the soft skin of her abdomen before skimming up her back. Just as she reached the clasp of her bra, the front door opened, setting off the dogs and instantly killing the mood.

  “We really need to get you sturdier locks.” Nadia sighed and rested her forehead against Maddie’s as they waited to learn who had interrupted them this time.

  “Dottie told me everything,” Granny called from the other room.

  “That’s a terrifying prospect,” Maddie muttered.

  “So much for our boring night,” Nadia grumbled as they both turned their attention to their visitor.

  Easily sidestepping the pack of eager dogs jostling for attention from the newcomer, she bustled into the kitchen and deposited a plate of her no-raisin oatmeal cookies on the counter. Freed of her confectionary burden, she immediately set to making dinner for the three of them.

  “What did she say?” Nadia asked, her attention half on Granny, half on the goodies she’d provided.

  Meanwhile Maddie, relieved of her chef duties, switched to bartending—wine for Nadia, a Manhattan for Granny and for her the drink she’d needed even before her string of surprise guests had started trickling in.

  “That Maddie had landed herself in another perilous predicament and needed backup. What else did she need to say?”

  “Only about a thousand other things,” she said and handed Granny her drink.

  Granny removed the plastic wrap from the plate of cookies and nudged them closer to Nadia. “You look like you could have used these ten minutes ago.”

  Nadia took one bite and moaned appreciatively, but when Maddie reached for a cookie, Granny swatted her hand away.

  “What about my ‘perilous predicament’? Don’t I deserve a cookie?”

  “Not until you tell me what you did to get your girlfriend banged up like she went a round with Jersey Joe Walcott.”

  “Why do you assume this is my fault?” Her exasperation shriveled in the face of Granny’s knowing glance. “It’s only partially my fault.”

  “It’s not her fault at all.” Nadia jumped to her defense before snagging another cookie from the plate that only she could reach.

  “You’re sweet to defend her, Nadia, but if I know my granddaughter, this has to be the byproduct of her stubbornness or her indiscretion.”

  “It’s the byproduct of the murder investigation you pushed me into.”

  “And how’s that progressing?” Granny switched conversational gears effortlessly, conveniently ignoring any responsibility for Nadia’s current state.

  “You never told me what happened with Ray after I left.” Nadia paused in her cookie consumption long enough to second Granny’s blame-shifting inquiry. “Please let this story have a guilty ending.”

  “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly.

  Certainly Ray was an angry man, possibly even angry enough to kill someone, but his was a temper that flared up in the moment then fizzled out. The thought of him planning an elaborate revenge scheme rather than lashing out immediately seemed far-fetched. Beyond that, how would he have tampered with Terry’s EpiPen? She would have to verify his story, but if his relationship with Terry was as contentious as he claimed, Maddie doubted he would have been allowed in his ex’s home aside from brief visits to pick up and drop off his kids. That wouldn’t allow him much time to access the autoinjector. Nor could he have popped in with brownies. Even if he didn’t seem about as likely to bake as to march in the pride parade, what possible reason would Terry have to welcome him and his lethal dessert into her home unless the kids were with him? And she doubted even the world’s worst father would bring his children along for murder.

  Though Maddie supposed he could have left the brownies with the door person, that still didn’t answer how Ray could have accessed Terry’s EpiPen, but it also meant she couldn’t completely eliminate him as a suspect.

  “He’s definitely a hothead, which Leigh told me.”

  “And you couldn’t have given me a heads-up?”

  She frowned apologetically. “I expected raised voices not fisticuffs.” She sipped her drink and reflected on her eventful day.

  “So we’re back where we were last night.”

  “Not exactly. I’m not sure what his word is worth, but he suggested that Terry and Lindsey’s neighbor might not be the harmless little old lady I thought she was.”

  “Last time you talked to her, all you got was some possibly misleading information.”

  “Don’t forget indigestion.” She shudder
ed at the memory of Esther’s offending coffee cake.

  “So how do you expect to get more out of her this time?”

  “Aside from enduring another stellar example of how not to bake, I have no plan.”

  “I can take a crack at her,” Granny said and served up the honey lemon chicken stir fry she’d made as effortlessly as if she’d poured a bowl of cereal. “We probably have one or two things in common, especially if she has a strong-willed granddaughter with a dangerous independent streak.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Granny, insulting as it was, but I don’t want anyone else endangering themselves for this.”

  “What danger? I already know not to eat her baked goods. And if you think I can’t handle an old fussbudget, you’ve obviously never been to my house on pinochle night. I speak elderly. I stand a better chance than you of getting this old bird to tell us what we want to know.”

  “Not to gang up on you, but your grandmother has a point.” Nadia picked up another cookie and nibbled at it.

  “Pretty and smart. You need to hang on to this one, Matilda.” Granny topped off Nadia’s glass of wine.

  “Have I told you how much I like your grandmother?”

  “Thank you, child.”

  Maddie’s eyes narrowed to slits as she stared at the pair teaming up against her, but she refrained from succumbing to their digression. “You know, I’ve had some practice in getting information from an old woman.” She looked pointedly at her grandmother, hoping at the last second that Granny didn’t take offense to being called old.

  “But only about as much success as a perforated condom,” Granny cackled. “How often do you get me to talk about things I don’t want to talk about?”

  “You’re an exceptional case,” Maddie growled, but she knew her grandmother was right.

  “Which means I’ll be exceptional at this task.” Maddie opened her mouth to argue, but Granny wouldn’t hear it. “What time should we meet?”

  “You tell me,” she sighed. “When are old ladies most likely to confess to homicide?” She resigned herself to the inevitable chaos of mixing Granny Doyle and a murder investigation, knowing inherently that it wouldn’t go well.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Despite waking up ten minutes before the buzz of her alarm (thanks in part to an enthusiastic tongue bath from Goliath), Maddie started her day with the oddest sense of hope. True, she had yet to learn if she’d acquired new headquarters for Little Guys or if she’d be forced to feign interest in commercial real estate until she died. She still had two unsolved murders hanging over her head, her best friend seemed to have replaced her with the prosaic role model for efficiency, and her favorite employee was on the verge of heartbreak and misery at the hands of her sister, a mushroom cloud of agony that would surely engulf her too. But no matter how much she considered the upheaval of her current life, that unfamiliar ball of hope continued to sit there, drawing her attention to its unwarranted presence and preventing her from wallowing in the misery she was more accustomed to. Maybe it had something to do with the exquisite woman currently sharing her bed.

  She shifted slightly, both to evade Goliath’s steady slurping of the lower half of her face and to admire Nadia. She lay perfect, naked and alarmingly beautiful—even with the souvenir of her brief meeting with Ray—snuggling against Maddie’s side. Her breaths came steadily, and even in the peaceful repose of slumber, a hint of that lopsided, mischievous grin lingered on her face. Maddie didn’t think she’d ever seen anything so beautiful, and though she’d never considered herself the kind of woman to be swayed into romance-based complacency, she’d also never conceived of a world wherein a woman like Nadia would even consider ending up in her bed.

  But, as a not-so-gentle nudge from Bart reminded her, there was more to life than having a girlfriend. No matter how much she liked this particular girlfriend, she’d get no closer to solving a murder and returning her life to somewhere in the proximity of normal (or as close as her life ever came to that particular designation) by watching Nadia sleep.

  Mabel apparently agreed. As soon as she tried to sit up, the gangly pup launched herself onto the bed, one giant paw with the force of all seventy-five pounds of her behind it landing squarely on her chest. Apparently not satisfied that her startled response was enough to rouse her human companion, Mabel added her surprisingly deep bark to the mix.

  “I’m up. I’m up.” As if by command, Nadia sprang to life and lunged for the door, ready to tend to her dog’s needs.

  “Are you going to take the dogs out?”

  “Yeah, Mabel’s still working on her bathroom skills, so when she tells me it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”

  “You might want to put some clothes on. Unless you want to feed the crush Mr. Butzbaum already has on you.” She grinned at the thought of her old (but apparently still frisky) neighbor’s reaction to Nadia playing with Mabel au naturel.

  Nadia frowned adorably at her own nudity. “You may have a point. Any idea where my clothes ended up last night?”

  “Kitchen maybe?” Maddie squinted then smirked, remembering exactly how their night had unfolded once Granny made her welcome departure. “That’s where we were when Granny left.”

  “You know,” Nadia said as she stepped in the hall briefly before returning with her pants (which Nadia had kept on much longer than anticipated). “World’s greatest cookies aside, your grandmother ruined our date night.”

  “I think we recovered nicely.” Maddie stood to begin the search for her own clothing.

  “True, but I want a whole night, without a family-imposed intermission.” Nadia stepped into her jeans but remained topless as Mabel danced around their feet, frantic either for attention or the bathroom. “Tonight.”

  “I’ll clear my schedule,” she agreed, hopeful her outing with Granny that afternoon would make this a nonissue.

  “We should probably go to my place. I don’t want to find out who else is likely to barge through your front door at inopportune moments.”

  “Good thinking.” Maddie sealed their agreement with a kiss, one that was cut regrettably short by the limitations of a growing puppy’s bladder.

  Even in the face of that unpropitious start to her day, her rosy outlook held (and even blossomed). She didn’t know how she would accomplish it, but she determined to solve Terry’s murder before her date with Nadia. She realized she shouldn’t tailor her schedule around her love life (particularly in matters of literal life and death), but she didn’t see how she would ever give Nadia her full attention if half her mind was pondering murder. And she wanted to know what it would be like to date Nadia without the distraction of a mystery getting in their way. On top of that, it would be nice to return to boring, normal life where she didn’t have to worry that her extracurricular activities would put her at risk of angering local law enforcement. Who knew she would ever look back fondly on the days when her biggest excitement involved folding her socks?

  Though she and Granny weren’t ambushing Esther until late that afternoon, that didn’t mean Maddie had to sit idly waiting for the case to solve itself. She didn’t have an inordinate amount of time to put toward finding the real killer, but if she got lucky, she could prevent a repeat engagement with Esther—an outcome both she and her stomach would happily accept, yet one she feared was as likely as Goliath suddenly disregarding his independent nature and deciding to listen to any of her commands. Really, how did she expect to catch the murderer if she didn’t talk to one of her main suspects? It wasn’t like a person who plotted agonizing, allergy-based assassinations would be considerate enough to march up to her and confess. She sighed, resigning herself to the sensory overload that a visit to Esther entailed, but even that terrible realization did little to disrupt her positive equilibrium.

  Her mood faltered slightly near the end of her day when a concerned (and selectively observant) citizen confronted her as she walked Zeus the Yorkie.

  “You have to clean that up,” the bespectac
led busybody called from across the street, her thoroughly disgusted expression a precursor to what Maddie suspected would be an unwelcome and undeserved harangue.

  Had she not been wearing a shirt with her company’s name and logo emblazoned across it, she might not have suppressed the urge to fling the fruits of Zeus’s labors at her. But certain as she was that this waste product watchdog would acquire crystal clear vision, zeroing in on the Little Guys logo from across the street, she bit her tongue and kept her focus on Zeus and his output. True, she may have opened her eco-friendly waste bag with a bit more flourish than usual, but she otherwise refused to acknowledge the woman’s existence.

  She had only one more stop after Zeus—her final visit with Murphy’s cats, which would be blessedly free from unnecessary critique or redundant advice. That thought (plus her critic’s shrill cry of fear at Zeus’s yap of disapproval) lifted her spirits once again.

  “Good boy, Zeus,” she whispered as they made their way past the now jittery complainer.

  “Your mom will be home tonight, boys. I know it goes against your brooding cat nature, but try not to be too aloof when she gets here.” She talked to Stanley and Herbie as she filled their bowls for the last time.

  One-sided conversations with her charges were nothing new for her. It probably wasn’t an exaggeration to say she spent more time chatting with dogs and cats than with other humans, a circumstance Dottie would no doubt find horrifying and entirely believable. For Maddie, though, talking to her animals was one of the perks of the job. She found solutions to most of her problems when she shared them with the dogs and cats she cared for. She lived in her head, and airing her woes to the sympathetic ears of her animal friends was often just what she needed. Though they never offered advice or suggested any course of action, they also never chastised, mocked or lectured her, a refreshing change from most of the majority of her human interactions. So she thought nothing of her current idle feline banter, at least not until she heard the click of the lock in Murphy’s front door.