by Dianna Love
Luce stood back. “Stop engaging him.”
What the hell was she talking about? “I was standing here. How is that engaging him?”
“He thinks it’s a game. Stand still and ignore him. Pretend you’re a tree.”
“Ow!” The dog’s teeth plunged into his ankle and he lifted his foot. Stand still? The dog was making sushi out of his leg. The terrorist switched to the other leg. “Luce! Get him off.”
“Be a tree.”
“Screw the tree.”
Finally, Lucie tugged on the leash. “Sit, Buddy.”
The dog’s furry butt hit the ground. You little S.O.B.
She bent low, patted Attila the Hun on the head. “Good boy, Buddy. You’re a sweet boy.” She made kissing noises at Attila, and Frankie suddenly wanted those lips pointed at him. These were the times he realized how much he loved her. The simple times when she didn’t feel self-conscious about being silly or showing unabashed affection to an animal.
Buddy stuck his snout in the air and licked her face. She giggled at the bath, and craned out of his reach, but Buddy kept at her until he pushed her off balance and she fell over. The dog jumped on her stomach and went into a licking frenzy. The more she pushed at him, the more he licked, and Frankie knew he and Buddy were of the same mind.
She looked so damn cute trying to wrestle the puppy.
And then her belly laugh broke free. “Frankie, how about a little help?”
“Be a tree,” he mimicked. “Stop engaging him.”
That cracked her up even more and he couldn’t stand it. He stepped up, pushed the dog off, straddled Lucie and kissed the hell out of her. Right there on the ground. What did he care? Of course, the woody he sported would have to be patient because doing Lucie on the street with Attila the Hun watching could get them arrested.
His girl didn’t seem to mind. She kissed him back and even offered him a little tongue. His Lucie. He loved her, but he could do without the puppy nipping his ear. Little bastard.
When she pulled back he said, “How about when we get done, I put a smile on your face?” He grinned. “I could lick something off you.”
She shoved him away. “If we ever get done. I’m way more than eleven minutes behind schedule.”
“Let’s get moving then.”
***
After finally completing the walks, Lucie and Frankie zoomed into the Lutzes’ driveway to store the scooters for the night. Thank goodness, Mr. Lutz had built extra storage space in the garage. There wasn’t an inch of property left to spare, but the man had managed to get a building permit so he could extend the garage.
She’d already given Otis his afternoon walk, but maybe since she was here, she’d give him another one.
Mr. Lutz parked his Mercedes in the driveway and got out just as they parked the scooters. “Hi, Lucie. I never get to see you anymore.”
For a man not yet fifty, Mr. Lutz rocked a full head of gray hair—he could thank the stressful job for that—but even with the gray hair, the man had a way about him. Sort of a fifty-year-old Frankie Factor.
“You’re home early today,” Lucie said.
“The missus has us scheduled for some charity thing tonight.”
Lucie introduced Frankie to Mr. Lutz and they chatted about a story Frankie had done on the new Cubs’ manager while Lucie stowed the scooters.
“Lucie,” Mr. Lutz called, “I saw that leather jacket my wife ordered for Otis. The dog is better dressed than I am.”
“Wait until you see the chaps that go with it.”
He shook his head. “Moving on from that, a friend of mine called today. He has an opening at his bank and asked me if I knew anyone. I could set up an interview for you.”
Lucie’s heart thumped. A job. Yes. “Absolutely.”
But then her mind wandered back to Buddy licking her and Frankie doing the follow-up work. An office job didn’t offer those perks.
No. She needed to be an investment banker. Her education couldn’t go to waste.
“Good,” Mr. Lutz said. “I’ll give him your credentials and have him call you.”
“That sounds great.” She jerked a thumb toward the door leading into the house. “Otis had two walks already today, but I thought I’d treat him to another.”
Mr. Lutz smiled. “I won’t argue. It’ll save me from walking him.”
“I’ll come in and grab him.” She turned to Frankie. “Be right back.”
“I’ll be here,” he said.
The two men exchanged the normal nice-to-meet you pleasantries, and Lucie followed Mr. Lutz into the house with her mind absorbed in the possibility of another banking job. Somehow, she wasn’t as relieved as she should be. She shouldn’t get her hopes up anyway.
“So,” Frankie said when Otis dragged her through the door. “A job interview. You can get back to what you do.”
She nodded. Three times. What’s up with the bobblehead bit? “That would be good. It could get me out of Franklin.”
“Yep.”
Otis fired off to the big oak tree in front of the house and Lucie glanced back at Frankie. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking if I get a job, I’ll be happy and everything will be peachy with us.”
“I don’t think that. Your job isn’t our only problem. Granted, I’d like to knock that problem off.” He caught up to her and reached for her free hand. “Luce, I want you to be happy. Whether it’s in banking or dogs. That’s all I want for you.”
How did she wind up with this man? He had always been the steady one who never needed much. She always seemed to need more, but lately, despite the horrifying dognappings, she felt…well…settled. “I’ll go on the interview, but there are a lot of out-of-work finance people floating around.”
“Right. And the good news is, you have Coco Barknell as a backup. You’re not desperate.”
“Right,” Lucie agreed. “Coco Barknell.”
***
“This is it.” Lucie pointed to the assortment of coats, collars and leashes on the dining room table. Mom had just left for her weekly dinner with her friend, and God only knew where Joey was.
Ro slipped off her jacket and set it over the back of one of the chairs. “The last of everything you’ve sold?”
“Yes. Frankie and I collected it today. Let’s go through it all and see if there are any diamonds.”
From her oversized satchel, Ro pulled a headband with a monster-sized magnifying glass attached—no one could accuse her of not taking the situation seriously—and slipped it on her head. She looked like a mad scientist. Lucie snorted a laugh.
“Laugh all you want. You’ll thank me one day.”
“Wrong,” Lucie said. “I’ll thank you now. You still look like a nut, though.”
Ro picked up a coat and started her inspection.
“Mr. Lutz thinks he can get me a job interview with a bank.”
Ro stopped, and, funky headband glasses and all, looked at Lucie. “Is that good news?”
Lucie shrugged. “Of course.”
“Except you just shrugged. What’s the real answer?” Ro went back to work.
“That might be the problem. I’m not sure what the real answer is.”
“Which means what?”
“I like the dog walking. The winter stinks, but the dogs are fun. If I combine that with the dog accessories—minus the stolen diamond mess—I can make a good living. Maybe better than good.”
“You’re confused then?”
She nodded. “Totally. I mean, what is going on with me that all of a sudden I’m not sure I want a banking job? That’s all I’ve ever wanted. The banking job gives me credibility. Shows people that I’m more than Joe Rizzo’s kid. That corporations trust me with millions of dollars.”
“Well,” Ro said. “Ponzi schemers aside, right? Because banking has crooks. How do you know the world isn’t looking at you and wondering if you’re sucking money out of accounts?”
“Hey!”
Ro flipped the magnifying glasses up. “How do we know? Even the most straight-laced people get sucked into doing dumb things. The world could be thinking that about anyone.”
True.
Ro put the glasses back into place and started on the leopard print coat. “Luce, be an investment banker because you want to, not because you think it validates you. The people that matter know you’re a good person.”
Lucie twisted her lips. “Now you sound like Frankie.”
“Frankie is a smart guy. Most of the time.”
“Doesn’t it seem crazy though? To leave banking for dog walking?”
“No. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re walking the dogs while getting an accessory line off the ground. I’m telling you, think Fortune 500. It’ll be bigger than investment banking.” Ro dropped the coat and pulled the headband off. “These are all fakes. Are you sure you’ve collected everything?”
“Yes. I cross-checked all the items against my spreadsheet and marked them as finished.”
“Well, sorry honey, this exercise was a bust. Now what?”
Lucie fiddled with the leopard print coat, but dropped it. “I have no idea.”
***
Frankie turned in his story on the basketball game and swung by the Rizzos’. He sat in the kitchen with a freshly showered Lucie smelling like lemons—probably her shampoo—and wearing her beat up Levi’s and an old Notre Dame sweatshirt. Her damp, shoulder-length hair had been pulled into a ponytail and combined with the sweatshirt, she looked like a college coed. His Luce. He liked hot Luce too, but this Luce was where he belonged. This was the girl he wanted to wake up with every day. In a kitchen just like this one.
The Rizzo kitchen hadn’t changed much over the years. They had added a fresh coat of beige paint a couple of years ago, but the few feet of laminate counters and the thirty-year-old maple cabinets remained. Those cabinets were thick enough to crack Joey’s fat head.
All in all, the place reminded him of family and bunches of people packed tight when Theresa Rizzo prepared food.
“Hey,” Joey said, shuffling into the kitchen with his hair all crazy. He wore a wrinkled sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. He pulled a sandwich from the fridge and unwrapped the foil. Late feeding.
“Eggplant parm. Sweet.” He bit into the cold sandwich. “Good stuff.”
Lucie rolled her eyes. Frankie would have preferred the sandwich to be hot, but maybe next time he went to Petey’s he’d try the eggplant. Change things up a bit.
“What are you doing here?” Joey wanted to know.
“Let’s talk dognappings.”
“Perfect,” Luce said.
Joey shrugged.
“We can’t keep mixing up the routes this way,” Lucie said. “We need to shift to attack mode. We’ve been waiting for them to come after me and I’m sick of it. I want to go after them.”
“Exactly.” Frankie said. “I think we should find a way to tell your dad about the diamond. He’ll smoke out whoever hid it.”
“No.” This from Lucie. “He already knows about the dognappings. He’ll freak on me. Besides, there’s no way to tell him. Not with every conversation recorded.”
“He and my father talk in code all the time. It’s worth a shot.”
Lucie shook her head. “Too dangerous.”
Joey raised both hands. “I’ll rattle some cages and let everyone know if they want that diamond, they’ll have to see me about it.”
Luce shot him a look that could have left him bloody. “Seriously? That’s your plan?”
“It’s pretty simple.”
When she started with the snoring noises, Frankie reached over and pinched her cheek. Too damn cute.
“You got a better idea?” Joey asked.
“For starters, I bought pepper spray and a stun gun.”
That statement dropped like an eighteen-wheeler from the top of a building. Frankie stared at her, trying to wrap his mind around the idea of Lucie and a stun gun. Nuh-uh. This nonsense had to stop.
The pepper spray he could live with. The stun gun?
No way.
With her luck, she’d cook herself.
“Honey, that stun gun is a bad idea. You could get hurt.”
“How am I going to get hurt? I’m not using it on myself. It’s for the bad guys. Anyone comes near me or the dogs, zzzzpppp, he gets juiced.”
Frankie laughed. Unfortunately, the laugh died fast when she narrowed her eyes at him. “You think this is funny? God knows what could happen to one of those dogs.”
“I don’t think this is funny at all. Suppose the dognapper wrestles the stun gun out of your hands. He could use it on you.”
“That won’t happen if you and Joey are with me.”
“You don’t know that.”
Lucie leaned forward and jammed her index finger into the table. “Maybe not, but I refuse to let a lowlife dognapper dictate how I live. I will not be afraid to walk the streets of the city I love. I’m working my butt off trying to stay ahead of this situation and I’m tired. T-I-R-E-D.”
Frankie dragged his hand over his face. The complications continued to grow. “Of course you’re T-I-R-E-D. After two weeks of this garbage, we don’t have jack on these guys and you get pissed every time I talk to my father. How long are we going to let this go on?”
She stared at him for a full thirty seconds. Finally, her snappy eyes settled back to that calm ocean blue. “I was hoping we’d be able to catch them ourselves and figure out who they are. I’m not bringing your dad into it though. You know how I feel about that. Let’s just figure it out ourselves.”
“How?”
“Well, Ro just checked the last batch of accessories we collected from my clients. So far, all the stones are fake. If there are any real ones, they’re not on anything I’ve sold or in my stock.”
“Good.”
“Not really,” Joey said.
Frankie clutched the edge of the table and prayed for patience. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You told your dad about Lucie hiding the diamond, right?”
“Yeah. He put the word out that she hadn’t used it on any of her accessories.”
“And what happened?”
For the life of him, Frankie didn’t know where Joey was leading him.
“Oh, no,” Lucie said.
“What?”
“Jeanette’s store got robbed.”
“Ding, ding, ding.” Joey said.
But Frankie didn’t get it. “And?”
Luce turned to him, gripped his forearm. “There are definitely more diamonds, but they’re not on my dog accessories. They must be somewhere else.”
***
Frankie stared at her as if she’d just shredded one of his designer suits. “Somewhere else?”
“It has to be. Why else would the dognappers still be coming after me? If there was only one diamond and they know I have it, why would they keep stealing the dogs? They don’t believe I only have one diamond.”
She shoved her chair back and stood. She needed to move. Needed to feel something happening. Needed to find those diamonds.
Joey spun to face her. “You’re sure the ones in your craft stuff are all fake?”
“Yes. Ro checked them.”
“Then we need to search the house.”
“The attic,” Lucie said. “That’s where I kept my craft supplies.” She’d have to search when her mother wasn’t around. That attic had thirty years’ worth of stuff in it. It would take days to search all that junk.
“Mom can’t know about this. When she goes out, I’ll start searching. Maybe the dognappers scattered the diamonds in different boxes.”
“Or maybe they came and got them already,” Frankie suggested.
“Then why are they still stealing my stuff?”
“Good point.”
“Joey, can you get Mom out of the house? I need time to search up there and she pops in and out all day.”
Joey slouched in his seat, stared up at the ceiling. “She wants to see that new exhibit at the art museum. Been talking about it for two weeks. I’ll buy her the tickets. Send her with one of her friends.”
“You take her. That way you can warn me when you’re coming home.”
He swung his head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. “I draw the line at moping around a museum. What do I care about some queen’s clothes?”
Lucie spun to Frankie, held her hands out and dropped them. Her brother couldn’t suck this up? Unbelievable.
“I can’t blame him for that one, Luce. That’s beyond the call.”
Double unbelievable. “You boys need to focus on the big picture here.”
Joey gathered up the sandwich wrapper and stood. “As long as that picture isn’t of some queen’s clothes, I’m on it.”
“Fine. Get the tickets ASAP so we can get her out of here. At least take her to dinner tomorrow night. That’ll give me an hour to start searching the attic.”
“Not to be a downer, Luce,” Frankie said, “but don’t get too bent on this idea. There may not be anything up there.”
Always a possibility. Lucie couldn’t get sidetracked though. There were more diamonds. She was sure of it. “If they’re not in the attic, they’re somewhere else. We just need to find them.”
“If it was me,” Joey said, glancing at the wall between the counter and back door. “I’d go for the walls.”
With that, he left the room.
“The walls,” Lucie said. “That would be a little hard to explain.”
“I’d say.” Frankie squeezed her hand. “One thing at a time. Let’s work on the attic. I’ll help you search.”
Chapter Twelve
Lucie and Frankie arrived at the Lutzes’ and, ready to fight another day, she hopped on her scooter to fire it up. “My mother went to an early yoga class, so I started searching the attic this morning.”
Frankie swung his leg over the scooter. “Anything?”
“No, but I only got through three boxes.”
